timelets

President-elect Donald Trump’s top political appointees want you to buy supplements.
Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, Trump’s pick for surgeon general, sells her own line of vitamins. Kash Patel, Trump’s choice to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, recommended pills on Truth Social in February that he said could “rid your body of the harms” from Covid-19 vaccines.
Mehmet Oz, the TV personality whom Trump named to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, promotes supplements sold by online retailer iHerb. He has advertised multivitamins, supplements for “brain power” and fish- oil pills that he said “probably slowed” the progression of his mother’s Alzheimer’s disease.

If confirmed, Kennedy would oversee the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates consumer products including drugs, medical devices, vaccines, dietary supplements and most food.

Supplement-industry groups said they were compiling a wish list to share with people close to Kennedy. They want supplements to be covered by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the federal food-benefits program, as well as so-called FSAs and HSAs, tax-exempt savings accounts used to pay for medical expenses. They also want to change FDA rules that supplements can’t contain an ingredient considered a drug or being investigated as one.
The Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade association, said it wants new rules that would compel supplement manufacturers to register products with the FDA. “FDA is flying blind,” said Steve Mister, the group’s president.

WSJ, Dec 9, 2025

https://www.wsj.com/health/trump-cabinet-picks-supplements-3fbbbca1

In line with the expectations and demands of the period, the prize would go to whoever explained not contagion but variation in con­tagiousness in terms of environmental circumstances.
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...since their problem was to reconcile contagions and morbid spontaneity. As soon as Pasteur, using anthrax, reproduced in the laboratory the influence of the environment on the virulence of a microbe, all the power of the hygienist movement shifted and became belief in the laboratory of the Rue d'Ulm.

--- Bruno Latour. The Pasteurization of France, 1993.

Influenza, usually raging throughout the Northern Hemisphere this time of year, has become virtually invisible.

It is a small bright spot amid Covid-19, although the number of people saved from a flu death pales next to the number dying from the new pandemic. It also presents questions that doctors around the globe will likely be wrestling with for years: If flu can be nearly wiped out this season, why not every season? Which steps help the most to stop the flu from spreading?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-has-nearly-wiped-out-the-fluhow-do-we-keep-it-from-coming-back-11611230410

Expressive writing is a specific technique, and it’s different from just writing in a journal. People need to reflect honestly and thoughtfully on a particular trauma or challenge, and do it in short sessions—15 to 20 minutes for a minimum of three days is a good place to start.

... Expressive writing works because it allows you to take a painful experience, identify it as a problem and make meaning out of it, experts say. Recognizing that something is bothering you is an important first step. Translating that experience into language forces you to organize your thoughts. And creating a narrative gives you a sense of control.

Now, a new website, part of a research endeavor called the Pandemic Project, gives people an opportunity to try expressive writing about the coronavirus. On the site, which was created by a research team led by Dr. Pennebaker, people are prompted to write about how the coronavirus is affecting them. A text analysis program then provides feedback. (This is not an expressive writing study, but the researchers will be analyzing the samples to look for themes around trauma and the coronavirus.)

/www.wsj.com/articles/feeling-upset-try-this-special-writing-technique-11590930000

In mid-January, long before most Germans had given the virus much thought, Charité hospital in Berlin had already developed a test and posted the formula online.

By the time Germany recorded its first case of Covid-19 in February, laboratories across the country had built up a stock of test kits.
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"Testing and tracking is the strategy that was successful in South Korea, and we have tried to learn from that," Prof Streeck said.
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Dr Merkel has communicated clearly, calmly and regularly throughout the crisis as she imposed ever-stricter social distancing measures on the country. The restrictions, which have been crucial to slowing the spread of the pandemic, met with little political opposition and are broadly followed.