COVID-19 - Updates

"India’s COVID-19 crisis is far from over, and vaccines alone won’t help.  Here’s why" PBS NewsHour 5/3/2021

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SUMMARY:  The COVID-19 crisis in India shows little sign of slowing down.  As death tolls and infections skyrocket, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership is under increasing political pressure and scrutiny.  The country is short on vaccines, and other life-saving supplies like oxygen and antiviral drugs.  William Brangham speaks to Indian reporter Barkha Dutt about what she's seeing on the ground.

 

 

"Dr. Vivek Murthy on new US inoculation strategy and distributing vaccines abroad" PBS NewsHour 5/4/2021

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SUMMARY:  U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, a key member of the president's team combating COVID-19, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss President Joe Biden's aims to vaccinate 70 percent of all U.S. adults with at least one dose by July 4, and how a focus on rural communities will help achieve that goal, and how the U.S. plans to distribute vaccines abroad.

 

 

"Waiving vaccine patent rights may be the ‘only way’ to end the pandemic" PBS NewsHour 5/5/2021

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SUMMARY:  President Biden announced that the U.S. will support waiving patent rights for the COVID vaccines — a major move that follows a call domestically, and internationally, for America to provide much quicker and greater assistance to the rest of the world.  William Brangham looks at the potential impact of this decision and the reaction to it with Madhavi Sunder of the Georgetown University Law Center.

 

 

"The government wants to pay for every COVID funeral.  Experts worry the process is flawed" PBS NewsHour 5/5/2021

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SUMMARY:  In the past few weeks, a new and large form of COVID-19 relief has opened in the U.S., with the federal government offering to pay for all or most of every funeral of those lost to the disease.  Lisa Desjardins reports on the unprecedented scale of help, how the rollout has fared so far, and the questions it raises about the cost of grief in America.

 

 

"Waiving the vaccine patent may come down to giving pharmaceutical companies incentives" PBS NewsHour 5/6/2021

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SUMMARY:  President Joe Biden has given the initial nod for the U.S. to waive patent rights on COVID vaccines to boost international production.  But there are real questions over how effective these moves would be, what other countries feel about it, and when this would translate into action.  William Brangham discusses the matter with Rachel Silverman, a policy fellow at the Center for Global Development.

 

 

"Honoring 5 American lives lost to COVID-19" PBS NewsHour 5/7/2021

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SUMMARY:  Each week, the PBS NewsHour pauses to remember five Americans lost to the COVID-19 pandemic, and shares memories and highlights from their lives.

 

 

"Serbia’s winning fight against COVID-19 raises questions about ‘vaccine diplomacy'" PBS NewsHour 5/8/2021

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SUMMARY:  Serbia has had considerable success in its COVID-19 vaccination campaign, with the third-highest rate in Europe; supply is mostly from China and Russia.  While Serbia's efforts have received high praise, experts are warning about unprecedented, growing Chinese influence in the country and the wider region through so-called 'vaccine diplomacy.'  Jorgen Samson and Aleksandar Papajic report from Serbia.

AMERICA ADDICTED - Trump's Wrong Focus on Opioid Crisis

"Will Trump’s focus on prosecution, not treatment, make a dent in opioid addiction?" PBS NewsHour 3/19/2018

Answer, NO.  The problem is not the illegal opioid trade, it's the doctors and big pharma that are the real problem.  And we should have learned from past experience that punishment does NOT stop illegal drug trade.  As long as there is a demand there will be suppliers who will make big money, aka supply and demand.

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SUMMARY:  President Trump announced his plan to combat nationwide opioid drug addiction at an event in New Hampshire on Monday, calling for aggressive prosecution for traffickers, including using the death penalty.  William Brangham discusses these proposals with Sam Quinones author of "Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic," and Dr. Andrew Kolodny of Brandeis University.

BIG PHARMA - Why Are Drug Prices So High in America?

How We Can Lower Drug Prices
(When Big Pharma Pulls the Strings)
By Robert Reich

TRUMP AGENDA - Opioid Crisis

aka "Trump's Just Say No Campaign" (with no real money) 😡  Lets forget about any responsibility of $Big Pharma.

"What advocates on the front lines of the opioid crisis want to see from Trump's public health emergency" PBS NewsHour 10/31/2017

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SUMMARY:  In declaring a public health emergency over the opioid epidemic, President Trump called for the creation of a national media campaign to reduce drug use among young people.  As part of our “America Addicted” series, William Brangham speaks with Gary Mendell of Shatterproof and Jonathan Goyer of the Anchor Recovery about what should be done to prevent addiction.

GREED FILES - The U.S. Drug Cartel and the Opioid Crisis

"How drug companies helped drive the opioid crisis" PBS NewsHour 10/6/2016

aka "A Primer on Incentivizing for BIG Profit"

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SUMMARY:  The abuse of opioids has become a major public health concern; more than 28,000 people died by overdose in 2014.  According to reporting by STAT News, drug companies downplayed the addictive effects of opioid drugs in the late 1990s, assuring doctors that they could be safely used for chronic pain and incentivized their use.  Hari Sreenivasan talks to journalist David Armstrong.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The abuse of opioids remains a major public health concern around the country.

The federal government says more than 28,000 people died by overdose in 2014.  That's the most recent year for nationwide data.  The health news site STAT has been reporting on the problem and what has been driving it.

Journalist David Armstrong sat down with Hari Sreenivasan recently.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  David, your investigation looks at a number of big pharmaceutical countries that you say helped sow the seeds for some of this epidemic that we have today.  How so?

DAVID ARMSTRONG, STAT:  Well, the way they sowed the seeds was by making this drug widely used.

And the way they did that was to downplay the addictive properties of this drug when marketing it to doctors, in a way that was later shown to be false and misleading.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Now, doctors can prescribe drugs off-label for something that it wasn't originally designed to, but how were the pharma companies abusing this?

DAVID ARMSTRONG:  Well, they were primarily abusing it in the way they were assuring doctors that these powerful opioids that are a controlled substance would not be addictive in the way that they later proved to be addictive, and could be used for things like chronic pain, which we now know they're not very effective at.

So they were able to broaden the market through a series of misrepresentations and through a series of aggressive marketing tactics.