5SR - January 8, 2024

Hitha on the ISRO, phenylephrine, and reframing running

Author

Hitha Palepu
January 08, 2024

Today’s curator is the founder of #5SmartReads, Hitha Palepu. She’s a consummate multihyphenate - CEO of Rhoshan Pharmaceuticals, author of WE’RE SPEAKING: The Life Lessons of Kamala Harris and How to Pack: Travel Smart for Any Trip, and professional speaker. Hitha is an unabashed fan of Taco Bell, Philadelphia sports teams & F1, romance novels, and is a mediocre crafter. She lives in NYC with her husband and two sons.

The ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) has been one of the most productive state-funded space agencies in recent years - and one of the most successful.

Last year, they were the first to land in South Pole of the moon - ever. The agency launched its first mission to study the sun just days later.

And just a week ago, they launched XpoSat to study black holes - a second such mission after NASA’s launch three years ago.

The Telugu movie Antariksham 9000kmph was my gateway to the ISRO, and I continue to be blown away by how quickly they’ve become a dominant player in the state-funded space race, with a fraction of the budget of their peers.

The last thing I need is another piece of merch, but I don’t think I can resist some of these ISRO tees or sweatshirts.

Equality in STEM is a battle we’re still fighting. Only 25% of the ISRO’s engineering staff are women (about on par with NASA).

While there’s more progress to be made, India has come a long way, thanks to the brilliant and fierce founders of the Indian Women Scientists’ Association. The organization is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and has grown from the original 12 founders to 2,000 members and expanded to 11 branches since it was formed.

And it does so by seeing - and caring for - women and all their multitudes:

“For the many women for whom life is an impossible balancing act between home and work, the Indian Women Scientists’ Association’s daycare and healthcare centre, children’s nursery and 160-bed working women’s hostel is an ecosystem unto itself. “The organisation is a second home for us,” says Dr Rita Mukhopadhyaya, the 64-year-old former head of the gene technology section at BARC and immediate past president of the Indian Women Scientists’ Association. “We feel so comfortable in our skin when we are here.”

My dad keeps in touch and speaks fondly about his batch mates from his masters’ program, especially Srilatha and Nandini (the only two women in the entire class) who helped him in the program (he had lost his hearing at a child and hadn’t received his hearing aids yet).

I will never stop being impressed by the strength, intelligence, and compassion of women. And I’m grateful to these two women (who were early members of this organization).

You may not be familiar with the word phenylephrine. But there’s a very good change you’ve taken when you suffered from congestion in the past couple of decades.

Chances are that it did nothing to treat your congestion (it’s often in a combination medication like DayQuil or Benedryl Allergy D Plus Sinus). And the FDA - which I want to preface is often overworked and understaffed, especially divisions like the division overseeing the OTC approvals - took over a decade to act on phenylephrine’s lack of efficacy and to pull it from shelves.

This is a really smart read from the two scientists who petitioned the agency to remove phenylephrine from shelves, detailing their decade-and-half-long journey, and their well reasoned proposals on how to improve the OTC division within the FDA.

While I’ve been running more than I used to, I still hesitate to call myself a runner.

I usually run on my treadmill, I consider my pace too slow to call myself a runner, and I missed yesterday’s 5K that I had signed up for (partly because of terrible weather and our entire family having a tougher morning, but also my own inexplicable fears).

And then I stumbled upon Martinus Evans.

Martinus’ spirit and joy is infectious, even through the phone. His advice in this interview is exactly what I needed to read to give myself the confidence to call myself a runner, to be proud of lacing my sneakers and moving my body (no matter the pace), and to be present no matter where in the pack I am during a group run or race.

What I would give for precedent times - or for a spending deal to be approved some measure of time before the government is on the brink of a shutdown.

And while I accept those days are long gone (and am saddened by it), I can at least avoid the doom that comes with the verge of every government shutdown for the rest of 2024, at the very least.

While the individual spending bills have yet to be finalized, the Senate Democrats and House Republicans agreed to $1.59T in government spending - $886B already law from December’s defense spending bill, and $704B in non-defense spending.

I expect these spending bills to be the status quo from the last year’s Congress, and for another fairly unproductive session. And with the presidential election, I can guarantee it’ll be a long, noisy, hyper-partisan year.

Gird your loins.

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