Overworked laborers deserve the ‘right to rest’

by Kyle Chan-Shue | Dec 9, 2021 | Op-Eds, Opinion | 0 

(Pixabay/Sara_Torda)

The Portuguese government approved a “right to rest” law this November aimed at creating distinct work-life boundaries for remote workers and their employers, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the expanding global workforce. This law, an adaptation from other European countries like France and Spain, would prevent employers from contacting employees after normal work hours and obligate their employers to pay for additional expenses like electrical and gas expenses incurred from remote working. Countries like the U.S., which are becoming increasingly reliant on remote work, should apply more appropriate laws to fit their new paradigm not only as a moral imperative but also as an economic one too.

The pandemic has only expanded the already growing remote workforce. This shift to remote work exacerbates issues like supervisor abuse and overall worker stress. Given the ubiquity of remote work, the U.S. should adopt a new “right to rest” law in order to help address the mental health crisis stemming from workplace abuse. Doing so would alleviate the additional stress that remote workers face, creating a happier and more productive workforce.

While people assume that employees would have more time to shirk responsibility within the confines of their homes, many remote workers actually felt they were responsible for more.  Remote workers work longer hours and experience increased pressure to be online outside of work to handle the increasing demands of supervisors. Banning supervisors from contacting employees outside of work prevents bosses from delegating tasks after hours, thereby giving employees the solace they need outside of work. 

Financial stressors like increasing gas and electricity bills are also partially to blame for the growing mental health concerns. According to one interviewee in a Project Include study on remote workplace harassment, she endured a toxic work environment until she found a new job because she couldn’t afford to lose a paycheck during the pandemic.

Similarly, many low-income or working-class Americans are overworked and have to sacrifice their mental well-being just to work. Because bosses know that low-income workers are replaceable, they aren’t incentivized to create a healthy work environment catered to the mental health needs of workers. This leads to strict work conditions, job insecurity, and a lack of promotion opportunities which in turn takes a negative toll on the mental health of workers, specifically those with low wages. 

If companies were forced to reimburse employees for at-home work expenses, it could improve the mental health of workers by reducing financial stressors. Workplaces that cater to the mental health concerns of workers actually have more productive work environments as they are more likely to show up and be more attentive, which increases profit for the company. This would also lead to long-term economic growth for the economy as the individual components would all become more efficient. Therefore, adopting the “right to rest “law and obligating bosses to pay for work-related expenses incurred at home is of utmost importance in principle and in profit. Expressing and addressing concern for the mental health of your workers especially those facing new challenges is not only the right thing to do but it would also pay off for the company and the economy as a whole. 

The U.S. should look to establish protections for all U.S. workers and prioritize people who face new challenges as an indirect result of the pandemic. Implementing these “right to rest” laws would do just that by providing protections to the mental health of remote workers and thus aiding our economic growth. Adopting these laws is not only an economic need but a human rights issue. Workers have always been and continue to be the backbone of our economy; they deserve the right to rest and leisure whether they work in person or remotely.  

Kyle Chan-Shue (25C) is from Harlem, New York.

 

FDA authorizes COVID-19 oral antiviral developed at Emory

by Sarah Davis | 8 hours ago | Crime & Breaking News, News, Science & Research | 0 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized molnupiravir, an antiviral pill, for COVID-19 treatment in an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) on Dec. 23. The pill, which was submitted for FDA authorization by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics on Oct. 11, was discovered by Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory (DRIVE) scientists, led by CEO George Painter.

Molnupiravir is available by prescription only for treating “mild-to-moderate” COVID-19 in adults who are at risk for developing severe COVID-19 that may result in hospitalization or death or who do not have access to other “clinically appropriate” treatment options, according to a Dec. 23 FDA press release. The drug, which is taken orally every 12 hours for five days, combats COVID-19 by introducing errors into the SARS-CoV-2 virus’ genetic code and preventing it from replicating. 

George Painter is the President and CEO of The Emory Institute for Drug Development. (Emory University)

The antiviral pill has been approved only for those over the age of 18, as it “may affect bone and cartilage growth,” according to the FDA. Additionally, the agency said that the drug is not approved for people who are pregnant, citing a clinical trial on animals that found that molnupiravir may cause fetal harm. Molnupiravir is not to be used in place of a COVID-19 vaccine.

An EUA is not the same as FDA approval. Under emergency use procedures, the FDA permits the use of unapproved medical products in an emergency situation to “diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions when certain statutory criteria have been met, including that there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.” 

In the case of molnupiravir, the FDA said it determined that “known and potential benefits” of the drug “outweigh the known and potential risks.” At this time, there are no approved and available alternatives to molnupiravir, according to the agency.

The decision to approve an EUA for molnupiravir was informed by data from the MOVe-OUT clinical trial, which began on Oct. 19, 2020 and has an estimated completion date of May 5, 2022. The double-blind, randomized and placebo-controlled clinical trial studies the effects of the antiviral drug in adult participants who were at an increased risk for COVID-19 and who had also not been vaccinated for the virus. 

Data from MOVe-OUT showed that 6.8% of the 709 people who received molnupiravir were hospitalized or died. Within the same time period, 9.7% of the 699 people who received a placebo were hospitalized or died. Only one person who received the antiviral pill died, compared to nine people in the placebo group. The trial reported side effects of diarrhea, nausea and dizziness. In the FDA press release, the federal agency stated that the “safety and effectiveness of molnupiravir for the treatment of COVID-19 continue to be evaluated.”

 

Will sports gambling foster addiction? You can bet on it

Problem gamblers don't draw the attention society bestows on alcoholics and drug abusers, but their numbers are bound to increase. 

By Timothy L. O’Brien Bloomberg Opinion

 

DECEMBER 26, 2021 — 6:00PM

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: DREAMSTIME/TNS

“For most gamblers,” writes Timothy L. O’Brien of Bloomberg Opinion, “betting is recreation. Based on historical data, only about 1% of adults in the U.S. have a severe problem such as compulsive gambling. Some 2% to 3% of adults have less severe problems; they’re not addicts, but gambling causes them financial and social miseries. Most people wager for fun. The trouble is, those small percentages represent 6 million to 8 million people.”

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Ben Affleck, the movie star and avid gambler who has struggled with alcohol addiction, is one of sports gambling's most visible pitchmen. He's center stage in a TV ad for the mobile wagering app WynnBET. "We all want to win. Let's win together!" Affleck exclaims.

Aaron Paul, the actor who only played an addict in "Breaking Bad" and waved off hard drug use himself after seeing his girlfriend consumed by addiction, is a spokesman for Bet365, a sports wagering app. It has more than 63 million global users and offers newcomers a $500 credit to join. "You need to ask yourself, why am I not a member of the world's favorite sports book?" Paul asks in one ad.

Those who scroll through both these apps are offered sports betting mainstays — wagers on money lines, touchdowns, parlays, fight outcomes, total hits and other outcomes. At the bottom of the screen is this bit of advice: "If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800 GAMBLER."

Call me old-fashioned, but as sports betting enjoys a pandemic-fueled expansion across the country, shouldn't we worry more about the possibility of a spike in gambling disorders? And isn't it jarring that people who should know better are enthusiastically pushing this?

A reminder: For most gamblers, betting is recreation. Based on historical data, only about 1% of adults in the U.S. have a severe problem such as compulsive gambling. Some 2% to 3% of adults have less severe problems; they're not addicts, but gambling causes them financial and social miseries. Most people wager for fun.

The trouble is, those small percentages represent 6 million to 8 million people. And most academic and clinical studies of gambling disorders in the U.S. were undertaken when legal sports gambling was confined to Nevada, and backroom wagering with bookies wasn't digital. The sports gambling boom that began three years ago after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Nevada's monopoly, together with the accessibility provided by mobile devices and apps, mean that a significantly larger, and younger, share of Americans is now at risk. It will take time for researchers to catch up with the current sports betting world and the troubles that may be visited on individuals and communities.

"We've been engaged in a massive cultural experiment with gambling, and we're delivering gambling to America in ways that are unprecedented worldwide," said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, a research and advocacy group. "No one, at least from an addiction standpoint, has been able to look at what the impact will be on problem gambling."

"Groups like ours are being asked to examine possibly negative impacts of new tools and technologies without being given any access to private companies' internal data and product information," he added, while also flagging regulatory lapses. "State gambling commissions are close to being captives of the industry. They defer to the industry and don't understand some of the new technologies."

When mainstream corporations took over the gambling business decades ago, they were more disciplined than their organized-crime predecessors about analyzing which forms of betting were most profitable and most magnetic. Slot machines quickly displaced table games at the center of casino floors. The wealth of data that such machines could gather about what gamblers liked helped casinos make their games more lucrative and potentially more addictive. Apps and other digital gambling offerings are even more data-centric than slots and can be fine-tuned to capitalize on features that make gambling compulsive, such as a faster pace of play, stimulating sensory feedback and frequent near-misses

The Irish gambling company Flutter Entertainment doubled its revenue last year, thanks to many of its brands, but especially FanDuel, one of the most popular sports betting apps in the U.S. Flutter also purchased Sky Bet from Rupert Murdoch's media company last year, and that is now the most popular gambling app in the U.K.

The New York Times recently reported that Sky Bet used its app's data-profiling software to scrutinize one compulsive gambler's betting history and favorite sports with such precision that it could essentially stalk and hook him — even when he was trying to quit. "They had taken his addiction and turned it into code," a lawyer representing the gambler told the Times. Sky Bet told the Times that it didn't target vulnerable gamblers and took "safer gambling responsibilities incredibly seriously."

The British government, concerned about how quickly gambling has expanded in the digital era, is conducting a review of its 2005 Gambling Act, which loosened the country's betting prohibitions. But now the government is examining whether the industry has since shed safeguards that once protected younger or compulsive gamblers. The U.K. has banned the use of credit cards for gambling, has limited sports betting advertising and is considering further marketing constraints. (Spain has similar restrictions; Italy banned all sports teams from pursuing sponsorships or ad partnerships with gambling companies in 2019.)

A parliamentary study of the U.K. gambling market published last year highlighted the large sums the industry spent on advertising and noted that most its profits came from a small number of problem gamblers. "The unscrupulous methods and ingenuity of some gambling operators makes for shocking reading," the report said. "New games are constantly being devised, often highly addictive, sometimes with a particular appeal to children."

"Addiction to alcohol or drugs is high profile and highly resourced," the report also said. "The comparable harm caused by gambling addiction has not received the same attention and is only now beginning to be recognized."

Don't expect a comparable review at the federal level in the U.S. With the Supreme Court empowering states to legalize and regulate gambling as they see fit, the onus is on states to monitor the industry. But as Whyte points out, states are increasingly beholden to gambling companies that create new jobs and tax revenues. Legislatures are unlikely to make an issue of problem gambling if it threatens their new cash cows.

Few guardrails exist. The use of credit and debit cards for gambling is permitted in the U.S., although some card companies still won't allow it. In Nevada, however, debit card readers sit atop gambling tables, and limits on the dollar amount and number of card swipes have been lifted. Digital innovations present a multitude of fresh challenges. Gamblers' one-to-one relationship with their mobile devices, the use of push notifications, geolocators and information harvested from social media allow companies to tailor advertising to millions of bettors — with negligible outside scrutiny. Some gambling companies such as Entain say they use the data they harvest to identify and cut off problem gamblers before their troubles worsen, but there's no empirical evidence to suggest that is something operators routinely do.

In 2020, commercial gambling and sports betting enterprises paid $6.7 billion in state taxes, yet little of this revenue is budgeted to track the prevalence of gambling disorders. Most research is funded by the gambling industry, which spends that money to help mitigate the fallout from rampant gambling — and burnish their reputations. But the amount of information they share with outsiders is limited, leaving independent analysts struggling to assess gambling's impact. "We're completely unable to keep up, even with the forms of gambling we already know, much less new technologies," said Whyte.

Whyte also noted that increased spending on gambling research and regulation, as well as greater assistance for gambling disorders, would make good fiscal sense: Analyses suggest that for every dollar spent treating gambling disorders governments would save $2 on health-care costs.

States are embracing digital sports gambling even though it is a low-margin business for operators and generates less tax revenue than lotteries and brick-and-mortar casinos. In New Jersey, the country's largest sports betting market, the wagering has brought in about 1/20th as much tax revenue as the lottery and only a fraction of that from casinos. But those figures are likely to shift as sports gambling continues its march, especially if betting on the Super Bowl is any guide.

Last February, 23.2 million Americans bet about $4.3 billion on the Super Bowl in what the American Gaming Association described as "the largest single-event legal handle in American sports betting history." Approximately 7.6 million of those gamblers bet online, a 63% increase from 2020. The rush overwhelmed sports betting companies' computer servers, leading to outages.

Some problem gamblers will be among the swarm that bets on the Super Bowl again in February. Ignoring this problem will carry costs for everyone involved. While compulsive and problem gamblers haven't historically drawn the kind of interest or support that society has bestowed on alcoholics and drug abusers, their numbers are bound to increase as the sports betting boom continues. Money is the substance that problem gamblers abuse — and there are more dealers out there peddling a chance to win some than ever before.

Timothy L. O'Brien is a senior columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.

The US Military Had A Plan To Unleash A Nuclear Pearl Harbor On Japan


By Steve Weintz

Operation Crossroads. Image Credit: Creative Commons.


Operation Crossroads: A 5 Minute History – While burrowing through the vast Manhattan Project archives historian Alex Wellerstein turned up evidence that Bikini wasn’t the first Pacific island in the atomic crosshairs. Another atoll may have been the earliest target considered by the Manhattan Project.

For a time before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States considered nuking the Japanese fleet at anchor — a kind of reverse, radioactive Pearl Harbor.

When the Manhattan Project got off the ground in 1943, both the atomic bomb and the defeat of Japan looked like a long time and a lot of work away.

Hard fighting that year in New Guinea, Bougainville, the Solomons and Tarawa showed just how much time and work. But U.S. Navy planners thought the biggest target and the hardest nut in the Pacific was the huge Japanese naval base at the remote Micronesian atoll of Chuuk, once known as Truk.

After ruling Micronesia for a quarter-century, the Japanese navy had turned Chuuk into its own version of Pearl Harbor.

The atoll – a 40-mile-wide lagoon ringed and dotted with tall green tropical islands – sheltered everything from battleships to transports. Drydocks and tank farms supported the ships. Airfields serviced hundreds of planes. A fleet radio station reached across the entire Japanese island frontier.

The carriers that fought in the Coral Sea and the battlewagons that savaged Guadalcanal came from Chuuk.

During a May 5, 1943 meeting the Manhattan Engineering District’s Military Policy Committee decided:

The point of use of the first bomb was discussed and the general view appeared to be that its best point of use would be on a Japanese fleet concentration in the Harbor of Truk. General Steyer suggested Tokio [sic] but it was pointed out that the bomb should be used where, if it failed to go off, it would land in water of sufficient depth to prevent easy salvage. The Japanese were selected as they would not be so apt to secure knowledge from it as would the Germans.

After the meat grinder battle of Tarawa in November 1943, Chuuk loomed over the western horizon. However, this early decision to nuke an atoll instead of a city fell by the wayside as the war continued. By early 1944, America’s burgeoning carrier strength in the Central Pacific allowed commanders to attack Chuuk using conventional firepower.

Between Feb. 17 and 18, 1944, Operation Hailstone’s 500 aircraft, five fleet carriers, four light carriers, seven battleships and an armada of other ships pounded the Japanese base into rubble and scrap. American bombs, torpedoes and gunfire sank 12 warships, 32 transports and destroyed 270 planes.

However, just as the Japanese attack on Hawaii missed the U.S. carriers, so the American attack on Chuuk missed Japan’s capital ships — they’d withdrawn to Palau just days before. The attack cut the atoll off from its supply lines and its garrison eventually starved. The American campaign rolled west towards the Marianas and Chuuk became forgotten.

However, the idea of nuking a fleet at anchor popped up again. Lewis Strauss, a future chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission worried about the atomic bomb’s effects on the U.S. Navy:

If such a test is not made, there will be loose talk to the effect that the fleet is obsolete in the face of this new weapon and this will militate against appropriations to preserve a postwar Navy of the size now planned.

Just weeks after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Connecticut senator Brien McMahon called for such a test. The Army Air Forces brass and the Joint Chiefs concurred and by November 1945 plans were underway.

The military chose Bikini Atoll for its remoteness and prevailing winds. A native Bikinian population of only 146 simplified relocation for Operation Crossroads, though with tragic consequences for the exiled Bikinians.

The vast seaborne operation also tested the remnants of the vast U.S. Navy armada that won the Pacific War. Despite a massive demobilization after September 1945, the Pentagon put together a joint task force of 42,000 men, 242 ships and 156 aircraft and sent them off to blow up paradise.

The 71 vessels anchored in Bikini’s 180-foot-deep lagoon were hit by bombs identical to the Fat Man device dropped on Nagasaki. Weaponeers wanted the best comparison possible between a nuked city and a nuked fleet.

The first test, Shot Able on June 30, 1946, fell from a B-29 and landed 2,100 feet off its target. The screw-up marred the test data and provoked a military investigation. Shot Able nevertheless sank five ships and consumed the “demon core,” the plutonium that had already killed two Los Alamos scientists.

Wartime studies of underwater explosions in support of the plan to nuke Chuuk helped plan Shot Baker, Crossroads’ underwater test. Baker produced what is perhaps the most iconic image of a mushroom cloud, its size made even bigger by its eruption from a vast lagoon, hurling seawater and coral reef and whole battleships into the sky.

The great bombings left the lagoons of

Editorial Notes

Biden's blockade not the solution for the Uighurs: Statesman

The paper says both China and the United States must strive together to change the conditions of the Uighurs in China.

Workers make protective suits at a factory of a medical equipment maker in Urumqi, Xinjiang, on Jan 27, 2020. PHOTO: REUTERS

NEW DELHI (THE STATESMAN/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - US President Joe Biden has tightened the economic screws on the human rights abuses in China, most hideously against the persecuted Uighurs, a minority segment in Xinjiang province.

The American President has signed a Bill into law to block imports from the region unless corporate enterprises can prove that the items were made without forced labour. On closer reflection, Mr Biden's blockade, so to speak, is the latest in a slew of US penalties against President Xi Jinping's China for human rights abuses.

Before the Bill won its final passage in the Senate, reports had suggested that initially there was some hesitation on the part of the White House and corporate enterprises.

Clearly, this is the latest in the series of penalties that have been intensified since Thursday (Dec 23). Going by the terms of the bipartite Uighur Forced Labour Prevention Act, the United States of America will "continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that supply chains are free from the use of forced labour, notably from Xinjiang and other parts of China".

Thursday's legislation is the latest in a series of attempts by the United States to get tough with China over its alleged abuse of human rights of ethnic and religious minorities, most particularly in its western region, especially the Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang. Arguably and in a sense, President Biden may have proceeded from conclusion to premise.

The legislation is seemingly embedded in the presumption that goods from Xinjiang are invariably made with forced labour. Business enterprises will have to prove that forced labour, including that that by workers transferred from Xinjiang, was not used in manufacturing the product before it is allowed into the United States.

The terms of US-China trade have, therefore, been redefined. Washington has alleged that China has been committing "genocide" in its treatment of the Uighurs. Rights groups and the media have been riveted to forced sterilisation and large detention camps where Uighurs are allegedly forced to work in factories. China has consistently denied the charge of abuses; it claims that the repressive steps that it has taken are necessary to counter-terrorism and a separatist movement.

In its immediate reaction, the government in Beijing has condemned the move. "The measure maliciously denigrates the human rights situation in China's Xinjiang province in disregard of fact and truth," is the counter-blast from the foreign ministry in Beijing. "It violates international law and basic norms governing international relations and grossly interferes in China's internal affairs. China deplores and firmly rejects this."

The nub of the matter must be that this US-China kerfuffle is rather unlikely to change the condition of the Uighurs even a wee bit. It is the consistent persecution that must end. Towards that objective, both China and the United States must strive together. At stake is the human condition.
The Statesman is a member of The Straits Times media partner Asia News Network, an alliance of 24 news media entities.

Advocates of Gun Control Disappointed in Biden

President Joe Biden. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

By Jeremy Frankel | Sunday, 26 December 2021 

Many gun control advocates are disappointed in President Joe Biden.

According to The Hill, these advocates say that Biden's response to a recent school shooting in Michigan was inadequate. They were also upset when Biden's nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, David Chipman, withdrew.

Zeenat Yahya, deputy policy director at March for Our Lives, said: ''I think the biggest thing to highlight here is that the president has been a friend to the gun violence prevention (GVP) movement this year and we're thankful, but frankly, he hasn't really been a leader.

''We're definitely surprised. We were really hopeful and he made a lot of promises. We are thankful for some of the actions the president has already taken but there is so much more he can do that's a comprehensive top-to-bottom approach.''

Although Biden has issued executive orders on gun control, legislation to expand background checks was not passed in the Senate. The Hill added that while activists ''acknowledge the political roadblocks,'' they are still disappointed and believe Biden could have applied more pressure on Congress regarding the issue.

Peter Ambler, executive director and co-founder of the gun control group Giffords, said that ''it is very difficult for any administration to sort of do enough in that context and I think indeed, we would like to see more from the Biden administration. What we need more than anything right now is a comprehensive strategy to deal with this reality, what is the plan?''

Fred Guttenberg, senior adviser of Brady PAC and father of a student killed in the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting, said: ''Do I think they've done the most of any administration? It's not enough.''

Regarding the Nov. 30 school shooting in Michigan, in which four students were killed, Guttenberg said that while Biden offered condolences, ''the failure to more dramatically acknowledge what happened in a public way was disappointing. I hope that that doesn't happen again.''

Stef Feldman, a senior adviser to the domestic policy adviser at the White House, answered these critiques by saying that ''a comprehensive strategy is exactly what we have done in 2021 and we will continue to execute on it in the new year.''

She added that ''their strategy includes multiple agencies and addresses mass shootings, suicide, community violence, domestic violence, accidental shootings and family shootings, as well as the demand side of guns and holding dealers accountable,'' The Hill reported.

Other gun control advocates, however, are pleased with the Biden administration's work on the issue.

John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, argued that this administration has been the strongest on the issue, stating that ''from their work on stopping illegal gun trafficking with DOJ strike forces, to their strong proposed rule reining in ghost guns that we expect to be finalized any day now, to being strong advocates for a historic investment in community violence intervention programs in the American Rescue Plan, this administration has been a strong ally to the gun safety movement.

''This year was just the start and we expect more from the executive branch in 2022.''

Community Justice Action Fund (CJAF), a group that advocates ending community gun violence, praised the administration for funding community-based violence intervention programs.

CJAF's executive director, Greg Jackson, said that ''community violence intervention programs work. Through executive action taken in April, the Biden administration changed 26 grants across five agencies to ensure these evidence-informed lifesaving programs are eligible to receive federal funding for the first time in history.''