Big Pharma Flooding Airwaves With Disinformation to Kill Drug Price Reform

"Powerful interest groups out there don't want this legislation to succeed, so they're pouring dark money into efforts to stop it," said one Democratic senator.


The group American Commitment is running ads in several states attacking Democrats' plan to lower prescription drug prices. (Photo: Screengrab/American Commitment)

JAKE JOHNSON

July 29, 2022

While its thousands of lobbyists work fervently on Capitol Hill, the pharmaceutical industry is flooding the airwaves in several states with deceptive ads in a last-ditch campaign to block Senate Democrats' plan to curb the unchecked pricing power of drug corporations.

Included as part of a reconciliation package negotiated by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the proposal would require Medicare to negotiate the prices of a small number of drugs directly with pharmaceutical companies, which can currently drive up costs as they please—boosting their profits at the expense of patients.

"We aim to pass reforms to lower Rx prices in the coming days and curb pharma's power to dictate prices to Americans. Let's see it through."

The measure would also cap out-of-pocket medicine costs at $2,000 a year for recipients of Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit provided through private plans approved by the federal government.

The drug industry—which has repeatedly fought off price regulation attempts in recent decades—has lashed out furiously against Democrats' plan, even though it is in some ways significantly weaker than a proposal that the House passed last year. Republicans bankrolled by Big Pharma are also working to tank the bill.

Roll Call reported Friday that the "Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the National Association of Manufacturers, and a group called American Commitment have collectively spent millions of dollars on ads in July" to attack Democrats' proposal, key parts of which are overwhelmingly popular with the American public.

"We're going to use every tool in the toolbox to relentlessly educate lawmakers about the flaws in this bill," declared Stephen Ubl, president of PhRMA, the nation's leading drug industry trade group.

American Commitment, a nonprofit with ties to the Koch Brothers, launched a new seven-figure ad buy on Thursday, targeting audiences in Washington, D.C. as well as West Virginia, Nevada, and Georgia.

The ads, which can be viewed in full on American Commitment's website, recycle the false and repeatedly debunked claim that Democrats' bill would cut "nearly $300 billion from Medicare," distorting the Congressional Budget Office's estimate that the legislation would save the federal government roughly $290 billion over ten years.

The American Prosperity Alliance, a dark money group, is running similarly misleading ads.



Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) responded directly to the ads—one of which attacks her directly—in a speech on the Senate floor earlier this week, noting that the 30-second spots led hundreds of constituents to call her office seeking an explanation.

"They were anxious and alarmed over a deliberately misleading ad that is running on TV, on Facebook, and via a text campaign," said Cortez Masto. "In Reno this past weekend, Nevadans came up to me because they were concerned about these false accusations. This ad incorrectly claims that I support a bill that would strip $300 billion dollars from Medicare. This couldn't be further from the truth."

"Powerful interest groups out there don't want this legislation to succeed, so they're pouring dark money into efforts to stop it," the senator continued. "Well, let me just say this: it won't work."

In an analysis of Democrats' proposal published Wednesday, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) concluded that the bill has the potential to "limit annual increases in drug prices for people with Medicare and private insurance" and "provide substantial financial protection to people on Medicare with high out-of-pocket costs."

The precise impact of the legislation, KFF stressed, will depend on which prescription drugs Medicare chooses to negotiate. A separate KFF analysis released last year found that a small number of drugs make up a major share of Medicare's prescription drug spending.

"We are inches from the goal line," David Mitchell, the founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs, tweeted Friday. "We aim to pass reforms to lower Rx prices in the coming days and curb pharma's power to dictate prices to Americans. Let's see it through."

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GOP 'Working Hand in Hand With Big Pharma' to Kill Drug Price Reform Behind Closed Doors

"Republicans are going to use every tool they have to keep drug prices high and drug industry profits higher," said one Democratic senator.


Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) talks with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) during a hearing

JAKE JOHNSON

July 27, 2022

Republican lawmakers are working behind closed doors to convince the Senate parliamentarian—the chamber's unelected rules arbiter—to tank Democrats' watered-down but still potentially impactful proposal to require Medicare to negotiate the prices of a small number of prescription drugs directly with pharmaceutical companies.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), a major beneficiary of pharmaceutical industry campaign cash, admitted as much in remarks to reporters on Tuesday, saying that he and his GOP colleagues are "going through line by line, literally, making objections" in private meetings with the Senate parliamentarian, who is tasked with offering advice on whether reconciliation provisions comply with chamber rules.

"Folks in Idaho need to know he's not working for them—he's working for Big Pharma."

Under the Senate's Byrd Rule, every provision of a reconciliation package must have a direct, not "merely incidental," impact on the federal budget. Democrats contend their Medicare proposal meets that requirement, citing the Congressional Budget Office's recent estimate that the plan would save the federal government $290 billion over 10 years.

But Crapo insisted Tuesday that "there are many Byrd objections," and Politico reported that Democrats are currently "making tweaks" to the legislation to ensure it survives the parliamentarian's scrutiny—even though the official's opinions are nonbinding and can be overruled.

"Republicans are working hand in hand with Big Pharma to try to block Democrats from lowering drug prices," warned Social Security Works, a progressive advocacy group.

The GOP's efforts come as the pharmaceutical industry is mobilizing its huge army of Capitol Hill lobbyists in a last-ditch campaign to defeat Democrats' plan, which would require Medicare to directly negotiate the prices of a subset of prescription drugs—an idea that is overwhelmingly popular with the U.S. public.

While Democrats' proposal has faced criticism from progressive lawmakers who say it doesn't do enough to challenge the pharmaceutical industry's power to drive up costs, advocates and experts say the bill could still have a significant effect on prices for seniors and people with disabilities, given that a small number of medicines account for a major portion of Medicare's prescription drug spending.

"Sen. Mike Crapo is proud that he's trying to gut legislation to lower drug prices supported by more than 70% of Americans," said David Mitchell, the founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs. "Legislation to improve health and save Americans money. Folks in Idaho need to know he's not working for them—he's working for Big Pharma."

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is aiming to get the Medicare proposal as well as a plan to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies through the chamber before the August recess, which is set to begin next week.

In the face of unanimous Republican opposition, Democrats will need the support of all fifty senators in their caucus to pass the reconciliation package, which is exempt from the 60-vote filibuster.

"Republicans are going to use every tool they have to keep drug prices high and drug industry profits higher," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) warned Tuesday.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) added that "every single elected Republican in the Senate is about to vote against reducing the cost of prescription drugs for those on Medicare."

"This is not a show vote or a symbolic thing—we are going to make a new law," Schatz wrote. "It will save seniors thousands of dollars a year."
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‘Is it better than nothing? I suppose’: Sanders disappointed by Dems’ drug pricing plan

"It's a very weak proposal" but "we're dealing with the power of PhRMA over the Congress," he said, taking aim at industry lobbyists.

By

 Jessica Corbett

 -

July 27, 2022

SOURCECommon Dreams

Bernie Sanders (Crush Rush via Shutterstock)

Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders on Tuesday blasted Democrats’ watered-down drug pricing plan and suggested pharmaceutical industry lobbying weakened the proposal.

“It goes nowhere near as far as it should.”

“It’s a very weak proposal. It goes nowhere near as far as it should,” Sanders (I-Vt.) told NBC News‘ Sahil Kapur.

The deal unveiled earlier this month would enable Medicare to negotiate the prices of a limited number of prescription drugs. Other provisions include creating a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap for Medicare Part D beneficiaries, stopping brand-name manufacturers from blocking generic options, and penalizing companies that raise prices faster than inflation.

The plan is notably backed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)—who last year blocked a House-approved budget reconciliation package and said this month that he wouldn’t support new climate spending or tax hikes on the rich and large corporations.

Sanders, who pushed for a sweeping package last year and has long been a leading Medicare for All advocate, pointed to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as a model for drug price negotiation.

“The American people want Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices like the VA does,” the senator said Tuesday, according to The Hill.

“The VA has been doing that for decades. The prices they pay are about half as much as Medicare. This thing will only apply to a certain number of drugs,” Sanders continued, noting that parts of the proposal would not take effect until 2026.

“So it’s a weak proposal. Is it better than nothing? I suppose,” he added of Democrats’ plan.

Sanders also took aim at industry lobbying, specifically calling out the trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). As he put it: “We’re dealing with the power of PhRMA over the Congress. They don’t lose very often.”

As Common Dreams reported last week, Big Pharma is mobilizing an army of lobbyists to tank Democrats’ drug reform plan while hiking the price of prescription medications.

“Pharma is spending millions to defeat a very modest drug pricing bill,” Sanders tweeted Friday. “Joe Manchin, who is blocking climate action, is the major recipient of fossil fuel campaign contributions. This is how a corrupt political system works.”

Democrats Are Fumbling Their Chance to Make Insulin More Affordable


Published in:The Nation
July 28, 2022 
Matt McConnell
Researcher, Economic Justice and Rights Division

HRW

A nurse prepares an insulin shot for a diabetes patient. © Creative Commons

A member of an underground group that brings drugs across the Canadian border explained his methods to me. “We break it up,” he said, describing how their haul is carefully divided into different mailing boxes lined with foam insulation and ice packs. “So, if Customs catches something, we don’t lose it all.”

I was interviewing a drug runner for Human Rights Watch research, but he wasn’t looking to turn a profit. He was just one of many people working ordinary jobs and living ordinary lives—students, homemakers, restaurant and public utility workers, among them—who told me about their experiences in the shadowy world of insulin supply sharing.

Across the United States, informal aid networks of diabetics work, often in legal gray areas, to ensure access to insulin for those who cannot afford it, importing, mailing, donating, delivering, and sharing as many vials and injection pens as they can. This spontaneous solidarity movement, motivated by tragedy and organized online, is often a last line of defense for those facing the possibly lethal consequences of running out of this lifesaving, but unaffordable, medicine.

“I don’t care if they want to throw us in jail,” the insulin smuggler told me. “We want to save lives.”

Congress has proposed legislation that would help address this crisis by limiting annual increases in drugs’ list prices to the rate of inflation, capping patients’ out-of-pocket costs, and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, including for insulin. These reforms are popular and a core component of President Joe Biden’s plan to address inflation. But the window to enact them is rapidly closing.

This urgency is not lost on Senate Democrats, who are moving forward with plans to enact these comprehensive drug price reforms through the budget reconciliation process, which only requires 50 votes in the Senate. But in a sudden—and unexplained—policy shift, when the draft version of this reform package was submitted to the Senate parliamentarian on July 6, it removed previously uncontroversial provisions that included all insulin products in Medicare negotiation and capped health insurance copays for insulin at $35.

It is possible that a separate bipartisan bill that would implement a similar cap on out-of-pocket insulin costs for people with health insurance may have played a part in this decision. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has promised to bring this bill to a vote, but it has a much harder and unlikely path to being passed into law, as it would require 60 votes to overcome the filibuster. This insulin affordability crisis forces people to choose between a medicine that many cannot live without and other basic needs like food and rent. It doesn’t just harm peoples’ health; it limits access to higher education, home ownership, and other life goals, while causing immense stress and anxiety. Congress can take a significant step towards ending it now. But unless Schumer changes course, Democrats may miss this opportunity. (Schumer’s office did not respond to inquiries in time for publication.)

The insulin smuggler I spoke with was one of many people with insulin-dependent diabetes we interviewed for a recent report on the human rights impacts of unaffordable insulin in the United States. Our investigation revealed a deadly but largely unseen crisis of insulin rationing, driven by federal policies and corporate practices that make lifesaving medication like insulin prohibitively expensive for many people.

About 8 million adults in the US use one or more types of insulin to regulate their blood sugar. Without it, they may experience high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia, which can lead to serious and even life-threatening complications. But in the US, the most commonly prescribed form of this lifesaving drug—analog insulin—can cost more than $300 for a single vial, easily adding up to more than $1,000 a month.

Uninsured and underinsured people, who are much more likely to be from marginalized communities and working low-income jobs, may have no choice but to bear the full burden of this medicine’s exceptional cost. People who require lifesaving medicines like insulin will pay what they must to survive, regardless of the price. Or, as some of the accounts people shared with me showed, they will pay for as much as they can afford and then just hope not to die.

Almost every insulin-dependent person we interviewed said they had rationed analog insulin because of its cost, risking long-term and potentially lethal health complications by taking less medicine than needed to stretch out their supply. Although it is difficult to estimate how many people in the US ration insulin in this way, several recent studies found that about one-in-four insulin users reported doing so.

The consequences of rationing can be deadly. A 2020 study of national hospitalization records from 2017 found that on average more than two people died each day in the US after being admitted into a hospital with a primary diagnosis of diabetic ketoacidosis, also called DKA. But this figure may underestimate the total number of these tragic DKA deaths in the US, since this inpatient hospitalization data does not capture deaths that occurred at home or in an emergency room.

Memorials written by family members who found their loved one dead after they rationed insulin because of cost capture the painful human toll of many deaths that potentially went uncounted in these records.

The drivers of this crisis are clear. Unlike most countries, the United States has no direct government regulation of drug prices to make sure they are affordable. There are no systems to establish a fair price for medicines before they enter the market or to restrict how much manufacturers or intermediaries can increase prices once they do. In this unregulated market, analog insulin prices in the US are more than eight times the average among the 32 other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Despite the immense wealth and pharmaceutical production capacity of the US, many diabetics must rely on the illicit but lifesaving work of ordinary people to ensure that they have access to the medicine they need to survive. This crisis is the result of government policies. But thankfully that means that it can be undone by changing them.

While these comprehensive drug price reforms still fall far short of the US government’s human rights obligations, they would be life-changing for millions of older adults and would represent the most significant US health care legislation since the Affordable Care Act. Not including insulin products, essential to the human rights of diabetics, would be a harmful and pointless mistake that only benefits corporations that have profited from a status quo where the lives and livelihoods of millions of diabetics are endangered by an unaffordable drug they cannot live without. Schumer should reinsert insulin into the reconciliation bill without delay.

Vaccine Equity Activists Denounce Pfizer's 'Obscene' Pandemic Windfall

"Companies like Pfizer will always put high profit before lives," said one campaigner after the pharma giant announced record second-quarter revenue.


A coalition of healthcare advocacy organizations gathered for a vaccine equity protest outside Pfizer's headquarters in New York City on March 11, 2020. 

Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Image


BRETT WILKINS

July 28, 2022

Health equity campaigners on Thursday called for a fairer system of developing and distributing Covid-19 medications after pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced record second-quarter revenue, more than half of which is attributable to sales of coronavirus vaccines and treatments that remain out of reach for much of the Global South.

"Millions of people in low- and middle-income countries faced death and devastation without access to vaccines while Pfizer sold doses to the highest bidders."

New York-based Pfizer announced Thursday its adjusted earnings for the second quarter were $2.04 per share, a 92% increase from the same period last year and well ahead of a consensus forecast of $1.79 per share. The company's revenue grew by 47% to $27.7 billion compared to the second quarter last year, while its net income soared 78% to $9.9 billion. Around $8.85 billion of Pfizer's total revenue came from sales of its Comirnaty coronavirus vaccine, while Paxlovid, its oral antiviral treatment, earned the company $8.1 billion. Pfizer also said that Covid-related sales should bring in about $54 billion in total revenues this year.

Additionally, during the first half of 2022, Pfizer has returned $6.5 billion to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends, compared to $5.1 billion invested in research and development, belying Big Pharma claims that massive profits are imperative for the creation of new medicines.

"Pfizer is set for an obscene $100 billion pandemic windfall in 2022, even as the world remains billions of doses away from vaccinating everyone," Tim Bierley, pharma campaigner at the U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, said in a statement. "After 18 months of refusing to share its lifesaving vaccine technology with countries in the Global South, now we face a situation where huge parts of the world can't access Pfizer's lifesaving Covid-19 treatment. This is all because of a business model that puts shareholder greed before people's lives."

"Two years of terrible vaccine inequality have led to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, yet the only lesson Pfizer has learned is that billions can be made from a publicly funded medicine," Bierley added. "As leaders consider how we prepare for future pandemics, the priority must be to replace this pharmaceutical model, which illogically rewards the hoarding of scientific knowledge. It's time for a more cooperative, less profit-centered system, which puts global public health first."

While nearly 70% of the world's people have received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine, massive inequities in inoculation remain the rule, not the exception. According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, there are 36 countries in which less than 25% of the population is fully vaccinated, the vast majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa. Ten nations have full vaccination rates below 10%, with war-torn Yemen (1.5%), Haiti (1.4%), and Burundi (0.1%) currently having the world's lowest inoculation rates.

"Millions of people in low- and middle-income countries faced death and devastation without access to vaccines while Pfizer sold doses to the highest bidders," Mohga Kamal-Yanni, policy co-lead for the People's Vaccine Alliance, said in response to Pfizer's Q2 earnings. "Now we're seeing the same inequality in access to lifesaving Covid-19 treatments like Paxlovid. Pfizer's CEO can make all the half-hearted equity pledges he wants, but he will never wash that stain from his company's reputation."

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Kamal-Yanni asserted that "world leaders have repeatedly said that we must learn the lessons of this pandemic to better respond to future health crises. The one key lesson is that leaders cannot leave decisions on supply, allocation, and price to pharmaceutical companies."

"Companies like Pfizer will always put high profit before lives," he added. "The world needs to build a fairer system of creating and distributing medical technologies before the next pandemic, or risk repeating the mistakes of Covid-19."

Some activists have pointed to the fact that Africa still does not have any doses of vaccine against monkeypox—now a World Health Organization-designated global emergency—despite being the only continent where people have died from the virus, as evidence that little has been learned from the Covid-19 pandemic.

News of Pfizer's record revenue came a week after the company, along with U.K.-based Flynn Pharma, were fined the equivalent of $85 million by British regulators for overcharging the country's National Health Service for a lifesaving epilepsy drug.

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Could tolerant and peaceful bonobos be the model for human peacemaking?

“Both chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest living relatives and therefore studying their social systems and behavior can allow us to trace the evolutionary trajectories of certain phenomenons.”

AMERIKANS ARE MORE AGGRESSIVE LIKE CHIMPS

By

 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes

 -

July 29, 2022

SOURCEEcowatch

Humans share 98.7 percent of their DNA with two species of endangered great apes: bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Bonobos — which can only be found in forested regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), south of the Congo River — differ from chimpanzees in appearance and behavior. They are usually smaller, and their societal groups are led by females and are generally more peaceful.

It is the bonobos’ peaceful nature and how it relates to the rare ability of humans to show tolerance and cooperate with one another that is the subject of a new study by Harvard primatologists. Bonobos have been dubbed “hippie apes” by researchers due to their harmonious disposition and active sex lives, the Harvard Gazette reported.

Anup Shah/ Stone / Getty Images

Not as much is known about the social relationships of bonobos in comparison with those of chimpanzees due to the remoteness of the bonobos’ habitat, their uneven distribution and prolonged civil unrest in the DRC, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

However, the new Harvard study hopes to flesh out some of the details of bonobos’ social structure.

The study, “Characterization of Pan social systems reveals in-group/out-group distinction and out-group tolerance in bonobos,” was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The most striking difference between chimpanzees and bonobos is in their intergroup relations. While in chimpanzees intergroup interactions are almost always hostile by nature, and intergroup conflict can escalate into lethal aggression, in bonobos intergroup interactions are typically tolerant and individuals of different groups even groom one another and share food,” postdoctoral fellow in Harvard’s Pan Lab Liran Samuni, who was the study’s lead author, told EcoWatch in an email. “Bonobo intergroup interactions can be aggressive, and even lead to small injuries, but there isn’t yet a single observation of lethal aggression in bonoobs.”

Samuni added that, in bonobo social groups, females most often dominate.

“Another difference between the two species is in the dominance structures – with chimpanzees males dominating all females and bonobo females usually dominating males. One of the ideas is that female dominance in bonobos affords them greater social leverage and that by forming female-female alliances they are able to suppress male aggression,” Samuni said.

Samuni went on to say that the territories of chimpanzee groups don’t often overlap, but, as is the case with other animals, they compete for land, mates and resources.

“Larger groups are usually able to maintain larger territories and benefit from increased access to valuable resources. So winning conflict over neighbours can be highly beneficial for the group and even increase the reproductive output of its members,” Samuni told EcoWatch.

So why are bonobos so much more peaceful in their interactions than chimpanzees?

“Why bonobos have evolved to be this way is a question that is difficult to answer,” Samuni said. “The main theory is that bonobos evolved in a lusher/more stable environment where feeding competition was reduced, thereby allowing females to form closer relationships with one another which enable them to hold high social status within their group. However, there is conflicting evidence as to whether this holds true and more data and studies are needed before we can answer this question.”https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.522.0_en.html#goog_773325449

From 2017 to 2019, the scientists studied 59 bonobos in four neighboring groups living at the DRC’s Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve and found that, while the individual groups maintained spatial and social borders that indicated their independence from each other, they shared regular peaceful interactions, reported the Harvard Gazette.

“It was a very necessary first step. Now that we know that despite the fact that they spend so much time together, [neighboring] bonobo populations still have these distinct groups, we can really examine the bonobo model as something that is potentially the building block or the state upon which us humans evolved our way of more complex, multilevel societies and cooperation that extends beyond borders,” said Samuni, as the Harvard Gazette reported.

Prior research had shown that the bonobo groups had regularly come together to socialize, share meals and groom each other, but the researchers hadn’t been sure how similar the bonobos’ behavior was to subgroups of chimpanzees — referred to by primatologists as “neighborhoods” — within a single bigger community.

“There aren’t really behavioral indications that allow us to distinguish this is group A, this is group B when they meet,” said Samuni, as reported by the Harvard Gazette. “They behave the same way they behave with their own group members. People are basically asking us, how do we know these are two different groups? Maybe instead of those being two different groups, these groups are just one very large group made up of individuals that just don’t spend all their time together [as we see with chimpanzee neighborhoods].”

Anup Shah/ Stone / Getty Images

Each day, from dawn to dusk, a minimum of two people from the bonobo reserve observed each group of bonobos — named the Ekalakala, the Kokoalongo, the Fekako, and the Bekako by the researchers — and recorded data on their location and behaviors, including how long and with whom individuals spent time, as well as what they did.

The researchers then used a method called “cluster analysis” — where data points from each group are clustered closely together on a plot separate from the others — to process the information.

The researchers looked at which of the bonobos shared notable bonds, who ate meals together more often, which ones stuck with each other when given a choice and which individual bonobos interacted with each other in their shared “home range.”

Through these determinations, the researchers were able to distinguish the bonobos who shared the same group and when they were associating peacefully with their neighbors across established borders.

The data from the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve was then compared to data taken from the observations of 104 chimpanzees in the Ngogo community of Kibale National Park in Uganda from 2011 to 2013.

Overall, the scientists found the bonobo groups to be more stable and consistent than the chimpanzee subgroups, which indicated stronger social ties.

Due to their strong ties, the researchers were able to predict the individual bonobos who were most likely to stay with one another when the bonobo clusters came together and separated again.

Samuni and assistant professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University Martin Surbeck, who is the founder and director of the Kokolopori Bonobo Research Project and the paper’s senior author, said the study’s results demonstrate that bonobos have a capacity to develop and maintain complex relationships separate from their primary associations that is similar to humans.

“Like human groups there are many different social relationships that bonobos (and chimpanzees) maintain within their groups: some individuals are family and are usually very close, some are close friends and spend a lot of time grooming and supporting one another, others interact mostly in an aggressive manner or do not interact much,” Samuni told EcoWatch. “The different relationships that individuals maintain offer them support systems, allow them to achieve dominance rank, provide safety from danger, etc.”

The researchers want to expand on their findings that bonobos have distinctive groups, and delve more deeply into the details of trade and cooperation between them in order to see if they could constitute similar behaviors in their shared ancestor with humans, reported the Harvard Gazette.

“Both chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest living relatives and therefore studying their social systems and behavior can allow us to trace the evolutionary trajectories of certain phenomenons,” Samuni told EcoWatch. “For example, if humans & chimpanzees share a certain trait, then it is more simple (parsimonious) to assume that our common ancestor also shared these traits. Tool-use is a good example, until the 60s it was believed that what separated us from other animals was our ability to make tools (‘man the tool maker’) but observations of chimpanzees and other animals have repeatedly demonstrated that tool-use is more widespread than what was originally thought, starting with the first documentation of tool use in chimpanzees in Gombe by Dr. Jane Goodall.”

Bonobos are listed as endangered by The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and are faced with the same dangers as many threatened species.

“The main threats to bonobos are habitat loss (due to logging, mining) and poaching (e.g., for bushmeat, as part of the pet trade, or due to human-wildlife conflict),” Samuni told EcoWatch. “Because bonobos only exist in the DRC, a country who has known its share of political instability, the bonobo populations suffered from these internal conflicts. Due to the challenges of working in DRC, we know very little about bonobos and estimations of the number of bonobos left in the wild are outdated. And even in places where bonobos are not the direct target of poaching or drastically suffer from habitat loss, they routinely get caught in traps and snares set by poachers which can leave them handicapped and impact their ability to survive and reproduce.”

Samuni recommended measures that can be taken to help protect bonobos.

“Maintaining protected areas where the animals are safe from poaching or other anthropogenic disturbances is one of the best ways to conserve species. Animal corridors between protected areas can facilitate gene flow that is also very important for the viability of populations. There’s also the need to fight against the bushmeat and pet trade and pass laws that prohibit keeping chimpanzees, bonobos, and other wild animals as pets. Because chimpanzees and bonobos live in large social groups where individuals support and care for one another, when an infant chimpanzee/bonobo is taken from the wild to be sold as a pet it often means that their mother and other group members were killed in the process,” Samuni said.

Samuni added that social media can hinder the protection of species when it is used to distort or glamorize the attempted domestication of wild animals.

“It has also been shown that our use of social media can have a negative impact on the conservation of these species. When people see a video on social media of a young chimpanzee/bonobo (or any other wild species) as a pet they may think that this is OK and that the animal is having a good life (everything looks prettier on social media). It can lead to an increase in demand for these animals. Not giving these videos the platform and likes can be something easy that each and everyone of us can do, which will guarantee a greater protection of these animals,” Samuni told EcoWatch.

According to The IUCN Red List, population numbers of bonobos are decreasing, and Surbeck offered a warning for the survival of this peaceful species of great apes. 

“There are very few left,” said Surbeck, as the Harvard Gazette reported. “We gather here information that potentially will not be available anymore in 50 years if things continue the way they do.”

House Hearing Exposes Gun Industry's Profiting 'Off the Blood of Innocent Americans'

"These companies are selling the weapon of choice for mass murderers who terrorize young children at school, hunt down worshippers at churches and synagogues, and slaughter families on the Fourth of July."

BRETT WILKINS

July 27, 2022

Firearm companies have raked in over $1 billion from selling AR-15-style rifles over the past decade, a U.S. congressional committee revealed in a report ahead of a Wednesday hearing, prompting calls from Democratic lawmakers and gun control advocates for a renewed assault weapons ban.

"The business practices of these gun manufacturers are deeply disturbing, exploitative, and reckless."

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform held the hearing on gunmakers' responsibility for a national crisis that costs tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

In the wake of recent massacres in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York, the House panel queried five leading gun manufacturers—Bushmaster, Daniel Defense, Ruger, Sig Sauer, and Smith & Wesson—about their sales and marketing of AR-15-like and other assault-style semi-automatic rifles. Such weaponry is used in around three-quarters of mass shootings, attacks that are far deadlier when they involve assault weapons, according to the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.

"How much are the lives of America's children, teachers, parents, and families worth to gun manufacturers? My committee's investigation has revealed that the country's major gun manufacturers have collected more than $1 billion in revenue from selling military-style assault weapons to civilians," House Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a statement ahead of the hearing.

"These companies are selling the weapon of choice for mass murderers who terrorize young children at school, hunt down worshippers at churches and synagogues, and slaughter families on the Fourth of July," she continued. "In short, the gun industry is profiting off the blood of innocent Americans."

"My committee has found that the business practices of these gun manufacturers are deeply disturbing, exploitative, and reckless," Maloney said. "These companies use aggressive marketing tactics to target young people—especially young men—and some even evoke symbols of white supremacy. Yet we found that none of these companies bothers to keep track of the death and destruction caused by their products."

Among the panel's findings:Sales of assault-style weapons are increasing as gun deaths and mass shootings rise;

Gun companies utilize a variety of financing tactics and manipulative marketing campaigns to sell assault weapons to customers, including teens;

Firearm manufacturers fail to track or monitor deaths, injuries, or crimes that occur using their products, or when their products have been illegally modified.

"Congress must act to rein in the irresponsible business practices of the gun industry, prohibit the sale of dangerous weapons of war to civilians, and reassess the liability protections that prevent the American people from accessing the courts to hold gun manufacturers accountable for the deadly effects of their business decisions," the committee concluded.

The panel added:

Congress and federal agencies should also consider requiring death and crime reporting requirements for the gun industry, similar to those imposed on other industries, which will force manufacturers to develop compliance systems and take reasonable precautious to ensure their products are not misused. Additionally, Congress should consider imposing reasonable regulations on how the gun industry advertises its products, such as age limitations, content warnings, and further enabling agencies like the Federal Trade Commission to regulate misleading advertisements.

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), who is not a member of the committee, was even blunter, tweeting, "ban assault weapons NOW."

"These companies made a BILLION dollars selling weapons of war. Assault rifles are designed to kill as many people as possible, as quickly as possible," she added. "They irreparably shatter families and communities. They have no place in our country."

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'Beyond Unacceptable': Progressives Rip Senate Republicans for Blocking Birth Control Bill

"Today, Republicans showed the American people where they stand: No abortions, and no birth control to prevent the need for one," said Sen. Ed Markey.


BRETT WILKINS

July 27, 2022

Democratic U.S. lawmakers and reproductive freedom advocates on Wednesday denounced Senate Republicans for blocking proposed legislation that would safeguard access to contraception as GOP-led states enact total abortion bans in the wake of Roe v. Wade's reversal.

"These extremists are pulling back the curtain to reveal just how out of touch they are with Americans. Voters won't forget it come November."

Arguing that the bill "purposefully goes far beyond the scope of contraception," Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) objected to a request from Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to pass the Right to Contraception Act by unanimous consent.

The House of Representatives passed the measure—which would codify the right to obtain and use contraceptives and protect physicians who provide them—last week. Just eight Republican House lawmakers joined all 220 of their Democratic colleagues in voting for the bill.

"It has been nearly 60 years since the Supreme Court decided Griswold v. Connecticut—and affirmed Americans' right to privacy and with it: their right to contraception," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement. "So you'd think this would be a settled issue. And for the vast majority of Americans—it is. Yet, as we just saw, somehow—in the year 2022—this isn't a settled issue for Republican politicians."

Markey asserted that "today, Republicans showed the American people where they stand: No abortions, and no birth control to prevent the need for one. The right-wing extremists in the United States Senate and on the Supreme Court are way out of touch with the vast majority of the American people, and yet they still want to tell them what to do with their bodies and their lives.

"While Republicans refuse to protect our fundamental rights as the Supreme Court and right-wing state legislatures take them away," Markey added, "my Democratic colleagues and I will continue our efforts to keep in place the fundamental, privacy-based rights that Americans have had for decades, and codify into federal law the right to contraception."

Progressive activists have been warning that access to contraceptives could be imperiled by the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority. In his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the 6-3 May ruling that voided half a century of constitutional abortion rights, Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly took aim at Griswold—as well as landmark cases legalizing same-sex intimate relations and marriage—as previous high court decisions that should be revisited.

Reproductive rights groups echoed the Democratic senators' frustration and resolve.

"Senate Republicans' refusal to protect contraception access is beyond unacceptable," NARAL Pro-Choice America president Mini Timmaraju said in a statement. "As our country grapples with the ripple effects of the Supreme Court ending the right to abortion, MAGA Republicans continue to find every excuse to exert power and control over us all."

"Contraception is a key way people can decide if, when, and how to start or grow a family," she added, "and these extremists are pulling back the curtain to reveal just how out of touch they are with Americans. Voters won't forget it come November."

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Nearly every House Republican votes against codifying right to contraception

"If they had the chance they would ban it," said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

By

 Julia Conley

 -

July 22, 2022

SOURCECommon Dreams

With many lawmakers expressing disbelief that a law codifying the right to use birth control is needed in the U.S. in 2022, House Democrats passed the Right to Contraception Act on Thursday—joined by just eight Republicans as the party denied access to contraception is under attack.

All 220 Democrats voted in favor of the bill.

“One hundred ninety-five House Republicans just voted against protecting your right to access contraception,” said Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.).

“Birth control is a basic form of healthcare we ALL deserve to access.”

The legislation defines contraception as “any drug, device, or biological product intended for use in the prevention of pregnancy, whether specifically intended to prevent pregnancy or for other health needs, that is legally marketed under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, such as oral contraceptives, long-acting reversible contraceptives, emergency contraceptives, internal and external condoms, injectables, vaginal barrier methods, transdermal patches, and vaginal rings, or other contraceptives.”

Rep. Kathy Manning (D-N.C.) introduced the bill weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing majority overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the right to abortion care for millions of women and likely reducing access to abortions even in states where the right is still protected.

In an opinion concurring with the ruling, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that “in future cases, we should reconsider all of the Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” naming cases that affirmed Americans have the right to contraception, same-sex relationships, and marriage equality.

Thursday’s vote showed that opposition to contraceptive rights “is not just an opinion of one man,” said Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.). “This is their plan.”

“If they had the chance they would ban” contraception, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) added.

Earlier this week, the House passed a bill codifying the right of same-sex couples to marry, with the vast majority of Republicans voting against it.

After the ruling overturning Roe was handed down, a health system in Missouri—where abortion is now banned—temporarily stopped providing emergency contraception, better known as Plan B, saying the state needed to “better define” its abortion ban.

Republicans in Missouri have also tried to stop Medicaid funding from being used for contraception.

GOP legislators on Thursday, however, claimed the right to access contraception is not being threatened, with Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) accusing the Democrats of “spreading fear and misinformation” and calling the bill “a Trojan horse for more abortions.”

After the House bill passed, advocates called on the Senate to promptly pass the Right to Contraception Act, which was introduced by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) this week.

Republicans in the Senate have also denied people are at risk of losing their right to use contraception, with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) calling the Democrats’ efforts “pure hysteria.”

“Birth control is a basic form of healthcare we ALL deserve to access,” said the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights after the House bill was passed. “Senate must follow.”