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<title>20 May, 2023</title>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Changes in Transmission and Symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 in United States Households, April 2020-September 2022</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: The natural history of SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission dynamics may have changed as SARS-CoV-2 has evolved and population immunity has shifted. Methods: Household contacts, enrolled from two multi-site case-ascertained household transmission studies (April 2020-April 2021 and September 2021-September 2022), were followed for 10-14 days after enrollment with daily collection of nasal swabs and/or saliva for SARS-CoV-2 testing and symptom diaries. SARS-CoV-2 virus lineage was determined by whole genome sequencing, with multiple imputation where sequences could not be recovered. Adjusted infection risks were estimated using modified Poisson regression. Findings: 858 primary cases with 1473 household contacts were examined. Among unvaccinated household contacts, the infection risk adjusted for presence of prior infection and age was 58% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 49-68%) in households currently exposed to pre-Delta lineages and 90% (95% CI: 74-100%) among those exposed to Omicron BA.5 (detected May - September 2022). The fraction of infected household contacts reporting any symptom was similarly high between pre-Delta (86%, 95% CI: 81-91%) and Omicron lineages (77%, 70-85%). Among Omicron BA.5-infected contacts, 48% (41-56%) reported fever, 63% (56-71%) cough, 22% (17-28%) shortness of breath, and 20% (15-27%) loss of/change in taste/smell. Interpretation: The risk of infection among household contacts exposed to SARS-CoV-2 is high and increasing with more recent SARS-CoV-2 lineages. This high infection risk highlights the importance of vaccination to prevent severe disease. Funding: Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.18.23290185v1" target="_blank">Changes in Transmission and Symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 in United States Households, April 2020-September 2022</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>State Variation in Neighborhood COVID-19 Burden: Findings from the COVID Neighborhood Project</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A lack of fine, spatially-resolute case data for the U.S. has prevented the examination of how COVID-19 burden has been distributed across neighborhoods, a known geographic unit of both risk and resilience, and is hampering efforts to identify and mitigate the long-term fallout from COVID-19 in vulnerable communities. Using spatially-referenced data from 21 states at the ZIP code or census tract level, we documented how the distribution of COVID-19 at the neighborhood-level varies significantly within and between states. The median case count per neighborhood (IQR) in Oregon was 3,608 (2,487) per 100,000 population, indicating a more homogenous distribution of COVID-19 burden, whereas in Vermont the median case count per neighborhood (IQR) was 8,142 (11,031) per 100,000. We also found that the association between features of the neighborhood social environment and burden varied in magnitude and direction by state. Our findings underscore the importance of local contexts when addressing the long-term social and economic fallout communities will face from COVID-19.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.19.23290222v1" target="_blank">State Variation in Neighborhood COVID-19 Burden: Findings from the COVID Neighborhood Project</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Assessing the effect of zoo closure on the soundscape using multiple measures</strong> -
<div>
The zoo soundscape has a number of important implications for animal welfare, management, and conservation. However, despite its importance, the zoo soundscape is yet to be examined in depth using multiple measures. Consistent human presence can influence the zoo soundscape. However, it is difficult to determine the specific impact of human presence, as visitors are usually present during the day when animals are active. The COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 provided a unique opportunity to study zoo soundscapes in the absence of visitors. We compared the sound environment during the 2020 closure period to a comparable open period in 2019 across three zoo aviaries, examining broad band frequency measures of sound pressure levels, sound pressure levels in defined frequency bands, and acoustic indices (Acoustic Complexity Index and Normalized Difference Soundscape Index) to describe the zoo soundscape. Acoustic indices have not, to our knowledge, previously been used in the zoo setting, although they may provide a useful metric to assess sound disturbance. Therefore, we also used this natural experiment to explore how successful these measures may be in assessing disturbances in captive environments. We found a significant effect of human presence on the sound environment; aviaries were generally quieter with less low frequency noise and with a greater proportion of biotic sound during the 2020 zoo closure period. We argue that NDSI could be a useful index for determining anthropogenic disturbance in zoos, although further information on how it is influenced by additional factors, such as human speech, would be beneficial. The use of multiple measures to assess the sound environment in zoos can provide additional information beyond 'loudness', such as frequencies where sound energy is concentrated and characteristics of the soundscape, which could be used to better target management and mitigation.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.19.540934v1" target="_blank">Assessing the effect of zoo closure on the soundscape using multiple measures</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A scoping review of behavioural science approaches and frameworks for health protection and emergency response</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Aim: Rapid intervention development, implementation and evaluation is required for emergency public health contexts, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic. A novel Agile Co-production and Evaluation (ACE) framework has been developed to assist this endeavour in future public health emergencies. This scoping review aimed to map available behavioural science resources that can be used to develop and evaluate public health guidance, messaging, and interventions in emergency contexts onto components of ACE: rapid development and implementation, co-production with patients or the public including seldom heard voices from diverse communities, and inclusion of evaluation. Methods: A scoping review methodology was used. Searches were run on MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsychInfo, and Google, with search terms covering emergency response and behavioural science. Papers published since 2014 and which discussed a framework or guidance for using behavioural science in response to a public health emergency, were included. A narrative synthesis was conducted. Results: Seventeen records were included in the synthesis. The records covered a range of emergency contexts, the most frequent of which were COVID-19 (n=7) and non-specific emergencies (n=4). One record evaluated existing tools, six proposed new tools, and ten described existing tools. Commonly used tools included the Behavioural Change Wheel, Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation Behaviour model (COM-B model) and social identity theory. Three records discuss co-production with the target audience and consideration of diverse populations. Four records incorporate rapid testing, evaluation, or validation methods. Six records state that their tool is designed to be implemented rapidly. No records cover all components of ACE. Conclusion: We recommend that future research explores how to create guidance involving rapid implementation, co-production with patients or the public including seldom-heard voices from diverse communities, and evaluation. Keywords: behavioural insights, emergency response, health protection.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.19.23290226v1" target="_blank">A scoping review of behavioural science approaches and frameworks for health protection and emergency response</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A systematic narrative review of coroners’ prevention of future deaths reports (PFDs): a potential metric for patient safety in hospitals</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Patient harm due to unsafe healthcare is widespread, potentially devastating, and often preventable. Hoping to eliminate avoidable harms, the World Health Organization (WHO) published the Global Patient Safety Action Plan in July 2021. The UK9s National Health Service relies on several measures, including “never events”, “serious incidents”, patient safety events, and coroners9 prevention of future death reports (PFDs) to monitor healthcare quality and safety. We conducted a systematic narrative review of PubMed and medRxiv on 19 February 2023 to explore the strengths and limitations of coroners9 PFDs and whether they could be a safety metric to help meet the WHO9s Global Patient Safety Action Plan. We identified 17 studies that investigated a range of PFDs, including preventable deaths involving medicines and an assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that PFDs offered important information that could support hospitals to improve patient safety and prevent deaths. However, inconsistent reporting, low response rates to PFDs, and difficulty in accessing, analysing, and monitoring PFDs limited their use and adoption as a patient safety metric for hospitals. To fulfil the potential of PFDs, a national system is required that develops guidelines, sanctions failed responses, and embeds technology to encourage the prevention of future deaths.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.19.23290187v1" target="_blank">A systematic narrative review of coroners’ prevention of future deaths reports (PFDs): a potential metric for patient safety in hospitals</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Assessing changes in incubation period, serial interval, and generation time of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: a systematic review and meta-analysis</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: After the first COVID-19 wave caused by the ancestral lineage, the pandemic has been fueled from the continuous emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants. Understanding key time-to-event periods for each emerging variant of concern is critical as it can provide insights into the future trajectory of the virus and help inform outbreak preparedness and response planning. Here, we aim to examine how the incubation period, serial interval, and generation time have changed from the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 lineage to different variants of concern. Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis that synthesized the estimates of incubation period, serial interval, and generation time (both realized and intrinsic) for the ancestral lineage, Alpha, Beta, and Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2. Results: Our study included 274 records obtained from 147 household studies, contact tracing studies or studies where epidemiological links were known. With each emerging variant, we found a progressive shortening of each of the analyzed key time-to-event periods. Specifically, we found that Omicron had the shortest pooled estimates for the incubation period (3.63 days, 95%CI: 3.25-4.02 days), serial interval (3.19 days, 95%CI: 2.95-3.43 days), and realized generation time (2.96 days, 95%CI: 2.54-3.38 days) whereas the ancestral lineage had the highest pooled estimates for each of them. We also observed shorter pooled estimates for the serial interval compared to the incubation period across the virus lineages. We found considerable heterogeneities (I2 &gt; 80%) when pooling the estimates across different virus lineages, indicating potential unmeasured confounding from population factors (e.g., social behavior, deployed interventions). Conclusion: Our study supports the importance of conducting contact tracing and epidemiological investigations to monitor changes in SARS-CoV-2 transmission patterns. Our findings highlight a progressive shortening of the incubation period, serial interval, and generation time, which can lead to epidemics that spread faster, with larger peak incidence, and harder to control. We also consistently found a shorter serial interval than incubation period, suggesting that a key feature of SARS-CoV-2 is the potential for pre-symptomatic transmission. These observations are instrumental to plan for future COVID-19 waves. Keywords: COVID-19, variants of concern, incubation period, serial interval, realized generation time, intrinsic generation time, systematic review, meta-analysis
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.19.23290208v1" target="_blank">Assessing changes in incubation period, serial interval, and generation time of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: a systematic review and meta-analysis</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Enhanced Airway Epithelial Response to SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Children is Critically Tuned by the Cross-Talk Between Immune and Epithelial Cells</strong> -
<div>
To cope with novel virus infections to which no prior adaptive immunity exists, the body strongly relies on the innate immune system. In such cases, including infections with SARS-CoV-2, children tend to fair better than adults. In the context of COVID-19, it became evident that a rapid interferon response at the site of primary infection is key for successful control of the virus and prevention of severe disease. The airway epithelium of children was shown to exhibit a primed state already at homeostasis and to respond particularly well to SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, the underlying mechanism for this priming remained elusive. Here we show that interactions between airway mucosal immune cells and epithelial cells are stronger in children, and via cytokine-mediated signaling lead to IRF-1-dependent upregulation of the viral sensors RIG-I and MDA5. Based on a cellular in vitro model we show that stimulated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) can induce a robust interferon-beta response towards SARS-CoV-2 in a lung epithelial cell line otherwise unresponsive to this virus. This is mediated by type I interferon, interferon-gamma and TNF, and requires induction of both, RIG-I and MDA5. In single cell-analysis of nasal swab samples the same cytokines are found to be elevated in mucosal immune cells of children, correlating with elevated epithelial expression of viral sensors. In vitro analysis of PBMC derived from healthy adolescents and adults confirm that immune cells of younger individuals show increased cytokine production and potential to prime epithelial cells. In co-culture with SARS-CoV-2-infected A549 cells, PBMC from adolescents significantly enhance the antiviral response. Taken together, our study suggests that higher numbers and a more vigorous activity of innate immune cells in the airway mucosa of children tune the set-point of the epithelial antiviral system. This likely is a major contributor to the robust immune response to SARS-CoV-2 in children. Our findings shed light on the molecular underpinnings of the stunning resilience of children towards severe COVID-19, and may propose a novel concept for immunoprophylactic treatments.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.17.541103v1" target="_blank">Enhanced Airway Epithelial Response to SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Children is Critically Tuned by the Cross-Talk Between Immune and Epithelial Cells</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Uncovering strain- and age-dependent differences in innate immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection in nasal epithelia using 10X single-cell sequencing</strong> -
<div>
Assessing the impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on the host is crucial with continuous emergence of new variants. We employed single-cell sequencing to investigate host transcriptomic response to ancestral and Alpha-strain SARS-CoV-2 infections within air-liquid-interface human nasal epithelial cells from adults and adolescents. Strong innate immune responses were observed across lowly-infected and bystander cell-types, and heightened in Alpha-infection. Contrastingly, the innate immune response of highly-infected cells was comparable to mock-control cells. Alpha highly-infected cells showed increased expression of protein refolding genes compared with ancestral-strain-infected adolescent cells. Oxidative phosphorylation- and translation-related genes were down-regulated in bystander cells versus infected and mock-control cells, suggesting that the down-regulation is protective and up-regulation supports viral activity. Infected adult cells revealed up-regulation of these pathways compared with infected adolescents, implying enhanced pro-viral states in infected adults. Overall, this highlights the complexity of cell-type-, age- and viral-strain-dependent host epithelial responses to SARS-CoV-2 and the value of air-liquid-interface cultures.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.04.531075v2" target="_blank">Uncovering strain- and age-dependent differences in innate immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection in nasal epithelia using 10X single-cell sequencing</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Structure and function of the SIT1 proline transporter in complex with the COVID-19 receptor ACE2</strong> -
<div>
Proline is widely known as the only proteogenic amino acid with a secondary amine. In addition to its crucial role in protein structure, the secondary amino acid modulates neurotransmission and regulates the kinetics of signaling proteins. To understand the structural basis of proline import, we solved the structure of the proline transporter SIT1 in complex with the COVID-19 viral receptor ACE2 by cryo-electron microscopy. The structure of pipecolate-bound SIT1 reveals the specific sequence requirements for proline transport in the SLC6 family and how this protein excludes amino acids with extended side chains. By comparing apo and substrate-bound SIT1 states, we also identify the structural changes which link substrate release and opening of the cytoplasmic gate, and provide an explanation for how a missense mutation in the transporter causes iminoglycinuria.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.17.541173v1" target="_blank">Structure and function of the SIT1 proline transporter in complex with the COVID-19 receptor ACE2</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Marginated aberrant red blood cells induce pathologic vascular stress fluctuations in a computational model of hematologic disorders</strong> -
<div>
Red blood cell (RBC) disorders affect billions worldwide. While alterations in the physical properties of aberrant RBCs and associated hemodynamic changes are readily observed, in conditions such as sickle cell disease and iron deficiency, RBC disorders can also be associated with vascular dysfunction. The mechanisms of vasculopathy in those diseases remain unclear and scant research has explored whether biophysical alterations of RBCs can directly affect vascular function. Here we hypothesize that the purely physical interactions between aberrant RBCs and endothelial cells, due to the margination of stiff aberrant RBCs, play a key role in this phenomenon for a range of disorders. This hypothesis is tested by direct simulations of a cellular scale computational model of blood flow in sickle cell disease, iron deficiency anemia, COVID-19, and spherocytosis. We characterize cell distributions for normal and aberrant RBC mixtures in straight and curved tubes, the latter to address issues of geometric complexity that arise in the microcirculation. In all cases aberrant RBCs strongly localize near the vessel walls (margination) due to contrasts in cell size, shape, and deformability from the normal cells. In the curved channel, the distribution of marginated cells is very heterogeneous, indicating a key role for vascular geometry. Finally, we characterize the shear stresses on the vessel walls; consistent with our hypothesis, the marginated aberrant cells generate large transient stress fluctuations due to the high velocity gradients induced by their near-wall motions. The anomalous stress fluctuations experienced by endothelial cells may be responsible for the observed vascular inflammation.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.16.541016v1" target="_blank">Marginated aberrant red blood cells induce pathologic vascular stress fluctuations in a computational model of hematologic disorders</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>CParty: Conditional partition function for density-2RNA pseudoknots</strong> -
<div>
RNA molecules fold into biologically important functional structures. Efficient dynamic programming RNA (secondary) structure prediction algorithms restrict the the search space to evade NP-hardness of general pseudoknot prediction. While such prediction algorithms can be extended to provide a stochastic view on RNA ensembles, they are either limited to pseudoknot-free structures or extremely complex. To overcome this dilemma, we follow the hierarchical folding hypothesis, i.e. the bio-physically well-motivated assumption that non-crossing structures fold relatively fast prior to the formation of pseudoknot interactions. Thus, we efficiently compute the conditional partition function (CPF) given a non-crossing structure G for a subset of pseudoknotted stuctures i.e. density-2 structures G {cup} G' for non-crossing disjoint G'. Notably, this enables sampling from the hierarchical distribution P (G'|G). As our main contribution, we devise the algorithm CParty, which transfers the dynamic programming scheme of HFold to a partition function variant by for the first time de-ambiguating its decomposition of density-2 structures. Compared to the only other available pseudoknot partition function algorithm, which covers simple pseudoknots, our method covers a much larger structure class; at the same time, it is significantly more efficient (reducing the time as well as the space complexity by a quadratic factor). Summarizing, we provide a highly efficient (cubic time) algorithm for the stochastic analysis of pseudoknotted RNAs, which enables novel applications. For example, we discuss how the CPF for a pseudoknotted therapeutic target in SARS-CoV-2 provides insights into RNA structure formation kinetic paths.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.16.541023v1" target="_blank">CParty: Conditional partition function for density-2RNA pseudoknots</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Composite interventions on outcomes of severely and critically ill patients with COVID-19 in Shanghai, China</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Abstract Background: The sixty-day effects of initial composite interventions for the treatment of severely and critically ill patients with COVID-19 are not fully assessed. Methods: Using a bayesian piecewise exponential model, we analyzed the 60-day mortality, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and disability in 1082 severely and critically patients with COVID-19 between December 8, 2022 and February 9, 2023 in Shanghai, China. The final 60-day follow-up was completed on April 10, 2023. Results: Among 1082 patients (mean age, 78.0 years), 421 [38.9%] women), 139 patients (12.9%) died within 60 days. Azvudine had a 99.8% probability of improving 2-month survival (adjusted HR, 0.44 [95% credible interval, 0.24-0.79]) and Paxlovid had a 91.9% probability of improving 2-month survival (adjusted HR, 0.71 [95% credible interval, 0.44-1.14]) compared with the control. IL-6 receptor antagonist, Baricitinib, and a-thymosin each had a high probability of benefit (99.5%, 99.4%, and 97.5%, respectively) compared to their controls, while the probability of trail-defined statistical futility (HR &gt;0.83) was high for therapeutic anticoagulation (99.8%; HR, 1.64 [95% CrI, 1.06-2.50]), and glucocorticoid (91.4%; HR, 1.20 [95% CrI, 0.71-2.16]). Paxlovid, Azvudine and therapeutic anticoagulation showed significant reduction in disability (p&lt;0.05) Conclusions: Among severely and critically ill patients with COVID-19 who received 1 or more therapeutic interventions, treatment with Azvudine had a high probability of improved 60-day mortality compared with the control, indicating its potential in resource-limited scenario. Treatment with IL-6 receptor antagonist, Baricitinib, and a-thymosin also had high probabilities of benefit of improving 2-month survival, among which a-thymosin could improve HRQoL. Treatment with Paxlovid, Azvudine and therapeutic anticoagulation could significantly reduce disability at day 60. Keyword: COVID-19; Azvudine; Paxlovid; Interleukin-6 receptor antagonist; Baricitinib, α-thymosin, Intravenous immunoglobulin
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.10.23289325v3" target="_blank">Composite interventions on outcomes of severely and critically ill patients with COVID-19 in Shanghai, China</a>
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<li><strong>Delineating a ‘15-Minute City’: An Agent-based Modeling Approach to Estimate the Size of Local Communities</strong> -
<div>
With progressively increased people living in cities, and lately the global COVID-19 outbreak, human mobility within cities has changed. Coinciding with this change, is the recent uptake of the ‘15-Minute City’ idea in urban planning around the world. One of the hallmarks of this idea is to create a high quality of life within a city via an acceptable travel distance (i.e., 15 minutes). However, a definitive benchmark for defining a ‘15-Minute City’ has yet to be agreed upon due to the heterogeneous character of urban morphologies worldwide. To shed light on this issue, we develop an agent-based model named ‘D-FMCities’ utilizing realistic street networks and points-of-interest, in this instance the borough of Queens in New York City as a test case. Through our modeling we grow diverse communities from the bottom up and estimate the size of such local communities to delineate 15-minute cities. Our findings suggest that the model could be helpful to detect the flexibility of defining the extent of a ‘15-minute city’ and consequently support uncovering the underlying factors that may affect its various definitions and diverse sizes throughout the world.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/p7fdz/" target="_blank">Delineating a ‘15-Minute City’: An Agent-based Modeling Approach to Estimate the Size of Local Communities</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Promoting Urban Farming for Creating Sustainable Cities in Nepal</strong> -
<div>
This paper responds to the research question, “can urban farming in Nepal help create sustainable cities?” Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, urban residents have begun to realize that food transported from long distances is not always reliable. Urban farming can help produce fresh food locally and help urban residents become self-reliant by engaging in healthy eating habits and practicing sustainable agricultural techniques in food-desert areas, while creating a positive impact on the environment through regenerative agricultural methods. In doing so, urban farms can help the growers save on food expenditures and even earn some additional income, while also improving air quality and minimizing the effects of urban heat islands. This practice also helps reduce greenhouse gases through plant carbon use efficiency (CUE), as vegetation carbon dynamics (VCD) can be adjusted while supporting the circular economy. As urban lands command higher prices than agricultural land, urban farming usually happens on residential yards, roofs, balconies, community gardens, and dedicated areas in public parks. Rainwater harvesting and redirecting can help irrigate urban farms, which can be part of rain gardens. The national census of 2021 identified that 66% of Nepal’s population lives in urban areas. However, the World Bank (2018) showed that only 21 of Nepal’s population was projected to live in urban areas in 2021. It is not debatable that the urbanization process in Nepal is on the rise. Thus, urban agriculture can play an important role in supplementing residents’ food needs. Many cities in Nepal have already successfully adapted to urban farming wherein residents grow food on their building sites, balconies, and rooftop, often growing plants in pots, vases, and other types of containers. The UN-Habitat, with the support of the European Union and local agencies, published a rooftop farming training manual (2014), showing the feasibility of urban farming in Nepal. This paper discusses how public-private partnership (PPP) can promote urban agriculture and make the process more effective and attractive to urban-farming households. It also analyzes how a PPP approach also facilitates the use of better technology, advisory support, and use of research extension activities. This paper draws on a literature review, uses remote-sensing imagery data and data from National Census Nepal 2021, and the authors’ professional experiences related to best practices in the areas to analyze the benefits and challenges related to urban farming both in Nepal and Arizona, USA. The paper provides recommendations for Nepali cities to maximize the benefit provided by urban farming.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/xz4t7/" target="_blank">Promoting Urban Farming for Creating Sustainable Cities in Nepal</a>
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<li><strong>Minority Communities United Against COVID-19: It Takes a Village</strong> -
<div>
COVID-19 has illuminated how racial inequities across multiple institutions in the United States have converged and resulted in profound and lasting negative impacts on people and communities of color. Disparities in the treatment of Native (Indigenous) Americans, African (Black) Americans, and Latinx individuals in the United States concomitant with health disparities more prevalent in these populations have resulted in COVID-19 death rates that have been consistently higher than that of white counterparts and at rates that are significantly higher than their percentage of the population. While reports have focused have necessarily focused on the despair in these communities and the disparities in case and death rates, we report on the historical resilience of these communities and how this has been used to mobilize interventions in these communities that have served to mitigate the negative impact of COVID-19.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/3zm7w/" target="_blank">Minority Communities United Against COVID-19: It Takes a Village</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Standard of Care Combined With Glucocorticoid in Elderly People With Mild or Moderate COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: Glucocorticoid<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Huashan Hospital<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Investigation of the Effect on Cognitive Skills of COVID-19 Survivors</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: green walking and intelligence gam<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Bayburt University;   Karadeniz Technical University<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Conducting Clinical Trials of the Medicine “Rutan Tablets 0.1g” No. 10 in the Complex Therapy of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Patients With COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: The drug “Rutan 0.1”.;   Other: Basic treatment<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Research Institute of Virology, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Arginine Replacement Therapy in COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: Arginine Hydrochloride<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Emory University<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effectiveness of a Second COVID-19 Vaccine Booster in Chinese Adults</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Intramuscularly administered Ad5-nCoV vaccine;   Biological: Aerosolized Ad5-nCoV;   Biological: DelNS1-2019-nCoV-RBD-OPT1;   Biological: SYS6006<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Jiangsu Province Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Studying the Efficiency of the Natural Preparation Rutan in Children in the Treatment of COVID-19, ARVI</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Respiratory Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Rutan 25 mg;   Other: Control group<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Research Institute of Virology, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Pilot Study Evaluating the Efficacy of the Vielight Neuro RX Gamma in the Treatment of Post COVID-19 Cognitive Impairment</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Post COVID-19 Cognitive Impairment<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Device: Vielight Neuro RX Gamma active device;   Device: Vielight Neuro RX Gamma sham device<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Vielight Inc.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>PAxlovid loNg cOvid-19 pRevention triAl With recruitMent In the Community in Norway</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Post COVID-19 Condition, Unspecified;   SARS-CoV2 Infection;   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Nirmatrelvir/ritonavir;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Haukeland University Hospital;   University of Bergen<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Use of a Hypochlorous Acid Spray Solution in the Treatment of COVID-19 Patients : COVICONTROL Study .</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   SARS CoV 2 Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Spray with Hypochlorous Acid Group;   Other: Spray with Placebo Group<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Monastir<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Role of Vit-D Supplementation on BioNTech, Pfizer Vaccine Side Effect and Immunoglobulin G Response</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Respiratory Infection<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Combination Product: Vitamin-D<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sulaimany Polytechnic university<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Telerehabilitation Program and Detraining in Patients With Post-COVID-19 Sequelae</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Telerehabilitation program<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Campus docent Sant Joan de Déu-Universitat de Barcelona<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake Amongst Underserved Populations in East London</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Influenza;   Vaccination Refusal<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: Patient Engagement tool<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Queen Mary University of London;   Social Action for Health<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>REVERSE-Long COVID-19 With Baricitinib Pilot Study</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: Baricitinib 4 MG<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Vanderbilt University Medical Center;   Emory University;   University of California, San Francisco;   University of Minnesota;   Vanderbilt University;   Yale University<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety, Tolerability and Immunogenicity of Alveavax-v1.2, a BA.2/Omicron-optimized, DNA Vaccine for COVID-19 Prevention</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Sars-CoV-2 Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Alveavax-v1.2;   Drug: Janssen Ad26.COV2.S<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Alvea Holdings, LLC<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Post Covid-19 Dysautonomia Rehabilitation Randomized Controlled Trial</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome;   Dysautonomia<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Procedure: Rehabilitation;   Procedure: Standard of Care<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Evangelismos Hospital;   National and Kapodistrian University of Athens;   LONG COVID GREECE;   414 Military Hospital of Special Diseases<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dextran sulfate from <em>Leuconostoc mesenteroides</em> B512F exerts potent antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 <em>in vitro</em> and <em>in vivo</em></strong> - The emergent human coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its resistance to current drugs makes the need for new potent treatments for COVID-19 patients strongly necessary. Dextran sulfate (DS) polysaccharides have long demonstrated antiviral activity against different enveloped viruses in vitro. However, their poor bioavailability has led to their abandonment as antiviral candidates. Here, we report for the first time the broad-spectrum antiviral activity of a DS-based extrapolymeric substance produced by…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The novel hyaluronic acid granular hydrogel attenuates osteoarthritis progression by inhibiting the TLR-2/NF-κB signaling pathway through suppressing cellular senescence</strong> - In patients with mild osteoarthritis (OA), two to four monthly injections are required for 6 months due to the degradation of hyaluronic acid (HA) by peroxidative cleavage and hyaluronidase. However, frequent injections may lead to local infection and also cause inconvenience to patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Herein, we developed a novel HA granular hydrogel (n-HA) with improved degradation resistance. The chemical structure, injectable capability, morphology, rheological properties,…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Biochemical and HDX Mass Spectral Characterization of the SARS-CoV-2 Nsp1 Protein</strong> - A major challenge in defining the pathophysiology of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is to better understand virally encoded multifunctional proteins and their interactions with host factors. Among the many proteins encoded by the positive-sense, single-stranded RNA genome, nonstructural protein 1 (Nsp1) stands out due to its impact on several stages of the viral replication cycle. Nsp1 is the major virulence factor that inhibits mRNA translation. Nsp1 also…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Organoid modeling of lung-resident immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> - Tissue-resident immunity underlies essential host defenses against pathogens, but analysis in humans has lacked in vitro model systems where epithelial infection and accompanying resident immune cell responses can be observed en bloc. Indeed, human primary epithelial organoid cultures typically omit immune cells, and human tissue resident-memory lymphocytes are conventionally assayed without an epithelial infection component, for instance from peripheral blood, or after extraction from organs….</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Optimization of urban emergency support material distribution under major public health emergencies based on improved sparrow search algorithm</strong> - The outbreak of major public health emergencies such as the coronavirus epidemic has put forward new requirements for urban emergency management procedures. Accuracy and effective distribution model of emergency support materials, as an effective tool to inhibit the deterioration of the public health sector, have gradually become a research hotspot. The distribution of urban emergency support devices, under the secondary supply chain structure of “material transfer center-demand point,” which…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Passive swab versus grab sampling for detection of SARS-CoV-2 markers in wastewater</strong> - Early detection of the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2, is key to mitigating the spread of new outbreaks. Data from individual testing is increasingly difficult to obtain as people conduct non-reported home tests, defer tests due to logistics or attitudes, or ignore testing altogether. Wastewater based epidemiology is an alternative method for surveilling a community while maintaining individual anonymity; however, a problem is that SARS-CoV-2 markers in wastewater varies throughout the day….</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Oxalic acid blocked the binding of spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 Delta (B.1.617.2) and Omicron (B.1.1.529) variants to human angiotensin-converting enzymes 2</strong> - An epidemic of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is spreading worldwide. Moreover, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, such as Delta and Omicron, has seriously challenged the application of current therapeutics including vaccination and drugs. Relying on interaction of spike protein with receptor angiotensin-converting enzymes 2 (ACE2), SARS-CoV-2 successfully invades to the host cells, which indicates a…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Antifungal Activity and Potential Action Mechanism of Allicin against Trichosporon asahii</strong> - Trichosporon asahii is an emerging opportunistic pathogen that causes potentially fatal disseminated trichosporonosis. The global prevalence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses an increasing fungal infection burden caused by T. asahii. Allicin is the main biologically active component with broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity in garlic. In this study, we performed an in-depth analysis of the antifungal characteristics of allicin against T. asahii based on physiological, cytological,…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid Protein Is a Potential Therapeutic Target for Anticoronavirus Drug Discovery</strong> - SARS-CoV-2, the etiologic agent of the COVID-19 pandemic, is a highly contagious positive-sense RNA virus. Its explosive community spread and the emergence of new mutant strains have created palpable anxiety even in vaccinated people. The lack of effective anticoronavirus therapeutics continues to be a major global health concern, especially due to the high evolution rate of SARS-CoV-2. The nucleocapsid protein (N protein) of SARS-CoV-2 is highly conserved and involved in diverse processes of…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Six-month immune responses to mRNA-1273 Vaccine in cART-treated late presenter people living with HIV according to previous SARS-CoV-2 Infection</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Altogether, these findings support the need for additional vaccine doses in PLWH with a history of advanced immune depression and poor immune recovery on effective cART.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong><em>In silico</em> design of miniprotein to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron spike protein</strong> - Omicron is a novel variant of SARS-CoV-2 that is currently spreading globally as the dominant strain. The virus first enters the host cell through the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein by interacting with the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). Thus, the RBD protein is an ideal target for the design of drugs against the Omicron variant. Here, we designed several miniprotein inhibitors in silico to combat the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant using single- and double-point mutation…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Conformal Hydrogel-Skin Coating on a Microfluidic Channel through Microstamping Transfer of the Masking Layer</strong> - Poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) is used in microfluidics owing to its biocompatibility and simple fabrication. However, its intrinsic hydrophobicity and biofouling inhibit its microfluidic applications. Conformal hydrogel-skin coating for PDMS microchannels, involving the microstamping transfer of the masking layer, is reported herein. A selective uniform hydrogel layer with a thickness of ∼1 μm was coated in diverse PDMS microchannels with a resolution of ∼3 μm, maintaining its structure and…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The C-terminal 32-mer fragment of hemoglobin alpha is an amyloidogenic peptide with antimicrobial properties</strong> - Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are major components of the innate immune defense. Accumulating evidence suggests that the antibacterial activity of many AMPs is dependent on the formation of amyloid-like fibrils. To identify novel fibril forming AMPs, we generated a spleen-derived peptide library and screened it for the presence of amyloidogenic peptides. This approach led to the identification of a C-terminal 32-mer fragment of alpha-hemoglobin, termed HBA(111-142). The non-fibrillar peptide has…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Challenges and Progress in Designing Broad-Spectrum Vaccines Against Rapidly Mutating Viruses</strong> - Viruses evolve to evade prior immunity, causing significant disease burden. Vaccine effectiveness deteriorates as pathogens mutate, requiring redesign. This is a problem that has grown worse due to population increase, global travel, and farming practices. Thus, there is significant interest in developing broad-spectrum vaccines that mitigate disease severity and ideally inhibit disease transmission without requiring frequent updates. Even in cases where vaccines against rapidly mutating…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Flavonoid as possible therapeutic targets against COVID-19: a scoping review of in silico studies</strong> - CONCLUSION: These studies allow us to provide a basis for in vitro and in vivo assays to assist in developing drugs for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>“Debt-Limit Terror” Is No Way to Run a Superpower</strong> - On the latest round of the Republicans’ dangerous game. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/debt-limit-terror-is-no-way-to-run-a-superpower">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why Erdoğan Prevailed in a Battle of Competing Turkish Nationalisms</strong> - As the country heads to a Presidential runoff, will the aftermath of a devastating earthquake hold more sway than old narratives of grievance? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-erdogan-prevailed-in-a-battle-of-competing-turkish-nationalisms">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Debt-Ceiling Fight’s Collateral Damage</strong> - Last week, dozens of members of ADAPT, the disability-rights group, forced their way into Kevin McCarthy’s office to protest his proposed cuts to the social safety net. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-debt-ceiling-fights-collateral-damage">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Congress Really Wants to Regulate A.I., But No One Seems to Know How</strong> - Yet another hearing—this one with OpenAI’s Sam Altman—has come after a new technology with the possibility to fundamentally alter our lives is already in circulation. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/congress-really-wants-to-regulate-ai-but-no-one-seems-to-know-how">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Fight for the Soul of a School Board</strong> - In a small Missouri town, a campaign to remove literature from the high-school library forced members of the community to reckon with the meaning of “parents’ rights.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-fight-for-the-soul-of-a-school-board">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>The psychedelic renaissance is at risk of missing the bigger picture</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A figure with long black hair sits on their porch and looks out on a landscape filled with a variety of mushrooms, wildlife, warped shapes, and a giant sun with eyes." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oonnHgfZPhdOCbudtmFFZLgzrTI=/226x0:1666x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72298098/Final_JessHannigan.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Jess Hannigan for Vox
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
What we lose when psychedelics are medicalized.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ric18v">
It’s been quite the journey for psychedelics, and it’s just getting started. First, they were sacred and ceremonial plant medicines <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0213485311002696?via%3Dihub">for millennia</a>. In the 1960s era, they traversed an American culture of mind expansion, which used them as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/aug/06/lsd-ken-kesey-pranksters-film">wild tools</a> for transcending ordinary states of consciousness. Then came the backlash in the 1970s when they were outlawed <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/09/richard-nixon-war-on-drugs-timothy-leary-216264/">by a nervous Nixon administration</a>. Now, psychedelics are emerging from the underground as a new generation of researchers amasses evidence that mind-altering drugs offer <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2772630">new and effective therapies</a> to help stem the <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/467303/americans-reported-mental-health-new-low-seek-help.aspx#:~:text=In%20all%2C%2031%25%20of%20U.S.,of%20the%20average%20since%202001.">rising tides of mental illness</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CQEHiz">
<a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/johns-hopkins-medicine-receives-first-federal-grant-for-psychedelic-treatment-research-in-50-years">Funding for research</a> and <a href="https://themicrodose.substack.com/p/even-more-psychedelics-bills-changing">legalization efforts</a> on psychedelics are ramping up across the US. In January alone, seven states introduced new psychedelic legislation that ranges from decriminalization to supervised adult use to psychiatric treatment. Abroad, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-becomes-first-country-to-recognise-psychedelics-as-medicines-20230203-p5chs6.html?utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1675409797-1">Australia became the first country to legalize psilocybin — psychedelic mushrooms — and MDMA</a> as prescribable medicines by psychiatrists. The US looks poised to follow, with the FDA potentially set to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01296-3">approve MDMA for therapy later this year</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bZ69mE">
These tectonic changes in drug policy are taking place against the backdrop of a US <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/467303/americans-reported-mental-health-new-low-seek-help.aspx#:~:text=U.S.%20adults%20averaged%203.2%20mental,2004%20and%205%25%20in%202001.">mental health crisis</a>, one where existing treatments have fallen short: The World Health Organization’s (WHO) <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/17-06-2022-who-highlights-urgent-need-to-transform-mental-health-and-mental-health-care">largest mental health report this century</a> has termed current interventions “insufficient and inadequate.” Turning to psychoactive fungi for treatment-resistant mental illness is a sharp pivot, a sign of both the impoverishment of current approaches and the excitement around a genuinely novel remedy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2hLtjg">
But as important as anything that can turn the tide on mental health is, the frenzy over transforming psychedelics into new treatments for illness obscures — and may even interfere with — their further potential to expand our understanding of what healthy minds could be. The <a href="https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/3/2/article-p63.xml">deep history</a> of psychedelics shows they have far more to offer than simply the next generation of psychiatric treatment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ht1Rsb">
Conventional psychiatry looks at mental disorders: clinically significant <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-disorders">disturbances</a> in areas that are important for day-to-day functioning, like emotional regulation, behavior, and thinking. But psychedelics, when used carefully, can do more than heal disturbances. The WHO’s <a href="https://www.who.int/about/governance/constitution">founding constitution</a> defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity<em>.” </em>Psychedelics can help shift attention toward <a href="https://philarchive.org/rec/DAYPEO">reconfiguring the baseline of ordinary, non-impaired experience</a> in ways that enrich what we call “normal.”
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But fully harnessing these drugs may require a very different set of research and regulatory approaches than current conventional efforts focused on turning psychedelics into the next generation of therapeutic medicines. To make the most of what psychedelics can offer to the more expansive project of human flourishing, medicalizing isn’t enough. Regulators should consider allowing access outside a doctor’s office.
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“The problem with the current biomedical vision is that it’s very much based on an individualistic understanding of mental health and human flourishing,” said Claudia Schwarz-Plaschg, a social scientist and visiting scholar at the University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute who <a href="https://eujournalfuturesresearch.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40309-022-00199-2">spent three years studying</a> attitudes toward psychedelics in the US. “Medical interventions are geared towards making the individual fit better into society through therapeutic and substance-based interventions, but other approaches are more open towards a broader vision of how mental health issues and societal structures are producing each other,” she said.
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Leaving psychedelics in the hands of the biomedical industry and state-regulated facilities can <a href="https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/4/1/article-p34.xml">undermine their potential</a> by excluding <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-7084-8_15">more diverse “sets and settings</a>” (a term describing how psychological, social, and cultural factors all profoundly shape the kinds of trips one might experience) while leaving inequalities across <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/09/21/psychedelic-medicine-will-it-be-accessible-to-all/">race</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667193X22002277?via%3Dihub=&amp;utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email">culture</a>, and <a href="https://www.lucid.news/high-cost-psychedelic-therapy-worth-it/">class</a> unaddressed.
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But there is little consensus among researchers and policymakers on questions of access — from who gets access to where<em> </em>and how — in ways that could make the most of psychedelics’ benefits while balancing the potential risks.
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Given the extent of the mental health crisis, policymakers should embrace new treatments to help those who suffer from mental illness. But in that embrace, we shouldn’t lose sight of what psychedelics can offer beyond psychiatry. Used holistically, these drugs can help expand our understanding of what healthier, richer, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25563449/">more flourishing states</a> of consciousness might be like. The smothered dream of those hippies and former Harvard psychology professors who called on Americans to expand their minds with psychedelics could be revived in more prudent, diverse, and informed ways — provided we don’t box them in.
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<h3 id="5WLNfC">
Why the psychedelic renaissance is focused on mental illness
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In 1943, the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/the-accidental-discovery-of-lsd/379564/">first discovered</a> the effects of LSD, which is part of the family known as “classical” psychedelics. These also include psilocybin (magic mushrooms), mescaline (from the peyote cactus), and DMT. Classical psychedelics are <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/classic-psychedelics-arent-addictive">non-addictive</a> and bind to the brain’s <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4813425/">serotonin receptors</a>. That makes them unlike “non-classical” psychedelics such as ketamine and MDMA, which have different mechanisms of action in the brain and higher risks of side effects and abuse. (For example, in warm environments coupled with dehydration, <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/mdma-can-be-fatal-warm-environments">MDMA can cause death via heatstroke</a>, while ketamine could <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/well/ketamine-therapy-depression.html?action=click&amp;pgtype=Article&amp;state=default&amp;module=styln-psychedelics&amp;variant=show&amp;region=BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT&amp;block=storyline_flex_guide_recirc">exacerbate existing heart conditions</a>).
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Like the psychedelic experience itself, there is no single narrative that fits the midcentury American trips that followed LSD’s introduction. It was a blooming, buzzing, revelatory confusion. LSD psychotherapy leaped <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/vdpqpj/cary-grant-lsd-old-hollywood-289">into the Hollywood elite</a>, the CIA <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief">experimented with the drug</a> for mind control, and Jimi Hendrix front-manned <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/t-magazine/black-psychedelia.html">a culture of Black psychedelia</a>. But that experimentation largely came to an end in 1971 when President Richard Nixon’s <a href="https://www.dea.gov/drug-information/csa#:~:text=The%20Controlled%20Substances%20Act%20(CSA,and%20safety%20or%20dependence%20liability.">Controlled Substances Act</a><a href="https://psychedelics.berkeley.edu/law/"> banned psychedelics</a> (among other drugs) and stifled psychedelic research.
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<img alt="A black-and-white photo of Timothy Leary smiling, his arms behind him in handcuffs, as two men in ties on either side of him lead him." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/btJhVw3l_TXhPIJHCUrOfrk1OFY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24654159/515118580.jpg"/> <cite>Bettmann Archive/Getty Images</cite>
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Timothy Leary, the Harvard psychologist turned “high priest of LSD,” escorted by federal officers after his 1973 arrest.
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While the legislation forced those interested in psychedelics underground, they didn’t stay there long. By the 1990s, a mostly new generation of researchers <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-science-of-psychedelics-1525360091">had begun revisiting studies</a> from the 1950s, while <a href="https://maps.org/1999/04/01/human-psychedelic-research-a-historical-and-sociological-analysis/">attitudes toward psychedelics within the FDA and DEA were softening</a>. Regulators no longer saw them as exotic substances with unknown long-term consequences, but increasingly, just another potentially dangerous drug. By 1991, a series of legal challenges, together with the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1941365/">perseverance of researchers who believed psychedelics were worth studying</a>, led to the <a href="https://maps.org/research-archive/w3pb/1994/1994_Strassman_22714_1.pdf">first approval for human psychedelic research</a> since the 1970s.
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Regulatory hurdles to obtaining approval remained steep, and young scientists still risked their reputations by working with psychedelics. But a landmark <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-006-0457-5">paper published in the journal <em>Psychopharmacology</em> in 2006</a> on mushrooms and mystical experiences — where recipients reported mystical experiences with high personal significance that endured for months afterward — signaled the above-ground renaissance in scientific research was professionally viable, institutionally acceptable, and already underway.
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This time, however, the focus was not directed toward expanding the mind, Timothy Leary-style, but alleviating mental illness. In part, this shift was a strategic response to the 1960s <a href="https://ir.library.louisville.edu/tce/vol1/iss2/16/?utm_source=ir.library.louisville.edu%2Ftce%2Fvol1%2Fiss2%2F16&amp;utm_medium=PDF&amp;utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages">moral panic</a> and 1970s legal action against psychedelics. By reintroducing psychedelics through the most accepted and controlled channels — medical research — scientists aimed to minimize the risk of another backlash.
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The shift toward psychiatry was also a response to a clear need. By 2019–2020, approximately a fifth of all adults — over 50 million Americans, up from <a href="https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt29393/2019NSDUHFFRPDFWHTML/2019NSDUHFFR090120.htm#:~:text=Among%20adults%20aged%2018%20or,51.5%20million%20people)%20in%202019.">39.8 million in 2008</a> — were reporting <a href="https://mhanational.org/issues/state-mental-health-america">some kind of mental illness</a>. The growing body of <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/1/10/18007558/denver-psilocybin-psychedelic-mushrooms-ayahuasca-depression-mental-health">psychedelic research</a> suggested significant promise in treating precisely the illnesses that were most widespread: <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02698811211073759">depression</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8542741/">anxiety</a>, and <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2795625">addiction</a>. That list may continue to expand as research fans out into new areas, like <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.735523/full">eating disorders</a>.
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No single group of chemicals can solve the complexities of mental health, which extend beyond the individual mind to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/opinion/us-mental-health-politics.html">include social and political </a>elements. But if recent research holds course, psychedelics may well provide much-needed relief while inspiring entirely <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/21/17339488/psychedelics-mental-health-michael-pollan-lsd-psilocybin">new approaches to psychiatry</a>. That’s especially vital given the lack of innovation in mental health treatments since SSRI <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4428540/#:~:text=In%201974%2C%20the%20first%20report,%2C%20%26%20Molloy%2C%201974).">antidepressants like Prozac were approved</a> in the 1980s.
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Still, a singular focus on making psychedelics into pharmaceutical medicines <a href="https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/4/1/article-p34.xml">carries its own </a>drawbacks, in part by isolating the psychoactive molecules themselves from the wider cultural practices that have traditionally been inseparable from the experience.
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“Mainstream culture hears about psychedelics primarily through a medicalized or therapeutic lens,” said Ariel Clark, an Odawa Anishinaabe regulatory attorney based in California and a founding board member of the <a href="https://thepsychedelicbar.org/">Psychedelic Bar Association</a>. “But the use of sacred medicines in Indigenous paradigms of access really eclipse the medical use by far.”
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As the <a href="https://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/a-theological-reckoning-with-bad-trips/">Harvard theologian Rachael Peterson put it</a>: “Important wisdom is lost when technologies of transcendence are stripped from their spiritual and religious contexts and presented as psychological treatments.” Now, a new generation of researchers is seeking to return a wider spiritual lens to targeted questions of therapy and neuroscience.
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<h3 id="NLG6rJ">
How psychedelics can enrich your mind
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Until recently, there was little funding for psychedelic research on volunteers without diagnosed mental illness, what researchers <a href="https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/3/3/article-p280.xml">sometimes call “healthy normals</a>.” That’s why Roland Griffiths, director of the Johns Hopkins <a href="https://hopkinspsychedelic.org/">Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research</a>, recently launched <a href="https://griffithsfund.org/">the Griffiths Fund</a>. The fund supports research and a professorship at Hopkins to study the effects of psychedelics on well-being and secular spirituality in healthy volunteers. Griffiths, whose research has been pivotal in advancing the field since his <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-006-0457-5">2006 paper</a> helped launch the psychedelic renaissance, has <a href="https://griffithsfund.org/donors/">called</a> this “the most consequential direction for future psychedelic research.”
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<img alt="Roland R. Griffiths sitting on a white couch, half in yellow light and half in purple." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MwzqT5KSHRuQczB_zsE6zbkYCBY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24654058/461026286.jpg"/> <cite>Andre Chung/Washington Post via Getty Images</cite>
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Roland Griffiths is the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research.
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The first recipient is David Yaden, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins who works in the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. Prior to studying psychedelics at Hopkins, Yaden’s work <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1037/gpr0000102">focused on “self-transcendent experiences,</a>” or altered states of consciousness achieved through drugs or other means, ranging from meditation and brain stimulation to simple walks in nature. While most research on psychedelics and spirituality has treated elements like mystical experiences as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9340494/">secondary to therapeutic outcomes</a>, Yaden told me he plans to “confront the issue of spirituality” head-on, rather than as a side quest.
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“I think it’s essential that the study of well-being is not lost in this emphasis on therapeutics,” Yaden told me. He calls this focus on whether and how psychedelics can improve well-being (even for those who aren’t mentally ill) the “positive program” of psychedelic research.
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Although the Griffiths Fund is the first effort specifically dedicated to these questions in healthy volunteers, there <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2050324517723232">already exists a small foundation of academic research</a> on the subject. Most of it can be divided into two buckets: the observable effects of psychedelics on the brain and their subjective effects on the mind. This blurry relationship between the brain and the mind is one of the many mysteries psychedelics may help clarify.
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We can record objective data on how LSD changes patterns of electrical activity in the brain <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1518377113">with neuroimaging technologies</a> like EEG and fMRI. But to capture the feeling of the psychedelic dissolution of the boundary between yourself and the world, we can only rely indirectly on people’s recollections. Mainstream psychedelic research leans toward what you can directly measure, but Yaden told me that <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsptsci.0c00194">the subjective experiences are a necessary part</a> of any full explanation of <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.647909/full">the lasting benefits on well-being</a> some psychedelic users report.
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In the brain, psychedelics are associated with at least three groups of observable effects. They boost neuroplasticity, which <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.724606/full">supports the rewiring of existing neurons</a>. They promote neurogenesis, which <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128002124000777#:~:text=Many%20psychedelic%20drugs%20are%20shown,beneficial%20effects%20on%20conditioned%20fear.">supports the creation of new brain cells</a>. And they <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01744-z">increase brain “entropy,”</a> or the diversity, randomness, and unpredictability of electrical activity across brain regions.
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<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028390822004579?via%3Dihub">Neuroplasticity likely plays a key role</a> in addressing mental illness by enhancing the brain’s ability to rewire patterns of thought. Especially when <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2018.00733/full">paired with psychotherapy</a>, psychedelic-induced neuroplasticity can help reshape harmful habits — from mental patterns of self-criticism to forms of addiction — into more beneficial ones.
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While anyone can <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/cognitive-flexibility">benefit from a little more neuroplasticity</a>, which tends to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3622463/">decline with age</a>, increasing brain entropy offers another explanation for the spectrum of benefits beyond treating illness. In 2014, <a href="https://profiles.ucsf.edu/robin.carhart-harris">Robin Carhart-Harris</a>, a neuroscientist who was then the head of the <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/psychedelic-research-centre/">Centre for Psychedelic Research</a> at Imperial College London, published a <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00020/full">landmark work on what he called “the entropic brain</a>.” The basic idea is that what any state of consciousness feels like — and in particular, what he calls the “richness” of its feeling — depends on the amount of entropy in the associated brain activity. Brain entropy is low in reduced states of consciousness, like when you’re <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0133532">under general anesthesia</a>. During altered states, from <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46421">psychedelic trips</a> to deep <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306452220300567">meditation</a>, entropy is higher. In ordinary waking consciousness, it rests somewhere in the middle.
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Carhart-Harris argues that the brain evolved an ability to strike a useful balance of entropy levels. In particular, he believes that the collection of regions known as the default-mode network (DMN) is primarily responsible for suppressing entropy in the ordinary brain. Doing so favors forms of cognition that help us make sense of our environments in ways that are useful for survival. “Equally however,” he writes in the paper, “it could be seen as exerting a limiting or narrowing influence on consciousness.”
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Psychedelics <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ijnp/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ijnp/pyac074/6770039?login=false">reduce activity</a> within<em> </em>the DMN, loosening its hold over entropy levels. The resulting high-entropy states may not have been the most beneficial for our ancestors on the savannah. (Predators would welcome blissed-out prey, marveling at their surroundings rather than scanning for threats). But for a species where basic survival can now mostly be taken for granted, these states may have much to offer. Beyond mere vacations into “richer” states of consciousness, entropic states can cast new light on the ordinary ones we return to when a trip subsides. Sometimes it’s tough to imagine how different something that’s grown so familiar can be — like the habitual ways we experience ourselves, those close to us, and the world — until we’ve had the direct experience of it being otherwise.
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But Yaden emphasized that entropy, neuroplasticity, and all the other factors that we can observe with brain-imaging technologies are only part of the story. He calls these “lower-level neurobiological processes,” and adds that higher-level ones, like the subjective content of the experiences themselves, play a key role in explaining the benefits of psychedelics.
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These fall into the hazier category of effects on the mind, where scientific tools awkwardly grasp for measurements that don’t come easy. To describe these parts of a trip, you must rely on imperfect language: <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.917199/full">mystical experience</a>, ego <a href="https://maps.org/news-letters/v20n1/v20n1-40to41.pdf">death</a> or <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00269/full">dissolution</a>, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2017/1/nix016/3916730?login=false">unselfing</a>, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2017.00974/full">oceanic boundlessness</a>. They can run the spectrum from blissful to terrifying, and the quality and intensity of these experiences shape the long-term effects.
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For example, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2017.00974/full">one study found</a> that higher scores of oceanic boundlessness during a trip (a term <a href="https://loneberry.tumblr.com/post/153995404787/oceanic-feeling-and-communist-affect">reaching all the way back to the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza</a>, describing the sense of separation between self and world melting away, like a water droplet losing its separateness as it rejoins the ocean) were more predictive of long-term clinical benefits than basic hallucinatory effects (like seeing undulating geometric patterns). The interpretation was that when it comes to psychedelics, the ordinary and predictable relationship between dose and outcome isn’t as simple as with other drugs. Sometimes, the kind of experience someone has — and the set and setting in which that experience takes place — is more important than the dose of psychedelics they take.
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While the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8905125/">majority of clinical psychedelic experiences are positive</a>, this is likely because researchers have a great degree of control over risk factors. But the very measures of control that help ensure more positive experiences can also suppress the wider range of possibilities, just like the default-mode network’s regulation of entropy levels. The clinically controlled environments employed in research trials and regulated psychiatric contexts have their own set and setting that will tend to reproduce particular kinds of experiences while discouraging others. Many within the psychedelic community believe that greater freedoms in where, how, and in what company we take psychedelics are crucial for maximizing their benefits, especially in already healthy users.
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States across the US are introducing varieties of psychedelic legislation that will lay the groundwork for what psychedelic access may come to look like domestically while also informing global strategies. “From a global perspective,” Schwarz-Plaschg writes <a href="https://eujournalfuturesresearch.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40309-022-00199-2">in her ethnographic study,</a> “the US can be understood as a test bed from which lessons might be drawn for how to best build a post-prohibitionist world for psychedelics.”
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<h3 id="2jREZL">
The debate over how to expand access to psychedelics
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There’s an unavoidable tension in legislative efforts to shape this post-prohibitionist world. Supporting wider uses and benefits of psychedelics by making them easier to access means raising the risks for individuals, as well as the chances of another legal backlash. As states continue introducing new bills, there is no settled blueprint. Each approach explores <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2022/03/10/oregon-wrestles-with-offering-psychedelic-therapy-outside-health-care-system/">different ways</a> of balancing benefits and risks.
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One approach gaining traction is the “adult-use” model <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/health/psychedelic-drugs-mushrooms-oregon.html">pioneered in Oregon</a>, which took effect at the start of 2023. Anyone over the age of 21 who can afford the cost (<a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2022/06/09/oregon-psilocybin-rules-shape-who-can-provide-and-access-care/">early estimates</a> suggest as much as $1,000 per session, which would keep out all but the well-off) can sign up for a <a href="https://sharedsystems.dhsoha.state.or.us/DHSForms/Served/le4226.pdf">psychedelic service session</a>. These can only take place at a service center approved by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) under the supervision of facilitators who have completed <a href="https://psilocybin.oregon.gov/training-approved">one of the training programs</a> vetted by the Oregon Psilocybin Services division of the OHA.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A comfortable chair with warm lighting in a room used for psychedelic therapy." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6SwKeRA7fMWQvC1qCC46El2QRSs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24667262/1230122191.jpg"/> <cite>Cole Burston/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bl1xkN">
By eliminating the need for a medical diagnosis or referral, the adult-use model does expand access. But requiring the trip to occur inside a government-sanctioned room, under the supervision of a facilitator one may have very little relationship with, and without the company of others joining in the experience, can all run counter to the <a href="https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/4/1/article-p16.xml?body=contentSummary-13617">variety of social and nature-immersed ways</a> Indigenous cultures <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2021.623923/full">have used psychedelics</a> for generations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z6qM2o">
Colorado recently went <a href="https://ogletree.com/insights/colorado-voters-pass-proposition-to-allow-regulated-use-of-psychedelic-mushrooms/#:~:text=On%20November%208%2C%202022%2C%20voters,years%20of%20age%20or%20older.">a step further</a>, including a decriminalization component alongside adult-use legislation. This would allow citizens to possess, grow, and share psychedelics for personal use in whatever forms they see fit. But psychedelic researchers and practitioners disagree on permitting such unregulated access. Beyond concerns over the risks of psychedelic use in unregulated environments, there are further worries that decriminalization could <a href="https://themicrodose.substack.com/p/when-the-policy-gets-ahead-of-the?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email">undermine researchers’ ability to carry out rigorous clinical trials</a>, or that an absence of restrictions on the quantity of psychedelics that can be grown for personal use <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2023/02/17/colorado-psilocybin-mushrooms-regulation-decriminalization-legalization/">will lead to a large black market supply</a> for the drugs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H61ujK">
Beyond “where” and “how,” there is also the question of “when.” As Rick Doblin, director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a nonprofit specializing in psychedelic research and education, <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/rick-doblin-interview-where-the-psychedelic-revolution-is-headed">told GQ</a> in 2021, “medicalization precedes legalization.” But for how long?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n6ZQ2x">
There are two broad camps here. One (including Doblin) sees medicalization as the necessary path toward broader acceptance, arguing that mounting evidence of medical benefits will gradually turn public opinion in favor of wider access to psychedelics. The other camp sees medicalization as a sort of waiting room that will slow legalization efforts.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4f6O48">
Clark echoed the idea that careful regulatory policy is essential, but rejected that medicalization is the best approach in the meantime. As she pointed out to me, holding psychedelics in an exclusively medicalized waiting room could worsen the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/clinical-trials-need-more-diversity/">existing diversity problem</a>. “You want to talk about the history of Black people or Native people with the medical establishment?” Clark said. “Who’s driving the conversation around the medical and therapeutic being the safest and only way?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gc1Vzb">
There is also the uncomfortable matter of <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/legal-drugs-psychedelics-corporate/">psychedelic capitalism</a>. The reservation of early access to psychedelics for pharmaceutical companies, medical researchers, and opportunistic <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/25/health/psychedelic-drug-therapy-patents.html">investors</a> is <a href="https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/4/1/article-p34.xml">transforming</a> the psychedelic <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/09/health/psychedelics-mdma-psilocybin-molly-mental-health.html">industry</a> — including the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/race-to-engineer-new-psychedelic-drugs/">drugs themselves</a> — before it even reaches the public. Broadly, the concern is that capitalism’s profit motive won’t necessarily support the prudent research, rollout, and harm reduction measures that can help ensure a smooth and equitable reintroduction.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RHmusB">
Schwarz-Plaschg said that a complementary non-biomedical focus (like decriminalization) would help maximize the benefits. “The broader the spectrum of psychedelic services and legal uses in society, the more people will be reached who can benefit in their own flourishing, and that will enable society to flourish more in the long term.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xqShmL">
But the sometimes strained move from <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2023/03/08/marijuana-legalization-takes-a-giant-step-backward-00086203">biomedical to recreational legalization</a> in cannabis suggests the need for prudence. Businesses that deal with a substance legalized by the state but still outlawed by the federal government <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/for-the-legal-pot-industry-2018-was-a-gold-rush/">face a variety of elevated costs</a> (for example, they can’t deduct business expenses from their federal taxes and struggle to find willing insurers). The odds of success in the industry are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/us/new-gold-rush-legal-marijuana-feeds-entrepreneurs-dreams.html">stacked toward large corporate entities</a> with money to blow. “We have to go slow to go fast,” Clark told me. “That is a huge lesson from cannabis, and with psychedelics, there’s even more reason to go slow at the beginning. It’s the foundational stages that matter the most because of these huge, important, intersectional issues.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4ltIiU">
The current moment presents an opportunity to engage deep representation and participation from all stakeholders of psychedelic drugs and sacred plant medicines alike. Colonial tensions are <a href="https://doubleblindmag.com/colonialism-by-another-name/">baked into the psychedelic renaissance</a>, but movements to <a href="https://neo.life/2020/10/inside-the-movement-to-decolonize-psychedelic-pharma/">decolonize the industry</a> can elevate a commitment to equity while helping to expand the conversation around different models of access.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N1Fr9x">
These Indigenous approaches vary by culture and place, but generally share a few themes. First, as Clark explained, psychedelics are not seen as substances you “take,” like an aspirin or an antidepressant, but as entities that you enter into relationship with. “It’s a deep and sacred relationship, grounded in veneration and relationality.” Second, many Indigenous models could not be carried out on a solo trip inside a cozy doctor’s office, isolated from larger communities of practice.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FuvFo8">
Finally, many Indigenous models <a href="https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/4/1/article-p16.xml?body=contentSummary-13617">do not recognize a distinction between therapeutic and spiritual</a>. Illness and one’s existential relationship to the self and the world go hand in hand. The idea that you could extract the therapeutic mechanism from the spiritual context is seen as a peculiarly Western conceit.
</p>
<h3 id="zXtwJY">
Next stop on the trip
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="utHGKQ">
President Biden’s administration <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/07/26/mdma-psilocybin-fda-ptsd/">expects</a> the Food and Drug Administration to approve MDMA and psilocybin for treating PTSD and depression, respectively, within the next year or two. This would increase pressure on the DEA to reschedule the drugs, which are currently categorized as Schedule I substances “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” This status — widely <a href="https://law.lclark.edu/live/files/28626-lcb233article3marlanwebsite.pdf">considered out of touch</a> with current research — restricts access to the substances, creating a <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-strategy-for-rescheduling-psilocybin/">major barrier</a> to further studies and to those who could benefit from their use.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UzTS43">
With or without rescheduling, the flurry of state bills for psychedelic access is <a href="https://doubleblindmag.com/psychedelic-reform-2023/">likely</a> to continue. One <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2799268?guestAccessKey=79ab936f-438c-477b-8947-d96a8cd3abe5">study</a> based on cannabis legalization trends predicts that a majority of states will legalize psychedelics in the next 14 years. Whether these legal models will open up access for a wider range of potential benefits (and risks) or reinforce the conditions to explore only a narrow, more manageable band of their potential is still up for grabs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LXQe2r">
So what could legalization efforts that extend access beyond psychiatry look like? It would require a diversity of sets and settings, not just clinical trials or government-approved cozy rooms. It requires a diversity of participants, beyond privileged subgroups who can afford access to expensive services. And it needs an equal investment in <a href="https://harmreduction.org/about-us/principles-of-harm-reduction/">harm reduction</a> alongside benefit maximization.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hja8oo">
Doblin has <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/rick-doblin-interview-where-the-psychedelic-revolution-is-headed">sketched</a> one idea: licensed legalization. Think of it like getting your driver’s license but for buying psychedelics. Once you are a certain age, you would become eligible for a supervised psychedelic experience at a licensed facility — a sort of initiation ritual where you learn the ropes. Perhaps there’s a written portion to ensure basic knowledge. Afterward, you receive a license that allows you to purchase psychedelics for use however you see fit. The license could be revoked for any number of infractions, just as we do for drunk drivers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TE8hMU">
Advocates for this sort of regulated legalization still lack answers for how to keep purchasing costs down — one reason that some support decriminalization, where personal cultivation could afford cheaper access. The <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2021/04/30/state-legal-cannabis-companies-pays-insane-tax-rates-thanks-to-a-minnesota-speed-dealer/?sh=5adde87f1008">cannabis legalization experience</a> shows how dealing in Schedule I substances entails regulatory compliances and tax burdens that drive up the price.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3hK1hz">
Costs aside, there’s still a bumpy road to licensed legalization. There is no getting around the fact that lowering barriers to access can raise the risk of harm, and <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.645246/full">safety measures in clinical settings</a> are better developed than those for communities new to the drugs. Nor are there established business models for psychedelics that ensure <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667193X22002277?via%3Dihub=&amp;utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email">benefit sharing</a> with Indigenous communities.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xyc8f8">
Experiments are underway, though, like Journey Colab’s “<a href="https://www.journeycolab.com/the-journey-colab-reciprocity-trust">Reciprocity Trust,</a>” where they designate 10 percent of their founding equity to cycle back into Indigenous communities and other stakeholders working on equitable access. Finally, rising demand from widespread access would <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/us/toad-venom-psychedelic.html">deepen exploitative pressures</a> on the ecosystems where psychedelics grow. <a href="https://www.lucid.news/scientists-create-cell-based-psychedelic-toad-venom-a-potential-5-meo-dmt-bio-factory/">Synthetic alternatives</a> developed in <a href="https://files.csp.org/open.pdf">the spirit of open science</a> could help. But whether synthetic alternatives are as effective as their naturally occurring counterparts <a href="https://psychedelicreview.com/the-entourage-effect-in-magic-mushrooms/">remains under-studied</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dLgsVw">
Whatever rationale — or concern — one leans toward, a broader approach to psychedelics offers something that’s otherwise hard to come by. Disturbances in ordinary experience are easy to spot, like measuring the brain’s electrical activity. But how much richer ordinary experience itself can be is a camouflaged question that seldom arises unprovoked.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ImVbAk">
Psychedelics are one way of bringing the construction of ordinary consciousness into view, wherever one falls on <a href="https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm/educational-resources/assessment-measures">a diagnostic rating scale</a> of mental disorders. But regulatory environments and models of access are part of the wider set and setting that shapes or constrains psychedelic experiences. Hopefully, the burgeoning post-prohibition world for psychedelics won’t remain boxed in by lab coats and psychiatry alone, and we won’t deprive ourselves of the strange, fascinating, sometimes risky, and meaningful views a wider approach to psychedelics can offer.
</p></li>
<li><strong>Elon Musk won’t stop tweeting his way into trouble</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/b7mqf3iH6jxHYRNVCfsGNsDgJhQ=/292x0:6356x4548/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72298056/GettyImages_1255040491.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Twitter owner Elon Musk at a meeting with the French Minister for the Economy and Finances in Versailles, France. | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Musk’s week of conspiracy theories, explained.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lVmTbc">
Despite <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/05/elon-musk-twitter-george-soros-antisemitism-1235369376/">criticism for continuing to</a> engage with conspiracy theories, <a href="https://www.vox.com/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> is posting through it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y1Nwwv">
In the past five days, Musk has doubled down on a conspiracy theory about <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1655977617583898637">the Allen, Texas, shooter</a>; <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1658294821679951872?s=20">tweeted</a> that billionaire philanthropist George Soros (who has long been the target of antisemitic <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/us/politics/george-soros-bragg-trump.html">conspiracy theories </a>online) wants to “erode the very fabric of civilization” and “hates humanity;” and promoted <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1659254437293039624">a quickly debunked rumor</a> that falsely claimed Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz was related to the founder of the Internet Archive.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fuZF5f">
When <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/16/cnbc-exclusive-cnbc-transcript-elon-musk-sits-down-with-cnbcs-david-faber-live-on-cnbc-tonight-.html">CNBC reporter David Faber</a> asked Musk about his promotion of conspiracy theories in a live interview on May 16, Musk acknowledged that he does support these theories, like the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, because “some of these conspiracy theories” like the Hunter Biden laptop story “have turned out to be true.” When Faber pressed Musk about whether his promotion of conspiracy theories is hurting <a href="https://www.vox.com/twitter">Twitter</a>’s reputation with advertisers, Musk was defiant.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="An5HN9">
“I’ll say what I want to say, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it,” said the billionaire.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NJEXiV">
Musk’s argument is that because conspiracy theories can sometimes be true, it’s okay to entertain them. Musk is correct that the Hunter Biden laptop <a href="https://www.vox.com/22992772/hunter-biden-laptop">story did turn out to be real</a>, even though many in the media questioned its initial veracity. Twitter, the company Musk now owns, even <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/10/14/21516194/hunter-biden-new-york-post-facebook-twitter-removed">controversially blocked</a> the New York Post story breaking the news. It’s also true, as my colleague Zack Beauchamp <a href="https://www.vox.com/23665035/trump-indictment-soros-backed-anti-semitism-george">has explained</a>, that there can be valid, non-antisemitic reasons to criticize powerful figures like Soros.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bAdKhL">
But many of the conspiracy theories Musk has promoted to his 140 million Twitter followers have proven false. And some argue there’s potential danger in Musk spreading misinformation or heated rhetoric. The way Musk characterizes Soros, for example, stands to “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/16/business/elon-musk-george-soros/index.html">embolden extremists</a>,” according to Anti-Defamation League president Jonathan Greenblatt. Musk accused Greenblatt of defaming him and vehemently denied he’s personally antisemitic, saying “if anything” that he’s “pro-semite,” in the recent CNBC interview.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mq43wm">
Let’s clarify right out the gate that Musk has a First Amendment right to say what he wants, with some limited legal exceptions. And as the owner of Twitter, a private company, he has the final word on what speech is or isn’t allowed on Twitter. But because Musk is the leader of the platform and one of the richest, most influential people in the world, his actions have consequences, both tangible and symbolic. Moreover, Musk’s tweets serve as a hindrance to the very real challenges Twitter faces to win back more advertisers who have left the brand, in large part over concerns about Musk’s behavior.
</p>
<h3 id="0Tx0IJ">
A closer look at Musk’s “flirting” with conspiracy theories
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1mZghW">
Musk’s engagement with conspiracy theories in recent weeks hasn’t been direct. He’s been described as <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/elon-musk-conspiracy-theory-texas-mall-shooter-1234732103/">“flirting” with these theories</a>, oftentimes replying to a conspiracy theory tweet rather than directly tweeting it himself. He’s often taken a “just asking questions” approach, especially on subjects where there’s an information void.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u3v26t">
For example, the week of the recent Texas shooting, early coverage of the incident, including that of open source intelligence research group Bellingcat, claimed that the suspected shooter was a white supremacist, based in part on his social media activity. Soon after, Musk jumped into the fray. He responded to a cartoon meme posted by an account called “The Redheaded libertarian” that raised questions about whether the <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/11/allen-texas-shooting-mauricio-garcia">suspected shooter, who is of Hispanic origin</a>, could really be a neo-Nazi, and whether his account on a Russian social media app was legitimate.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NF3Tm7">
“Didn’t the story come from <span class="citation" data-cites="bellingcat">@bellingcat</span>, which literally specializes in psychological operations? I don’t want to hurt their feelings, but this is either the weirdest story ever or a very bad psyop!” <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1655977617583898637">Musk replied</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EjRVeT">
Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins has <a href="https://time.com/5943393/bellingcat-eliot-higgins-interview/">long denied theories</a> about his organization <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/feb/20/eliot-higgins-people-accuse-me-of-working-for-the-cia">having ulterior motives</a>, saying in a past interview that its contributors are just “people with laptops and free time.” But even if you don’t believe Higgins or Bellingcat on the subject of the Texas shooter, you don’t have to take their word for it. That’s because <a href="https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/fbi-texas-dps-give-update-on-allen-outlet-mass-shooting-16545654">Texas law enforcement confirmed</a> on May 9, the same day Musk posted his initial tweet casting doubt on the shooter’s white supremacist ties, that the suspected shooter had “Neo-nazi” ideation as confirmed by patches and tattoos on his body.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DdKHqb">
Despite this additional evidence, Musk <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/16/cnbc-exclusive-cnbc-transcript-elon-musk-sits-down-with-cnbcs-david-faber-live-on-cnbc-tonight-.html">doubled down on his disbelief</a> about the shooter’s ideology a week later in the CNBC interview, saying there is “no proof” that the shooter was a white supremacist. Either Musk doesn’t know about or is choosing not to mention law enforcement’s account here. That doesn’t mean there’s never reason to question public officials’ account of a crime, but Musk didn’t do that here; he just avoided acknowledging a notable piece of evidence that contradicts his theory.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="j7d0bc">
Race and crime seem to be points of particular interest for Musk. Last week, he replied to a tweet that contained a chart claiming to show that Black-on-white crime is higher than that of other categories of crime by race. Many have criticized the chart for being skewed, but Musk seemed to endorse it. “Odd, why would the media misrepresent the real situation to such an extreme degree?” <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1654742285844635648">Musk tweeted</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hBIHWx">
Others <a href="https://boingboing.net/2023/05/15/explaining-the-deceptive-meme-elon-musk-used-to-whine-about-media-treatment-of-white-people.html">have said</a> that the chart Musk is referencing is misleading because it’s adjusted for percentage of the population: Because white people account for a larger percentage of the US population, it makes sense that they are victims of crime in larger numbers. Also, the chart didn’t include <a href="https://twitter.com/kareem_carr/status/1655614530163204097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1655614530163204097%7Ctwgr%5E4f44fa18288438e6da50076f1a11c24c5c550ffe%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fboingboing.net%2F2023%2F05%2F15%2Fexplaining-the-deceptive-meme-elon-musk-used-to-whine-about-media-treatment-of-white-people.html">white-on-white crime</a>, which is among the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053811/white-on-white-murder">highest buckets of crime</a> broken down by race in the US.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="O7u5Rt">
As with many of Musk’s conspiracy-theory-flirting tweets, when put together, we start to see a fuller picture emerge: a specific grievance. In this case, it’s how the media portrays race and crime.
</p>
<h3 id="KicIYD">
What’s going on with Twitter and Musk’s businesses
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oYqHe7">
It’s notable that Musk is tweeting controversial tweets during a particularly critical moment for the future of Twitter.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HRf0nn">
The company has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/10/tech/twitter-top-advertiser-decline/index.html">lost more than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers</a> since Musk took over in November, according to January data from analytics company SensorTower. Some major companies, like <a href="https://www.vox.com/disney">Disney</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/amazon">Amazon</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/apple">Apple</a>, have continued to spend money on the platform, and Musk has said other advertisers are coming back. But he’ll need more advertisers in his corner if he wants to turn Twitter’s business around.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N4mMuu">
Musk announced last week that former NBCUniversal advertising executive <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/5/11/23720327/elon-musk-new-twitter-ceo-linda-yaccarino">Linda Yaccarino will be replacing him</a> as CEO. Given her street cred in the advertising industry, she’s seen as someone who can help repair Twitter’s reputation with major brands.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BWcTrf">
“If anyone can do it, it’s Linda,” one advertising executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told me last week. It looks as though Yaccarino has already managed to help bolster Twitter’s image with GroupM, one of the top advertising agencies in the world. The agency, which is owned by WPP, had designated Twitter <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1412d474-bd47-40be-a0a8-7f349b10e997">as a “high-risk” company</a> for its clients to advertise with, but, according to the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1412d474-bd47-40be-a0a8-7f349b10e997">Financial Times</a>, recently removed the designation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RYMvxp">
If Musk’s tweets were gaining him positive attention or drawing attention away from some other, bigger issue, you could say his tweets serve as a useful distraction or a savvy way of gaining free media coverage. Instead, Musk’s behavior is self-destructive. His controversial tweets could exacerbate the most pressing problem with Twitter: its relationship with advertisers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RpbWki">
Musk’s continued conspiracy theory flirtation threatens to stymie any progress Twitter is making on that front. Back in November, Musk’s tweet promoting a conspiracy theory about the violent attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/3/23/23651151/twitter-advertisers-elon-musk-brands-revenue-fleeing">was seen as one of the turning points</a> for many advertising industry insiders in their assessment about whether or not to continue advertising on Twitter.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UtP9pT">
It’s clear that Musk’s repeated promotion of conspiracy theories has real consequences for his business. If there’s a deeper reason for why Musk continues to promote these theories despite the consequences — beyond merely saying what he wants to say — is anyone’s guess. Whatever the reasoning, Musk is posting through the firestorm and getting all kinds of attention for it. Maybe that alone is worth the trouble.
</p></li>
<li><strong>Catalytic converters are being stolen in record numbers. Here’s why.</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A view beneath a car of a new catalytic converter being welded on." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/j5t2TaEedTcE235R0UCCUcwRYM4=/458x0:5163x3529/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72297999/1408111742.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The nationwide epidemic of catalytic converter thefts, explained.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hNTT0z">
When Josy turned the ignition on her 2010 Prius one morning this February, she heard an unsettling rattle coming from underneath her car. Her girlfriend, Glory, unfortunately knew the sound all too well.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fbrMId">
Once again, thieves had targeted the cars parked at Glory’s Indianapolis apartment complex, searching for catalytic converters — the valuable, canister-like part of the car responsible for transforming harmful emissions into less-polluting gas. Glory, a 23-year-old librarian, already had her “cat” stolen from her 2016 Kia Sportage twice, once in April 2021 and another time in March 2022. Now it was Josy’s turn.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fVSblS">
Glory and Josy — whose last names are being withheld to protect their privacy — are not alone. From San Diego to Boston, nationwide catalytic converter thefts appear to be at a historic high. Insurance claims for these thefts increased from 16,660 claims in 2020 to 64,701 in 2022, according to <a href="https://www.nicb.org/catalytic-converter-thefts-surge-nationwide-according-new-report">the National Insurance Crime Bureau’s latest report</a> released last week.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uYbaF63QfwILayO-FKvIt6rR3vY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24666260/Screen_Shot_2023_05_18_at_12.01.46_PM.png"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c7Qj2N">
At first glance, catalytic converters seem like a weirdly specific part to steal. But there’s a reason for that — they’re rich in precious metals, such as platinum, palladium, and rhodium. A thief can earn a couple hundred bucks from a typical catalytic converter. (In the US, secondhand converters <a href="https://autorecyclingworld.com/should-online-marketplaces-ban-the-sale-of-used-catalytic-converters/#:~:text=In%20the%20USA%2C%20the%20EPA,into%20the%20automotive%20circular%20economy.">aren’t reused in cars</a>. Rather, these parts eventually end up at refineries that process the metal.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DqYtPU">
The thefts are brazen and can occur in under 90 seconds, and have even taken place in broad daylight. Police historically have had a hard time tracking thefts because it’s near impossible to identify catalytic converters once they’re stolen. In some rare cases, when someone has caught a thief red-handed, it has <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/data/2021/10/chaotic-scene-at-site-of-suspected-catalytic-converter-theft-led-to-death-of-christina-gomez-24-family-says.html">ended</a> <a href="https://abc7news.com/oakland-shooting-everett-avenue-ca-catalytic-converter-theft-man-killed-in/12294197/">in</a> <a href="https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/texas-deputy-dies-in-shootout-with-suspected-catalytic-converter-thieves/2929620/">bloodshed</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wZFT5N">
It can cost up to thousands of dollars and weeks of waiting to get a converter replaced. Like any other car part, catalytic converters are specific to the make and model of the car. (While most cars have one catalytic converter, some have two and others can have up to four.) If you have an <a href="https://www.vox.com/electric-vehicles">electric vehicle</a>, you’re in luck — only combustion cars and hybrid vehicles have catalytic converters.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3JXGOj">
It’s easy to write off these thefts as random acts that occasionally get featured on the 11 o’clock news. But the scale is much, much bigger than that. Last November, the Department of Justice cracked down on a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-takedown-nationwide-catalytic-converter-theft-ring">$545 million nationwide theft ring</a>. Law enforcement arrested 21 people and seized “millions of dollars in assets, including homes, bank accounts, cash, and luxury vehicles.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XuH6Iu">
If neighborhood listservs, local news segments, and frustrated tweets are to be believed, it’s likely that 2023 will continue to see higher than normal numbers. Drivers can take some steps to deter theft — more on those below — but the problem has gotten to a point where lawmakers and car manufacturers have to act.
</p>
<h3 id="Sn2RvN">
What is a catalytic converter anyway?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kN2XKh">
The science behind your catalytic converter is nothing short of incredible.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o94Owd">
Crudely put, a catalytic converter is a small loaf-sized metal tube under your car that takes the gasses produced from your engine and makes them less harmful to the environment. If you crack it open, the insides resemble a honeycomb. Those insides — usually composed of platinum, palladium, and rhodium, alongside some other metals — are what chemically “converts” that gas.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A new catalytic converter. It looks a bit like a crude, oblong robot head." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aR6zXOE7NTuyHLp3Z5eE9k0yK4k=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24666241/1408112449.jpg"/> <cite>Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PgzEKz">
Let’s zoom out for a system-wide view. You’ve probably heard of a 4- or 8-cylinder engine. Every time you start your engine, thousands of tiny combustions in each of those cylinders give your car the energy to move, explained Talena Handley, a California-based mechanic and owner of <a href="https://www.girliegarage.com/">Girlie Garage</a>, a car education organization for women.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dwmKEG">
Those mini-combustions also create fumes that need some way to exit the engine. Your converter takes those fumes and transforms them into nitrogen, carbon dioxide, water, and oxygen. Then the exhaust travels through the muffler and out the tailpipe.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bJAL8v">
Before the invention of the catalytic converter, cars simply just … let those unchanged fumes into the atmosphere. It wasn’t until the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/evolution-clean-air-act#:~:text=The%20enactment%20of%20the%20Clean,industrial)%20sources%20and%20mobile%20sources.">EPA passed the Clean Air Act in 1970</a> that vehicle emissions were regulated in the US. By 1975, most cars had to be equipped with a catalytic converter in order to meet those emission goals. (A fun unintended consequence of that legislation? The widespread adoption of catalytic converters forced companies to <a href="https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/eugene-houdry">remove lead</a> from gasoline since it can damage the converter. By 1986, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/leaded-gasoline-phase-out#:~:text=The%20world%20started%20adding%20lead,toxic%20pollutant%20%E2%80%93%20particularly%20for%20children">lead was fully eliminated</a> from gasoline in the US.)
</p>
<h3 id="g9gWub">
The crime uptick and how these thefts happen
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WX1foe">
One of the questions surrounding the meteoric rise in catalytic converter theft is “Why now?” The answer, as you may have guessed, has something to do with changes in the supply chain wrought by the pandemic.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hNXYQN">
Platinum, palladium, and rhodium are all scarce metals that have to be mined. Rhodium, the most rare and valuable of the three, is mined mostly in South Africa, followed by <a href="https://www.vox.com/russia">Russia</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PK8MPt">
Although thefts slowly began creeping up in 2019, they grew in 2020 and boomed in 2021 mostly because of the pandemic, the experts I spoke with told me. Like everywhere else in the world, workers couldn’t mine, process, and ship these metals due to restrictions. And if they did, it’s likely there were other hurdles and disruptions along the supply chain.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tM1BEf">
The fact that people weren’t <a href="https://newsroom.aaa.com/2021/07/travel-before-and-during-covid-july-2021/">driving their cars as often</a> during the beginning of the pandemic combined with higher valuations for these metals created a perfect storm to incentivize catalytic converter theft.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="S1WYQc">
“There’s other people who are illegally enjoying the ride saying, ‘Okay, if these precious metals are up high, we’re going to go and take them,’” says Donovan Bates, the owner of <a href="https://www.scrapcatprices.com/about-catalytic-converter-recycling/">DMV Recycling</a>, a metal recycling company based in Virginia. He buys converters from both individuals and mechanic shops, and then later sells to a refinery.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UFdWnEyD1ABbec7cxRoCtb9lRCo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24667055/Screen_Shot_2023_05_18_at_4.54.28_PM.png"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0m1A51">
Catalytic converters range in price, depending on the year, make, and model. Those that have more precious metals — like hybrid cars, such as the Toyota Prius — are more likely to be targeted. According to the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-07/catalytic-converter-theft-toyota-prius-old">Los Angeles Times</a>, the Prius is the number one hit car in the West (and California the number one state for thefts, per the NICB), with its <a href="https://www.gearist.com/toyota-prius-catalytic-converter-theft-and-prevention/">two catalytic converters</a> running up to a grand each, making it a double whammy for thieves.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bzu0qM">
Other cars that are likely to be hit include <a href="https://newjersey.news12.com/police-catalytic-converters-stolen-from-meals-on-wheels-vehicles">fleet vehicles</a> (such as USPS trucks, school buses, and even <a href="https://www.motortrend.com/news/oscar-mayer-wienermobile-catalytic-converter-theft/">Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobile</a>, which tend to sit unmonitored in lots when not in use) and anything with a higher clearance, including trucks and SUVs. Since these vehicles have more room under them, it’s easier for thieves to slip underneath, slice the converter out, and slide out undetected.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2xlnf8">
(It doesn’t always go smoothly — in <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/palmdale-catalytic-converter-thief-fatally-run-over-investigators-say/">February</a>, an unsuspecting driver of a Ford Excursion in California had been asleep in a retail parking lot when a thief crawled under and began sawing. Awoken by the sound, the driver accidentally <a href="https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/catalytic-converter-theft-suspect-run-over-and-killed-in-palmdale/3097074/">ran over the thief</a>, killing them.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GIVnIr">
Thieves usually operate in teams, according to Handley and Bates. Give a team an hour, and rows of cars in a parking lot will get hit. All it takes is an electric saw or other metal-cutting tool.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Byk1UB">
After a cat is stolen, you’re at a greater risk of getting hit again once you’ve replaced it, said Handley. “Because then they know that you’re vulnerable and they know you’re going to fix it,” she explained. “And if your car is still sitting in your driveway a month later with a new catalytic converter, that new catalytic converter actually has more fresh material in it. They’re going to hit you again.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wzdf3P">
The number of catalytic converters a thief has in their possession matters. Each converter only has a tiny amount of precious metals, so it’s much more worthwhile to steal dozens, if not hundreds. In the US, most thieves will sell converters to several metal recyclers or scrap yards that aren’t checking for identification.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u8bbDx">
These middlemen, Bates says, will pay an individual or entity up front for a converter, and then sell to a refinery once they’ve accumulated enough worth selling. (To be clear, Bates’s company does track drivers and business licenses.) Because the processing machines are gigantic and require at least 2,000 pounds worth of material, most shops will need to sell around 800 converters at a time. Then the converters are crushed into dust and refined. The precious metals are then separated, sold to a final end user, and later recycled into new converters, dental fillings, jewelry, you name it.
</p>
<h3 id="aKPIfQ">
How to protect yourself from catalytic converter theft
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ocuT7n">
Beyond the typical safety tips of parking in a secure<strong> </strong>garage or in a well-lit place, there are a few steps you can take to give yourself an extra layer of protection.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UXYtWA">
The first thing you can do is contact your insurance company and see whether upgrading or changing your coverage makes sense for your needs. I spoke with several victims across the country, and the amount they paid for a replacement was contingent on their policy. It might mean you have a higher bill each month, but if you have a car that’s heavily targeted, don’t have a garage to park in, or live in an area that has had a spike in theft, it’s worth looking into.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OHg1th">
Lyssa, a 39-year-old school teacher in Oakland, upgraded her insurance after her 2005 Toyota Highlander was hit three times in 2022. It wasn’t just her; her husband’s 2012 Prius was hit in 2020. At the time, they decided to take the buyout from their insurance instead of paying the $1,000 co-pay to replace the Prius’s converter. When the Highlander’s converter was cut out the first two times in September,<strong> </strong>they replaced it each time.<strong> </strong>But after round three, it was time to get better insurance (and an anti-theft cable welded to the converter <strong>— </strong>more on this below).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OQ3jck">
“It can be a really painful realization if you get the cheap insurance, like one of my coworkers did, and then lose your catalytic converter and then find out that you don’t have any coverage for that,” she says. “So you actually have to pay for the whole $3,000. Which, you know, if you’re driving an old Camry, that’s more than your car is worth.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="95pvaq">
On the deterrence front, regardless of what model car you have, Handley recommends talking to your mechanic to install a “<a href="https://www.getcatsecurity.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjwq-WgBhBMEiwAzKSH6Aoku6N3TjH1kjG13DbvmSPXVtPQl3Vqe-yvYRHiNf2earUZMM-qghoCN3kQAvD_BwE">cat shield</a>,” which is a sheet of metal that covers where the converter is. They range from $50-$500 (as with everything, the make and model of your car affect the price). Other options include <a href="https://www.napaonline.com/accessories/catclamp-catalytic-converter-lock/1cf1ab01?cid=paidsearch_shopping_dcoe_google&amp;utm_source=google&amp;utm_medium=organic&amp;utm_campaign=organicshopping&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwq-WgBhBMEiwAzKSH6Jg41STpdCW5qrOFO-rluG_U0dgfWR6pQm82p5bwkDQhhTCFevrr-hoCDmMQAvD_BwE&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds">cables</a> that are similar to what you would see for a bike lock — those are a bit more affordable, but easier to break.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qEDQoD">
“The reason the cat shield actually deters people is because it takes a really long time and it’s very noisy,” Handley said. “It takes a longer time to cut through it, so if you have to linger to cut through it, you have a higher chance of attracting attention. If they’re really determined, they’ll still do it, though.”
</p>
<div id="QRHqvj">
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jlDVF5">
The next course of action is etching your vehicle identification number (VIN) onto your catalytic converter, says Bates, the metal recycler. As mentioned above, converters don’t come that way. Recyclers who see an etched converter may be less likely to buy it, but it won’t stop a thief from stealing it. One company is creating <a href="https://www.mastergard.com/catetch-labels">VIN stickers and a database</a> to track, but it’s not widely used among recyclers, Bates says.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RycJIx">
“The real problem is that we don’t have a good infrastructure in place to stop catalytic converter theft,” Bates said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ckDfsn">
He argues that either a state-based or federal government database for catalytic converters that is easily accessible for recyclers and repair shops could work. Manufacturers first would need to engrave VINs onto converters as part of their process to ease the cost and mental burden on drivers, but if there was a searchable database that allowed legal transfer of ownership, it would save a lot of headaches.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ivpx76">
Sergeant Bob Carson of the Houston Police Department confirmed that identification is difficult for police, too. “If I stopped you with five catalytic converters in your car,” he said. “I couldn’t connect you to any specific vehicle.” Sometimes, he added, his reports could match a converter to the cut under your vehicle, but that is very uncommon.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s5kHAy">
The epidemic of thefts has prompted state and municipal governments throughout the country to act. In the past two years, several cities and states have <a href="https://www.quorum.us/spreadsheet/external/ZaGlkxVbSuPmHqbABjjp/">proposed and enacted</a> new laws or amended current ones to help combat theft, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1luYb3">
<a href="https://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/press/2022/Catalytic-Converter-Ordinance.pdf">Houston’s city council passed an ordinance in 2022</a> that requires metal recyclers to check more identification from mechanic shops and individuals, such as a business or driver’s license as well as the car’s VIN. The law came alongside community education programs to allow the secondary market to catch up, says Carson.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VdLgGZ99OB_--6GhZoGmZo6l7c4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24666268/Screen_Shot_2023_05_18_at_12.04.49_PM.png"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3r0rhZ">
Based on preliminary data provided by the Houston Police Department, these initiatives seem to be working. Last year, the city saw 9,637 reported thefts, a jump from 2021’s 7,822 thefts, and 2020’s 1,793. Projected rates for 2023 hover around 4,000 reported thefts. (January and February had fewer than 700 thefts combined.) The Texas State Legislature is also looking to <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/crime/article/catalytic-converter-theft-houston-penalties-17731198.php">make catalytic converter theft a felony</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QPl2Hb">
Should your converter get stolen, it’s advisable to contact your local police department and insurance company right away. Making a report will help give lawmakers and law enforcement a clearer picture of what’s going on in your area, and your insurance may be able to cover the cost of the stolen converter.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kMUUuu">
As for replacing your converter or the whole vehicle, that’s up to you. An older car might have a long wait time for a replacement part and the vehicle’s value may be less than the repair. States that don’t have as strict pollution or aftermarket part regulations may have a shorter wait period for a new converter. When looking for a professional, be sure to call at least three mechanics to price check, says Handley. She urges customers to also get a shield installed immediately after a theft.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3lrVtr">
“There is absolutely no regulation on automotive pricing,” Handley says. “At all. There can be two shops in the same parking lot and they will charge you different prices for the same thing.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X0ZeIR">
In the meantime, stay vigilant. We’ll see if the flurry of legislation and growing awareness begin reversing the nationwide trend.
</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Andhra Pradesh: TDP chief Naidu had done injustice to North Andhra region, allege YSRCP leaders</strong> - ‘Real development of the region began only during the government of Jagan’</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Sriperumbudur cancelled due to unavoidable circumstances: K.S. Alagiri</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>CBI questions Sameer Wankhede for more than 5 hours in cruise drug bust bribery case</strong> - It was his first appearance before the agency after the case was registered against him, an official said</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>APNGOs seek uniform policy on transfers and promotions in Medical and Health Department in Andhra Pradesh</strong> - ‘The government should consider health, age and other issues of employees during transfers’</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Neolithic tool find pushes back Hyderabad’s history</strong> - This is the first time Neolithic tools have been found inside Hyderabad, says historian</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Greek elections: Rail tragedy hangs over vote dominated by dynasties</strong> - Ahead of Sunday’s election, Greece’s worst rail crash is held up as proof of a broken government.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Murder plot trial puts Latvia bank system in focus</strong> - Bank owner Mihails Ulmans denies accusations of involvement in the murder of an insolvency lawyer.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Marian Kocner: Businessman cleared of ordering murders that rocked Slovakia</strong> - Marian Kocner is found innocent in a retrial of arranging the killing of a journalist and his fiancée.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>F-16 fighter jets: Biden to let allies supply warplanes in major boost for Kyiv</strong> - President Biden backs a plan to supply advanced fighter jets and train Ukrainian pilots.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>G7 summit: Zelensky accuses some Arab leaders of ‘blind eye’ to war ahead of Japan trip</strong> - The Ukrainian leader addresses the Arab League ahead of a visit to the G7 in Japan.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Google at I/O 2023: We’ve been doing AI since before it was cool</strong> - Google’s “Code Red” was on full display at I/O, but it felt like AI for AI’s sake. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1938654">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>France is fighting to save your iPhone from an early death</strong> - French prosecutors have launched an investigation into the scourge of planned obsolescence. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1940745">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The chemistry of fermented coffee</strong> - Human “sniffers” described the flavor as “raspberry notes with a hint of rose water.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1938516">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>AT&amp;T tries to block Starlink/T-Mobile plan for satellite-to-phone service</strong> - AT&amp;T and rural telcos say Starlink-fueled phone service would cause interference. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1940732">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>One more dead in horrific eye drop outbreak that now spans 18 states</strong> - Bacteria in the recalled drops are so drug-resistant, docs turn to phage therapy. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1940772">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How many gorillas does it take to change a lightbulb?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Just one.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
But it takes a shitload of lightbulbs.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Canuck647"> /u/Canuck647 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13mlqgc/how_many_gorillas_does_it_take_to_change_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13mlqgc/how_many_gorillas_does_it_take_to_change_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The talented pastor (nsfw)</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Just heard Tom Rawson tell this one (he’s mostly a singer, but he told a couple of jokes too):
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A small-town preacher was proud of his ability to improvise a sermon on any topic, even if he knew nothing about it. He never prepared, just improvised on whatever came to his mind Sunday morning.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
So one Sunday morning he woke up and told his wife, “I’m going to base my sermon today on horseback riding.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“But you don’t know anything about horseback riding!” she said. “I don’t want to watch you embarrass yourself, I’m staying home.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“All right,” he said, and drove to church. On the way there, he began to have second thoughts. He really didn’t know anything about horseback riding … finally he decided to preach a sermon on love and intimacy in marriage.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
It went very well – so well that when one of his congregants saw his wife at the grocery store the next day, she said, “You missed a great sermon yesterday – your husband was on fire! That was the best sermon I’ve ever heard!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
His wife said, “Really? He literally knows nothing about it. In all his life he’s done it just twice – once before we were married, once after – and both times, he fell right off.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/vonhoother"> /u/vonhoother </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13mkto3/the_talented_pastor_nsfw/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13mkto3/the_talented_pastor_nsfw/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A woman was in bed with her lover when she heard her husband opening the front door..</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
In a panic she told her lover “Hurry, stand in the corner. Don’t move until I tell you to. Just shut your eyes and pretend you’re a statue.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
At the moment her husband walked into the room. “What’s this, honey?” he asked.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Oh, it’s just a statue,” she replied nonchalantly. “The Smiths bought one for their bedroom. I liked it so much, I got one for us too.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
They went to sleep and then around three o’clock in the morning the husband got out of bed, went to the kitchen and came back with a sandwich and a glass of milk.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Here,” he said to the statue, “eat something. I stood like an idiot at the Smiths’ for three days and nobody offered me so much as a glass of water.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/HelpingHandsUs"> /u/HelpingHandsUs </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13ltj1p/a_woman_was_in_bed_with_her_lover_when_she_heard/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13ltj1p/a_woman_was_in_bed_with_her_lover_when_she_heard/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What do you call it when you sit on a French baguette?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A pain in the ass.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Bezbozny"> /u/Bezbozny </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13mhuuh/what_do_you_call_it_when_you_sit_on_a_french/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13mhuuh/what_do_you_call_it_when_you_sit_on_a_french/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A girl came into my bookstore and asked “What are the chances you have a book on curing eating disorders with religion?”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Slim to Nun?
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/TheRealSkySky3392"> /u/TheRealSkySky3392 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13m8lgt/a_girl_came_into_my_bookstore_and_asked_what_are/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/13m8lgt/a_girl_came_into_my_bookstore_and_asked_what_are/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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