Good morning – The ceremonial groundbreaking of a new national biopharmaceutical center on the University of Delaware STAR campus was big news as shown by the large crowd on hand for the event.
As noted in the story above, UD President Dennis Assanis estimated that when all is said and done, the combination of a new $150 million-plus building as well as public and private funded could add up to a half a billion-dollar impact.
The state’s congressional delegation, which aided in the process of getting the $70 million federal grant that got the project off the ground, realized the importance of the project,
Granted, the biopharma center comes with some risks, given the turmoil over the federal budget and the fact that UD is taking on debt to pay for the project.
Still, UD and Delaware had few options other than placing a smart bet on building a science-based economy.
The problem at hand may be a lack of knowledge of history or beliefs that lead to jarring beliefs and statements.
For example, Delaware Sen. Tom Carper’s Facebook page on the STAR event included a post from an individual who claimed the following: “Even the poorest of us had better health a century ago than today,”
I went back to look at life expectancy features from a century ago and found the average male often did not make it to 50 with females rarely making it to 60.
A year later, the flu pandemic claimed more lives than World War I and average life expectancy for males fell below 40. Maybe Americans felt better, right up until the grim reaper came made an early call.
I was not surprised to find that the commenter’s Facebook page contained an image with text criticizing flu shots.
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