Shaw’s Sculptress – Kathleen Scott

GBS once told Kathleen Scott, widow of the Antarctic explorer, who was sculpting Shaw, that the nearest he ever came to homosexual feelings was his love for her. She understood. Because of her vocation she seldom wore anything feminine – overalls at her vocation, sack-like garments with no adornment of any kind when at leisure. Beautiful, bohemian and uninhibited, with a host of male admirers from H. H. Asquith and David Lloyd George to James Barrie and Gordon Craig, she nevertheless reserved herself for a yet-to- be-found hero figure – who turned out to be explorer Robert Falcon Scott. Barrie would tell her that she was half man and half woman, but that the female half was twice as feminine as that of most women. She was in her middle twenties and as yet unmarried when Shaw first met her. He saw her often after her widowhood. A neighbor of his was a survivor of Scott’s last expedition. She had visited Apsley Cherry-Garrard, and Shaw was there. He made no secret of his feelings, and became the grandfather figure her little son, Peter, never had. During the Great War, Shaw saw much of her and Peter, as she turned to temporary war work, finally in Whitehall. As Lady Scott – a title she received as a widow – she could have had nearly any wartime job she wanted yet began in a munitions factory. In the 1920s, even after she married one-armed Great War hero Hilton Young, who became Lord Kennet, and had a late second son with him, Wayland Young, Shaw continued to remain a close friend. She was a guest at Lady Astor’s estate when Shaw read to the group, laughing at his own jokes, his new play The Apple Cart, which has two women Cabinet ministers who may have some of Kathleen’s traits. Even earlier, in one of his segments of the futuristic Back to Methuselah, the only sculptor in all of his plays, the cocky, self-confident Pygmalion, may also have some satiric touches at her expense. Although Kathleen, according to Shaw, “never played the grief-stricken lonely widow,” he never would tell her his true feelings about Scott’s “folly”: that the stubborn Scott died on his Polar journey and others with him because he “did what was done last time; and every thing he did was wrong.”GBS once told Kathleen Scott, widow of the Antarctic explorer, who was sculpting Shaw, that the nearest he ever came to homosexual feelings was his love for her. She understood. Because of her vocation she seldom wore anything feminine – overalls at her vocation, sack-like garments with no adornment of any kind when at leisure. Beautiful, bohemian and uninhibited, with a host of male admirers from H. H. Asquith and David Lloyd George to James Barrie and Gordon Craig, she nevertheless reserved herself for a yet-to- be-found hero figure – who turned out to be explorer Robert Falcon Scott. Barrie would tell her that she was half man and half woman, but that the female half was twice as feminine as that of most women. She was in her middle twenties and as yet unmarried when Shaw first met her. He saw her often after her widowhood. A neighbor of his was a survivor of Scott’s last expedition. She had visited Apsley Cherry-Garrard, and Shaw was there. He made no secret of his feelings, and became the grandfather figure her little son, Peter, never had. During the Great War, Shaw saw much of her and Peter, as she turned to temporary war work, finally in Whitehall. As Lady Scott – a title she received as a widow – she could have had nearly any wartime job she wanted yet began in a munitions factory. In the 1920s, even after she married one-armed Great War hero Hilton Young, who became Lord Kennet, and had a late second son with him, Wayland Young, Shaw continued to remain a close friend. She was a guest at Lady Astor’s estate when Shaw read to the group, laughing at his own jokes, his new play The Apple Cart, which has two women Cabinet ministers who may have some of Kathleen’s traits. Even earlier, in one of his segments of the futuristic Back to Methuselah, the only sculptor in all of his plays, the cocky, self-confident Pygmalion, may also have some satiric touches at her expense. Although Kathleen, according to Shaw, “never played the grief-stricken lonely widow,” he never would tell her his true feelings about Scott’s “folly”: that the stubborn Scott died on his Polar journey and others with him because he “did what was done last time; and every thing he did was wrong.

Mortality risk after COVID-19 vaccination: A self-controlled case series study

Background Although previous studies found no-increased mortality risk after COVID-19 vaccination, residual confounding bias might have impacted the findings. Using a modified self-controlled case series (SCCS) design, we assessed the risk of non-COVID-19 mortality, all-cause mortality, and four cardiac-related death outcomes after primary series COVID-19 vaccination. Methods We analyzed all deaths between December 14, 2020, and August 11, 2021, among individuals from eight Vaccine Safety Datalink sites. Demographic characteristics of deaths in recipients of COVID-19 vaccines and unvaccinated individuals were reported. We conducted SCCS analyses by vaccine type and death outcomes and reported relative incidences (RI). The observation period for death spanned from the dates of emergency use authorization to the end of the study period (August 11, 2021) without censoring the observation period upon death. We pre-specified a primary risk interval of 28-day and a secondary risk interval of 14-day after each vaccination dose. Adjusting for seasonality in mortality analyses is crucial because death rates vary over time. Deaths among unvaccinated individuals were included in SCCS analyses to account for seasonality by incorporating calendar month in the models. Results For Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2), RIs of non-COVID-19 mortality, all-cause mortality, and four cardiac-related death outcomes were below 1 and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) excluded 1 across both doses and both risk intervals. For Moderna (mRNA-1273), RI point estimates of all outcomes were below 1, although the 95 % CIs of two RI estimates included 1: cardiac-related (RI = 0.78, 95 % CI, 0.58-1.04) and non-COVID-19 cardiac-related mortality (RI = 0.80, 95 % CI, 0.60-1.08) 14 days after the second dose in individuals without pre-existing cancer and heart disease. For Janssen (Ad26.COV2.S), RIs of four cardiac-related death outcomes ranged from 0.94 to 0.98 for the 14-day risk interval, and 0.68 to 0.72 for the 28-day risk interval and 95 % CIs included 1. Conclusion Using a modified SCCS design and adjusting for temporal trends, no-increased risk was found for non-COVID-19 mortality, all-cause mortality, and four cardiac-related death outcomes among recipients of the three COVID-19 vaccines used in the US

Antenatal magnesium individual participant data international collaboration: assessing the benefits for babies using the best level of evidence (AMICABLE)

BACKGROUND: The primary aim of this study is to assess, using individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis, the effects of administration of antenatal magnesium sulphate given to women at risk of preterm birth on important clinical outcomes for their child such as death and neurosensory disability. The secondary aim is to determine whether treatment effects differ depending on important pre-specified participant and treatment characteristics, such as reasons at risk of preterm birth, gestational age, or type, dose and mode of administration of magnesium sulphate. METHODS: Design: The Antenatal Magnesium Individual Participant Data (IPD) International Collaboration: assessing the benefits for babies using the best level of evidence (AMICABLE) Group will perform an IPD meta-analysis to answer these important clinical questions. Setting/Timeline: The AMICABLE Group was formed in 2009 with data collection commencing late 2010. Inclusion Criteria: Five trials involving a total 6,145 babies are eligible for inclusion in the IPD meta-analysis. Primary study outcomes: For the infants/children: Death or cerebral palsy. For the women: Any severe maternal outcome potentially related to treatment (death, respiratory arrest or cardiac arrest). DISUCSSION: Results are expected to be publicly available in 2012.C.A. Crowther, P.F. Middleton, L.M. Askie, L.W. Doyle, T.K. Bubner and M. Voyse