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      in Elections

      It's only fake-believe: how to deal with a conspiracy theorist

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      Unless you’ve been on a silent retreat for the past year, you will have almost certainly heard the rumours – that the pandemic is an elaborate hoax, or that the virus was created as a Chinese weapon, or that dangerous elites are trying to kill off the elderly and to establish a new world order, or that the symptoms are caused by 5G.It is troubling enough to see these ideas on social media. But when you are hearing them from your family, your friends, or a casual acquaintance, it is even harder to know how to respond. You are going to struggle to convince the most committed believers, of course, but what about people who are only flirting with the ideas?These difficult conversations are only set to increase now that a new vaccine is on the horizon. Certain niches of internet are already rife with the “plandemic” theory, which alleges that the spread of the virus has been designed to create big bucks for pharmaceutical companies and the philanthropist Bill Gates (whose charity is funding many of the efforts). The idea has been debunked numerous times, whereas there is good evidence that conspiracy theorists such as David Icke are themselves reaping huge profits from spreading misinformation. The danger, of course, is that their ideas will discourage people from taking the vaccine, leaving them vulnerable to the actual disease. More

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      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on Biden and the climate crisis: fight for net zero | Editorial

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      There is no question that Joe Biden’s win will make a big difference to international efforts to deal with the climate emergency. A US president who recognises global heating as an “existential threat” will be a vital extra pillar propping up the teetering edifice of climate diplomacy. Four years of Donald Trump have done huge damage to the US’s reputation. But the world’s biggest economy, and second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases (after China), remains vastly influential. With President Biden in charge, the prospects for next year’s Cop26 talks in Scotland, when drastic emissions cuts must be agreed if the world is to stand a chance of avoiding catastrophic heating, are already brighter.
      President Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the Paris agreement was a key plank of his nationalist “America first” agenda and an act of sabotage against both the UN climate process and the principle of a rules-based international order. It also gave cover to the world’s other climate vandals: Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Russia and Australia. With Mr Biden, that cover is gone, and ecocidal policies such as Amazon rainforest destruction and coal-power expansion should come under renewed and relentless pressure. It is striking that the president-elect put climate at the heart of his phone calls with foreign leaders.
      The path ahead is anything but smooth. A green stimulus package on the scale promised by Mr Biden’s campaign is unlikely to pass through Congress, with control of the Senate hinging on two undecided seats in Georgia. Conservative judges are a further roadblock. Legislation to limit emissions and punish polluters is certain to be challenged all the way to the supreme court. Fossil-fuel companies and other vested interests remain a formidable force. Nor can public support be taken for granted. Most voters are on board in principle, recognising the dangers of unchecked global heating. But the changes in lifestyle that will be needed to meet new targets, including reductions in meat-eating and flying, are challenging in the US as in other rich countries.
      Still, Mr Biden’s presence in the White House will be a huge opportunity, and one that the environmental movement and its supporters must seize with every hand they have. Global heating is a fact, not a hypothesis or ideology. It is not just the vast majority of Democrats who want their politicians to do more to tackle it, but also a sizable minority of Republicans. Younger people are the most anxious. Mr Biden will perform a valuable public service simply by doing the opposite of his predecessor, and telling the truth.
      Democrats have shown that climate can be a unifying force within their party. Mr Biden’s climate taskforce was chaired by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman and star of his party’s progressive wing. Now, if they are to create sufficient momentum, Democrats must look beyond the ranks of committed green supporters, as the writer Arlie Russell Hochschild did in her book Strangers in Their Own Land, about environmental politics in Tea Party-supporting Louisiana. Already, Mr Biden has signalled that the harm caused by pollution to poorer Americans will be among his priorities.
      In recent weeks China, South Korea and Japan have all announced net zero emissions targets. Rapid falls in the price of renewables have made the process of weaning away from fossil fuels far less painful than most experts predicted. Climate protesters have shown how effective they can be in mobilising support for strong action. Now that the election is over, they must keep pushing Mr Biden and other legislators as hard as they can. More

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      in US Politics

      Joe Biden's coronavirus taskforce to meet as Trump urged to cooperate

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      Joe Biden will convene a coronavirus taskforce on Monday to confront one of the biggest problems vexing the US, as the president-elect and his running mate, Kamala Harris, move ahead with their transition process.On Sunday night, Biden and Harris released their first public schedule as “president-elect” and “vice-president-elect”.Biden is due to meet with a 12-member advisory board led by former the surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, and the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, David Kessler, to examine how best to tame a pandemic that has killed more than 237,000 Americans.He will speak in Wilmington, Delaware, about his plans for tackling the coronavirus pandemic and rebuilding the economy later in the day.Biden has spent much of the campaign criticising Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis and has vowed to listen to scientists to guide his own approach.There are questions over whether Trump, who has not publicly recognised Biden’s victory and has falsely claimed the election was stolen, will impede Democrats as they try to establish a government.The transition cannot shift into high gear until the US General Services Administration, which oversees federal property, certifies the winner.Emily Murphy, the Trump appointee who runs the agency, has not given the go-ahead for the transition to begin, and on Sunday night a GSA spokeswoman gave no timetable for the decision.Until then, the GSA can continue providing Biden’s team with offices, computers and background checks for security clearances, but they cannot yet enter federal agencies or access federal funds set aside for the transition.The Biden campaign on Sunday pressed the agency to move ahead.“America’s national security and economic interests depend on the federal government signalling clearly and swiftly that the United States government will respect the will of the American people and engage in a smooth and peaceful transfer of power,” the campaign said in a statement.There is little precedent in the modern era of a president erecting hurdles for his successor. The stakes are especially high this year because Biden will take office amid a raging pandemic, which will require a comprehensive government response.The advisory board of the nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition also urged the Trump administration to “immediately begin the post-election transition process and the Biden team to take full advantage of the resources available under the Presidential Transition Act”.Biden’s taskforce will be responsible for executing the promises he made on the campaign trail for tackling Covid-19, which include doubling the number of drive-through testing sites, establishing a US public health job corps to mobilise 100,000 Americans on contact tracing; and ramping up production of masks, face shields and other PPE equipment.Trump has no public events scheduled for Monday, and he has not spoken in public since Thursday. Vice-president Mike Pence is due to meet with the White House coronavirus taskforce on Monday for the first time since 20 October.As part of a public campaign to question the election results, he is planning to hold rallies to build support for his fight over the outcome, Trump’s campaign spokesman, Tim Murtaugh, said.The US recorded more than 127,399 cases on Saturday, bringing the total recorded to nearly 9.9m, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 1,000 deaths were recorded, bring the national toll close to 237,000. America has reported over 100,000 infections five times in the past week, according to a Reuters analysis, which found that the latest seven-day average in the US is more than the combined average for India and France, two of the hardest hit countries overseas.Biden’s transition effort now has a website, BuildBackBetter.com, and a Twitter account, @Transition46. Biden’s team is also expected to move forward with efforts to choose the officials who will serve with him in his administration. He has not offered a timeline for cabinet picks, but he and Harris have pledged that his administration leaders will reflect the country, with representation of women and people of colour.He is also reportedly planning a series of urgent orders that would roll back some of Trump’s agenda, in some cases fulfilling his campaign promises. That includes repealing the travel ban against Muslim-majority countries (one of Trump’s first actions); rejoining the international climate accord; rejoining the World Health Organization; taking action to protect “Dreamers” from deportation; revoking “the global gag rule”, which blocks the US government from funding groups that conduct abortions or advocate abortion rights; and reestablishing Obama-era environmental regulations.But Trump has not yet acknowledged defeat and has launched an array of lawsuits to press claims of election fraud for which he has produced no evidence. State officials say they are not aware of any significant irregularities. Since the race was called, the president has been golfing and tweeting a steady stream of election misinformation that has forced Twitter to acknowledge his allegations are disputed and that mail-in voting is safe and secure.Murtaugh said Trump will hold a series of rallies to build support for the legal fights challenging the outcome, though he did not say when and where they would take place.Trump will seek to back up his as-yet-unsubstantiated accusations of voting fraud by highlighting obituaries of dead people the campaign said voted in the election, Murtaugh said.Trump also announced teams to pursue recounts in several states. Experts said that effort, like his lawsuits, are unlikely to meet with success.“The chances of a recount flipping tens of thousands of votes across multiple states in his favour are outside anything we have seen in American history,” William Antholis, the director of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center thinktank, wrote in an essay on Sunday.Reuters contributed to this report More

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      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on Joe Biden: cometh the hour, cometh the man | Editorial

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      “This is the time to heal in America”. President-elect Joe Biden’s words were directed at a nation suffering after four years of Donald Trump’s dishonesty and fear-mongering. Mr Biden understands Trumpism is arsenic in the water supply of American political culture. It has sloshed around the country, flowing most freely wherever Republicans were in power. Even after the president had clearly lost the popular vote, his Republican enablers embraced his claims about a stolen election rather than denouncing them.Yet Mr Biden wants America to come together not come apart. There is nothing to gain from trading incivilities with Republican opponents. He seeks to bridge divides. Under Mr Trump, the US has become more polarised between educated and less-educated voters; whites and people of colour; haves and have-nots; and urban and rural areas. Mr Biden is right: politics can’t be conducted in a furnace, it’s time to “lower the temperature”.In his words Americans must “see each other again [and] listen to each other again”. There’s too much at stake to do otherwise. The US faces a triple crisis: a pandemic that is costing hundreds of lives daily; an economic depression with skyrocketing long-term unemployment; and a politics where consensus is sorely lacking but badly needed. These are interrelated emergencies. Covid cannot be solved without a faith in facts, which is why Mr Biden will set up an expert pandemic taskforce ahead of naming his cabinet. His emphasis on science is in contrast to widespread Republican disdain for evidence.The country’s economy can only be revived by federal spending to keep companies and households afloat while upscaling the test-and-trace regime. Thanks to the US’s skewed electoral system Republicans may find themselves in a position to frustrate a president Biden. Some want to bite the hand of friendship that he has extended. This would be a bad idea. Republicans who shrank the government to the size “it can be drowned in the bathtub” can see when you do so people die. Those who pushed profit-driven opinion ahead of scientific fact ought to realise that conservative ideology won’t cure coronavirus.Without a vaccine, what is needed is money from Congress and politicians willing to persuade people to change their behaviour. Super-spreading lies about the economy and the virus has deadly consequences. A public reared in an age of government distrust led to a revolt against mask-wearing and social distancing. Mr Biden is asking Republicans to stop peddling fact-free assertions about liberties being lost for the sake of public health. They should listen to him.The trained cynicism about government needs to be unwound. Mr Biden’s argument is that if Americans cannot share a common narrative about how to handle Covid then the government cannot produce a successful solution. He is right. Republicans must break Mr Trump’s spell over their party. Left unchecked the Grand Old Party risks reducing itself to a cult beholden to an ageing leader’s bizarre conspiracy theories.The American dream does not exist for many people. How to manage this pain is central to Mr Biden’s healing touch. The president-elect seems ready to offer compassion and help to those whose suffering Mr Trump dismissed as fraudulent. Mr Biden wants Americans to feel empowered by believing in something larger than themselves. He would like elected leaders to take, rather than abdicate, responsibility for public duties. If the 2020 election was a referendum on the Trump years, the pandemic provides a test of conservative principles. Mr Biden aims to restore trust in government, and in the US itself. Republicans should do their bit to help. More

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      in US Politics

      US Congress hopeful Nancy Goroff: 'We need more scientists in public office'

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      Nancy Goroff will be the first female research scientist to serve in the US Congress if she is elected this November. The Democratic candidate is running for one of Long Island’s seats in the House of Representatives against incumbent Republican, Lee Zeldin, an ardent President Trump supporter who has described her as a “radical professor”. Facing a tight race with issues such as the coronavirus pandemic and climate change looming large, Goroff, a professor of chemistry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is stressing her science credentials.
      You’ve worked at Stony Brook University for more than two decades developing new organic molecules for solar cells and eco-friendly lighting in your lab. What made you decide to run for Congress?I decided in late 2018, when the issues top of mind were climate change, the environment and healthcare. It came from being frustrated and infuriated with the denigration of science and expertise by the Trump administration. I’ve always advocated causes that I believe in – I sit on the Union of Concerned Scientist’s National Advisory Board – but it just didn’t seem like enough any more. I couldn’t stand by.
      Given the pandemic and climate emergency, is this election a referendum on whether politicians should listen to scientific advice?It seems to be. We hear from voters that they’re frustrated with politicians for not paying attention to the science and leading us to where we are now. Biden has said he is going to be a big proponent of science.
      We need to use facts to guide us through the coronavirus pandemic. The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) testified recently that the most important thing we can do to get ahead of the pandemic – more important than a vaccine – is to have everyone wear masks. That didn’t fit Trump’s narrative, so he said the CDC director misspoke. Rather than contradicting the CDC, he should be amplifying its message. That [Trump] won’t wear a mask and denigrates people for wearing masks is just unconscionable to me.
      What would the fallout for science be if Trump was re-elected?There would be a lot of pain and suffering. The pandemic will last much longer. I also worry about a continued lack of action on climate change, lack of concern about providing healthcare to people and the further undermining of experts in every government agency. People have been pushed out and there is a huge amount of work to do to rebuild that expertise.
      You’re not specifically supporting the Green New Deal, the progressive environmental package introduced last year by two Democrats including New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It sets an aggressive goal of developing a carbon neutral economy in 10 years. If elected, what would you do instead?There are many different versions of the Green New Deal. If I say I’m for the Green New Deal, the Republicans will decide that I’m for the most extreme version. I am for the US aiming to be carbon neutral in our energy production by 2035 and carbon neutral overall, including all sources, as soon after as we can. To achieve that we need to deploy the renewable energy technologies we have as quickly as possible and invest in research to develop new ones.
      I want to make sure Covid-19 stimulus spending is focused on investment in clean energy infrastructure. That will bring jobs and move us closer to a carbon neutral future. Then – I’m a scientist, I am well versed in the data – I want my office to be a resource for every member of Congress on scientific questions.
      You are backed by 314 Action, a Democratic committee whose mission is to get scientists elected to public office. Why do we need more scientists in Congress and does gender matter?We need more scientists, regardless of gender. We have a lot of lawyers and business people and that’s fine, but you want people from diverse backgrounds when you are trying to make complicated policy decisions. So many of our big challenges as a country have a scientific or technical component. There is only one research scientist in Congress now [Bill Foster, a Democratic physicist from Illinois]. As a woman in science, I know what it means to be an underrepresented group and I think that will be helpful for making sure my constituents get their voices amplified. More

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      in US Politics

      If the poorest Americans are selling their blood, the US is in serious trouble | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Looking to make extra cash? Don’t want to retrain in “cyber” but need a new gig? Good news! All you need to do is contract Covid-19, try not to die, then sell your antibody-rich blood plasma. Blood centres in the US are currently paying Covid-19 survivors a premium for their plasma, the yellowish liquid that makes up about 55% of blood. Apparently, you can get $100-$200 (£75-£155) a pop.It would seem some enterprising students have cottoned on to this money-making scheme. Administrators at Brigham Young University’s campus in Idaho recently announced that they are “deeply troubled” by accounts of students who have “intentionally” exposed themselves to coronavirus in order to get that sweet, sweet blood money. “There is never a need to resort to behaviour that endangers health or safety in order to make ends meet,” the school said.A noble sentiment. However, the US would not have a booming blood plasma industry in the first place if it weren’t for the fact that so many people have to resort to potentially endangering their own health in order to make ends meet. Even before the coronavirus hit, low-income Americans were selling blood plasma to get by.“Selling plasma is so common among America’s extremely poor that it can be thought of as their lifeblood,” a 2015 Atlantic article noted. The US is an outlier in this regard: you’re not allowed to sell your blood plasma in the UK or in many other developed countries. In the US, however, you can donate up to twice a week; the procedure typically takes about 90 minutes, and you will get somewhere between $30 (£23) and $50 (£38) a time. Which is more than the $7.25 (£5.50) per hour federal minimum wage. The companies bleeding you dry, of course, will be earning a whole lot more: blood plasma is a multibillion dollar business in the US. Indeed, blood products are the US’s 12th most valuable export; in 2016, they made up a greater percentage of all American exports than soya beans or computers. Industry people joke that the US, which produces 70% of all plasma worldwide, is “the Opec of plasma collections.”Giving blood plasma now and again won’t hurt you. Indeed, it is something we should all do if we can: plasma is desperately needed for life-saving therapies. In Britain, the NHS is urging Covid-19 survivors to donate plasma to treat those who fall ill during a second wave. But selling your blood plasma 104 times a year, as some desperate Americans do, may be another matter. Someexperts and research have queried whether it is healthy, and even in the US if you donate plasma rather than sell, there are limits on how many times you can do it. Some people who sell their plasma frequently have also complained about things like migraines, numbness, and fainting.I am not necessarily against the idea of allowing people to sell blood plasma: as long it is strictly regulated, the number of donations safely capped, and the pay fair. However, I am definitely against people having to resort to selling plasma because the lack of a meaningful welfare state, along with a stagnant minimum wage, means it’s the only way they can scrape by. Even if there were zero health consequences involved there is something fundamentally sickening about the blood plasma industry. According to one study, plasma donation centres are disproportionately located in low-income areas and the most frequent use of money earned from donating was paying for food and basic necessities. And this is happening in the richest country in the world. It should make your blood boil.• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist More

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      in US Politics

      Covid drug given to Trump developed using cells derived from aborted fetus

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      One of the drugs taken by Donald Trump that he has touted as a potential “cure” for coronavirus was developed using human cells originally obtained from an elective abortion, a practice repeatedly denounced by the president and many of his supporters.The drug is a monoclonal antibody cocktail developed by Regeneron. The president received an 8-gram infusion under a “compassionate use” exemption when he was hospitalized over the weekend after testing positive for Covid-19. There is no cure for Covid-19, and the drug is not approved.The stem cells used to develop the drug are known as HEK-293T cells, a line of cells used in laboratories. The cells were originally derived from an embryonic kidney after an elective abortion performed in the Netherlands in the 1970s.Trump has consistently sought to restrict abortion access, including most recently, when he nominated the conservative Catholic Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court last month. The anti-abortion movement is one of Trump’s most enthusiastic bases of support.The 2020 Republican party platform explicitly opposes embryonic stem cell research, and calls for a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.Trump has already limited research using embryonic stem cells for ideological reasons. In 2019, his administration paused funding for government scientists to work on studies involving embryonic stem cells, affecting about $31m in research, according to Science Magazine.“We stopped the federal funding of fetal tissue research, which everybody felt was so important …” the president told supporters in January 2020. “We’re standing up to the pro-abortion lobby like never before.”The HEK-293T line of cells has been “immortalized”, meaning they divide freely in the lab. Regeneron said the company does not consider the cells “tissue”.“It’s how you want to parse it,” a Regeneron spokeswoman, Alexandra Bowie, told the MIT Technology Review. “But the 293T cell lines available today are not considered fetal tissue, and we did not otherwise use fetal tissue.”Development of the Regeneron antibody cocktail is supported by a $450m grant from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda).The Susan B Anthony List, a leading US anti-abortion group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, the anti-abortion movement has weighed in on other Covid-19 drugs in development. At least five Covid-19 vaccine candidates used either HEK-293T cells or a proprietary line of cells developed by Janssen from a 1985 elective abortion.In April, the influential US Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote to the US government to ask that it “incentivize” vaccine candidates developed without use of such cells.“It is critically important that Americans have access to a vaccine that is produced ethically: no American should be forced to choose between being vaccinated against this potentially deadly virus and violating his or her conscience,” the letter said, as reported by Science Magazine.Regeneron has worked with the US government to develop monoclonal antibody therapies for years. In 2018, researchers from Regeneron and the US government used the same line of stem cells in development of a therapy for the Ebola virus, according to a study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.“Research using such stem cells allows Regeneron to model complex diseases, test new drug candidates and can help unlock new scientific insights that ultimately could lead to the discovery of new treatments for people with serious diseases,” Regeneron said in an April 2020 statement.Regeneron’s drug is not available to the public and has been tested on only 275 people to date. Therapies in the same class as Regeneron’s antibody cocktail cost on average more than $96,000 per course.The Trump administration has worked systematically to limit abortion access in the United States and abroad. Vice-President Mike Pence has said: “I long for the day Roe v Wade is sent to the ash heap of history,” referring to the US supreme court decision which has allowed for women to obtain legal abortions since 1973. More