The Washington Post - USA (2021-10-26)

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HEalth&Science

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26 , 2021. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/HEALTH EE E

BY CAROLYN Y. JOHNSON

IN PHILADELPHIA

F

or months, the postcards and let-

ters have flowed in from across the

world, slipped under the door of

Drew Weissman’s austere fourth-

floor of fice at the University of Pennsylva-

nia Perelman School of Medicine.

Brisbane, Australia. Lynnwood, Wash.

New York Cit y. In looping cursive, strang-

ers write to thank this reticent 62-year-

old scientist whose years of painstaking

work with a scientific partner, Katalin

Kariko, formed the backbone of coronavi-

rus vaccines.

“You’ve made hugs and closeness pos-

sible again.”

“Thank you for your research efforts

and persistence.”

Weissman is bewildered by the out-

pouring — and even more incredulous at

requests for autographs and photos. The

world’s appreciation is jarring to this

researcher who doesn’t talk much and

whose face rarely flickers with emotion.

He is just as straight-faced in accepting

some of the biggest awards in science and

medicine, including the Lasker-DeBakey

Clinical Medical Research Award that

often precedes a Nobel Prize, as he is

unflustered and matter-of-fact in re-

counting the long, frustrating run-up to

SEE WEISSMAN ON E4

Drew Weissman ‘made hugs

and closeness possible

again.’ But it took some time.

BY CAROLYN Y. JOHNSON

IN JENKINTOWN, PA.

N

early three decades ago, Katalin

Kariko called her husband and

10-year-old daughter into her

home office in the Philadelphia

suburbs to share a thrilling new scientif-

ic idea.

“You have to sit down and now listen

to my argument!” she told them.

Kariko, a research assistant professor

at the University of Pennsylvania School

of Medicine, told her family about a

fragile genetic material called messenger

RNA. This profound molecule, a simple

strand of four chemical letters, instruct-

ed cells how to make proteins.

Kariko’s fascination with messenger

RNA had already stretched more than a

decade, and she thought that day that she

had figured how out how to overcome

one big hurdle to turning basic biology

into a technology with huge medical

potential. Messenger RNA was notori-

ously unstable, and she had thought of a

way to stop it from getting chewed up

and torn apart. Normally, it began to

degrade at the ends, so she would make it

into a circle.

SEE KARIKO ON E5

For Katalin Kariko, a life

in full: Awe-inspiring ideas,

experiments, rejections

PHOTOS BY RACHEL WISNIEWSKI FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

The pandemic catapulted the questions Katalin Kariko had chipped away at in molecular biology to the red-hot

center of science and medicine. Her work undergirds vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech and Moderna.

Vaccine Vanguard:

Scientists who helped create coronavirus shots

NATURALIST

Jane Goodall on climate change — and

remaining hopeful for the future. E2

PEDIATRICIANS’ WARNING

A flood of severe mental health crises is

overwhelming U.S. children. E3

NUTRITION

Consistently eating certain foods can

help protect eyes, teeth and hearing. E3

CORONAVIRUS Q&A

She is at risk, her husband is only 63.

Can he qualify for a booster shot? E3

Drew Weissman, center, with

his lab team at the University of

Pennsylvania. From left: Qin Li,

Houping Ni, Xiomara Mercado-

López and Elena Atochina-

Vasserman. The research of

Weissman and his scientific

partner, Katalin Kariko, on

messenger RNA helped create

two coronavirus vaccines.

BY PHIL GALEWITZ

When Teresa Nolan Barensfeld
turned 65 last year, she decided on a
private Medicare Advantage plan to
cover her health expenses.
Barensfeld, a freelance editor from
Chatham, N.Y., li ked th at it covered
her medications, while her hospitals
and her primary care doctor were in
the plan’s network. It also had a mod-
est $31 monthly premium.
She said it was a b onus th at the plan
included dental, hearing and vision
benefits, which traditional Medicare
does not.
But Barensfeld, who works as a
proofreader, missed some of the im-
portant fine print about her plan. It
covers a m aximum of $500 annually
for care from out-of-n etwork dentists,
includi ng her lon gtime provider. That
means getting one crown or tending to
a couple of cavities could leave her
footi ng most of the bill. She was cir-
cumspect about the cap on dental
coverage, saying, “I don’t expect that
much for a $31 plan. It’s better than
nothing.”
Through television, social media,
newspapers and mailings, tens of mil-
lions of Medicare beneficiaries are
being inundated — as they are each
autumn during the open enrollment
period — b y mark eting from Medicare
Advantage plans touting low costs and
benefits not found with traditional
Medicare. Dental, vision and hearing
coverage are among the most adver-
tised benefits.
Those services are also at the center
of a heated debate on Capitol Hill
among Democrats as they seek to ex-
pand a number of social programs.
Progressives, led by Sen. Bernie Sand-
ers (I-Vt.), are pr essing to add dental,
vision and hearing benefits to tradi-
tional Medicare.
Despite the high-powered advertis-
ing of the Medicare Advantage plans
pitched by the likes of celebrities Joe
Namath or Jimmie Walker, beneficiar-
SEE MEDICARE ON E6

For Medicare

sign-ups, read

fine print on

costs, benefits

BY JOSEPH STERN

At 84, Emma Shuford found a lump
in her breast. After a lumpectomy, she
was diagnosed with locally aggressive
breast cancer. Her doctors said it was
treatable but she needed radiation to
help stop it from growing.
At first, she refused. Because of her
age and a chronic leg injury, she didn ’t
feel safe driving to the cancer center.
The bus would take 90 minutes each
way, and she couldn’t walk the two
miles to the bus stop. All her children
lived out of state. She lived with her
granddaughter, who wanted to help
but had a long commute and couldn’t
afford time away from work. Shuford,
a Black woman, was not alone. Race,
income and Zip code frequently affect
patients’ ability to pursue or forgo
medical treatments, leading to wide-
spread disparities in health care.
But when the cancer center at Cone
Health, a regional multi-hospital
community health system in Greens-
boro, N.C., told Shuford it would drive
her to and from each of her 30 ap-
pointments, she said yes. This al-
lowed her to complete her treat-
ments, and two years later, she re-
mains cancer free.
“It was such a blessing,” she says.
Cone had created a transportation
hub to address limited access to can-
cer care among patients like Shuford
who couldn’t get to appointments.
With this program in place, patients
who tend to live in two of Greens-
boro’s less-affluent Zip codes went
from “no-show” rates of 12 and 15 per-
cent to less than 2 percent.
The hub came about as a result of
an earlier study performed at Cone
Health, called Accountability for Can-
cer Care through Undoing Racism
and Equity (ACCURE), which sought
to eliminate racial disparities in the
SEE CANCER ON E6

Intervention

program helps

tackle racism

in cancer care