Walla Walla virus-swappers party like it's 1999

Announcing the National Pharmaceutical Congress Spring 2020 Webinar: "After This Rude Interruption: What the Life Sciences Will Look Like After the Covid Crisis"  Wed., May 20, 11 a.m. to noon (EDT.) Panel discussion of thought-leaders from the Canadian Life Sciences and physician communities to discuss and determine the way forward. Faculty includes: Wendy Adams, Galderma Canada; Peter Brenders, Kontollo Health (lead panellist); Dr. Wayne P. Gulliver, Memorial University of Newfoundland & Labrador; Robin Hunter, Malinckrodt; Richard Lajoie, Bausch Health; Mitch Shannon, Chronicle Companies (host.) Registration is free but strictly limited to 100 delegates. (Overflow viewing will be live-streamed to YouTube.) Register now at http://tiny.cc/NPC-Spring

May 8, 2020 -- CurveFlatteners probably don't have to be prompted to recall that this Sunday (05/10) is Mother's Day. But let's offer a reminder -- and while we're at it, I'll take this opportunity to wish my own mum a happy birthday today. (It's Mitch Shannon working the keyboard this morning.)

And just in case you haven't a chance to find an appropriate present for the mom or moms in your life, what with the Laura Secord shops and the florists being closed and all, remember that out there in Walla Walla, Washington, nothing says "I love you" quite like gifting momma with a deadly virus.

Or perhaps you missed that story. Recent reports from the small city (pop. 33,000) east of the Cascades suggested social gatherings were being organized by locals to intentionally spread the disease. The thinking -- if that's the right term -- is that exposure to the virus creates a kind of resistance, somehow enhancing the concept of, you know, herd immunity. Walla Walla's public health director tells the New York Times that local cops have formed a dragnet to shut down the so-called Covid parties. The boys in blue need to add the '80s pop singer Madonna to the list of social non-distancers. The well-preserved mom of six wants it known she's gone back to living in the material world and, with that, she's back on the party circuit: Covid, schmoe-vid.

And in the unlikely event any of our readers had been planning on catching a Greyhound Scenicruiser to attend one of those viral-exchange shindigs, the news just keeps getting worse. The transportation company recently said it plans to suspend its inter-city service in Canada next week, owing to the pandemic. So, party on, Garth. Party on, Wayne. Just not on the bus.


COVID CHRONICLE 05/08/20

• Researchers at the Lawson Health Research Institute in London, Ont., announced they've successfully treated a Covid case using dialysis, marking a worldwide first. Lead researcher Dr. Chris McIntyre explained his unique treatment approach was inspired by a shortage of effective Rx therapy for the virus. Said he: “This led to the idea of treating a patient’s blood outside of the body. We could reprogram white blood cells associated with inflammation to alter the immune response.” McIntyre and colleagues are proceeding to a trial of 40 patients at London Health Sciences Centre’s Victoria Hospital and University Hospital.
• There goes the neighbourhood. Google's controversial plan to build a self-proclaimed "smart city" on the Toronto waterfront won't happen, the company announced, owing to economic uncertainty stemming from the Corvid crisis. The company promised the project would be worth $4.3 billion in tax revenues each year, but critics derided the plan as a cloaked exercise in data collection. Final approvals for the project had not been issued. 
• Banksy, the reclusive U.K. artist-prankster, Wednesday (05/06) revealed his latest work, which honours the work of Britain's National Health Service (NHS) during the Covid pandemic. The illustration appeared abruptly in an ER department foyer of the Southampton General Hospital, in coastal southwest England, according to the BBC. The painting (below) depicts a child who has discarded Spiderman and Batman action-toys and is playing with his newest hero-figure. That would be an NHS nurse, wearing a facemask. The artist says the painting will be displayed in the hospital until the fall at which point it will be auctioned, with proceeds going to the NHS. Original Banksy works have recently sold for more than Cdn$3 million. 

STORIES CHRONICLE IS WORKING ON TODAY

Editorial Director Allan Ryan is overseeing the preparation of an Executive Summary on the future of pharma marketing post-Covid. The report will be sent in advance to each registered delegate to the upcoming National Pharmaceutical Congress 2020 Spring Webinar, to be held May 20, and published post-conference in The Chronicle of Healthcare Marketing.


RIGHT NOW I'M LISTENING TO...

Millicent "Millie" Small, who died Wednesday (05/06) following a stroke, was one in a family of 12 children. As a 12-year-old, she won a talent contest in her native Jamaica and was introduced to British audiences by the music promoter Chris Blackwell a few years later, in 1963. Her first worldwide chart-topping hit, "My Boy Lollypop," was an early example of the ska genre that would soon become known as rock-steady and then morph into reggae -- and take over the planet. However, the success Millie Small attained at age 17 would never be surpassed, and she came to be regarded, incorrectly, as a one-hit-wonder and not as the Mother of Reggae. The tune I'm playing over and over again today in her memory is a 1970 release called "Enoch Power." This is the kind of protest song we need right now. Responding to the race-based populism of the villainous U.K. demagogue Enoch Powell, her song repeats the politician's name exactly 75 times in a teasing chorus, as if to imply, "Yes, yes, you hate us, but we're laughing at you, and no one will ever take you seriously again, you prat." The powerful last stanza goes: "One day there'll come a time/ When all men will be brothers/ They'll talk as well as dance/ And live and love with each other/ So we'll all sing Enoch, Enoch, Enoch Powell..." That is how you want to demolish a tin-pot tyrant: with horn-driven reggae rhythms. Toward that end, I admit to singing along right now, and in place of Powell's name, I'm updating it to Donald Trump. 


JUST FINISHED READING...

"Broken" by Don Winslow. This collection of six noir novellas firmly establishes Winslow as the successor to the 20th-century giants, including Hammett, Woolrich, Cain, Leonard, McBain, Westlake, and Thompson. His just-published cycle of tales is a homage to those past masters and revisits characters from his own body of work, which now stretches back 30 years. Easy prediction: "Broken" will gather an appreciative new audience for Winslow's bleak back-catalogue.


TONIGHT WE ARE COOKING...

Like that dutiful son, I put on a p95 mask and just left a bag with cooked lobster parts and some boiled shrimp and a bottle of Finger Lakes champagne on some ice on my mother's front porch in Willowdale, Ont. We'll go out and celebrate her birthday and Mother's Day whenever it's feasible. As for me and my house, I think it'll be burgers tonight, using frozen patties from the Keg.


AND THAT'S A WRAP

This concludes CurveFlattener edition #29. Stay safe and remember to enjoy your weekend, everyone. Senior editor John Evans will be back here waiting for you on Monday morning.