#us public health news

[reasonsforhope]

Sorry I'm kind of dissociated and my vocab crashes during that can you explain the Biden drug thing in just. Shorter simple sentences.

Sure! You're not the only one who's mentioned being unclear on what it means either, and I'm happy to help

(Context for anyone else: US Sets Policy to Seize Patents of Government-Funded Drugs if Price Deemed Too High, via Good News Network, December 11, 2023)

From the very basics:

When drug companies create new drugs, they get a legal protection called a "patent." The patent means no one else can make or sell the same drug for whatever number of years.

Usually, this is about 10 years after the drug starts being sold to the public.

So, for those years, that one drug company is the only source of whatever medication. And since people need their medication, drug companies can charge however much money they want.

Meaning a lot of drugs that people need to live cost way too much money to buy.

So, with this, Biden told drug companies "Fuck you, if you keep making medicine too $$$ for people to afford, I'm giving your competition the right to make and sell those drugs too."

The US has never done anything like this before.

This is a huge threat to the whole (awful) drug industry in the US. It will save people thousands of dollars. If he does this, it will save lives.

--

Edit 12/17/23: Quick note, as people have said in the notes, this only applies to drugs made in part using taxpayer money. Which is! Literally all of them!

[politijohn]

Source

Good

[pandemic-info]

Fact Check: Did Trump Raise Prescription Drug Prices? - Newsweek

Trump rescinded Biden policy on lowering costs of prescription medication for people using Medicare and Medicaid.

Biden's order [now rescinded by Trump] directed the Department of Health and Human Services to explore strategies to reduce costs. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) responded to the order with programs to cap the price of certain generic drugs at $2 for Medicare beneficiaries, improve Medicaid access to high-cost cell and gene therapies and to streamline the evidence-gathering process for new drugs.

...

"While the immediate impact depends on how pharmaceutical companies respond, this move potentially opens the door for drug prices to rise," Agranoff said. "Biden's order aimed to rein in costs by promoting price transparency and competition, which are critical for making life-saving medications affordable." "Without those measures, companies could have more flexibility to set higher prices," he added. "For many Americans, particularly those on fixed incomes or without comprehensive insurance, this change may lead to increased financial strain and limit access to essential medications."

[vincent-van-playdoh]

Hello to all my jury-eligible friends in New York City,

And the Second and Third Circuits of the US Courts (NY, CT, VT, NJ, DE, PA, and also the Virgin Islands)

DO NOT LOOK UP “Jury Nullification”

I Repeat

DO NOT LOOK UP “What is Jury Nullification”

Thank you for not looking this up

[lamby-grahamy]

Please be cautious for the foreseeable future. We’re not getting updates from orgs under the Health and Human Services umbrella. This includes the FDA, CDC, and NIH.

They’re not even able to release the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report), which is something the CDC has done weekly since forever. Scientists and public health officials all over the country rely on that to make decisions about resource allocation and policy.

These orgs have also been prevented from releasing three reports about H5N1.

[allthegeopolitics]

Major food companies, including Kraft Heinz, Mondelez and Coca-Cola, were hit with a new lawsuit in the U.S. on Tuesday accusing them of designing and marketing "ultra-processed" foods to be addictive to children, causing chronic disease. The lawsuit was filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas by Bryce Martinez, a Pennsylvania resident who alleges he developed type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, diagnosed at age 16, as a result of consuming the companies' products. His lawyers at the firm Morgan & Morgan, a major U.S. plaintiffs' firm, described the case as the first of its kind.

Continue Reading

[covid-safer-hotties]

Second gentleman Emhoff tests positive for COVID - Published July 7, 2024

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4758716-doug-emhoff-covid-positive/mlite/

I hate covering celebrity news, but this seems a bit important given that Biden just reiterated his claim that he "beat the pandemic."

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff tested positive for COVD-19, the vice president’s office announced Sunday.

His office said Emhoff had experienced mild symptoms before being tested Saturday, and is now asymptomatic. He is fully vaccinated, the office said.

Vice President Harris was also tested for COVD-19 and tested negative, her office said.

Emhoff will continue to work from home, isolated from others.

Emhoff previously tested positive for COVID in March of 2022, and Harris tested positive for the virus a month later.

Harris is scheduled to campaign for President Biden in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

Find more news, science, and resources on our covid archive:

[reasonsforhope]

"The Biden Administration last week [early December, 2023] announced it would be seizing patents for drugs and drug manufacturing procedures developed using government money.

A draft of the new law, seen by Reuters, said that the government will consider various factors including whether a medical situation is leading to increased prices of the drug at any given time, or whether only a small section of Americans can afford it.

The new executive order is the first exercise in what is called “march-in-rights” which allows relevant government agencies to redistribute patents if they were generated under government funding. The NIH has long maintained march-in-rights, but previous directors have been unwilling to use them, fearing consequences.

“We’ll make it clear that when drug companies won’t sell taxpayer funded drugs at reasonable prices, we will be prepared to allow other companies to provide those drugs for less,” White House adviser Lael Brainard said on a press call.

But just how much taxpayer money is going toward funding drugs? A research paper from the Insitute for New Economic Thought showed that “NIH funding contributed to research associated with every new drug approved from 2010-2019, totaling $230 billion.”

The authors of the paper continue, writing “NIH funding also produced 22 thousand patents, which provided marketing exclusivity for 27 (8.6%) of the drugs approved [between] 2010-2019.”

How we do drug discovery and production in America has a number of fundamental flaws that have created problems in the health service industry.

It costs billions of dollars and sometimes as many as 5 to 10 years to bring a drug to market in the US, which means that only companies with massive financial muscle can do so with any regularity, and that smaller, more innovative companies can’t compete with these pharma giants.

This also means that if a company can’t recoup that loss, a single failed drug can result in massive disruptions to business. To protect themselves, pharmaceutical companies establish piles of patents on drugs and drug manufacturing procedures. Especially if the drug in question treats a rare or obscure disease, these patents essentially ensure the company has monoselective pricing regimes.

However, if a company can convince the NIH that a particular drug should be considered a public health priority, they can be almost entirely funded by the government, as the research paper showed.

Some market participants, in this case the famous billionaire investor Mark Cuban, have attempted to remedy the issue of drug costs in America by manufacturing generic versions of patented drugs sold for common diseases."

-via Good News Network, December 11, 2023

[politijohn]

Source

Source

[dilf-phoenix-rights]

I think more people should be aware of, and talking about, the uptick in anti-mask policies being proposed/passed (or that already existed but rarely enforced until more recently) that have been popping up lately in several states.

Both because of the public health risks it sets us up for and because it’s being used as a way to further punish protesters. Not to mention the encroachment on our right to privacy in the ever increasing surveillance state we live in.

[rebelwheelssoapbox]

There's been an increase in COVID cases, and yet New York (editedGovernor Kathy Hochul wants to ban masks? #NoNYMaskBan TAKE ACTION: https://covidadvocacyny.org/stopmaskbanny @covidadvocacyny [IMAGE DESCRIPTION: (edited to fit twitter image description character limit) horizontal rectangle artsy protest graphic. Background. blues whites reds & a light pink. Floral illustration. white petals blue stems & blue and red center. There's a light pink & white horizontal zigzag pattern in the white petals. On top left to center, a photo of a man with medium brown skin who is contemplating. wearing a colorful shirt. Pinks, white, orange, yellows, rainbows, blues & a light purple. he's wearing a covid mask that matches shirt. short black hair. there's a golden yellow thick outline around him. 3 diagonal light green stripes go from his head & upward. There's text. thin modern white font. each word/phrase has a black rectangle behind it. Text arranged in artsy fashion. Some words are semi-diagonal & as if each rectangle was cut out and placed individually. text reads “protecting myself and my community against COVID shouldn't be illegal.” The words COVID and illegal and protecting are larger than the other text.]

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[w98pops]

no big updates because i finally got a full-time job, and i have a lot of commissions and trades to draw. BEAR with me here guys 🥱

[houseofbrat]

Assassin GUNS DOWN Health Insurance CEO In Apparent Retribution Attack

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall-Free

"The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule Tuesday [October 8, 2024] requiring water utilities to replace all lead pipes within a decade, a move aimed at eliminating a toxic threat that continues to affect tens of thousands of American children each year.

The move, which also tightens the amount of lead allowed in the nation’s drinking water, comes nearly 40 years after Congress determined that lead pipes posed a serious risk to public health and banned them in new construction.

Research has shown that lead, a toxic contaminant that seeps from pipes into the drinking water supply, can cause irreversible developmental delays, difficulty learning and behavioral problems among children. In adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lead exposure can cause increased blood pressure, heart disease, decreased kidney function and cancer.

But replacing the lead pipes that deliver water to millions of U.S. homes will cost tens of billions of dollars, and the push to eradicate them only gathered momentum after a water crisis in Flint, Mich., a decade ago exposed the extent to which children remain vulnerable to lead poisoning through tap water...

The groundbreaking regulation, called the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, will establish a national inventory of lead service lines and require that utilities take more aggressive action to remove lead pipes on homeowners’ private property. It also lowers the level of lead contamination that will trigger government enforcement from 15 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb.

The rule also establishes the first-ever national requirement to test for lead in schools that rely on water from public utilities. It mandates thatwater systems screen all elementary and child-care facilities, where those who are the most vulnerable to lead’s effects — young children — are enrolled, and that they offer testing to middle and high schools.

The White House estimates that more than 9 million homes across the country are still supplied by lead pipelines, which are the leading source of lead contamination through drinking water. The EPA has projected that replacing all of them could cost at least $45 billion.

Lead pipes were initially installed in cities decades ago because they were cheaper and more malleable, but the heavy metal can wear down and corrode over time. President Joe Biden has made replacing them one of his top environmental priorities, securing $15 billion to give states over five years through the bipartisan infrastructure law and vowing to rid the country of lead pipes by 2031. The administration has spent $9 billion so far — enough to replace up to 1.7 million lead pipes, the administration said.

On Tuesday, the administration said it was providing an additional $2.6 billion in funding for pipe replacement. Over 367,000 lead pipes have been replaced nationwide since Biden took office, according to White House officials, affecting nearly 1 million people...

Environmental advocates said that former president Donald Trump, who issued much more modest revisions to the lead and copper rule just days before Biden took office, would have a hard time reversing the new standards.

Erik Olson, the senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that the Safe Drinking Water Act has provisions prohibiting weakening the health protections of existing standards...

Olson added that the rule “represents a major victory for public health” and will protect millions of people “whose health is threatened every time they fill a glass from the kitchen sink contaminated by lead.”

“While the rule is imperfect and we still have more to do, this is by far the biggest step towards eliminating lead in tap water in over three decades,” he said."

-via The Washington Post, October 8, 2024