The Progress Report: Medical Advancements

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Zachary Karabell: What Could Go Right? I’m Zachary Karabell, the founder of The Progress Network, and this is our progress report, our weekly progress report, where we look at the news you might not have looked at. And when I say we, I mean, Emma Varvaloucas and I. Emma Varvaloucas, who is the executive director of The Progress Network, And when I say we, I really mean Emma Varvaloucas, and then I comment, because she is the one scouring the planet in multiple languages, glyphic, hieroglyphic, cobalt, python, greek, french, german, swahili, you name it, we are looking around the world.

for interesting stories that may not have risen high enough on your collective radar to be noticeable, but which are important or meaningful, or which we think are important or meaningful. The point being, we swim in a sea of news. Much of that news is negative. Much of that news is, if not apocalyptic, then crisis oriented.

And yet there are stories of people who are not. Solving problems, countries moving forward, not just that coda to the evening news. I’m not even sure who still watches the evening news, but apparently people do. Not just that coda story of, the fireman who saved the cat in the tree. But actual stories of meaningful change or meaningful problems that are attracting energy and attention in a way that they hadn’t before.

So not only are some problems being solved, some problems are being identified, which is of course the first step in solving them. So Emma, at the end of what has not really been the dog days of summer, but has certainly been, well, a summer, what’s going on in the world that we should be paying attention to?

Emma Varvaloucas: Yeah, so actually, despite August’s reputation as, slow, slow, slow, not, not much happening, actually, there was a lot going on this week. So the first thing I want to talk about, I just think is really cool. The FDA, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a gel. It’s called trauma gel, so it, does not fix your psychological trauma, unfortunately, perhaps.

Zachary Karabell: I wish.

Emma Varvaloucas: Yeah, we all do, but, it does stop moderate to severe bleeding in, from wounds in literal seconds. They actually developed this specifically for gunshot wounds. if you were to get shot, hopefully it won’t, but if you were to get shot right now in this world of very advanced technological and medical innovations, what you would do to stop the bleeding is basically, stuff it with gauze.

so it’s, it’s high time, I think, for an update. And this gel, they, they originally did like a prototype for animals and that was cleared some years ago. And then they did another one that was for minor cuts, which was cleared last year, relatively recently. And now they have this new one. So, other than, maybe appearing by the side of a medic or in a hospital soon, for obvious reasons, the Department of Defense is very much so interested in the product.

And the article that I read this from, I think it was Fast Company. They had a great little, detail here. It has the color and texture Hummus. So just imagine, I guess, getting shot and then rubbing some hummus on it. Instead of rubbing some dirt on it, rubbing some hummus.

Zachary Karabell: I mean, I was actually going to complain saying that trauma gel could use a better title, just for marketing purposes.

That being said, if it could be confused with hummus and you had something written trauma gel all over it to prevent people from inadvertently eating it, with chips or carrots, that’s probably a good thing, because it would probably be pretty traumatic to eat the trauma gel.

Emma Varvaloucas: Yeah, I mean, luckily, it’s probably unlikely we’re going to be storing it in our fridge or our cabinets anytime soon, but yes.

Zachary Karabell: You never know. You never know. All right, so we’ll look for a better, we’ll look for a better marketing moniker on trauma gel, but that’s pretty cool. I mean, it’s the kind of thing you saw in science fiction movies before, right? You just spray something or. Slather something and suddenly, you’re all healed.

I guess this doesn’t heal you, but it definitely keeps things in check.

Emma Varvaloucas: Yeah. I mean, I cut my finger with a knife a few weeks ago and I would have loved that gel, old, running your hand, putting your finger in running water. Like it really does not accomplish that much that fast.

Zachary Karabell: No. Bring on the hummus.

Emma Varvaloucas: Bring on the hummus. So let’s move on to something else, also in the medical field, also very exciting. we’ve been talking probably, it feels like forever now, about the potential of mRNA, the potential of this technology post the COVID vaccines. And as of this week, we have the world’s first trial for a mRNA based vaccine against lung cancer.

Very cool stuff. It’s small. It’s just phase one clinical trial. So it’s 130 patients across seven different countries. There is some confusion sometimes with cancer vaccines, like, Oh, what is that supposed to prevent me from getting cancer? No, they are actually going to hunt and Kill the cancer cells and then hopefully, prevent them from returning.

So, that is starting just now and also I have my eye on next year when a trial is going to start to test whether mRNA based technology can repair terminally ill livers. So, instead of like getting a liver transplant. You can just kind of repair your own.

Zachary Karabell: And do we know, I mean, this is to, to lay people not understanding the science of mRNA in any great detail.

Do we know how this is supposed to preemptively work or how are they going to preemptively test? Are you just going to like follow 130 patients for 10 years and see?

Emma Varvaloucas: They already have cancer. So in the case of cancer vaccines, it’s not preventative. It actually gets rid, well, We hope that it’s going to get rid of the cancer.

So it’s people that already have, yeah, cancer. And I believe that it’s meant to like, it’s probably not going to be like a miracle shot where you have cancer, you get this mRNA vaccine and like, aha, you’re cured, but it’s kind of like a boost along with other treatments. But we’ll see, we’ll see when the results come out of, we got to do phase one, phase two, phase three.

So I’m going to do two more. Like I said, there’s a lot going on this week. Hopefully people have the attention spans, their summer attention spans are still going. So congratulations to Guinea. We’re talking a country in West Africa, Guinea. They have eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus. So this is a lethal disease that you can get during unhygienic childbirth practices, if you haven’t heard of it because it’s not been an issue in developed nations for a very long time.

But Guinea has finally eliminated it and now we actually only have 10 countries left in the world that have maternal and neonatal tetanus.

Zachary Karabell: And this was done via better hygiene, cleaner water, or medicines, or both?

Emma Varvaloucas: Yeah, so, this occurs, When mothers give birth either at home or in centers, and unsterilized instruments are used.

or if they are not vaccinated against tetanus. So they have been systematically vaccinating pregnant women. They’ve also probably, put some effort into making sure that people are going to good health centers where they have sanitary tools and beds and all of that stuff.

Zachary Karabell: No more prenatal and maternal tetanus.

Emma Varvaloucas: Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like I should be, I feel

Zachary Karabell: like I should be a little more animated by that one. Like I should be like, as opposed to just a llittle phlegmatic on my part. I, I, I’m enthusiastic internally.

Emma Varvaloucas: Well, I think it’s a good example of like, It’s sometimes really hard to get people excited about this kind of stuff, right?

Because it’s just not on our minds in the United States. This is not something, you might have other things, other risks, as a pregnant woman in the United States, but this is not one of them. And it’s so far away that it’s like, we can’t even imagine, what, what it’s like in these, now 10 remaining countries where it can still happen.

So. It’s part of the problem. So, last but not least, we’re going to end on the environment. I don’t know if you remember or readers are going to remember reports from relatively recent past about the Doomsday Glacier. Scientists were thinking that it might be heading into imminent rapid collapse.

So there was a theory, that was called marine ice cliff instability. I’m not going to explain how that all works, but there was a theory that like, This huge glacier was going to suddenly collapse, like flooding, the waters of the earth and like having sea levels rise.

Zachary Karabell: From Antarctica, right? So we’re quick, right?

Emma Varvaloucas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And to have suddenly, two feet of sea level rise, which would be pretty catastrophic. So that was a pretty new theory and a new study has come out now that they think that like, no, that’s not going to happen. That, in fact, the glacier will remain fairly stable until about 2100.

So we have some time. They do warn though that that doesn’t mean that the glacier, like it’s no problems, whatever, the glacier is totally stable. The glacier is not stable because of warm ocean currents that are thinning the ice from below. So that’s the like usual caveat of like, okay, guys, global warming still exists.

Global warming is still a problem. This glacier is still melting. however, it’s probably not going to like. suddenly irreversibly collapse, in a matter of, let’s say, days or weeks, which had been a fear in the not too recent past.

Zachary Karabell: Right. So it’s still an issue, but it’s not a good Hollywood movie.

Emma Varvaloucas: Yes. Which like is a win in my book because, gives us a lot more time to deal with that. 2100 versus who knows?

Zachary Karabell: Yeah. I mean, there was this, there still is this strain of unknown about climate and tipping points, right? So there remains this kind of. Fear, concern, question mark of could you have a systemic tipping point where everything that’s been happening, happening, if not gradually, then steadily, suddenly reaches some equilibrium point where everything falls into rapid, chaotic, disastrous disequilibrium, kind of like a fire smoldering that suddenly erupts into a huge thing.

And that’s the fear that underlies all this, and also because we don’t really know, and we don’t have enough data. And it’s a little like the volcano erupting, right? Things are percolating for a long time before a volcano actually erupts. And so there’s that fear, right? That we’re kind of going along, assuming we have time, and then suddenly, boom, we don’t.

I guess my take on all those things is, if there is X percentage of risk that that will happen, there’s X percentage of risk that that will happen. And there seems to be very little that we will actually be able to do in the face of the non zero risk that those things will happen. Meaning we just kind of have to live with that possibility because we’re certainly not going to be able to do anything about it.

There’s going to be no collective global action tomorrow where everyone is 100 percent convinced. Like, those were the disaster movies, like Armageddon and Asteroid, like, the asteroid’s coming! Well, human beings have to marshal all their resources to repel the asteroid or save the planet. no.

That’s not, none of these things are that. I mean, they’re appealing to think that they were or are, but they’re not. And the glacier melting, catastrophically raising oceans by x per feet, inundating most of the planet’s human population, because what’s, I mean, there’s some inordinate number of human beings who live.

within 10 miles of an ocean coast. So there you go. I guess that one’s temporarily off the table.

Emma Varvaloucas: Well, I mean, yeah, for, okay. The global warming challenge remains.

Zachary Karabell: Right. Not the, the, the seas are going to rise two feet at some point in the next few months. It’s temporarily off the table.

Emma Varvaloucas: Yes.

Zachary Karabell: Go buy beachfront property because your grandkids are going to have to deal with the wreckage, not you. Alright, well, we hope you enjoy the rest of your summer, now that you can go to the ocean in peace and not worry about a tidal wave.

Emma Varvaloucas: Well, I mean, not a tidal wave,

Zachary Karabell: But slightly better current for surfing.

And we will be back with you on the on the other side of Labor Day where apparently the world reverts to whatever it was before the summer. cause. That’s just the way we’ve decided the world works. We hope you enjoy the end of this particular season, Silly or Not, and thank you for listening.

Go get our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right?, at theprogressnetwork.org. Send us your thoughts, your ideas, send us news stories that you think we should highlight. Emma and the team are always on the lookout, and ideas that you might have that we might not are totally welcome. Please do that as well, and thank you, Emma, for once again surveying the world and finding the best of it.

Emma Varvaloucas: Thanks, Zachary. Thanks to our team, too, I should say. They want to remain unnamed, but our team is also fantastic. Thanks everybody for listening.