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A former senior adviser to infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci pleaded guilty Tuesday to plotting to conceal federal records related to research on the origins of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. David Morens is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 12 by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland. Morens pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government, a felony punishable by a maximum prison sentence of five years. (8/19)

This spring, the federal machinery to get updated Covid shots ready for the fall appeared to be on track: A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee had taken the first step to prepare for the new shots, selecting the latest strains to target. The agency accepted the panel’s recommendations and passed the message along to vaccine makers. (Lovelace Jr., 8/18)

The COVID-19 vaccine may give brain cancer patients a bonus shot at survival. Patients who received the vaccine within 100 days before biopsy or tumor surgery lived twice as long as those who didn’t get the shot, scientists report July 31 at medRxiv.org. This link existed only for COVID-19 vaccines, not other vaccines that the team investigated. (Rosen, 8/17)

At the age of 23, Elisabeth Marnik approached her doctor with an unusual request: Vaccinate me. Against everything. She had never received a single vaccine. But now, angry and defiant, she was turning away from the beliefs of her childhood, instilled by a mother who distrusted science. A doctor for adults doesn’t typically have childhood immunizations on hand, so she made her way to a travel clinic and eventually got all the once-forbidden shots. (Freyer, 8/19)

Jeremy Farrar, MD, PhD, announced yesterday he would step down from his role as assistant director-general to the World Health Organization (WHO). He has made no public comment on his decision to resign, but colleagues told The Telegraph he was increasingly frustrated with the bureaucracy of the organization. (Soucheray, 8/18)