Tag: Mike Magee

Pandemic Accelerants: Life Under the “New-Normal.”

Mar 8, 2021• 1

By MIKE MAGEE

Confrontation is good. Governor Abbott’s “We are getting out of the business of telling people what they can and cannot do” was “Neanderthal thinking” as President Biden said. Insurrectionist Richard Bennett, whose feet sat on Speaker Pelosi’s desk two month’s ago, does need to cool his jets in jail awaiting trial. And states lagging in immunizing teachers, opening schools, and accelerating their vaccine efforts need to realize that they will be held accountable by voters in the near future.

That is surface turbulence, but quietly below the surface, there are other transformational forces underway fueled by pandemic accelerants.

How long would it have taken under normal circumstances to advance equitable access to broadband and tech devices for all students in America? A decade from now, would we have advanced teacher skills in long-distance learning to the degree we are now witnessing? And how many at-home workers will be willing to return to off-site offices in the near future?

These are just a few of the questions being considering as we return to “normal” or life under the “new-normal.” And while we are all doing our best to cope with the fear and worry that comes with change, most of our collective anxiety is now focused on economic security and jobs.

This past month we added 379,000 jobs. Sounds great, that’s if you ignore the fact that there remain 9.5 million fewer jobs in our economy compared to a year ago, or that first-time jobless claims rose last week. As former Federal Reserve economist Julia Coronado reported, “We’re still in a pandemic economy.”

THCB Gang Episode 45, Thursday March 4, 1pm PT – 4pm ET

Mar 3, 2021

Joining me, Matthew Holt (@boltyboy), on this week’s THCB Gang will be THCB regular writer Kim Bellard (@kimbbellard), medical historian Mike Magee (@drmikemagee), policy & tech expert Vince Kuraitis (@VinceKuraitis), patient safety expert and all around wit Michael Millenson (@MLMillenson), and consumer expert and current President of the Medical Board of California, Denise Pines.

Vaccines at warp speed, some “Neanderthal” state governors opening up, but also a pandemic bill passes the house with some health policy implications. Plus lots of fun and games in the world of digital health and startup health plans. We should have something to discuss!

You can see the video below live and the audio will be on our podcast channel (Apple/Spotify) from Friday

Moderna’s “Secret Sauce”

Mar 2, 2021

By MIKE MAGEE

This week J&J gained FDA approval for their 1-shot COVID vaccine, leading optimists like Pfizer Board member, Scott Gottlieb, to predict that we will have 100 million shots out there by the end of April, and on-demand offerings for the general public. In the race toward herd immunity, we could easily ignore a revolutionary change in pharmaceutical design and manufacturing occurring under our noses.

Case in point: Moderna – subject of a recent case study by Marco Iansiti, Karim Lakhani, Hannah Mayer, and Kerry Herman in the Harvard Business Review.

Moderna – labeled by its CEO as “a technology company that happens to do biology” – was founded in 2010, with $5.1 billion in venture capital backing, “designed from the ground up as a digital biotech company with a factory for in-house manufacturing capabilities.” Up to this point, as they entered their 11^th year, they had not brought a single product to market.

Moderna was the child born of Cambridge-based Flagship, run by Noubar Afeyan, an MIT bioengineer and world leader in bio-instumentation. His raison d’etre was “radical innovation.” He not only wanted to do big things, but do them faster than anyone else. As he said, “Asking ‘What if?’ questions propels you far into the future. It may be unrealistic or overly optimistic, but that’s how radical innovation happens.”

To accomplish this outsized ambition, he invested in a four-step process:

1. Generate break-through innovation hypotheses (what-if’s).

2. Explore the hypothesis. If it looks good, set-up a prototype company.

3. If initials prove out, go permanent with a New Company.

4. If promising, spin it off as a Growth Company.

Wiping the Sleep From Our Eyes: The Pandemic Plan Trump Ignored

Feb 25, 2021• 2

By MIKE MAGEE

When awakening from a long sleep, there is a transition period, when the brain struggles momentarily to become oriented, to “think straight.” When the sleep has extended four years, as with the Trump reign, it takes longer to clear the sleepy lies from your eyes.

We are emerging, but it will take time and guidance. This week President Biden and our First Lady showed us the way. As we together observed the startling passage of a half million dead, many needlessly, from the pandemic, the President gave us a crash course on grief. He compared it to entering a “black hole”, and acknowledged that whether you “held the hand” as your loved one passed on, or were unable (by logistics or regulation) to be there to offer comfort, time would heal. “You have to believe me, honey!”, as he is so prone to say.

As important, we saw the First Lady, without fanfare or concious need for attention, at one moment, draw close to him, as she sensed that he was about to be overcome by his own sadness, and place her hand simply on his back, patting him gently, knowing that this was enough to get him through. She, by then, had done this many times before.

And we saw the Vice President and her husband, across from the first couple, there only for support. This was neither a speaking role or super-ceremonial. It was humble. It was supportive. It was human, and far away from a predecessor who for four years had to fawn, and lie, and grovel to satisfy his Commander-in-Chief.

THCB Gang Episode 43, Thursday Feb 18, 1pm PT – 4pm ET

Feb 17, 2021

THCB Gang was broadcast live on Thurs Feb 18

Joining me, Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) were THCB regular writer Kim Bellard (@kimbbellard), patient advocates Grace Cordovano (@GraceCordovano) and Robin Farmanfarmaian (@Robinff3), newly-minted VC Marcus Whitney @marcuswhitney, and medical historian Mike Magee @drmikemagee.

We touched on the impact of the extremes of global warming on health! And in a pandemic nonetheless!. Plus the wild world of SPACs, more funding for mental health, and the sausage making of health care’s place in the upcoming stimulus bill. But I’m not sure the group is ready for the big policy move that the pandemic may give us the opportunity to pursue! A great conversation nonetheless.

The video is below but if you’d rather listen to the episode, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels.

Modern Day “Victory Gardens” – Planting the Seeds for Covid Vaccination Success

Feb 12, 2021• 2

By MIKE MAGEE

In the wake of Pearl Harbor, FDR found our nation ill-prepared for war. He lacked manpower and tools. In response, he took deliberative action with the support of Congress, drafting soldiers and redirecting supply chains toward weapons of war. Compliance was requested, then demanded. Those industries that served, including Pfizer with penicillin production, benefited in the short and long-term.

FDR not only harnessed the power of industry and science, and ramped up the military, but also asked every family and every community to participate in the war effort. Community volunteering soared, and sacrifice for the public good was the rule, not the exception.

One idea was “victory gardens”, planted in back yards, to allow stressed food manufacturers the ability to focus on meeting the demand to “feed the troops.” These gardens in 1943 provided 1/3 of all the vegetables consumed in the states that year.

President Biden now finds himself in a similar predicament – the need to redirect our vast industrial productive capacity while mobilizing our citizens to both support and participate in vaccination efforts.

Our President and his team understand that interventional and privatized high science is of little avail if that science (in this case vaccines) is unable – by limited supply or logistic ineptitude or the absence of public trust – to find it’s way efficiently and quickly into the arms of our citizens.

Restorative Justice: Don’t Presume “We’re Better Than This”

Jan 21, 2021• 2

By MIKE MAGEE

“We’re better than this” is the common refrain heard from many political leaders following the deadly assault on our democracy on January 6th. We hear empty appeals for blind appeasement from the likes of Kevin McCarthy in the interest of “bringing our country together.” But for those of us who study medical history, pursuing this course takes our nation in exactly the wrong direction.

Rather, the model we must follow is the model of Germany in 1945, or South Africa in 1995. In both cases, strict legal and public accountability (retributive justice) were married with fundamental expansion of universal social services to rebuild confidence and trust in their government’s ability to assure safety and security, and an equal playing field for all of their citizens (restorative justice).

In sorting through the legacy of Hitler’s regime in Germany, the Allied forces established the International Military Tribunal. One of the series of trials, opened on November 19, 1945 in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, delved into egregious examples of medical criminality, including Nazi experimentation on human subjects. These trials are often cited as an example of “retributive justice.” Of 23 defendants, 7 were hanged, 7 acquitted, and the rest given sentences of from 10 years to life in prison.

These judgments were conducted under the direction of U.S. judges and prosecutors and fully compliant with U.S. standards of criminal procedure. Yet another 25 years would pass before any of the 10 agreed-upon medical ethics research standards were integrated into US trial law.

THCB Gang Live Episode 38

Jan 14, 2021

Episode 38 of “The THCB Gang” was live-streamed on Thursday, Jan 14. You can see it below!

Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) was joined by regulars: medical historian Mike Magee @drmikemagee, policy & tech expert Vince Kuraitis (@VinceKuraitis), Consumer advocate & CTO of Carium Health, Lygeia Ricciardi (@Lygeia), Suntra Modern Recovery CEO JL Neptune (@JeanLucNeptune) WTF Health host Jessica DaMassa (@jessdamassa) & fierce patient activist Casey Quinlan (@MightyCasey).

We did indeed touch on that mob riot in the Capitol. We discussed the impeachment, the inauguration, and virtual JPMorgan AND virtual CES and talked about reparations and reconciliation–and how that might influence the whole world of telehealth and primary care. This conversation was wide ranging and fascinating!

If you’d rather listen, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels

No Safe Haven to be Found!

Jan 6, 2021

By MIKE MAGEE

Can you wrestle a collusive, private, profiteering Medical-Industrial Complex to the ground by throwing more private entrepreneurs at it? Apparently not.

The very public collapse of Haven – the widely heralded health joint venture of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase – is a case in point. After three years, it is unclear whether they were a public-spirited triad trying to bathe efficiency into our bizarre employer-based health insurance scheme, or becoming predatory investors in one of the most profitable segments of our national economy.

When launched nameless in January, 2018, most of the focus was on the three amigos – Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, and Jeff Bezos. The linking of hands of the nation’s biggest technology power player, her most revered and respected investor, and her highest ranked financial all star, was impossible to ignore.

What were they up to? No one was quite sure. But there was enough concern about disruption of a sector controlling nearly 1/5 of the American economy that prices of CVS Health, Walmart, Cardinal Health and Express Scripts dove south.

This week, with the announcement of the non-profit joint venture’s collapse, analysts wasted no time piling on. As one said, “Haven had a rocky three years, running up against vague marching orders, a lack of direction, and obstacles inherent to the healthcare landscape.”

But it didn’t start that way. Warren Buffett presented health care that day as “a hungry tapeworm on the American economy.” Jamie Dimon noted that we pay twice as much for poorer quality care than other developed nations. And Jeff Bezos suggested that it was time for PBM’s and insurers to trim their sails.

By the summer of 2018, the three signaled they were seriousby hiring widely acclaimed health leader, Atul Gawande, as their CEO. As Buffett said, “Jamie, Jeff, and I are confident that we have found in Atul the leader who will get this important job done.” It would be another nine months before they could settle on a name for the venture – Haven (as in safe haven for their 1.3 million combined employees).

Women Leaders Increasingly Visible In The Fight Against Covid-19

Nov 19, 2020• 2

By MIKE MAGEE, MD

As we struggle to control a second wave of Covid-19, we are reminded once again of the nurses and doctors who place themselves at risk willingly and consistently. They are struggling uphill with a deeply segmented health care system that chronically rewards the have’s over the have-not’s, and a President clearly intent on creating as much havoc as is humanly possible on the way out the door.

Filling the leadership void this week, we witnessed the unusual appearance on network television of two national leaders from the professions of Nursing and Medicine, Dr. Susan Bailey (President, AMA) and Debbie Hatmaker (Chief Nursing Officer, ANA) appearing in tandem.

The united front presented by these two women leaders was reassuring. They didn’t pull punches, but spoke truth to power, describing the nation’s condition as “very grim” and “quite stark.”

In many ways, their joint appearance was a reflection of a changing reality in communities large and small across America. A Medscape survey released this week found that women’s roles in health care are growing in leaps and bounds. For example, in Family Medicine, close to 40% of the physicians are now women, and they work approximately the same number of hours per week as their male counterparts.

These women doctors are increasingly working in team settings. The majority of Family Physicians (71%) now work within a team that includes either a Nurse Practitioner (NP) or Physician’s Assistant (PA).