Month: August 2023

Enlarge / A vial containing Moderna COVID-19 booster vaccine at a vaccination center. (credit: Getty | SOPA Images)

Moderna's updated COVID-19 vaccine provided a "significant boost" in people's neutralizing antibody levels against the latest omicron SARS-CoV-2 subvariants circulating in the US, that is, EG.5 and FL.1.5.1, according to a press release from the company.

The updated booster shot is expected to be authorized and rolled out in the coming weeks.

Moderna, which was reporting its takeaway from preliminary clinical trial data, did not release additional details of the study, including the number of trial participants or the relative increase of neutralizing antibody levels. But the announcement aimed to ease concerns about whether the fall booster will adequately match this season's variants.

Enlarge / Americans bought Renault 5s in the past, can we dare dream they might buy Renault 5 EVs in the future? (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

America needs to end its national love affair with massive cars. It's unlikely to have escaped anyone's attention that our cars, trucks, and SUVs keep getting bigger in each successive generation, a problem exacerbated as most automakers abandon smaller cars entirely in this market.

It's easy to see why carmakers and car dealers like this problem—it's not that much more expensive to build a large car compared to a smaller car, but you can charge a lot more for the bigger one, meaning more profits for them. It's just the rest of us who suffer.

Bigger vehicles cost more, are less efficient, and while they better protect their occupants in a crash, they're much more deadly on the receiving end. Heavier vehicles also wear out roads faster, though the difference between a small sedan and a large electric SUV amounts to very little when compared to the effect of a garbage truck rolling by each morning.

Enlarge / Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel during a Bloomberg Television interview on the closing day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on May 26, 2022. (credit: Getty | Jason Alden)

The CEOs of more than 300 publicly traded health care companies collectively raked in $4 billion last year as Americans struggled under high inflation, according to an analysis by Stat News.

Topping the income chart is the CEO of Moderna, the company that developed one of the leading COVID-19 vaccines in the world—with significant support from US taxpayers and federal scientists.

Moderna's Stéphane Bancel made $398 million in 2022, which equaled the total pay for the next six highest-paid CEOs in the biotech and pharma sector, according to Stat's analysis. It also put Bancel near the top of the income inequality chart, showing Bancel's compensation was 2,435 times more than the median salary of Moderna employees last year.