News bits: Potential impacts of affirmative action; On the Schiff censure; Gene therapy update

A NYT article discusses the limited impact that affirmative action has had in college admissions for Black and Latino students in view of the vast magnitude of underlying problems for most students. The NYT writes:

But the effect of race-conscious admissions was always limited to a relatively small number of students. For the vast majority, these schools are not an option — academically or financially.

Many head straight into the work force after high school or attend less selective universities that do not weigh race and ethnicity in admissions. At least a third of all undergraduate students — including half of Hispanic undergraduates — attend community colleges, which typically allow open enrollment.

“This is the unseen group,” said Josh Tovar, the principal at Memorial Pathway Academy, a high school for at-risk students and new immigrants in Garland, Texas. “Everyone sees the kid that is No. 1 ranked with 110 G.P.A. going to M.I.T. No one sees my boy that doesn’t have parents — that lives with Grandma, that came to me at 17, with five credits, and graduates.”

Fewer than 200 selective universities are thought to practice race-conscious admissions, conferring degrees on about 10,000 to 15,000 students each year who might not otherwise have been accepted, according to a rough estimate by Sean Reardon, a sociologist at Stanford University. That represents about 2 percent of all Black, Hispanic or Native American students in four-year colleges.  

Yet, for many students, the biggest barriers are practical: applying to, paying for and completing college.

Based on that, it's reasonable to think that the greatest impacts would include (i) on high score minority students who the top 200 schools can no longer target for acceptance based on race, (ii) academically typical minority students who wind up in for-profit schools that pile huge debt on their students, and (iii) in view of the Supreme Court's ruling, employers who now feel pressure to shy away from affirmative action in their hiring practices. 

Something about this does not feel good. It points to a sick society, broken families and lives and lots of financial distress. Time will tell how this plays out.  

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The House of Recriminations update: A report I read yesterday asserted that House Republicans voted twice to censure Adam Schiff because they are mad at him. The first vote failed because 20 Republicans refused to go along with censure. Upon hearing about that, DJT flew into a rage and publicly threatened to primary all 20 of those Republicans in 2024. In the second vote, all 20 voted to censure Schiff. Some of the Republican nitwits referred to censure as a vote to censor. 

Also on the House of Recriminations agenda is impeaching Joe Biden and several members of his administration. We have some real idiots and thugs in congress.

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Gene therapy update: The WaPo writes about a new gene therapy approval:

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a treatment that uses gene therapy to treat severe hemophilia A, a rare and sometimes fatal blood disorder.

The new drug, Roctavian, could save people with the severe form of the disease from a lifetime of frequent injections. The drug’s maker expects about 2,500 of the estimated 6,500 Americans with severe hemophilia A to be eligible to receive the drug with its initial approval.

Roctavian will cost $2.9 million for a single infusion; Hemgenix, which treats another form of hemophilia, costs $3.5 million per use, according to Reuters. Still, scientists say the technology will be a crucial part of 21st century medicine.

Gene therapies are often too expensive for the patients they could help, said Fyodor Urnov, a genetics professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

He sees several paths to lowering the cost of gene therapies. The field is new, and the infrastructure to produce treatments may get cheaper. There’s also a need for “academic, nonprofit paths to developing and delivering” genetics-based medicine, Urnov said.

I agree that there is an urgent need for “academic, nonprofit paths to developing and delivering” genetics-based medicine (and all other kinds of medicine). Honestly, how can it be possible for new gene therapies and drugs be a crucial part of 21st century medicine at the prices capitalists demand and get. That's just plain nuts. The capitalist for-profit system does not work except for the few capitalist elites who benefit a lot. 

Although Urnov says that the gene therapy is new, that's malarkey. My dissertation research in the 1990s was related to developing gene therapies. The field is not close to new. It has been painfully slow to develop, in part because of the cost and partly because of biological and technical complexity. Recent technical advances are opening treatment possibilities, but unless costs are contained, this will remain mostly medicine for rich people. This is something that capitalism cannot and will not deal with equitably.