Sunday, January 19th, 2020
Stephan: When a society makes profit its only social priority and allows unlimited private money to buy its politics, as has happened in the United States, then massive corruption and disregard for the wellbeing of the individuals in that society is inevitable. Nowhere is this clearer than in America's illness profit system. Here is an example of what I mean, and I would take it seriously, it may affect your health or the health of your family directly.
Credit: Getty/urbazon
Big Pharma spends a small fortune every year buying politicians to make sure we can’t import prescription drugs from Canada, but they’re more than happy to sell us contaminated medications from countries with weak manufacturing controls and exploitable labor that ensure high profit margins.
A toxic compound that doesn’t belong anywhere near medicine known as NDMA was first discovered in some blood pressure medications in 2018, and the FDA issued an alert and wrote a complaint letter to the raw materials supplier to Big Pharma companies. It turns out the meds follow the very common pattern of being made in India with raw ingredients coming from China. And they are sold by big companies for obscenely high prices to U.S. consumers.
More recently, NDMA contamination provoked a nationwide recall of the popular anti-heartburn medication Zantac and all its generic versions.
And now the world’s most widely prescribed drug of all, which is used to treat and prevent Type 2 diabetes called metformin, is contaminated with NDMA.
NDMA (N-Nitrosodimethylamine) is, according to the World Health Organization, produced by “the […]
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Sunday, January 19th, 2020
Andrew Jacobs, - The New York Times
Stephan: A week or so ago I published a piece about antibiotic companies going bankrupt and described what I thought was going to happen as this trend developed. Now the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued its assessment of this trend and what is happening.
Credit: A pharmacy manager counts antibiotic pills to fill a prescription.
Credit…Joe Raedle/Getty
With the pipeline for new antibiotics slowing to a trickle and bankruptcies driving pharmaceutical companies from the field, the World Health Organization on Friday issued a fresh warning about the global threat of drug resistant infections.
Some 700,000 people die each year because medicines that once cured their conditions are no long effective. Yet the vast majority of the 60 new antimicrobial products in development worldwide are variations on existing therapies, and only a handful target the most dangerous drug-resistant infections, the agency said in a report.
“We urgently need research and development,” said Sarah Paulin, technical officer of Antimicrobial Resistance and Innovation at the W.H.O. and an author of two reports on the subject issued Friday. “We still have a window of opportunity but we need to ensure there is investment now so we don’t run out of options for future generations.”
Without government intervention, […]
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Sunday, January 19th, 2020
Daniel Boffey, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: In contrast to all the negative trends going on in the U.S., I want to illustrate another example of what happens when a society places wellbeing first, and here is an example. It isn't that we can't do it in America it's that we place greater value on profit than wellbeing.
Amsterdam
The city of Amsterdam is taking over the debts of its young adults as part of a drive to liberate people who are struggling to get into work or education.
A growth in borrowing among young Dutch adults – a trend echoed elsewhere in Europe, including the UK – is said to be standing in the way of them joining the marketplace or completing higher education courses.
Under the city’s trial project, a municipal credit bank will negotiate with creditors to buy out the debts. Those on the scheme will then be issued with a loan to repay according to their means.
The creditors will be given €750 as an incentive to pass the debt on to the municipality’s bank. The young people will have more of the debt cancelled if they successfully engage in training or an educational programme.
“Debts cause a lot of stress. And in the case of young people, debts often determine their future,” said Amsterdam’s deputy mayor, Marjolein Moorman. “The majority of these young people started out in […]
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Saturday, January 18th, 2020
Sandee LaMotte, - CNN Health
Stephan: In the fall of 2018, after publishing multiple stories about how badly children in America are treated I published a research paper,
"Why Doesn't America Like It's Children?"
In the months since I have probably done a dozen other stories on the same topic because this important trend is a very negative one, and now we have the data in this report.
It ought to be self-evident that a nation's future lies with its children and, if those children are abused, overweight, poorly fed, often poorly housed, and poorly educated, with inadequate healthcare, what is that saying about American values, and America's future?
But if you factor in such qualities as safety, gender equality, green living, family friendly laws and human rights, you’d look elsewhere. The US came in at number 18 for best country to raise a child, beaten by many countries in Europe, Canada and Australia. Child raising is just one of several categories listed in the survey.
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Saturday, January 18th, 2020
Julia Conley, Staff Writer - Common Dreams
Stephan: One of the things I find particularly noteworthy about Trumpers is they seem to be perfectly comfortable with criminal Trump's vileness. His nastiness of spirit, and contempt for the poor is so blatant attorney generals all over the country are suing to stop his disgusting food policies.
The Trump administration was sued by 14 states, the District of Columbia, and New York City on Friday over its proposal to tighten work requirements for SNAP recipients.
Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty
Calling the Trump administration’s attempt to gut the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program “unlawful” as well as “cruel,” 15 state attorneys general as well as the city of New York filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Agriculture Department over its new requirements for the program, a month after the new rules were finalized.
The revamped rules pertain to work requirements, and threaten to kick an estimated 688,000 people off the program, commonly called SNAP or “food stamps.”
The plaintiffs filed their suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that the rules, which are set to go into effect in April, will have reverberating effects on not just Americans’ ability to feed their families but their overall financial stability.
“The federal government’s latest assault on vulnerable individuals is cruel to its core,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James. “Denying access […]
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