21 May 2025 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

I ran across something quotable in Ray Bradbury’s novel, “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” It’s another one of his books I’ve never read but which I’m reading now.

“God, how we get our fingers in each other’s clay.” In the novel, it’s about how two friends influence each other.

On the one hand, it’s a seemingly trivial observation about human nature. On the other, it also seems profound because it’s so pervasive. You could reformulate it in any number of ways, e.g., “We’re always getting into each other’s business.”

The response is just as trivial. Mind your own business. Get out of my hair. I wonder how that song “My Way,” done famously by Frank Sinatra, could ever make sense when the reality is that we’re always either getting in each other’s way—or less often, always trying to integrate our approaches to create something better in our lives.

It’s kind of like what a former presidential campaign advisor (Wikipedia and other sources say it was James Carville) said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Maybe it’s the clay, partner.

The meeting of the FDA VRBPAC on the composition of Covid-19 vaccines will be tomorrow, May 22, 2025 at 8:30 am-4:30 pm EST. Some materials have recently become available on the FDA website.

The briefing document indicates that there will be a discussion of the most recent Covid-19 variants and whether the current vaccine needs to be modified as the viral antigenic strain has mutated.

The World Health Organization has formed a new technical advisory group: “Technical Advisory Group on COVID19 Vaccine Composition (TAG-CO-VAC) to review and assess the public health implications of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs) on the performance of COVID-19 vaccines and to provide recommendations to WHO on proposed modifications to COVID-19 vaccine antigen composition. Recently, the TAG-CO-VAC advised that a monovalent JN.1 or KP.2 vaccines remain as appropriate vaccine antigen, while a monovalent LP.8.1 is a suitable alternative vaccine antigen (Ref: https://www.who.int/news/item/15-05-2025-statement-on-the-antigen-composition-of-covid-19-vaccines) to be included in the composition of COVID-19 vaccines (2025-2026 Formula).”

The VRBPAC meeting topics:

“On May 22, 2025, VRBPAC will meet in open session to discuss and make recommendations on the selection of the 2025-2026 Formula for COVID-19 vaccines for use in the U.S. The committee will be asked to discuss available evidence on recent and currently circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, including data from virus surveillance and genomic analyses, antigenic characterization analyses, vaccine effectiveness and clinical immunogenicity studies of current U.S.- authorized/approved COVID-19 vaccines and nonclinical immunogenicity studies of candidate vaccines expressing or containing updated Spike antigens.”

The attendees include:

The TAG-CO-VAC presenter:

Kanta Subbarao, M.B.B.S., M.P.H. Professor Department of Microbiology and Immunology Faculty of Medicine Laval University (Laval University is in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada).

There’s an Iowa City member on the committee roster:

Stanley M. Perlman, M.D., Ph.D. Expertise: Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases Term: 08/23/2022 – 01/31/2026 Professor University of Iowa Distinguished Chair Department of Microbiology and Immunology Carver College of Medicine University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242.

And the acting chair of the meeting will once again be: Arnold Monto, M.D. Expertise: Epidemiology Term: 02/01/2022 – 01/31/2026 Thomas Francis Jr. Collegiate Professor Emeritus of Public Health and Epidemiology School of Public Health University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109.

Vaccine manufacturer presentations will be from Moderna, Pfizer, Novavax, and Sanofi.