CRIMINAL CAPITAL$M

FTC sues prescription drug middlemen, alleging they conspired over high insulin costs


 The Federal Trade Commission on Friday filed lawsuits against three prescription drug benefit managers or PBMs, including Express Scripts, over concerns the companies are artificially inflating the list price of insulin drugs. 

File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 20 (UPI) -- The Federal Trade Commission on Friday filed lawsuits against three prescription drug benefit managers or PBMs over concerns the companies are artificially inflating the list price of insulin drugs.

The FTC lawsuit contends Caremark Rx, Express Scripts and OptumRx engaged "in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices," leading to the artificial price inflation as well as impairing access to lower cost drugs, and shifting "high insulin list prices to vulnerable patients," according to a statement issued Friday.
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Alabama-based Caremark, Minnesota's OptumRX and Missouri-based Express Scripts are the country's three largest PBMs.

The lawsuit also names the three companies' affiliated group purchasing organizations or GPOs.

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The three companies "created a perverse drug rebate system that prioritizes high rebates from drug manufacturers, leading to artificially inflated insulin list prices," according to the FTC complaint.

That complex system allowed the companies to keep hundreds of millions of dollars in rebates rather than return the money to patients, according to the FTC. They also allegedly used the allure of rebates to lure new clients.

The agency contends that even when lower drug priced insulin was available, the PBMs "systemically excluded" vulnerable patients in favor of higher-priced options with large rebates.
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The filing points out the average cost of a brand-name insulin drug in 1999 was $21, but increased to more than $274 by 2017, an increase of 1,200%.

It goes on to say one out of every four insulin patients became unable to afford their medication by 2019.

"Millions of Americans with diabetes need insulin to survive, yet for many of these vulnerable patients, their insulin drug costs have skyrocketed over the past decade thanks in part to powerful PBMs and their greed," FTC Bureau of Competition Deputy Director Rahul Rao said in the agency's statement.

"Caremark, ESI, and Optum-as medication gatekeepers-have extracted millions of dollars off the backs of patients who need life-saving medications. The FTC's administrative action seeks to put an end to the Big Three PBMs' exploitative conduct and marks an important step in fixing a broken system-a fix that could ripple beyond the insulin market and restore healthy competition to drive down drug prices for consumers."

SPACE/COSMOLOGY

SpaceX launches rescue mission for two NASA astronauts stranded at the ISS

SpaceX on Saturday launched a mission to rescue two astronauts stuck on the International Space Station (ISS), though the return leg of the mission to bring the two home will not be completed until next year. The two test pilots were marooned on the ISS when their Boeing spacecraft returned to Earth empty earlier this month because of safety concerns.


Issued on: 28/09/2024 - 

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, en route to the International Space Station on September 28, 2024. 

© Miguel Rodriguez Carrill, Getty Images via AFP

SpaceX launched a rescue mission for the two stuck astronauts at the International Space Station on Saturday, sending up a downsized crew to bring them home but not until next year.

The capsule rocketed toward orbit to fetch the test pilots whose Boeing spacecraft returned to Earth empty earlier this month because of safety concerns. The switch in rides left it to NASA’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov to retrieve Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

Since NASA rotates space station crews approximately every six months, this newly launched flight with two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams won’t return until late February. Officials said there wasn’t a way to bring them back earlier on SpaceX without interrupting other scheduled missions.

By the time they return, the pair will have logged more than eight months in space. They expected to be gone just a week when they signed up for Boeing’s first astronaut flight that launched in June.

NASA ultimately decided that Boeing’s Starliner was too risky after a cascade of thruster troubles and helium leaks marred its trip to the orbiting complex. The space agency cut two astronauts from this SpaceX launch to make room on the return leg for Wilmore and Williams.

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Williams has since been promoted to commander of the space station, which will soon be back to its normal population of seven. Once Hague and Gorbunov arrive this weekend, four astronauts living there since March can leave in their own SpaceX capsule. Their homecoming was delayed a month by Starliner’s turmoil.

Hague noted before the flight that change is the one constant in human spaceflight.

“There’s always something that is changing. Maybe this time it’s been a little more visible to the public,” he said.

Hague was thrust into the commander’s job for the rescue mission based on his experience and handling of a launch emergency six years ago. The Russian rocket failed shortly after liftoff, and the capsule carrying him and a cosmonaut catapulted off the top to safety.

Rookie NASA astronaut Zena Cardman and veteran space flier Stephanie Wilson were pulled from this flight after NASA opted to go with SpaceX to bring the stuck astronauts home. The space agency said both would be eligible to fly on future missions. Gorbunov remained under an exchange agreement between NASA and the Russian Space Agency.

“I don’t know exactly when my launch to space will be, but I know that I will get there,” Cardman said from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where she took part in the launch livestream.

Hague acknowledged the challenges of launching with half a crew and returning with two astronauts trained on another spacecraft.

“We’ve got a dynamic challenge ahead of us,” Hague said after arriving from Houston last weekend. “We know each other and we’re professionals and we step up and do what’s asked of us.”

SpaceX has long been the leader in NASA’s commercial crew program, established as the space shuttles were retiring more than a decade ago. SpaceX beat Boeing in delivering astronauts to the space station in 2020 and it’s now up to 10 crew flights for NASA.

Boeing has struggled with a variety of issues over the years, repeating a Starliner test flight with no one on board after the first one veered off course. The Starliner that left Wilmore and Williams in space landed without any issues in the New Mexico desert on Sept. 6, and has since returned to Kennedy Space Center. A week ago, Boeing’s defense and space chief was replaced.

Delayed by Hurricane Helene pounding Florida, the latest SpaceX liftoff marked the first for astronauts from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. SpaceX took over the old Titan rocket pad nearly two decades ago and used it for satellite launches, while flying crews from Kennedy’s former Apollo and shuttle pad next door. The company wanted more flexibility as more Falcon rockets soared.

(AP)

Space travel might be harmful for human hearts

By Dennis Thompson, HealthDay News


Long-term space travel to Mars could be bad for astronauts' hearts, a new zero-gravity study shows. Photo by Adobe Stock/HealthDay News

Long-term space travel to Mars could be bad for astronauts' hearts, a new zero-gravity study shows.

After a month at the International Space Station, a set of 48 bioengineered human heart tissue samples beat about half as strong as similar tissues that remained on Earth.

The tissues also became weaker and started showing genetic evidence of inflammation and oxidative damage that are hallmarks of heart disease, researchers reported Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Many of these markers of oxidative damage and inflammation are consistently demonstrated in post-flight checks of astronauts," added researcher Devin Mair, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore.

Previous studies have shown that some astronauts return to Earth with reduced heart muscle function and irregular heartbeats, researchers said. Some, but not all, of these effects dissipate over time following their return.

Missions to Mars could mean as much as two years spent in space, making it crucial that doctors better understand the effects of weightlessness on heart function, researchers said.

For the study, researchers used stem cells to create a set of heart muscle cells, called cardiomyocytes.

The team then placed the heart muscle tissues into a chip that strings the tissues between two posts, to collect data about how the tissues beat. The resulting chambers were about half the size of a cell phone.

"An incredible amount of cutting-edge technology in the areas of stem cell and tissue engineering, biosensors and bioelectronics, and micro-fabrication went into ensuring the viability of these tissues in space," said project leader Deok-Ho Kim, a professor of biomedical engineering and medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

A SpaceX mission took the heart tissues into space in March 2020. Once they safely reached the space station, scientists received real-time data for 10 seconds every half-hour about the cells' strength of contraction and beating patterns.

Astronaut Jessica Meir changed the liquid nutrients surrounding the tissues once a week, and preserved tissues for later genetic and imaging analysis.

When the tissue chambers returned to earth, researchers continued to track their progress. They also were compared to tissues developed from the same source and maintained in an Earthbound laboratory.


The heart muscle tissues in space became weaker, and also developed irregular beating, researchers said.

The tissues developed a delay between beats about five times longer that the normal delay of around a second, researchers said. The time between beats returned nearly to normal following their return to Earth.

The protein bundles in muscle cells that help them contract, called sarcomeres, also became shorter and more disordered in the space-bound heart tissue samples. This is a hallmark of human heart disease, researchers noted.

Other abnormalities developed in the energy-producing mitochondria in the tissue samples, as well as in genetic markers for inflammation and oxidative damage.

A second batch of bioengineered heart tissue samples went to the space station in 2023 to test drugs that may protect them from the effects of low gravity. That study is ongoing, researchers said.

The researchers also continue to improve their heart tissue chip system, and are studying the effects of space radiation on human heart tissues.

More information

NASA has more on the human body in space.

Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Survey: Most Americans won't get new flu, COVID-19 vaccines

By Dennis Thompson, 

HealthDay News

Sept. 25, 2024 


Most Americans don't plan to get vaccinated against the flu or COVID-19 this season, a new survey has found. Photo by Adobe Stock/HealthDay News

Most Americans don't plan to get vaccinated against the flu or COVID-19 this season, a new survey has found.

Fewer than two in five U.S. adults (38%) say they will definitely get a flu jab, and only one in four (26%) say they'll get the updated COVID vaccine, according to a survey released Wednesday by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

This lack of interest extends to those eligible for an RSV vaccine (21%) and pneumococcal vaccine (24%), the survey found.

"Last flu season, an estimated 25,000 people in the U.S. died from flu or related complications and 75,000 from COVID-19 in 2023, demonstrating how dangerous these diseases can be," U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a news release.

This appears to be driven by a lack of concern. Few U.S. adults are worried about themselves or a family member becoming infected with flu (17%), COVID-19 (20%), RSV (16%) or pneumococcal disease (17%).

Cohen and other leading health experts got vaccinated at an onside flu vaccine clinic following a press conference announcing the results of the NFID survey.

"We can protect ourselves and those we care about by getting updated vaccines to reduce the risk of serious illness from flu and COVID-19 and do more of the things we enjoy," Cohen said. "I encourage everyone 6 months and older to get an annual flu vaccine and the updated COVID-19 vaccine in the coming weeks."

Interest in vaccination is even lower this season than last, in which less than half (45%) of adults got a flu vaccine, according to CDC data.

Worse, only 46% of adults with a chronic health condition got the flu vaccine last season, the CDC said.

"The low vaccination rates among those with chronic health conditions are of particular concern because they are more likely to develop serious and even life-threatening complications from respiratory infections," said Dr. Robert Hopkins Jr., medical director of the NFID.

Unfortunately, it appears to take catching the flu to make one want the flu vaccine.

Among U.S. adults who were diagnosed with the flu in the last two years, nearly 72% say they will likely get the flu jab, NFID survey results show.

The 2023-2024 flu season in the United States was moderately severe, with an estimated 41 million illnesses, 490,000 hospitalizations and 25,000 flu-related deaths, according to new CDC data.

Many people who don't plan to get vaccinated say they're worried about potential side effects or have a general distrust of vaccines, the NFID survey found.

"We must build trust by enhancing our support for people in using science and evidence to make personally appropriate decisions regarding vaccines and other health choices," Dr. Reed Tuckson, cofounder of the Black Coalition Against COVID, said in an NFID news release.

"The pandemic taught us that it is possible to close some of the gaps in immunization rates among communities of color, but we still have a long way to go," Tuckson added. "In addition to evidence-based messaging, we know that guidance from familiar, trusted healthcare professionals working with minority communities is essential to building vaccine confidence."

More information

Kaiser Permanente has more about seasonal vaccines.

Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Merrill Lynch, Harvest Volatility Management to pay $9.3 million to settle SEC charges


The Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday Merrill Lynch and Harvest Volatility Management LLC have settled charges by paying a combined $9.3 million. According to the SEC, the companies exceeded investment limits over a two-year period, causing clients to pay higher fees and incurring investment losses.

 File Photo/Laura Cavanaugh/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday that Harvest Volatility Management LLC and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. have agreed to pay a combined $9.3 million in penalties to resolve SEC charges.

The companies exceeded investment limits over a two-year period, causing clients to pay higher fees and incur investment losses, the SEC said in a statement Wednesday.

The penalties imposed against the two companies include recovery of more than $6 million in excess fees.

The SEC said this enforcement action "holds Merrill and Harvest accountable for dropping the ball in executing these basic duties to their clients, even as their clients' financial exposure grew well beyond predetermined limits."

The case involved complex options trading.

"In this case, two investment advisers allegedly sold a complex options trading strategy to their clients, but failed to abide by basic client instructions or implement and adhere to appropriate policies and procedures," said the SEC Enforcement Division's Mark Cave in a statement.

The SEC said that starting in 2016, Harvest let accounts exceed risk exposure levels, including dozens of accounts that exceeded the limits by 50% or more.

"Merrill and Harvest received larger management fees when investors' exposure levels climbed above pre-set levels and exposed investors to greater financial risks," the SEC said.

Merrill's role, the SEC said, was introducing its clients to Harvest and then receiving part of Harvest's management and incentive fees along with trading commissions.

Harvest and Merrill are paying the penalty without admitting or denying the SEC's findings.

Merrill will pay $3.8 million and Harvest will pay $5.5 million, according to the SEC.

Meta fined $101M in Ireland after failing to encrypt user passwords


Regulators found Meta Platforms Ireland Limited failed to properly encrypt and store passwords of the tech giant’s users, levying a $101.7 million fine.

 File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Ireland's Data Protection Commission on Friday fined Meta more than $100 million for privacy law violations related to failing to properly encrypt and store passwords of the tech giant's users.

The DPC found Meta Platforms Ireland Limited violated four parts of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR in levying the $101.7 million fine.
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Regulators found Meta "did not use appropriate technical or organizational measures to ensure appropriate security of users' passwords against unauthorized processing," among other violations.

Meta was also cited for three other violations related to improperly storing users' passwords.

An investigation into the allegations first started in 2019 after Meta self-reported a possible issue. EU legislation requires companies to report potential privacy breaches as soon as they become aware of them.

"It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data," DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said in the statement.

"It must be borne in mind that the passwords, the subject of consideration in this case, are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users' social media accounts."

The GDPR was first adopted in 2016, coming into law in 2018 and is considered some of the strongest privacy legislation in the world.

The commission's power stems from the legislation and its responsibilities extend to upholding the individuals' rights to have their personal data protected.

Officials said Meta was first informed of the decision Thursday.

The commission will publish a comprehensive version of its decision in the future.

This is not the first time Irish regulators have fined the social media giant.

In May of 2023, the DPC fined Meta $1.3 billion for privacy violations and ordered the U.S. tech giant to stop transferring user data across the Atlantic.

In January of that year, the commission levied a pair of fines against Meta totaling about $414 million for violating GDPR rules.

Aquarium rescues blue lobster from grocery store tank

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- A New York aquarium came to the rescue of a rare blue lobster spotted hanging out with the standard-color crustaceans in a supermarket's tank.

Danielle Morales said she was at Market 32 in Clifton Park with her young sons, Parker, 4, and Zachary, 3, when the boys insisted on visiting the lobster tank.
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"We were walking and we went up to the tank and Parker goes, 'Hey! That one is blue!' And I thought, wow. That's weird. And I took a picture of it," Morales told WRGB-TV.

Morales opened Facebook on her phone and messaged the Via Aquarium in Schenectady.

"Once we contacted the aquarium and had the momentum, I went up to the counter and was like, 'Hey. The aquarium is going to call you. You might not want to sell that one," Morales said.

The young boys initially named the lobster Bluey after the popular cartoon character, but when they found out the sea creature was male, they changed his name to Bandit -- the animated dog's equally blue dad.

Via Aquarium officials collected Bandit from the store and said he is currently in quarantine and will join the rest of the facility's lobsters in October.
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Rare lobster colors are often caused by a genetic mutation that can cause them to sport hues including orange, blue and white. An orange lobster at the University of New England recently hatched a clutch of eggs, and dozens of the babies share her rare coloration.

Cassidy Livingston of Via Aquarium said officials believe Bandit's color might be more based around his diet, as he is a darker shade of blue than some other blue lobsters that have been found.

"We're thinking it's possibly because of diet in this case," Livingston said. "There's also a chance that he got more blue in color because of what he's eating. Like, if they're eating a lot of shrimp, that can cause color changes."

FAKE NEWS MISINFORMATION

China denies U.S. claim that its newest nuclear submarine sank at pier

China denies U.S. claim its newest nuclear submarine sank at Chinese pier


Sept. 27 (UPI) -- The newest nuclear-powered submarine in China's fleet sank in spring while docked at a pier but Chinese government officials have taken steps to cover it up, according to U.S. officials.

The sinking allegedly took place near the Chinese city of Wuhan around late May or early June. The attack submarine was the first of a new Zhou-class line of sea vessels.
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According to an unnamed senior Biden administration official cited in multiple media reports, "it's not surprising" that China's navy "would try to conceal the fact that their new first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank pier-side," he told multiple news outlets.

It has not clear if nuclear material was on the submarine when it allegedly went down.

On Friday at a news conference in Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said he was not familiar with the topic and did not provide any information when asked about it, the BBC reported.

"We are not familiar with the situation you mentioned and currently have no information to provide," a separate spokesperson from China's embassy in Washington told CNN.

China currently has the biggest navy in the world by number of ships.

The communist nation has had long-standing maritime territorial disputes with other neighboring countries, such as Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

According to the Congressional Research Service, China is on track to have by next year 65 submarines and about 80 in the next decade by 2035 due to growth the Chinese submarine construction sector.

Meanwhile, the nuclear-powered U.S. Navy reportedly has 53 "fast attack" submarines, 14 ballistic-missile submarines and four guided-missile submarines.

The apparent sinking was first noticed by an expert in the field who examines satellite imagery of China's shipyards.

Thomas Shugart, a former U.S. Navy submariner and an analyst at the Center for a New American Security, said the sinking was a "setback" that would cause "pretty significant embarrassment" for China's People's Liberation Army navy, but added that the safety risk was probably "pretty low."

"I've never seen a bunch of cranes clustered around (one spot)," Shugart told CNN. "If you go back and look at historical imagery, you can see one crane, but not a bunch clustered there," said Shugart.

Shugart says what took place "raises deeper questions" about the PLA's "internal accountability and oversight" of China's defense industry which contends "has long been plagued by corruption."

"I do not see it significantly altering the really impressive upward trajectory of the PLA navy's capability," he stated.

ECOCIDE

U.S. fines Turkish shipping company $2M for dumping oil waste in ocean

$500,000 from $2M penalty will go toward preserving Louisiana's fragile coastline.



The legal charges were related to a previous investigation about the January 2023 incident. DOJ says the Dream was traveling to New Orleans when it is alleged the ship's captain ordered the crew to discharge oil-contaminated waste from a residual tank on deck into the ocean. 

Photo courtesy U.S. Coast Guard/UPI

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- A Turkish shipping company and its United Arab Emirates-based partner were sentenced and fined $2 million by the United States after a ship's captain ordered his crew to dump polluted waste overboard into the ocean and allegedly tried to cover it up, the U.S. Justice Department said Friday.

On Thursday, Prive Shipping Denizcilik Ticaret, headquarted in Turkey, and its Dubai-based subsidiary company Prive Overseas Marine LLC were fined $2M and sentenced to a four-year probation by a New Orleans court as the operators of the shipping tanker "P/S Dream," according to new information by DOJ.

That ship's captain, Abdurrahman Korkmaz, was given an eight month prison sentence on Sept. 10 for obstruction of a U.S. Coast Guard investigation and violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships.

As a condition of probation, the two aligned international shipping corporations must adhere to an environmental compliance plan and face safety and inspection requirements over the next four years.

In May, the two companies pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and violating the APPS.

The legal charges were related to a previous investigation about the January 2023 incident. DOJ says the Dream was traveling to New Orleans when Korkmaz ordered the crew to discharge oil-contaminated waste from a residual tank on deck into the Atlantic Ocean.

The seamen rigged a portable pump to empty the contents overboard over a three day timespan. The captain then told his crew to clean the tank with soap, Justice officials said.

The defendants then falsified the vessel's oil record book by omitting the discharge.

According to the federal government, senior corporate managers were aware that Korkmaz, a Turkish national, had arranged the scheme and multiple crew members came forward to alert authorities as to what took place.

In the evidence was a recording of a ship officer discussing the polluted discharge.

Given to the U.S. Coast Guard during inspection, the falsified logs were intended to "conceal the fact that the crew had dumped oil-contaminated waste overboard in violation of MARPOL Annex I," which is an international treaty regulating oil pollution from ships, the Justice Department added.

But from the big toxic mess came a little good, perhaps.

From the $2M criminal penalty will come at least $500,000 in "organizational community service payments," according to the government, to help pay for various ongoing maritime preservation and environmental projects in eastern Louisiana's fragile coastline managed by the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, established by Congress.

Trump Media co-founder, investor dumps shares following lockup period

One of the co-founders of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., parent company of the Truth Social platform, has sold nearly his entire ownership stake in the firm, according to a regulatory filing this week. File Photo by Will Oliver/EPA-EFE

Sept. 28 (UPI) -- A co-founder of former President Donald Trump's Truth Social messaging platform has dumped his shares following the expiration of a mandatory "lockup" period, a public filing shows.

United Atlantic Ventures LLC, headed by Andrew Litinsky, a one-time contestant on Trump's television show The Apprentice, now holds only 100 shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., Truth Social's parent company, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission document filed Thursday.

At the time of its debut on the Nasdaq market following a merger with a publicly traded shell company in March, Litinsky's firm held more than 7.5 million shares, representing an approximately 4% stake.

The former president owns a majority stake in the company, which goes by ticker symbol DTJ. Its share price has fluctuated wildly since March, largely in relation to Trump's political fortunes and is considered a "meme" stock by most market observers.

Since mid-May, however, its share price has largely been on a steady downward trajectory and reached new lows this week as SEC-imposed rules restricting the sale of shares by company insiders in the wake of the merger expired.
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Analysts questioned whether Trump himself would sell his shares -- the former president has vowed he would not -- but the prospect of other investors dumping their positions further depressed share prices.

Trump Media had a market capitalization of $2.954 billion at Friday's close.

The peak was $79.38 on March 26.

DTJ closed at $14.75 per share on Friday, up from an all-time low of $11.75 on Tuesday. At this week's low-water mark, United Atlantic Ventures' sale would have been worth $89 million.

The share sale was not unexpected due to legal battling between Trump and the former Apprentice contestant.

In April, Litinksy and partner Wesley Moss, another former contestant on the show, were sued by Trump Media & Technology Group, which sought to force them to give up their ownership stakes and leadership positions in the firm.

The suit alleges the pair "failed spectacularly" in their leadership of the company and made "reckless and wasteful decisions" that damaged it. That action came after they sued Trump Media claiming their stake should have been higher.

Global unions allege wages withheld from Palestinian workers in Israel

By Paul Godfrey

UPI

Sept. 27, 2024


Relatives of an estimated 4,000 Palestinian workers arbitrarily detained in custody in Israel after the Oct. 7 attacks await their return at Gaza's Kerem Shalom border crossing on November 3, 2023. International labor unions filed a complaint Friday to recover unpaid wages and benefits they allege are owed to more than 200,000 Palestinians employed in Israel prior to the war. File Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Israel has withheld the pay and benefits of more than 200,000 Gaza and West Bank Palestinians who work in Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel in a "blatant" violation of international labor law, unions alleged Friday.

The workers employed in Israel, formally and informally, have not received wages amounting to tens of millions of dollars for work prior to Oct. 7 and have received no pay since, plunging many families into destitution, nine global unions said in a joint complaint to recover the outstanding pay.

The complaint accuses the Israeli government of "blatant" breaches of the International Labor Organization's protection of wages convention by holding back the September pay of 13,000 workers whose work permits were revoked on Oct. 10, the first working day after the attacks in which Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel.

The brief argues that almost 200,000 other Palestinian workers blocked from re-entering Israel from the West Bank are owed back pay and wages for subsequent months under the terms of their employment contracts due to failure to give them formal notice they were being let go.

"These workers have experienced widespread wage theft due to the suspension of work permits and the unilateral termination of their contracts," the complaint said, noting that Palestinian workers had been battling to recover outstanding wages or settle wage debts for almost a year.

The average daily wage for Palestinian workers employed in Israel under regular work permits was $79 and $567-$702 per week for those working in the informal economy.

"When I visited the West Bank earlier this year, I witnessed the economic destitution experienced by the families of Palestinian workers employed in Israel. As always, working people are enduring the worst of the continuing conflict," said International Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Luc Triangle.

Public Services International union General Secretary Daniel Bertossa said the withholding of wages was the latest "unjustified indignity faced by Palestinian workers under occupation," calling it disproportionate.

"This is a collective punishment of the Palestinian people," he said.

Independent Israeli unions backed the complaint.

"Two hundred thousand workers in the West Bank lost their jobs," Maan Workers Association executive director Assaf Adiv, told The Guardian.

"They did not receive any compensation and have been suffering ever since from extreme poverty.

"Thousands of workers who risk entering Israel without permits face repression, humiliation and even death. Workers are a major social layer in Palestinian society that is peaceful and doesn't associate with Hamas and thus should not be punished," said Adiv.

Palestinian unemployment has risen to its highest-ever level since the outbreak of the war in Gaza with the loss to the economies of the West Bank and Gaza estimated to be as much as $19 million per day, according to an ILO report published in May on the situation of workers in the occupied Arab territories.