Northern Sask. mine cleanup to cost roughly $1.6M
The Saskatchewan government has a price tag for cleaning up an abandoned northern mine.
The provincial government is paying two companies roughly $1.6 million to remediate the former Newcor gold mine near Creighton. QM Points LP, a joint venture between QM Environmental and Points Athabasca Contracting, will receive $1,363,000, while SNC-Lavalin will get $242,000 to remediate the site.
Newcor is one of six non-uranium mines the province has prioritized for cleanup. Two of those, the Vista and Western Nuclear sites, are also a stone's throw away from Creighton in the province's northeast.
Newcor is considered the highest-risk site, due to its proximity to Creighton and Douglas Lake, a Ministry of Environment spokeswoman said.
Since 2019, the province has paid at least $504,000 to SNC-Lavalin to study underground mine sites, including $104,000 approved in February that covered costs related to COVID-19, temporarily closing a mine shaft, and further planning and information gathering. That's on top of a $200,000 deal in June in which the province tapped the firm to develop an action plan and determine a long-term timeline for Vista mine's remediation.
The province is responsible for 33 non-uranium abandoned mines in northern Saskatchewan, ranging from high-priority sites to small exploration shafts and trenches.
Newcor sits on the eastern shore of Douglas Lake, about three kilometres southwest of Creighton. Activity started on the site with the discovery of gold in 1933. Mining continued there until at least the late 1940s, according to a 2012 report prepared for the Ministry of Energy and Resources.
Environmental standards and accountability weren't well established when the mine was developed, and the responsible parties aren't available for cleanup. However, the site is on Crown land, which leaves the province to manage the site's remediation, Ministry of Environment spokeswoman Val Nicholson said in a prepared statement.
Remediation will begin this month and is scheduled to be completed by the end of October. Work will include a permanent concrete cover over the mine shaft opening. Vegetated soil and an engineered geotextile liner will also cover contaminated waste rock. The work aims to stop contaminants from entering Douglas Lake, Nicholson said.
The site has been defunct for years and is cluttered with concrete, Creighton Mayor Bruce Fidler said.
The municipality isn't directly involved with the remediation project, but the site's proximity may be an opportunity for local businesses and labour, Fidler said.
"We're definitely looking forward to having these projects, and improving the environment," he added.
"We hope it will be (brought) back to nature where people go and walk around and enjoy the area without stumbling over old broken cement."
Nick Pearce, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The StarPhoenix
Friday, August 13, 2021
A Lawyer's Deathbed Confession About a Sensational 1975 Kidnapping
Alex Traub
Thu, August 12, 2021
In this article:
Samuel Bronfman
Canadian businessman, philanthropist
An aerial view of the Bronfman estate in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., home of Edgar Bronfman, patriarch of the family and chairman of the Seagram Company, on Aug. 11, 1975. (Neal Boenzi/The New York Times)
Before dawn on Aug. 17, 1975, about 60 police officers and FBI agents charged into the New York City apartment of a fireman named Mel Patrick Lynch. The living room was dimly lit; its blinds were drawn. Lynch sat on the couch next to the unshaven, foul-smelling, bound and blindfolded 21-year-old scion of one of America’s richest families, Samuel Bronfman II, who had been missing for nine days.
Authorities arrested Lynch and an accomplice, Dominic Byrne. The men confessed to abducting Bronfman, describing the planning and execution of the crime and identifying the hiding spot of two garbage bags containing a $2.3 million ransom.
That seemed like the end of the drama. Actually, it was only a first act. The kidnapping trial turned out to have more narrative twists than the crime itself. Lynch and Byrne would be convicted of an extortion charge, but incredibly — after it seemed they had been caught red-handed — a jury pronounced them not guilty of kidnapping, a charge that could have put them in prison for life. They and their defense lawyers managed to convince jurors that there was, in fact, no kidnapping.
This miracle was pulled off in large part by Byrne’s attorney, Peter DeBlasio, who called the case “the greatest trial victory of my career.”
The Bronfman kidnapping is one of the stranger tales of New York’s criminal history, but over the following decades, hardly anyone had reason to recall the intricacies and mysteries — except DeBlasio. Even as he reveled in his triumph, he worried until the end of his life about what he had done to secure it.
DeBlasio’s mix of pride and unease combusted in July 2020, when he self-published a memoir, “Let Justice Be Done.” His book, which went largely unnoticed, reveals what he long told his two daughters was the secret of the Bronfman trial: His winning argument was premised on a lie — and he knew it.
It was effectively a deathbed confession. Just five months later, on Dec. 18, DeBlasio died of heart failure at 91.
DeBlasio’s memoir — along with an examination of 45-year-old court records and interviews with actors from this episode who are still alive — help set the record straight on a tangle of allegations. They range from a forbidden love affair to a yearslong surveillance campaign to a conspiracy that hoodwinked the nation.
On Aug. 8, 1975, Bronfman was in a Tudor mansion surrounded by dense woods. This was the center of a 180-acre estate north of New York City in Yorktown Heights, Westchester County, owned by Samuel’s father, Edgar, patriarch of the Bronfman family. A small group had gathered for a candlelit dinner of chilled vegetable soup, roast beef and, for dessert, mousse au citron. At 11:30, Samuel bid everyone farewell, got in his green BMW and drove into the night.
That June, Samuel Bronfman had graduated from Williams College, where he edited the sports section of the school paper and played varsity tennis. He was about to start a job in sales at Sports Illustrated. He and his girlfriend, Melanie Mann, whom he had met freshman year, were moving toward marriage. A night out without Mann might entail Samuel Bronfman cruising around a familiar set of Westchester bars.
At 1:45 a.m., the phone rang at the Yorktown Heights estate. The family’s butler answered and heard Samuel Bronfman’s voice. “Call my father,” he said. “I’ve been kidnapped.”
The Bronfman family owned Seagram Co., the sprawling conglomerate that The New York Times described around that time as “the world’s largest distiller.” Samuel Bronfman was an heir to a trust worth about $750 million, more than $3.5 billion today.
His abductors introduced themselves to the Bronfman family with a ransom note. They promised that if their plan went awry, a survivor of their group would track down and kill Edgar Bronfman, Samuel’s father, who was chair of Seagram. The note described bullets containing cyanide.
In statements to the press, the Bronfman family pleaded for evidence that Samuel was still alive and assured the kidnappers they would pay the ransom. Spokespeople were sent down the long driveway from the Westchester compound to more than 50 reporters camped outside the front gate. Curiosity-seekers dropped by, along with hot dog and ice cream vendors.
While reporters, lacking better material, analyzed the significance of grocery deliveries, Edgar Bronfman, one of the richest men in America, spent three nights dashing between telephone booths in and around Kennedy International Airport, struggling to understand terse instructions given by a man who called at prescribed times.
At about 3 a.m. on Aug. 16, Edgar Bronfman met the man below an aqueduct in Woodside, Queens, and delivered the ransom. Lurking in the background were about 100 FBI agents idling on motorcycles, in trucks, in a van, on at least one helicopter and in at least two decoy taxis. Yet after the handoff was made, the brigade of federal agents somehow allowed the rust-colored Oldsmobile that picked up the ransom to elude them and make a clean getaway.
The FBI was saved by a revealing blunder made by their target. The bagman had driven to the handoff in his own car; all the agents had to do was look up the license plate number.
They traced it to an apartment in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn belonging to Lynch, an Irish immigrant from the tiny village of Banagher. Lynch was 37 years old and a tall, broad bachelor who was losing his hair. His neighbors, who called him Fireman Lynch, said he was polite and reserved. When the guys at his fire company watched “Jeopardy!,” Lynch knew all the answers.
The FBI staked out the area around Lynch’s apartment. One car with two agents parked around the corner — improbably, right outside the home of Byrne, Lynch’s partner in crime.
Byrne found himself unnerved by the mystery car. He sent his daughter, Mary, to a police precinct a few blocks from their home. She told officers there that her family feared two hit men were lying in wait on their block.
Like Lynch, Byrne was an immigrant from rural Ireland — in his case, a village called Taughnarra. In other respects, Byrne, a 53-year-old limousine service operator, was the opposite of Lynch. He was about 5-foot-4 and known for theatrical blarney, greeting friends with a “top o’ the morning” while on walks with his dogs. A family man and joiner of civic groups, he attended Mass with his wife every Sunday.
The police quickly realized the hit men in the idling car were FBI agents, and they all converged on the Byrne family home. Byrne confessed on the spot, telling officers and agents that he had been forced into participating in the kidnapping. He persuaded officers that storming Lynch’s apartment could lead to violence, whereas following his normal protocol by giving Lynch a call to say he was on his way would smooth over the moment of their entry.
But on the phone, Byrne took a deep breath and tipped off his partner. “It’s all over, Mel,” he said. “They are coming over.”
Lynch’s place was two blocks away, and when the officers burst into the apartment, they found him and a blindfolded Samuel Bronfman sitting next to each other on the couch.
After being arrested, Byrne and Lynch explained that they had been friends for years and formally confessed to the crime. Their statements, coupled with a corroborating account from Bronfman, enabled authorities to piece together a clear story about what had happened.
“With the Bronfman kidnapping,” the Times editorial board wrote, “the men of the FBI did the job that American society expects and needs them to do.”
Despite its speedy conclusion, it was a crime long in the making. Years before the actual abduction, Lynch persuaded Byrne that a kidnapping would be easy to pull off without hurting anyone. One night late around summer’s end in 1973, they took their first trip to the house where Samuel Bronfman lived with his mother in Purchase, a hamlet in Westchester County. Lynch pointed out that no fence separated the house from its border on the Hutchinson River Parkway. Over the next two years, the men took 30 or 40 trips.
The final visit was Aug. 8, 1975. Lynch watched Samuel Bronfman pull into the garage in Purchase after the dinner with his father. He seized the moment. He ran toward the BMW, and as Bronfman emerged, he announced, “This is a stickup.” He handcuffed Bronfman and put a .38 automatic into his captive’s ribs.
Bronfman spent days begging not to be killed and struggling to go to the bathroom while restrained. After picking up the ransom, Lynch told Bronfman he suspected that the FBI was on to him and that he was thinking of fleeing the apartment and taking him hostage on the road. He said he would kill Bronfman and himself before going to jail. Then came Byrne’s call.
“They’re on their way,” Lynch said.
“Who?” Bronfman asked.
“The FBI,” Lynch replied.
Bronfman steeled himself. “What are you going to do?” he asked.
“We’re going to give up,” Lynch said. He gave Bronfman his sneakers back and told him to put them on. He sat next to Bronfman on the couch. Moments later, federal agents, guns drawn, barged in.
The mood of celebration started to sour at the bail hearing a month later. The two defendants had retained separate counsel, and Lynch’s lawyer made the remarkable claim that Samuel Bronfman had masterminded his own kidnapping.
The prosecution called the allegation “absurd,” and DeBlasio portrayed Lynch as the mastermind, arguing that the fireman was guilty of “coercion” in forcing Byrne to participate in a real kidnapping.
By the time the trial began in October, Lynch had rejected the confession he gave to FBI interrogators. He had a new story to tell.
Lynch said he and Bronfman were, in fact, lovers: They first met at a bar in June 1974 and shortly thereafter began having sex, he testified, often in the pool house of the Bronfman property in Purchase. Byrne drove Lynch there because he owed Lynch favors, and Lynch made the trips to meet Bronfman, not surveil him. The reason he entered Bronfman’s property from the highway through the woods was for the sake of secrecy. Their conversations, he told the court, focused on Bronfman’s desire to shake down his family for cash; it was Bronfman’s idea to stage his own kidnapping.
Lynch agreed to join the caper, he explained, because Bronfman threatened to inform the fire department that he was gay, which he said would jeopardize his employment.
Lynch’s tale lacked basic information. He could not offer even a motive for the crime, like Bronfman’s need for immediate money. Asked what he and his lover talked about, Lynch referred to “things in general.” He said nothing about romance or desire beyond the clinical phrase “we had sex.”
Yet the prosecutor, Geoffrey Orlando, an assistant district attorney in Westchester, never broached the supposed love affair.
“Being called gay was much, much worse then,” Orlando said in a recent phone interview. It was 1976, and the topic of homosexuality was so taboo, he decided, that directly challenging the claim of an affair would be pointless.
Despite what his story lacked in logic or evidence, Lynch, the notably taciturn fireman, was mesmerizing as a storyteller during four days on the witness stand. NYPD officers and FBI agents would contradict themselves recounting basic police work; Lynch, whose story alleged an intricate hoax, could not be tripped up. “Anybody else join you at the table?” Orlando asked Lynch about his first meeting with Bronfman. “No, sir,” Lynch replied, confirming a minor detail of his testimony. “We were at the bar.”
Preparing for the trial, DeBlasio planned to attack Lynch as “a monster who preyed upon his feebleminded friend Dominic, forcing him under duress to aid in the most terrible of crimes imaginable.” Then he saw Lynch on the stand.
“I can look back now after a 50-year, 600-trial career and say that among the thousands of witnesses I observed, nobody approached the magnificence of Mel Patrick Lynch,” DeBlasio wrote. “He was the Arturo Toscanini and Enrico Caruso of witnesses. He turned a horror story into a tragedy of operatic dimension. The jurors were mesmerized. If they could have, they would have exploded in applause and cried for an encore.”
Orlando agreed with that assessment. “He was a great liar — absolutely, positively — and a sympathetic character,” Orlando said of Lynch.
Bronfman, conversely, looked to jurors like a man caught in a nightmare, fighting back tears and biting his fingernails while on the stand. Following a torrent of accusations about secret sexual escapades and plans to film pornography, the judge halted proceedings, took Orlando aside, accused him of a “lack of propriety” and said he was “amazed” Orlando had not objected when the defense made “smearing innuendoes” about Bronfman.
“In a case like this, the victim gets put on trial, and yet he has no means of making a defense,” Bronfman said after the trial.
Byrne did not testify, but he appeared strangely dissociated, indiscriminately beaming smiles at everyone in the courtroom: the jurors, the journalists, his co-defendant and even the Bronfman family.
Following Lynch’s commanding performance, DeBlasio tailored his defense to fit with the hoax angle, telling the court what he knew to be an outright lie.
“There was no kidnapping,” he said, addressing the jury. As for the FBI, he offered, “They should have been checking Sam Bronfman.” DeBlasio portrayed the Seagram heir as resentful that he had not “grown up the way the father wanted him.” Calling DeBlasio “brilliant,” Newsweek wrote that he “stirred jurors to his summation.” Two jurors told the Times they believed that Bronfman had indeed “engineered his own kidnapping.”
DeBlasio waited nearly 45 years to reveal that he had no doubt the story that convinced those jurors was false.
“About Sam,” DeBlasio wrote toward the end of his memoir. “I want it to be clear to all who may ever read these pages that Samuel Bronfman was not a part of the kidnapping.” He added, “Neither he nor Lynch were gay as far as anyone ever knew and certainly they were not lovers.”
This kind of admission from a lawyer, even in a tell-all memoir, is extraordinary. Experts say DeBlasio’s ethical breach did not come in his cunning courtroom argument, but rather in his attempt to clear his conscience.
“His obligation to his client continues forever, even after his client’s death,” said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University who specializes in legal ethics. “He’s saying, ‘My client, who was acquitted of kidnapping, is really a kidnapper.’ That’s exactly what he’s not allowed to say.”
DeBlasio’s daughter, Alessandra DeBlasio, notified Samuel Bronfman about her father’s book. In an email to the Times, Bronfman responded to what he called a confession by DeBlasio. “I was really kidnapped in 1975 and his and Lynch’s defense was a fraud,” Bronfman wrote. “I am glad he acknowledged this fact.”
According to Alessandra DeBlasio, Byrne’s signed confession to the FBI (a document that Peter DeBlasio managed to suppress in court) made an overwhelming impression on her father. “He knew all along from day one that his guy had done it,” she said. She added that at no point in the trial did Byrne tell Peter DeBlasio his confession was false.
Then there was the blindfold Bronfman wore. It was a “putrid mess” with “ripped-off pieces of Sam’s flesh and his facial hair growing into the adhesive tape,” Peter DeBlasio wrote. “What hoax? Nobody faking their own kidnapping would wear a blindfold.”
Following Lynch’s and Byrne’s exoneration as kidnappers, the Bronfman family held a news conference at their corporate headquarters, the Seagram Building on Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan. “I went into this kidnapping a little boy,” Samuel Bronfman said, “and I came out a man.”
Despite his escape from a harrowing ordeal, the resolution was disturbing for Bronfman. However baseless, the charges that he had hatched a conspiracy with a lover to defraud his family lingered in the decades to come.
“It poisoned the atmosphere forever for Sam,” said Orlando, the prosecutor, who became friendly with Bronfman during the trial. “He will forever be tagged with that allegation.”
Bronfman declined to comment on the impact the episode made on the rest of his life. Orlando said Bronfman, now 67, recently told him that his adult children “have no idea” the kidnapping took place.
Ten years after the trial, Edgar Bronfman named Samuel’s younger brother, Edgar Jr., head of Seagram, in what Fortune magazine called a “surprise.” Samuel Bronfman had worked at the company longer; unlike his younger brother, he had a college degree; and his elevation would have continued the tradition of the company’s passing to the eldest son of the family.
Edgar Bronfman Jr. oversaw a series of questionable investments and sold the company in what came to be seen as a financial debacle.
The title of DeBlasio’s book, “Let Justice Be Done,” was also his favorite legal expression. He used the “plain but powerful” phrase to conclude all of his closing arguments, including in the Bronfman trial. Yet something about that “greatest trial victory” caused him to question his credo.
“Whether justice was done in this case,” he wrote, “may not be for me to say.”
© 2021 The New York Times Company
UN experts call for more rules on countries' use of spyware
JAMEY KEATEN
Thu, August 12, 2021,
GENEVA (AP) — Human rights experts working with the United Nations on Thursday called on countries to pause the sale and transfer of spyware and other surveillance technology until they set rules governing its use, to ensure it won’t impinge upon human rights.
The experts, speaking out in the wake of new Pegasus spyware revelations, expressed concern that “highly sophisticated intrusive tools are being used to monitor, intimidate and silence human rights defenders, journalists and political opponents” in some places, the U.N. human rights office said.
“U.N. human rights experts today called on all states to impose a global moratorium on the sale and transfer of surveillance technology until they have put in place robust regulations that guarantee its use in compliance with international human rights standards,” it said in a statement.
Last month an investigation by a global media consortium showed further evidence that the military-grade Pegasus malware from the Israel-based NSO Group, a hacker-for-hire outfit, has been used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents.
The eight experts cited the “extraordinary audacity and contempt for human rights” shown by such surveillance and called on NSO to say whether it had assessed the human rights impact of the use of such tools and publish any findings of its internal probes into the matter.
The independent experts, who focus on a number of rights issues under mandates from the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council, are in “direct communication” with NSO and the Israeli government, the statement said.
The experts noted that international human rights law requires countries to ensure protections against illegal surveillance, invasion of privacy and threats to fundamental freedoms like those of expression and assembly.
Pegasus infiltrates phones to vacuum up personal and location data and surreptitiously control the smartphone’s microphones and cameras. In the case of journalists, that lets hackers spy on reporters’ communications with sources.
The program is designed to bypass detection and mask its activity.
JAMEY KEATEN
Thu, August 12, 2021,
GENEVA (AP) — Human rights experts working with the United Nations on Thursday called on countries to pause the sale and transfer of spyware and other surveillance technology until they set rules governing its use, to ensure it won’t impinge upon human rights.
The experts, speaking out in the wake of new Pegasus spyware revelations, expressed concern that “highly sophisticated intrusive tools are being used to monitor, intimidate and silence human rights defenders, journalists and political opponents” in some places, the U.N. human rights office said.
“U.N. human rights experts today called on all states to impose a global moratorium on the sale and transfer of surveillance technology until they have put in place robust regulations that guarantee its use in compliance with international human rights standards,” it said in a statement.
Last month an investigation by a global media consortium showed further evidence that the military-grade Pegasus malware from the Israel-based NSO Group, a hacker-for-hire outfit, has been used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents.
The eight experts cited the “extraordinary audacity and contempt for human rights” shown by such surveillance and called on NSO to say whether it had assessed the human rights impact of the use of such tools and publish any findings of its internal probes into the matter.
The independent experts, who focus on a number of rights issues under mandates from the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council, are in “direct communication” with NSO and the Israeli government, the statement said.
The experts noted that international human rights law requires countries to ensure protections against illegal surveillance, invasion of privacy and threats to fundamental freedoms like those of expression and assembly.
Pegasus infiltrates phones to vacuum up personal and location data and surreptitiously control the smartphone’s microphones and cameras. In the case of journalists, that lets hackers spy on reporters’ communications with sources.
The program is designed to bypass detection and mask its activity.
Shell pays $111m over 1970s oil spill in Nigeria
Wed, August 11, 2021,
Shell logo is reflected in a car mirror
Oil giant Shell will pay a Nigerian community $111m (£80m) over an oil spill more than 50 years ago.
A spokesman said the payment would mark the "full and final settlement" to the Ejama-Ebubu community over a spill during the 1967-70 Biafran War.
The company has maintained that the damage was caused by third parties.
A Nigerian court fined Shell the equivalent of $41.36m in 2010, but the company launched a number of unsuccessful appeals.
Last year, the country's Supreme Court said that, with interest, the fine owed by the company was more than ten times greater than the original judgement, although Shell denied this. The case was launched in 1991.
Shell has previously said it was not given the opportunity to defend itself against the claims, and began international arbitration over the case earlier this year.
"They ran out of tricks and decided to come to terms," lawyer Lucius Nwosa, who represented the local community, was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. "The decision is a vindication of the resoluteness of the community for justice."
While the case dates back decades, pollution from leaking oil pipelines continues to be a major issue in the Niger Delta.
Earlier this year, in a separate case, a Dutch appeals court ruled that Shell's Nigerian branch was responsible for damage caused by leaks in the Niger Delta from 2004 to 2007.
The court ordered Shell Nigeria to pay compensation to Nigerian farmers, while the subsidiary and its Anglo-Dutch parent company were told to install equipment to prevent future damage.
Shell Nigeria liable for oil spills - Dutch court
Is crude oil killing children in Nigeria?
A group of farmers launched the case in 2008, alleging widespread pollution.
Shell argued that the leaks were the result of "sabotage".
Wed, August 11, 2021,
Shell logo is reflected in a car mirror
Oil giant Shell will pay a Nigerian community $111m (£80m) over an oil spill more than 50 years ago.
A spokesman said the payment would mark the "full and final settlement" to the Ejama-Ebubu community over a spill during the 1967-70 Biafran War.
The company has maintained that the damage was caused by third parties.
A Nigerian court fined Shell the equivalent of $41.36m in 2010, but the company launched a number of unsuccessful appeals.
Last year, the country's Supreme Court said that, with interest, the fine owed by the company was more than ten times greater than the original judgement, although Shell denied this. The case was launched in 1991.
Shell has previously said it was not given the opportunity to defend itself against the claims, and began international arbitration over the case earlier this year.
"They ran out of tricks and decided to come to terms," lawyer Lucius Nwosa, who represented the local community, was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. "The decision is a vindication of the resoluteness of the community for justice."
While the case dates back decades, pollution from leaking oil pipelines continues to be a major issue in the Niger Delta.
Earlier this year, in a separate case, a Dutch appeals court ruled that Shell's Nigerian branch was responsible for damage caused by leaks in the Niger Delta from 2004 to 2007.
The court ordered Shell Nigeria to pay compensation to Nigerian farmers, while the subsidiary and its Anglo-Dutch parent company were told to install equipment to prevent future damage.
Shell Nigeria liable for oil spills - Dutch court
Is crude oil killing children in Nigeria?
A group of farmers launched the case in 2008, alleging widespread pollution.
Shell argued that the leaks were the result of "sabotage".
Protesters accuse Raytheon of abuses, block plant entrances
Thu, August 12, 2021
PORTSMOUTH, R.I. (AP) — A group of activists blocked the entrance to a Raytheon plant in Rhode Island on Thursday morning to protest what they allege is the company's role in the “killing of civilians" and “other human rights abuses."
Some members of a group called the Fang Collective chained themselves to two vehicles next to the guard shack at the entrance to the Portsmouth plant at about 6 a.m.
Law enforcement, firefighters and tow trucks had also responded to the scene.
Two protesters were later arrested, the group said in a post on social media.
The men had attached themselves to concrete blocks within and underneath the vehicles, Portsmouth police said in an emailed statement. The fire department was called in to free them.
They are charged with trespassing, conspiracy, disorderly conduct, and obstruction of a police officer.
The group in an emailed statement said it was protesting the Waltham, Massachusetts-based defense contractor's “weapon sales to Saudi Arabia and Israel, and their involvement in enforcing the U.S.- Mexican border."
“Raytheon profits from the killing of civilians, families and children in Palestine, Yemen and elsewhere," the group said.
Raytheon's Missiles & Defense plant in Portsmouth focuses on what it calls seapower capability — sensors, combat management systems, radar and sonar. About 1,000 people work at the facility.
“We respect the right to lawful and peaceful protest,” the company said in a brief emailed statement.
___
This story has been updated to correct the name of the Portsmouth plant to Raytheon Missiles & Defense, not Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems.
Thu, August 12, 2021
PORTSMOUTH, R.I. (AP) — A group of activists blocked the entrance to a Raytheon plant in Rhode Island on Thursday morning to protest what they allege is the company's role in the “killing of civilians" and “other human rights abuses."
Some members of a group called the Fang Collective chained themselves to two vehicles next to the guard shack at the entrance to the Portsmouth plant at about 6 a.m.
Law enforcement, firefighters and tow trucks had also responded to the scene.
Two protesters were later arrested, the group said in a post on social media.
The men had attached themselves to concrete blocks within and underneath the vehicles, Portsmouth police said in an emailed statement. The fire department was called in to free them.
They are charged with trespassing, conspiracy, disorderly conduct, and obstruction of a police officer.
The group in an emailed statement said it was protesting the Waltham, Massachusetts-based defense contractor's “weapon sales to Saudi Arabia and Israel, and their involvement in enforcing the U.S.- Mexican border."
“Raytheon profits from the killing of civilians, families and children in Palestine, Yemen and elsewhere," the group said.
Raytheon's Missiles & Defense plant in Portsmouth focuses on what it calls seapower capability — sensors, combat management systems, radar and sonar. About 1,000 people work at the facility.
“We respect the right to lawful and peaceful protest,” the company said in a brief emailed statement.
___
This story has been updated to correct the name of the Portsmouth plant to Raytheon Missiles & Defense, not Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems.
EDITORIAL: No time to spare on stopping climate change
The Free Press, Mankato, Minn.
Fri, August 13, 2021
Aug. 13—No sign of Chicken Little in this recently released report. All warnings are to be taken seriously. The sky isn't falling, but there are mountains of proof that the atmosphere is dangerously warming and that calls for changes that need to be taken seriously and immediately.
The U.N. climate report that came out Monday didn't reveal any big surprises, but the message is clearer than ever: The Earth is in big trouble and we, as its really careless renters, are responsible for the bulk of the damage.
Scientists have been pointing out the threat of global warming for decades. And despite some people ignoring those warnings or instead claiming wet weather proves there's no such thing as drought or that wildfires should be blamed on poor management practices, fact is fact.
The report, done by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says there is no doubt humans have warmed the planet by more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit since pre-industrial times. That disturbing piece of truth is based on 14,000 studies that include better data and models than have ever been used before. And unfortunately, firsthand observation has become so much more of a factor in supporting recent findings.
When international reports are released, it's easy for comfortable Americans to not pay attention. We may think, for the most part, that the biggest problems are occurring elsewhere, especially in poor countries that lack infrastructure. Most of us have enough to eat, have roofs over our heads and can drive to where we want to go.
But if you had to restrict watering your lawn, did not go outside much on some days because of poor air quality, got your boat stuck on a ramp or worried about the soybean crop after this summer of drought, you have recently been affected by climate change.
And it's not going to get better. Not only are we seeing drought, but we've experienced torrential rainstorms in past summers, flooding on local rivers that has wrecked highways, private property and closed off communities, and warmer winters with less snow that can affect water and soil as well as change our recreational opportunities.
We can't afford to mull over more reports. Governments need to keep passing laws that require cutting fossil fuels and reducing the carbon footprint of not only business and industry but of individuals. Supporting clean energy, the production of electric cars, conservation efforts and adequate funding of scientific research all have to be part of the solution. Now.
If Minnesotans want to protect their way of life — including its abundant waterways, diverse plant life and reliance on agriculture as a top economic driver — then we have to pay attention and support environmental action.
An added benefit to taking that action is its boost to our economy. A report released this week by Clean Energy Economy MN states that clean energy companies employed 55,329 Minnesotans at the end of 2020. Even though that's actually a 10.5 percent drop from 2019 attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, the state's clean energy sector grew by 10 percent in the second half of the year — nearly two times the growth rate for jobs in the overall economy.
Global warming isn't someone else's problem; it's a problem we all have to recognize and work together to fix. There's already been damage we can't undo; life as we know it is running out of time.
Alarming UN report failed to resonate with swing voters, and few know Biden's climate agenda
Andrew Freedman
Fri, August 13, 2021, 3:43 AM·4 min read
The United Nations IPCC's alarming sixth assessment report, released Monday, was splashed across newspaper front pages, at the top of most mainstream news websites, and received significant TV coverage on cable and network broadcasts.
Yes, but: The report — the panel's most comprehensive look at how humans are altering the planet's climate in sweeping ways — failed to register, let alone resonate, with swing voters, according to an unscientific sampling from two Engagious/Schlesinger focus groups conducted Tuesday evening.
Why it matters: The focus groups showed that even the most headline-grabbing climate news — and climate change is rarely the top story across so many media outlets — failed to break through the noise.
The intrigue: In a potentially troubling sign for the Biden White House, only three out of 13 voters who had supported Trump in 2016 and voted for Biden in 2020 could describe his climate policies.
Given that climate is a central focus of Biden's agenda, communicating to these voters will be crucial for the midterm elections and in 2024.
Right now, the focus groups suggested there may be an opening for Republicans to define the Democratic climate and energy positions first, or attack it as spending on the wrong priorities.
How it works: The 13 voters who participated in the groups live in the most competitive swing states of the 2020 election, including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona, among others.
Between the lines: While a focus group is not a statistically significant sample like a poll, the responses show how some voters in crucial states are thinking and talking about current events.
Details: When asked if they had read or seen reports of the IPCC report, only two out of 13 participants in the panels answered that they had.
One, Greg L., 57, of Pennsylvania, said the headline he saw on CNN was so alarming it discouraged him from reading the story.
"It kind of gave some hope but it sounded like we were far, we're closer to the pivot point than we thought. It's accelerating more rapidly, so I didn't get, I didn't want to read the article," he said.
Only one of the participants could say whether Biden supports or opposes the Green New Deal — a platform for progressive social change and climate action that Biden has never supported, though he has adopted some ideas advanced by Green New Deal advocates.
Some Republicans have been attacking Biden's infrastructure plan as being straight out of the Green New Deal.
Eight of the 13 participants thought human activity is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather. Yet 11 of them saw climate change as an issue affecting future generations more than themselves, and two didn't think it’s a problem at all.
Those who expressed some concern about ongoing extreme weather trends tended to have a past, personal experience with such an event, or knew someone who was affected by a wildfire, heat wave or hurricane.
What they're saying: “While scientists are clanging the alarm bells, begging the public to pay attention, most of these Trump-Biden voters are hearing only faint chimes, or nothing at all,” said Rich Thau, president of Engagious, who moderated the focus groups.
The big picture: Polls conducted of large samples of Americans by the Pew Research Center, Ipsos and the Yale Project on Climate Communication, among others, have shown increasing concern about climate change among U.S. voters, and a spike in the percentage who see global warming as more of a current concern than a far-off problem.
An Ipsos poll shared exclusively with Axios in June found that seven out of 10 Americans are aware of the scientific consensus that climate change is largely caused by people, and that the world isn't on track to reach the temperature reduction targets of the Paris climate agreement.
Polls also show that voters are increasingly tying extreme weather events, such as severe heat waves, with human-caused global warming.
However, there is still a gaping partisan divide in the level of concern about the issue and support for specific solutions.
The other side: The focus groups also contained a warning sign for Republicans. None of the participants could describe anything about what the congressional Republicans are offering as a climate change plan.
That's for a good reason — there isn't one, though a number of Republicans in both chambers have joined on to specific legislation to boost particular technologies or emissions reduction programs.
More from Axios: Sign up to get the latest market trends with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free
The Free Press, Mankato, Minn.
Fri, August 13, 2021
Aug. 13—No sign of Chicken Little in this recently released report. All warnings are to be taken seriously. The sky isn't falling, but there are mountains of proof that the atmosphere is dangerously warming and that calls for changes that need to be taken seriously and immediately.
The U.N. climate report that came out Monday didn't reveal any big surprises, but the message is clearer than ever: The Earth is in big trouble and we, as its really careless renters, are responsible for the bulk of the damage.
Scientists have been pointing out the threat of global warming for decades. And despite some people ignoring those warnings or instead claiming wet weather proves there's no such thing as drought or that wildfires should be blamed on poor management practices, fact is fact.
The report, done by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says there is no doubt humans have warmed the planet by more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit since pre-industrial times. That disturbing piece of truth is based on 14,000 studies that include better data and models than have ever been used before. And unfortunately, firsthand observation has become so much more of a factor in supporting recent findings.
When international reports are released, it's easy for comfortable Americans to not pay attention. We may think, for the most part, that the biggest problems are occurring elsewhere, especially in poor countries that lack infrastructure. Most of us have enough to eat, have roofs over our heads and can drive to where we want to go.
But if you had to restrict watering your lawn, did not go outside much on some days because of poor air quality, got your boat stuck on a ramp or worried about the soybean crop after this summer of drought, you have recently been affected by climate change.
And it's not going to get better. Not only are we seeing drought, but we've experienced torrential rainstorms in past summers, flooding on local rivers that has wrecked highways, private property and closed off communities, and warmer winters with less snow that can affect water and soil as well as change our recreational opportunities.
We can't afford to mull over more reports. Governments need to keep passing laws that require cutting fossil fuels and reducing the carbon footprint of not only business and industry but of individuals. Supporting clean energy, the production of electric cars, conservation efforts and adequate funding of scientific research all have to be part of the solution. Now.
If Minnesotans want to protect their way of life — including its abundant waterways, diverse plant life and reliance on agriculture as a top economic driver — then we have to pay attention and support environmental action.
An added benefit to taking that action is its boost to our economy. A report released this week by Clean Energy Economy MN states that clean energy companies employed 55,329 Minnesotans at the end of 2020. Even though that's actually a 10.5 percent drop from 2019 attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, the state's clean energy sector grew by 10 percent in the second half of the year — nearly two times the growth rate for jobs in the overall economy.
Global warming isn't someone else's problem; it's a problem we all have to recognize and work together to fix. There's already been damage we can't undo; life as we know it is running out of time.
Alarming UN report failed to resonate with swing voters, and few know Biden's climate agenda
Andrew Freedman
Fri, August 13, 2021, 3:43 AM·4 min read
The United Nations IPCC's alarming sixth assessment report, released Monday, was splashed across newspaper front pages, at the top of most mainstream news websites, and received significant TV coverage on cable and network broadcasts.
Yes, but: The report — the panel's most comprehensive look at how humans are altering the planet's climate in sweeping ways — failed to register, let alone resonate, with swing voters, according to an unscientific sampling from two Engagious/Schlesinger focus groups conducted Tuesday evening.
Why it matters: The focus groups showed that even the most headline-grabbing climate news — and climate change is rarely the top story across so many media outlets — failed to break through the noise.
The intrigue: In a potentially troubling sign for the Biden White House, only three out of 13 voters who had supported Trump in 2016 and voted for Biden in 2020 could describe his climate policies.
Given that climate is a central focus of Biden's agenda, communicating to these voters will be crucial for the midterm elections and in 2024.
Right now, the focus groups suggested there may be an opening for Republicans to define the Democratic climate and energy positions first, or attack it as spending on the wrong priorities.
How it works: The 13 voters who participated in the groups live in the most competitive swing states of the 2020 election, including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona, among others.
Between the lines: While a focus group is not a statistically significant sample like a poll, the responses show how some voters in crucial states are thinking and talking about current events.
Details: When asked if they had read or seen reports of the IPCC report, only two out of 13 participants in the panels answered that they had.
One, Greg L., 57, of Pennsylvania, said the headline he saw on CNN was so alarming it discouraged him from reading the story.
"It kind of gave some hope but it sounded like we were far, we're closer to the pivot point than we thought. It's accelerating more rapidly, so I didn't get, I didn't want to read the article," he said.
Only one of the participants could say whether Biden supports or opposes the Green New Deal — a platform for progressive social change and climate action that Biden has never supported, though he has adopted some ideas advanced by Green New Deal advocates.
Some Republicans have been attacking Biden's infrastructure plan as being straight out of the Green New Deal.
Eight of the 13 participants thought human activity is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather. Yet 11 of them saw climate change as an issue affecting future generations more than themselves, and two didn't think it’s a problem at all.
Those who expressed some concern about ongoing extreme weather trends tended to have a past, personal experience with such an event, or knew someone who was affected by a wildfire, heat wave or hurricane.
What they're saying: “While scientists are clanging the alarm bells, begging the public to pay attention, most of these Trump-Biden voters are hearing only faint chimes, or nothing at all,” said Rich Thau, president of Engagious, who moderated the focus groups.
The big picture: Polls conducted of large samples of Americans by the Pew Research Center, Ipsos and the Yale Project on Climate Communication, among others, have shown increasing concern about climate change among U.S. voters, and a spike in the percentage who see global warming as more of a current concern than a far-off problem.
An Ipsos poll shared exclusively with Axios in June found that seven out of 10 Americans are aware of the scientific consensus that climate change is largely caused by people, and that the world isn't on track to reach the temperature reduction targets of the Paris climate agreement.
Polls also show that voters are increasingly tying extreme weather events, such as severe heat waves, with human-caused global warming.
However, there is still a gaping partisan divide in the level of concern about the issue and support for specific solutions.
The other side: The focus groups also contained a warning sign for Republicans. None of the participants could describe anything about what the congressional Republicans are offering as a climate change plan.
That's for a good reason — there isn't one, though a number of Republicans in both chambers have joined on to specific legislation to boost particular technologies or emissions reduction programs.
More from Axios: Sign up to get the latest market trends with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free
US investigates latest case of a rare tropical disease
In a growing medical mystery, a person who died in July 2021 in Georgia has been confirmed as the fourth U.S. case this year of an illness caused by the meliodosis bacteria from South Asia.
On Monday, Aug. 9, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent an alert about the latest case to U.S. doctors.
By MIKE STOBBE
August 9, 2021
FILE - This Nov. 19, 2013 file photo shows a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention logo at the agency's federal headquarters in Atlanta. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. health officials are investigating the latest fatal case of a rare tropical disease typically found in South Asia.
The unidentified person, who died last month in Georgia, was the fourth U.S. case this year of melioidosis caused by a bacteria that lives in soil and water, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.
None of the cases from Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota or Texas traveled internationally, puzzling experts. The CDC said two died.
Federal health officials sent an alert about the latest case to doctors, asking them to consider melioidosis if they face a bacterial infection that doesn’t respond to antibiotics — even if the patient has not traveled outside of the country. The CDC said the infection is treatable if caught early and treated correctly.
Though the illnesses were found in different states at different times, the agency said lab analyses showed the infections were closely related.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - This Nov. 19, 2013 file photo shows a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention logo at the agency's federal headquarters in Atlanta. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. health officials are investigating the latest fatal case of a rare tropical disease typically found in South Asia.
The unidentified person, who died last month in Georgia, was the fourth U.S. case this year of melioidosis caused by a bacteria that lives in soil and water, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.
None of the cases from Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota or Texas traveled internationally, puzzling experts. The CDC said two died.
Federal health officials sent an alert about the latest case to doctors, asking them to consider melioidosis if they face a bacterial infection that doesn’t respond to antibiotics — even if the patient has not traveled outside of the country. The CDC said the infection is treatable if caught early and treated correctly.
Though the illnesses were found in different states at different times, the agency said lab analyses showed the infections were closely related.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FOR PROFIT MEDICINE USA
Groups make own drugs to fight high drug prices, shortagesBy LINDA A. JOHNSON
This 2019 photo provided by Civica Rx shows vials of vancomycin in Lehi, Utah. Impatient with years of inaction in Washington on prescription drug costs, U.S. hospital groups, startups and nonprofits have started making their own medicines in a bid to combat stubbornly high prices and persistent shortages of drugs with little competition. (Civica Rx via AP)
Impatient with years of inaction in Washington on prescription drug costs, U.S. hospital groups, startups and nonprofits have started making their own medicines in a bid to combat stubbornly high prices and persistent shortages of drugs with little competition.
The efforts are at varying stages, but some have already made and shipped millions of doses. Nearly half of U.S. hospitals have gotten some drugs from the projects and more medicines should be in retail pharmacies within the next year as the work accelerates.
Most groups are working on generics, while at least one is trying to develop brand-name drugs. All aim to sell their drugs at prices well below what competitors charge.
“These companies are addressing different parts of the problem and trying to come up with novel solutions” to produce cheaper medicines, said Stacie Dusetzina, a Vanderbilt University health policy professor. “People should be able to access the drugs that work for them without going broke.”
While some of the projects are solving supply problems and reducing medication costs for hospitals, drug price experts are split on how much consumers will benefit.
Dusetzina said the efforts could bring needed price competition, at least for some drugs.
Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a Harvard Medical School researcher and price expert at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, thinks for some drugs these projects “can lower patients’ out-of-pocket costs ... absolutely.”
But David Mitchell, founder of the independent consumer group Patients for Affordable Drugs, said the projects are workarounds that help in niches, but are “not enough to fix a broken system.”
Civica Rx was started three years ago by a hospital consortium. It now provides over 50 generic injectable medicines in chronic shortage to more than 1,400 hospital members and the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments. It already has sold enough medication to treat 17 million people, including many hospitalized with COVID-19.
Now it’s expanding to help patients directly, said chief executive Martin VanTrieste. Its new partnership with Anthem and Blue Cross health plans, CivicaScript, is picking six or seven expensive generic drugs to start. It will have contract manufacturer Catalent start producing those drugs to sell at 50,000 retail pharmacies starting in 2023.
Other “alternative drugmakers” include:
—Two enterprises, from Premier Inc. and Phlow Corp., focused on providing their hospital members with affordably priced generics that are chronically scarce.
— NP2, which is about to start producing cheaper generic IV cancer medicines.
— EQRx, which is creating brand-name drugs for cancer and inflammatory disorders to sell at “radically lower prices” than rival brands.
Walmart recently added insulin to its in-house brand of products for people with diabetes. It’s selling its own version of the mealtime insulin NovoLog, in partnership with manufacturer Novo Nordisk, for less than half NovoLog’s price.
Even entrepreneur Mark Cuban has jumped in, giving his name and money to a public-benefit company aiming to provide cheap alternatives to high-cost generic drugs at 15% above manufacturing costs, no insurance needed.
In January, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. launched its first medication, a pill for parasitic worm infections that it sells through independent pharmacies for about $40 per two-dose treatment, said founder and CEO Dr. Alex Oshmyansky. The company is building a factory in Dallas but paying other manufacturers for now and aims to launch up to 100 more drugs by year’s end.
Vanderbilt’s Dusetzina sees Cuban’s company as best positioned to cut out-of-pocket costs.
“It’s a really nice project to go after products where there’s little competition — and price gouging,” she said.
Brand-name drugs get monopolies lasting up to two decades under U.S. patent law, so most of the alternative drugmakers are targeting certain off-patent medicines whose prices have risen dramatically in recent years.
Generics are usually cheap. But as buyers pushed for barely break-even prices on these drugs over the last couple decades, generic manufacturers consolidated. With fewer factories making certain generics, even temporary plant closures triggered lasting shortages. And the reduced competition led to big price hikes, often forcing doctors to try costlier, less-effective alternatives and hospital pharmacists to spend long hours seeking alternatives for drugs in shortage.
Those years-long shortages spurred Civica’s formation. It also led a top hospital group purchasing organization, Premier Inc., to launch a program that has contractors making more than 60 products for about 850 member hospitals, said its chief pharmacy officer, Jessica Daley. The two groups say they’ve gotten numerous drugs off national shortage lists.
Phlow Corp., a public benefit drug manufacturer largely funded by government grants, partnered in March with 11 top children’s hospitals to address shortages by making generic medicines in child-size doses for cancer and other life-threatening conditions. Phlow and Civica are building neighboring factories in Petersburg, Virginia.
Such efforts have been helping hospitals stock crucial drugs — sedatives, painkillers, antibiotics and respiratory medicines — needed for COVID-19 patients.
The alternative drugmakers are hiring U.S. contract manufacturers whenever possible and getting drug ingredients here or in Europe, to diversify supply chains heavily reliant on China and India, which limited exports of drugs and ingredients early in the pandemic. The Biden administration also is working to increase domestic production of essential generic drugs.
Harvard’s Kesselheim foresees the new generic manufacturers helping to boost supply and lower prices, but he thinks developing new brand-name drugs — as EQRx is trying to do — is tougher.
EQRx is currently testing 10 novel drugs that it licensed the rights to, for cancers and immunologic disorders like rheumatoid arthritis. One already in final-stage testing could launch within three years.
The company expects to start work on another 10 patented drugs in ultra-expensive categories in the next year and is collaborating with Exscientia, a firm that uses artificial intelligence to design drugs and speed up testing.
Insurers are among EQRx’s early investors, said the company’s president, Melanie Nallicheri. They expect the company to turn a profit, but they also support plans to price medicines at up to two-thirds off rival brand-name drugs, she said.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Impatient with years of inaction in Washington on prescription drug costs, U.S. hospital groups, startups and nonprofits have started making their own medicines in a bid to combat stubbornly high prices and persistent shortages of drugs with little competition.
The efforts are at varying stages, but some have already made and shipped millions of doses. Nearly half of U.S. hospitals have gotten some drugs from the projects and more medicines should be in retail pharmacies within the next year as the work accelerates.
Most groups are working on generics, while at least one is trying to develop brand-name drugs. All aim to sell their drugs at prices well below what competitors charge.
“These companies are addressing different parts of the problem and trying to come up with novel solutions” to produce cheaper medicines, said Stacie Dusetzina, a Vanderbilt University health policy professor. “People should be able to access the drugs that work for them without going broke.”
While some of the projects are solving supply problems and reducing medication costs for hospitals, drug price experts are split on how much consumers will benefit.
Dusetzina said the efforts could bring needed price competition, at least for some drugs.
Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a Harvard Medical School researcher and price expert at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, thinks for some drugs these projects “can lower patients’ out-of-pocket costs ... absolutely.”
But David Mitchell, founder of the independent consumer group Patients for Affordable Drugs, said the projects are workarounds that help in niches, but are “not enough to fix a broken system.”
Civica Rx was started three years ago by a hospital consortium. It now provides over 50 generic injectable medicines in chronic shortage to more than 1,400 hospital members and the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments. It already has sold enough medication to treat 17 million people, including many hospitalized with COVID-19.
Now it’s expanding to help patients directly, said chief executive Martin VanTrieste. Its new partnership with Anthem and Blue Cross health plans, CivicaScript, is picking six or seven expensive generic drugs to start. It will have contract manufacturer Catalent start producing those drugs to sell at 50,000 retail pharmacies starting in 2023.
Other “alternative drugmakers” include:
—Two enterprises, from Premier Inc. and Phlow Corp., focused on providing their hospital members with affordably priced generics that are chronically scarce.
— NP2, which is about to start producing cheaper generic IV cancer medicines.
— EQRx, which is creating brand-name drugs for cancer and inflammatory disorders to sell at “radically lower prices” than rival brands.
Walmart recently added insulin to its in-house brand of products for people with diabetes. It’s selling its own version of the mealtime insulin NovoLog, in partnership with manufacturer Novo Nordisk, for less than half NovoLog’s price.
Even entrepreneur Mark Cuban has jumped in, giving his name and money to a public-benefit company aiming to provide cheap alternatives to high-cost generic drugs at 15% above manufacturing costs, no insurance needed.
In January, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. launched its first medication, a pill for parasitic worm infections that it sells through independent pharmacies for about $40 per two-dose treatment, said founder and CEO Dr. Alex Oshmyansky. The company is building a factory in Dallas but paying other manufacturers for now and aims to launch up to 100 more drugs by year’s end.
Vanderbilt’s Dusetzina sees Cuban’s company as best positioned to cut out-of-pocket costs.
“It’s a really nice project to go after products where there’s little competition — and price gouging,” she said.
Brand-name drugs get monopolies lasting up to two decades under U.S. patent law, so most of the alternative drugmakers are targeting certain off-patent medicines whose prices have risen dramatically in recent years.
Generics are usually cheap. But as buyers pushed for barely break-even prices on these drugs over the last couple decades, generic manufacturers consolidated. With fewer factories making certain generics, even temporary plant closures triggered lasting shortages. And the reduced competition led to big price hikes, often forcing doctors to try costlier, less-effective alternatives and hospital pharmacists to spend long hours seeking alternatives for drugs in shortage.
Those years-long shortages spurred Civica’s formation. It also led a top hospital group purchasing organization, Premier Inc., to launch a program that has contractors making more than 60 products for about 850 member hospitals, said its chief pharmacy officer, Jessica Daley. The two groups say they’ve gotten numerous drugs off national shortage lists.
Phlow Corp., a public benefit drug manufacturer largely funded by government grants, partnered in March with 11 top children’s hospitals to address shortages by making generic medicines in child-size doses for cancer and other life-threatening conditions. Phlow and Civica are building neighboring factories in Petersburg, Virginia.
Such efforts have been helping hospitals stock crucial drugs — sedatives, painkillers, antibiotics and respiratory medicines — needed for COVID-19 patients.
The alternative drugmakers are hiring U.S. contract manufacturers whenever possible and getting drug ingredients here or in Europe, to diversify supply chains heavily reliant on China and India, which limited exports of drugs and ingredients early in the pandemic. The Biden administration also is working to increase domestic production of essential generic drugs.
Harvard’s Kesselheim foresees the new generic manufacturers helping to boost supply and lower prices, but he thinks developing new brand-name drugs — as EQRx is trying to do — is tougher.
EQRx is currently testing 10 novel drugs that it licensed the rights to, for cancers and immunologic disorders like rheumatoid arthritis. One already in final-stage testing could launch within three years.
The company expects to start work on another 10 patented drugs in ultra-expensive categories in the next year and is collaborating with Exscientia, a firm that uses artificial intelligence to design drugs and speed up testing.
Insurers are among EQRx’s early investors, said the company’s president, Melanie Nallicheri. They expect the company to turn a profit, but they also support plans to price medicines at up to two-thirds off rival brand-name drugs, she said.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
#ENDCOYOTEKILLING
Nevada officials hit impasse over coyote killing contests
By SAM METZ
Nevada officials hit impasse over coyote killing contests
By SAM METZ
August 11, 2021
FILE - In this Feb. 10, 2013, file photo, a coyote stands in a field in Montana. The Nevada Department of Wildlife's efforts to develop a policy on coyote killing contests are failing to progress as commissioners say they little faith that hunters and conservationists can reach agreement. (Karen Nichols/The Daily Inter Lake via AP)
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — After years of attempts to devise rules on coyote killing contests, a policy has yet to materialize in Nevada, where Department of Wildlife commissioners said last week that they are getting less hopeful about finding a solution that hunters and conservationists accept.
Hunters in the contests use dogs, scopes and rifles to kill the most coyotes, sometimes for prizes. Unlike predators such as gray wolves or prey species such as elk, coyotes have no species protections and can be killed without licenses.
The coyote debate often mirrors other disputes in the West over how to manage populations of predator species like wolves and bobcats. Hunting communities worry they eat too many deer and elk. Ranchers tell horror stories about livestock being targeted. Suburban pet owners stress about their dogs or cats being seen as tasty predator snacks.
Some states like Utah and South Dakota offer bounties for coyotes to control their population. Coyote killing contests have been banned in at least eight states since 2014, including Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, which in the past rotated hosting the World Championship Coyote Calling Contest with Nevada.
The yearslong debate in Nevada reemerged in March when the Clark County Commission called for an immediate ban.
Last week, state Department of Wildlife commissioners informally surveyed meeting attendees, hoping to find middle ground between tournament advocates and their opponents. The survey asked participants to rank priorities including “social perception of hunting,” “wanton waste” and “tradition/heritage,” and floated ideas like public notices, bag limits or licenses.
The effort resulted in an impasse after both sides made it clear regulation wasn’t a desirable outcome, frustrating members who warned that inaction would result in the issue landing in the state Legislature.
“I was optimistic that we could get different constituencies in to help us really dissect this and learn where there may be some common ground. But after today, I’m being honest, I don’t know that we’re any further along than I had hoped,” Chairwoman Tiffany East said in a commission meeting last week.
Unlike the nine-member governor-appointed commission, which state law requires have five residents with hunting licenses, the Legislature is dominated by urban Democrats from the Las Vegas area who mostly do not hunt.
Activists have been pushing the commission for a ban since 2015. In the state Legislature, a ban proposal from Sen. Melanie Scheible, a Las Vegas Democrat, stalled before getting a hearing in 2019 and was not reintroduced in this year’s legislative session.
Contest advocates see attempts to regulate coyote hunting as a gateway to further hunting restrictions. They argue it’s both hobby sport and useful “predator control,” culling the population to manageable levels to protect livestock.
Representatives of the community advisory boards that report to the commission said it made more sense for hunters to remove overabundant predators free of charge rather than have a state agency do it.
Robert Boehmer of Carson City said a local rancher told the board that upwards of 40% of his sheep herd had been killed by predators, and that recreational hunters helped manage their population and protect his herd the following year.
“The fact that we are paying for folks to go out and control predators, and we have a group of folks that are willing to do this at no cost seemed like pretty like a pretty good deal on our end,” said Jim Ray of Washoe County.
Opponents draw distinction between predator control and contests and say removal via tournaments is too random to effectively manage species population and downplay the dangers to people and livestock. They have cited science that suggests population management efforts spread the population and increase the reproductive rate for coyotes.
A coyote has not killed anyone in Nevada in a century and, in 2020, none of the coyotes tested by the state agriculture department had rabies, the department said Wednesday. Coyotes are seen by many scientists as vital parts of ecosystems like the Great Basin — maintaining nature’s balance, eating small rodents and ensuring foraging herbivores don’t degrade vegetation and damage the landscape.
Patrick Donnelly, the Nevada State Director for the Center for Biological Diversity, called the tournaments “brutal slaughters,” said they were antithetical to fair-chase hunting norms and criticized the commission’s efforts to reach compromise as misguided.
“Right now, the state at least has the plausible deniability of saying there’s no specific rule against them, even if the state doesn’t specifically sanction them. Regulating these sick contests would give them the sanction of the state — a seal of approval from the people of the state of Nevada,” he told the commission. “If your intent is to put this issue to bed, regulating these contests will have the exact opposite effect.”
___
Sam Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
FILE - In this Feb. 10, 2013, file photo, a coyote stands in a field in Montana. The Nevada Department of Wildlife's efforts to develop a policy on coyote killing contests are failing to progress as commissioners say they little faith that hunters and conservationists can reach agreement. (Karen Nichols/The Daily Inter Lake via AP)
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — After years of attempts to devise rules on coyote killing contests, a policy has yet to materialize in Nevada, where Department of Wildlife commissioners said last week that they are getting less hopeful about finding a solution that hunters and conservationists accept.
Hunters in the contests use dogs, scopes and rifles to kill the most coyotes, sometimes for prizes. Unlike predators such as gray wolves or prey species such as elk, coyotes have no species protections and can be killed without licenses.
The coyote debate often mirrors other disputes in the West over how to manage populations of predator species like wolves and bobcats. Hunting communities worry they eat too many deer and elk. Ranchers tell horror stories about livestock being targeted. Suburban pet owners stress about their dogs or cats being seen as tasty predator snacks.
Some states like Utah and South Dakota offer bounties for coyotes to control their population. Coyote killing contests have been banned in at least eight states since 2014, including Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, which in the past rotated hosting the World Championship Coyote Calling Contest with Nevada.
The yearslong debate in Nevada reemerged in March when the Clark County Commission called for an immediate ban.
Last week, state Department of Wildlife commissioners informally surveyed meeting attendees, hoping to find middle ground between tournament advocates and their opponents. The survey asked participants to rank priorities including “social perception of hunting,” “wanton waste” and “tradition/heritage,” and floated ideas like public notices, bag limits or licenses.
The effort resulted in an impasse after both sides made it clear regulation wasn’t a desirable outcome, frustrating members who warned that inaction would result in the issue landing in the state Legislature.
“I was optimistic that we could get different constituencies in to help us really dissect this and learn where there may be some common ground. But after today, I’m being honest, I don’t know that we’re any further along than I had hoped,” Chairwoman Tiffany East said in a commission meeting last week.
Unlike the nine-member governor-appointed commission, which state law requires have five residents with hunting licenses, the Legislature is dominated by urban Democrats from the Las Vegas area who mostly do not hunt.
Activists have been pushing the commission for a ban since 2015. In the state Legislature, a ban proposal from Sen. Melanie Scheible, a Las Vegas Democrat, stalled before getting a hearing in 2019 and was not reintroduced in this year’s legislative session.
Contest advocates see attempts to regulate coyote hunting as a gateway to further hunting restrictions. They argue it’s both hobby sport and useful “predator control,” culling the population to manageable levels to protect livestock.
Representatives of the community advisory boards that report to the commission said it made more sense for hunters to remove overabundant predators free of charge rather than have a state agency do it.
Robert Boehmer of Carson City said a local rancher told the board that upwards of 40% of his sheep herd had been killed by predators, and that recreational hunters helped manage their population and protect his herd the following year.
“The fact that we are paying for folks to go out and control predators, and we have a group of folks that are willing to do this at no cost seemed like pretty like a pretty good deal on our end,” said Jim Ray of Washoe County.
Opponents draw distinction between predator control and contests and say removal via tournaments is too random to effectively manage species population and downplay the dangers to people and livestock. They have cited science that suggests population management efforts spread the population and increase the reproductive rate for coyotes.
A coyote has not killed anyone in Nevada in a century and, in 2020, none of the coyotes tested by the state agriculture department had rabies, the department said Wednesday. Coyotes are seen by many scientists as vital parts of ecosystems like the Great Basin — maintaining nature’s balance, eating small rodents and ensuring foraging herbivores don’t degrade vegetation and damage the landscape.
Patrick Donnelly, the Nevada State Director for the Center for Biological Diversity, called the tournaments “brutal slaughters,” said they were antithetical to fair-chase hunting norms and criticized the commission’s efforts to reach compromise as misguided.
“Right now, the state at least has the plausible deniability of saying there’s no specific rule against them, even if the state doesn’t specifically sanction them. Regulating these sick contests would give them the sanction of the state — a seal of approval from the people of the state of Nevada,” he told the commission. “If your intent is to put this issue to bed, regulating these contests will have the exact opposite effect.”
___
Sam Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
FOR THE BETTER
How COVID pandemic changed methadone treatment for addiction
By CARLA K. JOHNSON
FILE - In this March 7, 2017 photo, Paul "Rip" Connell, CEO of Private Clinic North, a methadone clinic, shows a 35 mg liquid dose of methadone at the clinic in Rossville, Ga. In the spring of 2020, with coronavirus shutting down the nation, the government told methadone clinics they could allow stable patients to take their medicine at home unsupervised. Early research shows it didn't lead to surges of methadone overdoses or illegal sales. And the phone counseling that went along with take-home doses worked better for some people, helping them stay in recovery and get on with their lives. (AP Photo/Kevin D. Liles, File)
Here’s one more lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic: It appears safe to relax restrictions on methadone, the oldest and most stigmatized treatment drug for opioid addiction.
Last spring, with coronavirus shutting down the nation, the government told methadone clinics they could allow stable patients to take their medicine at home unsupervised.
Early research shows it didn’t lead to surges of methadone overdoses or illegal sales. And the phone counseling that went along with take-home doses worked better for some people, helping them stay in recovery and get on with their lives.
U.S. health officials are studying the changes, their impact and how they might be continued.
Since the 1970s, rigid rules have guided methadone treatment, requiring most people to line up and take the liquid medicine, sipping it from small cups, while watched by employees at clinics. Only long-term patients were allowed to take home more than a day’s dose.
Now, scientists are gathering information to put those rules — never rigorously tested — under scrutiny.
“It took a pandemic to change the climate to allow us to actually study it,” said Dr. Ayana Jordan of Yale University School of Medicine, who is among researchers studying the methadone rule changes. “If we roll these policies back post-COVID, it’s going to be devastating.”
More than 400,000 people in the United States receive methadone as part of their treatment for addiction to opioids such as heroin, fentanyl and painkillers. Methadone, an opioid itself, can be dangerous in large amounts, but when taken correctly, it can stop drug cravings without causing a high. People can hold jobs and work on rebuilding their lives.
This photo provided by Scott Mancini of Providence, R.I., shows him in a selfie photo on Tuesday, July 27, 2021. Mancini, 58, a retired truck driver has been taking methadone for a heroin addiction since 1989. Before the pandemic change, Mancini, as a long-term patient who followed the rules, could take home a six-day supply, requiring a weekly stop at the clinic. “You’re tied down,” Mancini said of the old system. Now, with a 28-day supply, he can enjoy a long camping trip or family visit. (Scott Mancini via AP)
Scott Mancini, 58, a retired truck driver in Providence, Rhode Island, has been taking methadone for a heroin addiction since 1989. Before the pandemic change, Mancini, as a long-term patient who followed the rules, could take home a six-day supply, requiring a weekly stop at the clinic.
“You’re tied down,” Mancini said of the old system. Now, with a 28-day supply, he can enjoy a long camping trip or family visit.
“It’s worked very well for me and lot of other people,” Mancini said. “I think it’s time we rewrite the rules of the programs throughout the country because the rules haven’t changed in years.”
Not all methadone clinics loosened the rules, but Rhode Island’s oldest methadone program, CODAC, where Mancini is a patient, jumped at the chance to use phone counseling and give more take-home doses. In a patient survey conducted by Brown University, most people said phone counseling was useful.
“There are two things we learned from COVID,” said CEO Linda Hurley. “Take-homes do not need to be severely restricted and telehealth works.”
Because of how opioids act on the brain, people dependent on them get sick if they stop using. Withdrawal can feel like a bad flu with cramping, sweating, anxiety and sleeplessness. Cravings can be so intense that relapse is common. Methadone eases those symptoms.
The idea behind the Nixon era rules was to prevent illegal street sales and overdoses.
“I understand the concern, but there are ways to address those issues” such as urine screening to make sure patients are taking their methadone, said 37-year-old Lyna Chaves of Pleasantville, New Jersey.
She now gets five days’ of take-home methadone from John Brooks Recovery Center under the pandemic rules. Working to become a peer support specialist, she also distributes donated food, toothpaste and other items to people who are homeless.
Rutgers University plans to analyze New Jersey health data for any bump in methadone overdoses. In interviews with researchers, New Jersey methadone providers support the relaxed take-home rules, said Rutgers researcher Stephen Crystal.
People who live far from clinics or hold steady jobs are particularly burdened by daily trips to be watched getting a dose, Crystal said.
When the government eased restrictions, it said stable patients could receive 28 days of take-home methadone and less stable ones could get 14 days. Clinics were allowed to figure out which patients were eligible; many relied on their experience and previous government criteria such as time in treatment and absence of criminal activity.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is studying the changes and how they might be continued, said Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, assistant secretary for mental health and substance use.
In the meantime, a new federal rule that just took effect will allow the expansion of mobile vans to bring methadone treatment to rural and hard-to-reach areas. There are a dozen or so operating now.
Methadone vans would be a good way for states to spend their money from opioid lawsuit settlements, said Beth Connolly, who directs the Pew Charitable Trusts’ substance use prevention and treatment project. As soon as next year, states could begin to see money from settlements with prescription drugmakers and distributors.
Overdose deaths soared to a record 93,000 last year, the U.S. government reported last month, with more than 60% involving fentanyl.
The pandemic provided the opportunity to give more take-home doses, said Allegra Schorr, who leads a coalition of addiction treatment providers in New York. “This worked. Why would you just return to the way things were?”
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
By CARLA K. JOHNSON
FILE - In this March 7, 2017 photo, Paul "Rip" Connell, CEO of Private Clinic North, a methadone clinic, shows a 35 mg liquid dose of methadone at the clinic in Rossville, Ga. In the spring of 2020, with coronavirus shutting down the nation, the government told methadone clinics they could allow stable patients to take their medicine at home unsupervised. Early research shows it didn't lead to surges of methadone overdoses or illegal sales. And the phone counseling that went along with take-home doses worked better for some people, helping them stay in recovery and get on with their lives. (AP Photo/Kevin D. Liles, File)
Here’s one more lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic: It appears safe to relax restrictions on methadone, the oldest and most stigmatized treatment drug for opioid addiction.
Last spring, with coronavirus shutting down the nation, the government told methadone clinics they could allow stable patients to take their medicine at home unsupervised.
Early research shows it didn’t lead to surges of methadone overdoses or illegal sales. And the phone counseling that went along with take-home doses worked better for some people, helping them stay in recovery and get on with their lives.
U.S. health officials are studying the changes, their impact and how they might be continued.
Since the 1970s, rigid rules have guided methadone treatment, requiring most people to line up and take the liquid medicine, sipping it from small cups, while watched by employees at clinics. Only long-term patients were allowed to take home more than a day’s dose.
Now, scientists are gathering information to put those rules — never rigorously tested — under scrutiny.
“It took a pandemic to change the climate to allow us to actually study it,” said Dr. Ayana Jordan of Yale University School of Medicine, who is among researchers studying the methadone rule changes. “If we roll these policies back post-COVID, it’s going to be devastating.”
More than 400,000 people in the United States receive methadone as part of their treatment for addiction to opioids such as heroin, fentanyl and painkillers. Methadone, an opioid itself, can be dangerous in large amounts, but when taken correctly, it can stop drug cravings without causing a high. People can hold jobs and work on rebuilding their lives.
This photo provided by Scott Mancini of Providence, R.I., shows him in a selfie photo on Tuesday, July 27, 2021. Mancini, 58, a retired truck driver has been taking methadone for a heroin addiction since 1989. Before the pandemic change, Mancini, as a long-term patient who followed the rules, could take home a six-day supply, requiring a weekly stop at the clinic. “You’re tied down,” Mancini said of the old system. Now, with a 28-day supply, he can enjoy a long camping trip or family visit. (Scott Mancini via AP)
Scott Mancini, 58, a retired truck driver in Providence, Rhode Island, has been taking methadone for a heroin addiction since 1989. Before the pandemic change, Mancini, as a long-term patient who followed the rules, could take home a six-day supply, requiring a weekly stop at the clinic.
“You’re tied down,” Mancini said of the old system. Now, with a 28-day supply, he can enjoy a long camping trip or family visit.
“It’s worked very well for me and lot of other people,” Mancini said. “I think it’s time we rewrite the rules of the programs throughout the country because the rules haven’t changed in years.”
Not all methadone clinics loosened the rules, but Rhode Island’s oldest methadone program, CODAC, where Mancini is a patient, jumped at the chance to use phone counseling and give more take-home doses. In a patient survey conducted by Brown University, most people said phone counseling was useful.
“There are two things we learned from COVID,” said CEO Linda Hurley. “Take-homes do not need to be severely restricted and telehealth works.”
Because of how opioids act on the brain, people dependent on them get sick if they stop using. Withdrawal can feel like a bad flu with cramping, sweating, anxiety and sleeplessness. Cravings can be so intense that relapse is common. Methadone eases those symptoms.
The idea behind the Nixon era rules was to prevent illegal street sales and overdoses.
“I understand the concern, but there are ways to address those issues” such as urine screening to make sure patients are taking their methadone, said 37-year-old Lyna Chaves of Pleasantville, New Jersey.
She now gets five days’ of take-home methadone from John Brooks Recovery Center under the pandemic rules. Working to become a peer support specialist, she also distributes donated food, toothpaste and other items to people who are homeless.
Rutgers University plans to analyze New Jersey health data for any bump in methadone overdoses. In interviews with researchers, New Jersey methadone providers support the relaxed take-home rules, said Rutgers researcher Stephen Crystal.
People who live far from clinics or hold steady jobs are particularly burdened by daily trips to be watched getting a dose, Crystal said.
When the government eased restrictions, it said stable patients could receive 28 days of take-home methadone and less stable ones could get 14 days. Clinics were allowed to figure out which patients were eligible; many relied on their experience and previous government criteria such as time in treatment and absence of criminal activity.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is studying the changes and how they might be continued, said Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, assistant secretary for mental health and substance use.
In the meantime, a new federal rule that just took effect will allow the expansion of mobile vans to bring methadone treatment to rural and hard-to-reach areas. There are a dozen or so operating now.
Methadone vans would be a good way for states to spend their money from opioid lawsuit settlements, said Beth Connolly, who directs the Pew Charitable Trusts’ substance use prevention and treatment project. As soon as next year, states could begin to see money from settlements with prescription drugmakers and distributors.
Overdose deaths soared to a record 93,000 last year, the U.S. government reported last month, with more than 60% involving fentanyl.
The pandemic provided the opportunity to give more take-home doses, said Allegra Schorr, who leads a coalition of addiction treatment providers in New York. “This worked. Why would you just return to the way things were?”
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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