Financial News on (Il)Legal Drugs

What is the different between legal pharmaceuticals, should be illegal pharmaceuticals, should be legal fun drugs, and illegal fun drugs? Pretty much the number of lawyers working for the traffickers. Curious that two of the lesser addictive drugs - marijuana and cocaine - are much more illegal than two of the most deadly, addictive drugs: alcohol and nicotine. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical Industry

• Resistant bacteria are advancing faster than antibiotics. One in six laboratory-confirmed bacteria tested in 2023 proved resistant to antibiotic treatment, according to the World Health Organization. All were related to various common diseases.
  - Wired, 22 October 2025

• Nicotine drug trafficker Philip Morris faces short-term drag from investments. Philip Morris' smokeless tobacco products continue to fuel growth. However, shares fell as investments in the USA market are expected to dent near-term growth.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 22 October 2025

• More and more workers are using GLP-1 weight loss drugs. It is costing their employers a fortune. More than 36 million people with job-based insurance have a body mass index that would medically qualify them for a GLP-1 drug.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 22 October 2025

• Legalizing psychedelic drugs (such as in 'magic' mushrooms') would make the state of New York worse off. Some in Albany want legal magic mushrooms. Legalizing weed [and alcohol and nicotine, to be ethically honest] taught us why that is unwise.
  - City Journal, 21 October 2025

• The USA military, authorized by Trump, murders three more suspected - suspected - drug traffickers on a boat in the waters of the Caribbean. .
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 21 October 2025

• Ecuador says that it has no evidence of any crime committed by the survivor of a murderous missile attack against a mini-submarine by the USA military against suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean. One of the lies of the USA is that mini-submarine was transporting fentanyl, unlikely since the vast majority of fentanyl flows into the USA through México.
  - Associated Press, 20 October 2025

• Nihon allows the over-the-counter sale of "morning after" pills for women
  - BBC, 20 October 2025

• From addictive brain-rotting videos to AI slop/creep, every technological advance seems to make it harder to work, remember, think and function independently [KM: while making rich tech companies richer]
  - The Guardian, 19 October 2025

• Addictive sports betting apps have a powerful new addictive feature to keep users addicted to gambling: allowing gamblers to bet on sports games ... during the sports game. Public health officials worry that it could be increasing the [risk of addiction] for gamblers.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 19 October 2025

• The USA is heavily reliant on Zhōngguó for raw materials in medicines
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 18 October 2025

• The idea that the United States government and its intelligence agencies are fundamentally and on principle stand against drug trafficking is laughable. There was a time, not too far back in history, where the CIA itself was the biggest narco-trafficker in United States and perhaps the entire Western hemisphere (to fund regime change and covert operations in Latin America).
  - Zero Hedge, 17 October 2025

• Boys in the USA are abandoning youth sports at alarming rates, a troubling trend fueled by addiction to cellphone apps, and a culture that has forgotten how to play for fun without electronic devices: [KM: that make rich tech companies richer - so who cares about child health?]
  - Zero Hedge, 17 October 2025

• If we measured the economy by the quality of life [KM: which most effects the non-rich] instead of the [KM: AI-bubbled] GDP, the USA would be in a depression [KM: of depressed people. No wonder the USA consumes so much drugs, exporting our misery to other countries such as where cocaine is produced]
  - Zero Hedge, 17 October 2025

• Trump orders the USA military to murder 6 alleged drug traffickers in a vessel offshore of Venezuela
  - Zero Hedge, 14 October 2025

• Trump orders the USA military to murder 6 alleged drug traffickers in a vessel offshore of Venezuela
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 14 October 2025

• Is Ukraine, receiving much funding from the USA, training drug cartel mercenaries from Latin America [which the USA then wants to kill]?
  - Zero Hedge, 14 October 2025

• [Another reason why people in the USA rely so much on drugs]: 80% of [surveyed] people working in the USA say their workplace is toxic
  - Fast Company, 10 October 2025

• A deadly measles outbreak in Texas ended in August, but outbreaks in other parts of the United States continue to add hundreds of new measles cases to this year's record national total. Experts say that any amount of measles spread is cause for concern, and large outbreaks highlight the dangers of declining vaccination rates.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 10 October 2025

• Trump says that murdering alleged drug traffickers off the coast of Venezuela will prevent deadly drugs from reaching the USA. But the major drug smuggling routes are through Central America.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 09 October 2025

• Drug rehabilitation businesses lure in patients for their insurance money - and then leave them on the street. Operators promise high-end treatment, help addicts sign up for insurance then pile on charges for little in return, say former patients and insurers.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 09 October 2025

• Trump wants to overhaul drug sales. A company tied to his son stands to benefit. The family members of Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are poised to benefit from efforts to remake the pharmaceutical industry.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 09 October 2025

• The Senate fails to pass a law to stop Trump from killing alleged drug traffickers in the waters of the Caribbean
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 09 October 2025

• The Senate fails to pass a law to stop Trump from killing alleged drug traffickers in the waters of the Caribbean
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 09 October 2025

• The Senate fails to pass a law to stop Trump from killing alleged drug traffickers in the waters of the Caribbean
  - Zero Hedge, 09 October 2025

• The Senate fails to pass a law to stop Trump from killing alleged drug traffickers in the waters of the Caribbean
  - Associated Press, 09 October 2025

• Propecia (finasteride) - a hair loss treatment used by millions, is linked to a greater risk of suicide. Animal studies have linked finasteride to long-term brain inflammation and changes in the hippocampus, the brain's center for learning, memory and emotions.
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 08 October 2025

• Taking too much Tylenol has proven risks. Trump didn't talk about those. Acetaminophen's link to autism is unproven. But hundreds of Americans accidentally overdose on the drug each year, suffering liver damage that can require a transplant or even be fatal.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 08 October 2025

• Nicotine drug trafficker Imperial Brands launches a $2 billion buyback. The company said performance in its last fiscal year was as expected, bolstered by revenue growth in its tobacco and next-generation nicotine drug trafficking products categories.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 08 October 2025

• Trump recently announced 100 percent taxes/tariffs on brand-name and patented medicines unless the manufacturer is also actively building a new plant in the United States. The policy will drive up prices, especially hurting non-rich patients, create uncertainty in the market, create shortages, invite gamesmanship across the pharmaceutical industry, and will not lead to much more manufacturing in the USA - Trump's nationalist socialist industrial policy.
  - Real Clear Markets, 07 October 2025

• Trump's [racist] immigration push diverts federal agents from drug, money and sex-crime cases. Federal investigators are resigning, and morale is low, as they juggle complex cases and detain migrants under Trump's [racist] immigration policies.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 07 October 2025

• The Trump administration has produced a classified legal opinion that justifies lethal strikes against a secret and expansive list of cartels and suspected drug traffickers. The opinion is significant, legal experts said, because it appears to justify an open-ended war against a secret list of groups, giving the president power to designate drug traffickers as enemy combatants and have them summarily killed without legal review.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 06 October 2025

• $17,000 per month: how sky-high prescription prices financially ruin patients. Insurance and financial stability do not always insulate people from the impact of high drug prices.
  - Zero Hedge, 06 October 2025

• Eli Lilly to invest over $1 billion in India to expand manufacturing capacity
  - Thomson's Reuters, 06 October 2025

• How to protect your money when you are married to a gambling addict
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 05 October 2025

• Rite Aid closes all remaining stores (89) after 63 years in business, after filing bankruptcy in May
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 04 October 2025

• How private equity oversees the ethics of drug research. Many drug trials are vetted by companies with ties to the drugmakers, raising concerns about conflicts of interest and patient safety.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 04 October 2025

• The USA military has launched a murderous strike on a fourth alleged drug smuggling boat from Venezuela, killing four people on board and vowing there will be more attacks to come. Twenty-one people have now been murdered in Trump's 'secret forever' war.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 04 October 2025

• The USA military has launched a murderous strike on a fourth alleged drug smuggling boat from Venezuela, killing four people on board and vowing there will be more attacks to come. Twenty-one people have now been murdered in Trump's 'secret forever' war.
  - The Daily Beast, 04 October 2025

• Trump isn't murdering low-level drug traffickers from Venezuela to fight drug trafficking (Venezuela isn't a big source of drugs). Trump and his people want to is to somehow cheaply acheive regime in Venezuela, by scaring the military of Venezuela into deposing President Maduro.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 03 October 2025

• Lawmakers from both political parties pressed Pentagon on legal basis for murdering alleged drug traffickers at sea. The Defense Department general counsel faced questions from Republicans and Democrats in a closed-door briefing.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 03 October 2025

• The FDA approves a new generic version of the abortion pill, mifepristone. The decision, which has drawn backlash from antiabortion groups and lawmakers, comes as the agency starts to review the safety of mifepristone.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 03 October 2025

• Trump calls drug cartel members "terrorists". They get their bullets from a factory ... operated by the USA Army. The president blames Mexico for the flow of drugs into the USA while the flow of guns from the USA displaces poor people in Mexico.
  - The Intercept, 02 October 2025

• Congress must remove ibogaine from its is-totally-illegal Schedule I drug status, so that it can be used to treat some of the 1,000,000+ military veterans who have traumatic brain injuries, or who have depression, post-traumatic stress, or other invisible wounds tied to military service.
  - Real Clear Science, 02 October 2025

• The state of California declares kratom illegal, and raids stores in Sacramento and San Diego. The enforcement actions come as kratom and the related drug 7-hydroxymitragynine, commonly called 7-OH, undergo increased scrutiny across the country. Kratom is an herbal drug that has opioid-like properties and has been used for decades in the United States. The much more potent 7-OH drugs, which can be extracted from kratom or synthetically produced, have a high risk of addiction and can cause fatal overdoses, experts warn. Scientists estimate that 7-OH can be more than 10 times stronger than morphine.
  - SF Gate, 02 October 2025

• Americans increasingly see legal, addictive, sports betting as a bad thing for society and sports
  - Pew Research Center, 02 October 2025

• Loneliness in the adults in the USA is linked with increasing amounts and frequencies of use of addictive social media. [KM: yes, another way for rich AI companies to become richer at the expense of social health]
  - Oregon State University, 01 October 2025

• Amazon Prime Video partners with FanDuel to make sports gambling more addictive by enabling gamblers to monitor their bets on NBA/WBNA games in real-time
  - Comcast's CNBC, 30 September 2025

• An antibiotic discovered on Easter Island in 1964 sparked a billion-dollar pharmaceutical success story. Yet the history told about "miracle drug" (rapamycin) has completely left out the people and politics that made its discovery possible. Although rapamycin has generated billions of dollars in revenue, the Rapa Nui people have received no financial benefit to date. This raises questions about Indigenous rights and biopiracy, which is the commercialization of Indigenous knowledge.
  - The Conversation, 29 September 2025

• While the 'good' Christian Trump orders the murder of alleged drug traffickers outside the reach of USA law, amid his [racist] crackdown on immigrants, Trump's administration has prosecuted the fewest drug offenders in decades. Insiders at the DOJ and law enforcement agencies have grumbled that investigations into criminal networks have stalled in lieu of sending agents on highly publicized deportation raids.
  - The Daily Beast, 29 September 2025

• Inhaled heparin, a cheap inhaled drug, significantly lowers the risk of death and ventilation in COVID-19 patients while also showing potential against other respiratory infections. With its unique triple-action benefits, it could serve as a powerful and accessible treatment worldwide
  - Science Daily, 28 September 2025

• How traditional medicine techniques and drugs from Zhōngguó are expanding the 'soft' political power of Zhōngguó in Africa - from Tunisia to Chad
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 28 September 2025

• Trump's 100$ taxes/tariffs on imports of drugs will spare many rich drugmarkers while punishing some small drugmakers
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 26 September 2025

• Trump's 100% pharmaceutical taxes/tariffs will not apply to the European Union and Nihon, because of negotiated agreements with the USA that contain provisions on drugs
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 26 September 2025

• Trump to impose a 100% tax/tariff on branded, patented drugs imported into the USA, unless drug companies build manufacturing facilities in the USA
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 26 September 2025

• Trump's plan to impose a 100% tax/tariff on branded and patented drug imports was greeted with a shrug by many investors, who are betting his exemptions for companies manufacturing in the USA will soften any blow. "The actual comment from Trump is direct but its impact may be somewhere between nebulous and negligible."
  - Bloomberg, 26 September 2025

• Trump's proposed taxes/tariffs on imported drugs "not a big concern" for drug companies in Zhōngguó, which have "minimal sales exposure to the USA"
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 26 September 2025

• Real-world impact of Trump's new drug taxes/tariffs to remain negligible, UBS advises clients
  - Zero Hedge, 26 September 2025

• Trump to impose a 100% tax/tariff on branded, patented drugs imported into the USA, unless drug companies build manufacturing facilities in the USA
  - Comcast's CNBC, 26 September 2025

• Novo Nordisk's woes are reducing the economic growth of Denmark. Because of its size, the drugmaker has an outsize effect on Denmark. Now, as it sheds jobs, forecasts for economic growth in Denmark are falling, too.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 25 September 2025

• $949,000,000 - CVS Health subsidiary Omnicare has filed for bankruptcy after the pharmacy-services provider was ordered to pay $949 million over claims it improperly dispensed prescription drugs (without legitimate prescriptions) to individuals in long-term care
  - Apollo Global's Yahoo Finance, 25 September 2025

• CVS Health subsidiary Omnicare has filed for bankruptcy after the pharmacy-services provider was ordered to pay $949 million over claims it improperly dispensed prescription drugs (without legitimate prescriptions) to individuals in long-term care
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 25 September 2025

• There is no safe amount of an addictive drug, alcohol, when it comes to avoiding an increased risk of dementia later in life. Drinking coca tea does not increase this risk.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 24 September 2025

• Heineken acquires Costa Rica's Imperial Beer brand throught its purchase of FIFCO, the leading beverage company in Costa Rica, FIFCO.
  - The Takeout, 23 September 2025

• Michelob Ultra has become the number one selling brand of beer in the USA, rising above Modelo Especial
  - The Takeout, 23 September 2025

• $500,000 - Sugar drug-trafficker, C&H Sugar, in the San Francisco Bay Area, will pay a fine of $500,000 for generating excessive sewage odors in Crockett
  - SF Gate, 22 September 2025

• Christian Republicans are proposing a law to authorize the Christian Trump to order the military to murder alleged (not arrested, not tried, not convicted) drug traffickers [a proposed law which will be applied to corporate drug traffickers in the USA]
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 20 September 2025

• [The authoritarian Christian] Trump orders the USA military to murder a third group of alleged drug traffickers (not arrested, not tried, not convicted) in international waters. [Trump still refuses to order the military to murder corporate opioid drug traffickers in the USA who caused much worse problems with their drugs for the USA.]
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 20 September 2025

• [The authoritarian Christian] Trump gleefully celebrates the murder of more alleged drug traffickers (not arrested, not tried, not convicted(not arrested, not tried, not convicted) by releasing a video of their murders
  - The Daily Beast, 20 September 2025

• Americans like drugs, legal or illegal. Murdering drug traffickers will not change that demand. Most drug traffickers in the USA are Americans, but the president is ordering extrajudicial maritime killings while ignoring the domestic demand that drives the market. It is but the president is ordering extrajudicial maritime killings while ignoring the domestic demand that drives the market, [just as Prohibition was a complete failure of Christian policy that helped foster organize crime].
  - Reason, 19 September 2025

• The Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky this month announced a surprising unintended consequence of a new statewide cellphone ban. In many of the district's schools, the number of books checked out in the first few weeks of class had skyrocketed compared with last year, before the ban was instituted. [KM: I weep for less profits for makers of addictive/AI cellphone apps]
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 19 September 2025

• The dawn of the post-literate society. Books and reading are dying. Literacy levels are "declining or stagnating". Why? The smartphone, and now AI. Phones are designed to be hyper-addictive, hooking users on a diet of pointless notifications, inane short-form videos and social media rage bait. [KM: yes, but smartphone companies and addictive app companies must get richer selling their drugs]
  - K.W. Hampton (Medium), 18 September 2025

• Boat pilots for drug traffickers off the coast of Venezuela are low-level pawns in the drug game. When drug boat operators get caught, they usually get a few years in prison. Now the authoritarian Christian Trump is murdering them without trials.
  - The Intercept, 18 September 2025

• Military lawyers warned Christian Defense Secretary Hegsether that the Christian Trump's orders to murder alleged drug smugglers on the coast of Venezuela were potentially illegal, but the career military lawyers were ignored [due to Chrisitan blood lust]
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 18 September 2025

• Military lawyers warned Christian Defense Secretary Hegsether that the Christian Trump's orders to murder alleged drug smugglers on the coast of Venezuela were potentially illegal, but the career military lawyers were ignored [due to Chrisitan blood lust]
  - The Daily Beast, 18 September 2025

• Zhōngguó and the USA agree to target money launderers linked to trafficking of fentanyl
  - Comcast's CNBC, 17 September 2025

• On the orders of the 'good' Christian Trump, the USA military murders 3 more Venezuelans suspected of being drug traffickers. Legal specialists condemned the action as illegal. [Trump refuses to order the USA military to kill American traffickers of the deadly addictive nicotine and alcohol.]
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 16 September 2025

• On the orders of the 'good' Christian Trump, the USA military murders 3 more Venezuelans suspected of being drug traffickers. Legal specialists condemned the action as illegal. [Trump refuses to order the USA military to kill American traffickers of the deadly addictive nicotine and alcohol.]
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 16 September 2025

• On the orders of the 'good' Christian Trump, the USA military murders 3 more Venezuelans suspected of being drug traffickers. Legal specialists condemned the action as illegal. [Trump refuses to order the USA military to kill American traffickers of the deadly addictive nicotine and alcohol.]
  - Zero Hedge, 16 September 2025

• The 'good' but "thou shalt not" lying Christian Trump claimed in a statement to reporters that "300 million people in the USA died from drugs last year", in part to justify his ordering of the murder of alleged drug traffickers on a boat from Venezuela. 300 million people is 90% of the population of the USA - a Trump statistic that goes from massively wrong to impossible wrong, i.e., a "thou shalt not" lie.
  - The Daily Beast, 15 September 2025

• multidrug-resistant fungus is spreading quickly across hospitals in Europe, posing a major threat to health care systems and patients, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said in a Sept. 11 statement. "Candidozyma auris (C. auris) is a fungus that usually spreads within healthcare facilities, is often resistant to antifungal drugs, and can cause severe infections in seriously ill patients." More than 10,000 clinical cases have been identified in the United States after the first case was reported in 2016.
  - Zero Hedge, 15 September 2025

• Pregnant women are turning to cannabis to ease pain and anxiety. Cannabis use during pregnancy is on the rise, although research suggests it can disupt early fetal brain development and increase the odds of premature birth.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 15 September 2025

• Food-forward convenience stores are stealing breakfast customers from fast-food restaurant chains. Morning meal traffic to fast-food chains rose 1% in the three months ended in July, while visits to food-forward convenience stores climbed 9% in the same period, according to Circana. Prepared foods have offered a lifeline for convenience stores as demand for gasoline, tobacco and lottery tickets has fallen over time.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 15 September 2025

• When mental-health diagnoses become brands, the real drivers of our psychic pain are hidden. The 'Mental Health Industrial Complex' profits off the proliferation of psychiatric diagnoses to which they can sell tons of their drugs, thrown around like buzzwords on social media.
  - The Globe and Mail, 13 September 2025

• Drugmakers in the USA warn White House of chaos as Trump considers curbs on Zhōngguó. Behind the scenes, major pharmaceutical companies and Trump-tied billionaires are furiously lobbying in opposite directions over proposed anti-Zhōngguó measures.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 13 September 2025

• Pfizer is getting more dependent on vaccines as controversies swirl in the USA
  - Barron's, 13 September 2025

• The latest national sociality industrial policy from the racist Trump: Trump wants drugmakers to lower their prices in the USA - so he will push them to raise prices in other countries to offset the hit to their bottom line. Trump's main effort centers on getting drugmakers to offer the same price in the USA as they do in Europe and other peer countries, the so-called "Most Favored Nation" price.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 12 September 2025

• The CEO of the manufacturers of Tylenol lobbied Trump's Health Secretary Kennedy to not cite the false science, "thou shalt not" lie, that Tylenol is a cause of autism
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 12 September 2025

• Trump's crackdown on advertisements for drugs could financially hurt television networks. Pharmaceutical industry spending on TV ads topped $6 billion in 2024.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 12 September 2025

• The weight-loss drug boom is resizing clothing racks around the USA, with the most significant changes to date measured in the amount of plus-size clothing showing up in the resale market. But fashion experts warn that the market for big and tall consumers has long been underserved and it would be a mistake to retreat on plus-size clothing with expensive drugs like Ozempic and Zepbound still only used by a minority of the population.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 12 September 2025

• Editorial: legalized betting on basketball games must by accompanied by anti-addiction efforts
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 12 September 2025

• A Venezuelan boat that the US military destroyed in the Caribbean last week had altered its course and appeared to have turned around before the attack started because the people onboard had apparently spotted a military aircraft stalking it, according to American officials familiar with the matter. Legal specialists who have called it a crime to summarily kill suspected low-level smugglers as if they were wartime combatants said the revelations further undercut the government's claim that the strike was legally justified as self-defense, [making the deaths of 11 people on the boat to be murder].
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 11 September 2025

• A Venezuelan boat that the US military destroyed in the Caribbean last week had altered its course and appeared to have turned around before the attack started because the people onboard had apparently spotted a military aircraft stalking it, according to American officials familiar with the matter. Legal specialists who have called it a crime to summarily kill suspected low-level smugglers as if they were wartime combatants said the revelations further undercut the government's claim that the strike was legally justified as self-defense, [making the deaths of 11 people on the boat to be murder].
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 11 September 2025

• $2,000,000 - A cannabis testing lab in New York, Lexachrom Analytical Laboratory, is facing a three-year ban and a record fine of $2 million after state investigators found unacceptable levels of pesticides in products the company had cleared as safe for sale
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 11 September 2025

• Snapchat has been accused by a Danish research organisation of allowing an "overwhelming number" of drug dealers to openlu operate on Snapchat, making it easy for children to buy substances including cocaine, opioids and MDMA.
  - The Guardian, 10 September 2025

• Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk to fire 9000 people. The Danish drugmaker said it needed to streamline operations and become more agile, as it faces a more competitive and consumer-focused market.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 10 September 2025

• Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk to fire 9000 people. The Danish drugmaker said it needed to streamline operations and become more agile, as it faces a more competitive and consumer-focused market.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 10 September 2025

• We should treat caffeine the same as other brain-altering, addictive, psychoactive drugs. [But because the industry is mostly controlled by white people, as are the alcohol and nicotine industries, caffeine products are fully legal.]
  - Psyche, 09 September, 2025

• Marijuana may cause chromosomal defects in human egg cells, study finds
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 09 September 2025

• As summers become hotter and hotter, due to global heating due to the burning of addictive fossil fuels, people are consuming more of some of their favorite drugs: more sugary beverages and ice creams. For every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming, added sugar consumption in US households increased by 0.7 grams per person per day, the researchers found, with a marked escalation as temperatures hit between 68 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 08 September 2025

• Experts are skeptical about the legality of Trump ordering the murder of suspected drug traffickers from Venezuela
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 06 September 2025

• The 'good' Christian Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, says that he has "absolute authority" to murder suspected drug dealers, well, dealers of drugs that aren't alcohol or nicotine, the two deadliest drugs for Americans
  - The Daily Beast, 05 September 2025

• How addictive, deadly (but legal), alcohol helps stomach bacteria attack your liver (drinking coca tea does not attack your liver)
  - Science Alert, 04 September 2025

• Trump and Health Secretary Kennedy have censored/buried a major study on how alcohol causes cancer. The upcoming U.S. Dietary Guidelines will instead be influenced by a competing study, favored by industry, which found that moderate alcohol consumption was healthy.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 05 September 2025

• Trump and Health Secretary Kennedy have censored/buried a major study on how alcohol causes cancer. For the past three years, the alcohol products industry, aided by its Christian allies in Congress and later the Trump administration, has sought to discredit and eventually bury a major analysis that offers new evidence of the link between drinking alcohol and getting sick and dying from various causes, including cancer.
  - Vox, 04 September 2025

• Trump and Health Secretary Kennedy have censored/buried a major study on how alcohol causes cancer. For the past three years, the alcohol products industry, aided by its Christian allies in Congress and later the Trump administration, has sought to discredit and eventually bury a major analysis that offers new evidence of the link between drinking alcohol and getting sick and dying from various causes, including cancer.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 04 September 2025

• Starting in 2026, students in Costa Rica will be prohibited from using their addictive cellphones in classrooms. The Ministry of Public Education rightly considers cellphones to be a big distraction to the learning process.
  - La Nacion (locked), 04 September 2025

• Digital dopamine is addicting people in the USA. Corporations are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to addict you to cellphone apps. The drug traffickers use social media, pornography, online gambling and other apps to quick, addictive, hits of dopamine, keeping you addicted to their apps. AI will make these addictions worse.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 04 September 2025

• The Trump administration says Venezuela is sending vast amounts of cocaine to the USA. But Venezuela's role in the drug trade is being overstated by these "thou shalt not" lies, experts say.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 04 September 2025

• The Trump administration says Venezuela is sending vast amounts of cocaine to the USA. But Venezuela's role in the drug trade is being overstated by these "thou shalt not" lies, experts say.
  - Al Jazeera, 04 September 2025

• The pill that women are taking for everything from speeches to first dates. Influencers have described propranolol as a magic pill that eases nervous jitters in all kinds of settings. Prescriptions are on the rise, especially for young women.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 04 September 2025

• With drones and IEDs, the drug cartels of México adopt arms of modern war. Under pressure from the government and each other, some of the most powerful criminal groups in México are amassing homemade mortars, land mines, rocket-propelled grenades and bomber drones - using profits from satisfying.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 11 July 2025

• High-strength marijuana grown in California is so popular in the United Kingdom that large quantities are being illegally smuggled on passenger flights
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 01 September 2025

• Fentanyl is involved in 70% of drug overdose deaths in the USA, due to its low price and high potency, used solo or mixed in with other drugs. All due to a demand for opioids created by the Sacklers, their Purdue Pharma, and all of the other criminal businesses that made billions creating the opioid crisis - none of the exeecutives of which are in jail
  - Zero Hedge, 30 August 2025

• A class of drugs called beta-blockers - used for decades as a first-line treatment after a heart attack - don't benefit the vast majority of patients and may contribute to a higher risk of hospitalization and death in some women but not in men. However, for anyone with a left ventricular ejection fraction below 40% after a heart attack, beta-blockers continue to be the standard of care due to their ability to calm heart arrhythmias that may trigger a second event.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 30 August 2025

• How high-tech online fast-fashion companies keep poor people poor. Companies such as Shein are using influencers to get Zoomers addicted on truckloads of shoddy clothing. [KM: yes, but the rich must get richer]
  - The American Prospect, 29 August 2025

• $15,000,000,000 - The president of México asks to share with the USA the $15 billion that Mexican drug lord Ismael Zambada will pay the USA after pleading guilty to murder and drug trafficking. Unlike opioid drug traffickers such as the Sacklers who paid billion dollar fines, but didn't go to jail because they are white, Zambada could be sentenced to life in prison.
  - CBS News, 28 August 2025

• The president of Panama criticized port concession companies in the Caribbean region of the country for the surge in drug trafficking, mainly cocaine, bound for Europe
  - Tico Times, 27 August 2025

• Drug cartels in México are exporting their bloody rivalry (only possible because of the huge addiction of the USA to drugs) to Ecuador and beyond. Two two most powerful drug rings are locked in a turf war over control of an important drug smuggling route in South America.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 27 August 2025

• Many people say that 'Feel Free' (manufactured by Botanic Topics), a kratom-kava drink, has them trapped in addiction and debt. While the drink is sold in a 2-ounce bottle, the label says half that is a serving size, recommends consuming no more than one bottle within 24 hours and warns the product can be "habit-forming". The FDA has called kratom an opioid and firmly discouraged people from consuming it, but the herb is not federally regulated.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 26 August 2025

• GLP-1 weight loss drugs are impacting food spending habits, and spillover effects also look set to impact industries from retail to travel and hospitality
  - Comcast's CNBC, 26 August 2025

• Struggling small biotech firms are pivoting into cryptocurrencies, rebranding as "crypto treasuries" or stockpiling digital assets like Ether and Litecoin as a last-ditch effort to boost share prices amid stalled funding and weak drug pipelines
  - Bloomberg, 25 August 2025

• The parliament of Bharat bans the vast online gambling industry in Bharat, after government figures showed companies had stripped $2.3 billion annually from 450 million people. The new law criminalizes the offering, promotion and financing of such games, with offenders facing up to five years in prison.
  - Al Jazeera, 22 August 2025

• $289,900,000 - A federal judge has ordered CVS Health's pharmacy benefit manager, Caremark, to pay nearly $290 million after a whistleblower accused the business of overcharging Medicare on prescription drugs more than a decade ago.
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 21 August 2025

• From trash to golf grass: can cigarette butts actually be recycled? The world's 1.3 billion smokers produce an estimated 4.5 trillion smoked cigarette butts each year, collectively weighing 1.2 million tons. Two-thirds of butts are rudely tossed on the ground, where their various pollutants -- including nicotine, heavy metals, and cyclic aromatic compounds -- then leach into the environment. The socialist cigarette industry doesn't have to waste profits cleaning up this mess they cause.
  - Real Clear Science, 21 August 2025

• A new Gallup poll shows only 54% of adults in the USA now drink alcohol - the lowest level in the 90 years. Those who do drink also report consuming less. For the first time, most Americans believe even one to two drinks a day harm health.
  - Zero Hedge, 21 August 2025

• TACO Trump agrees to a trade deal with Europe that limits taxes/tariffs on imports from Europe to 15% for pharmaceuticals, lumber and semiconductors. Trump had threatened taxes/tariffs as high as 250%. High taxes/tariffs on imports of autos from Europe remain in force.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 21 August 2025

• TACO Trump agrees to a trade deal with Europe that limits taxes/tariffs on imports from Europe to 15% for pharmaceuticals, lumber and semiconductors. Trump had threatened taxes/tariffs as high as 250%. High taxes/tariffs on imports of autos from Europe remain in force.
  - NBC News, 21 August 2025

• TACO Trump agrees to a trade deal with Europe that limits taxes/tariffs on imports from Europe to 15% for pharmaceuticals, lumber and semiconductors. Trump had threatened taxes/tariffs as high as 250%. High taxes/tariffs on imports of autos from Europe remain in force.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 21 August 2025

• The folly/idiocy of Trump's fantasy solution of bombing drug cartels in Latin America
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 21 August 2025

• Trump orders the Pentagon to deploy three warships against (to bomb?) drug cartels in Latin America
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 21 August 2025

• The president of México denies a new lie from the DEA. The DEA announced a "new major initiative" with México to fight cartels. President Claudia Sheinbaum of México said that was news to her.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 21 August 2025

• Bharat plans to ban online betting apps to curb addiction and frauds
  - Bangkok Post, 20 August 2025

• Costco switches its sugar drug-trafficking supplier, switching from Pepsi to Coca-Cola
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 20 August 2025

• New weight-loss drugs are reducing appetites. Restaurants are reducing the food. Some businesses are trying to lure diners on GLP-1s with miniature meals and tiny tasting menus.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 20 August 2025

• Minnesota joins multiple states that are suing TikTok for allegedly preying on young people with addictive algorithms
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 19 August 2025

• Sugar drug trafficker Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative, the owner of the Spreckels Sugar Company factory in the Imperial Valley, announced plans to close the 78-year-old facility. The news comes as a devastating blow to the Southern California region, as it will mean the loss of more than 700 local jobs.
  - SF Gate, 18 August 2025

• Biotechnology from Zhōngguó si cheaper and faster than biotechnology from the USA. While the USA seeks expensive cutting-edge treatments, to make the rich richer, Zhōngguó's innovation is mostly focused on speeding up manufacturing and reducing costs.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 17 August 2025

• Eli Lilly increases the prices of its Mounjaro weight-loss drug in the United Kingdom, to make it cheaper in the USA
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 17 August 2025

• Big Pharma has a new vision for selling medicines. Amid pressure from the White House, drug companies in the USA are experimenting with direct-to-consumer sales models that cut out the middlemen.
  - Barron's, 16 August 2025

• Singapore has not been suffering in the retreat from globalization, and yet the city-state is looking to sector diversification - financials, artificial intelligence, and pharmaceuticals - to reduce dependence on trade.
  - Barron's, 16 August 2025

• An Irish town makes all if the Botox in the world. Trump's tax/tariff trade war (taxes/tariffs up to 250% on imports of pharmaceuticsals) could devastate the town's economy (the plant is owned by AbbVie, and (in)directly employs 1800 people out of a town of 7000 people..
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 14 August 2025

• Trump's taxes/tariffs are set to hit/hurt Ireland, Where USA drugmakers exploit tax laws. Manufacturing in Ireland has long helped American drug companies pay lower taxes, a strategy designed for a world without Trump's taxes/tariffs.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 14 August 2025

• Fewer Americans are reporting that they drink alcohol amid a growing belief that even moderate alcohol consumption is a health risk. The survey finds that 54% of U.S. adults say they drink alcoholic beverages such as liquor, wine or beer. That is lower than at any other point in the past three decades.
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 13 August 2025

• Five health problems concerning cannabis and psychosis
  - EurekAlert, 12 August 2025

• $1,200,000 - Juan Kurdi, a cardiologist in Lubbock, Texas, agrees to pay a $1.2 million settlement and forfeit his DEA registration after admitting to writing fake prescriptions for opioids. But because this opioid drug trafficker is white, he is not going to jail, but only has to take remedial courses in medical recordkeeping, risk management and ethics.
  - Lubbock Avalance-Journal, 11 August 2025

• N-pyrrolidino protonitazene, a little-known synthetic opioid that is up to 43 times more deadly than fentanyl, resistant to Narcan and killing young Americans
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 11 August 2025

• Letter: what increased crime in the Pacific Northwest of the USA? There is no plausible reason that people who use drugs nonviolently would suddenly turn violent simply because they are no longer jailed for possession.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 11 August 2025

• The president of México says that the military of the USA is not welcome in México to help fight drug cartels
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 08 August 2025

• The president of México says that the military of the USA is not welcome in México to help fight drug cartels
  - BBC, 08 August 2025

• Trump orders the military to target foreign drug cartels (but American drug cartels such as the painkiller industry, and sugary beverage industry, which kill more Americans, are not targeted). Trump has ordered the Pentagon to use the armed forces to carry out what in the past was considered law enforcement.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 08 August 2025

• Trump orders the military to target foreign drug cartels (but American drug cartels such as the painkiller industry, and sugary beverage industry, which kill more Americans, are not targeted). Trump has ordered the Pentagon to use the armed forces to carry out what in the past was considered law enforcement.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 08 August 2025

• Shares of Eli Lilly shares plunged 14%, the most since the Dotcom bust (when they were down 29%), after the drugmaker's oral obesity pill, orforglipron, met its primary endpoints but fell short of Wall Street's expectations.
  - Zero Hedge, 07 August 2025

• Moderna is firing 10,000 people as its business erodes
  - Barchart.com, 07 August 2025

• Trump's health secretary, Kennedy, defends a $500 million reduction in funding for mRNA vaccines with a justification based on pseudoscience gobbledygook
  - Condé Nast's Ars Technica, 07 August 2025

• In a series of experiments reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers at Harvard and Rush universities found that depleting lithium in the diet of normal mice caused their brains to develop inflammation and changes associated with accelerated aging and Alzheimer's disease. One form, lithium orotate, helped mice reverse the damages of Alzheimer's disease.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 06 August 2025

• In a series of experiments reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers at Harvard and Rush universities found that depleting lithium in the diet of normal mice caused their brains to develop inflammation and changes associated with accelerated aging and Alzheimer's disease. One form, lithium orotate, helped mice reverse the damages of Alzheimer's disease.
  - Harvard Medical School, 06 August 2025

• Health Secretary Kennedy's crusade against food safety rule threatens supplement industry. By going after an obscure regulatory designation he describes as a "loophole" - the 'Generally Recognized as Safe' designation, Kennedy has put an industry he champions on the defensive. Almost 99% of chemicals introduced in foods since 2000 have been self-certified using GRAS.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 06 August 2025

• Your weight loss drugs may pay for themselves. The market is driving prices on GLP-1 drugs down, and an added benefit is lower spending on food.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 06 August 2025

• The $9 billion a year bourbon industry in Kentucky is in crisis, as younger people drink less hard alcohol, Canada and Europe impose import taxes on bourbon in response to Trump's taxes/tariffs, and as the industry deals with recent years of over-production
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 05 August 2025

• Popular whiskey and bourbon distilleries in Kentucky are filing for bankruptcy
  - Parade, 05 August 2025

• Why parents are suing SnapChat for allowing drug traffickers to sell deadly fentanyl on Snapchat
  - Zero Hedge, 02 August 2025

• Trump vows to use "every tool in the arsenal" to force Big Pharma to reduce drug prices. "In case after case, our citizens pay massively higher prices than other nations pay for the same exact pill, from the same factory, effectively subsidizing socialism aboard [abroad] with skyrocketing prices in the USA."
  - Zero Hedge, 01 August 2025

• Big Beer companies (AB InBev, Heikeken) plan to expand sales in Brazil and Zhōngguó as sales drop due to Trump's taxes/tarriffs, and declining sales of alcoholic beverages
  - Thomson's Reuters, 01 August 2025

• How the USA over-medicates its veteran soldiers. To treat PTSD, the Department of Veterans Affairs put hundreds of thousands of patients on multiple streams of powerful drugs that put them at risk of suicide.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 01 August 2025

• 1 in 4 non-antibiotic drugs are linked to disrupted gut health. Common medications may make it easier for harmful bacteria to take hold, especially in older or vulnerable patients.
  - Zero Hedge, 31 July 2025

• Socialist policies pushes up the price of cane sugar in the USA. The USA government deliberately limits the access to sugar of people and companies in the USA through socialist marketing allotments and tax/tariff-rate quotas.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 31 July 2025

• Scientists discover traces of betel nut chewing in 4000-year-old teeth in ancient communities in Thailand. The addictive compounds in the betel nut are the world's fourth most addictive drug, after caffeine, alcohol and nicotine, with hundreds of millions of users.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 31 July 2025

• Trump's taxes/tariffs on medicines imported from Europe stand to cost drugmakers billions of dollars
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 30 July 2025

• Stronger than fentanyl: a drug that you have never heard of is killing hundreds every year. Ultrapotent nitazenes, mostly from Zhōngguó, are easy to smuggle and mix into heroin, recreational drugs and gray-market pharmaceuticals.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 30 July 2025

• The military of Indonesia plans to manufacture medicines for the public sector. The military's partnership with a government agency raises fears that it is reviving its Suharto-era heavy involvement in civilian life.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 30 July 2025

• Shares of Sarepta soar after the FDA reverses its 'pause' for Sarepta's controversial gene therapy, Elevidys
  - Zero Hedge, 29 July 2025

• Shares of Novo Nordisk drop as much as 26% after greatly reducing its full-year guidance, citing weaker growth expectations for its blockbuster Wegovy obesity drug in the key USA market. The stock price dropped erased over $90 billion of the company's market value.
  - Zero Hedge, 29 July 2025

• Shares of Novo Nordisk drop as much as 26% after greatly reducing its full-year guidance, citing weaker growth expectations for its blockbuster Wegovy obesity drug in the key USA market. The stock price dropped erased over $90 billion of the company's market value.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 29 July 2025

• Shares of Novo Nordisk drop as much as 26% after greatly reducing its full-year guidance, citing weaker growth expectations for its blockbuster Wegovy obesity drug in the key USA market. The stock price dropped erased over $90 billion of the company's market value.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 29 July 2025

• The econonmic drivers of Apple's exploding valuation is under threat. Payments from Google, and [drug trafficking] revenue from the App store are huge profit generators that could shrink.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 29 July 2025

• Scientists in Zhōngguó and the USA have uncovered antibiotic resistance genes lurking in the manure of chickens, cows and pigs from around the world -- genes that present a potential global health risk as drug resistance grows, due to abuse of antibiotics by the corporate farming industry.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 28 July 2025

• $48,650,000 - As a precursor to México investigating banks for antitrust violations, in August 2021, Mexico's antitrust watchdog COFECE fined five pharmaceutical distributors and 21 individuals roughly 903 million pesos ($48.65 million) for a decade of fixing prices and restricting the supply of essential medicines between 2006 and 2016.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 25 July 2025

• Layoffs, shutdowns and billions of dollars wasted/lost. What is wrong with Bay Area biotech? Since late 2022, bad news in biotech has been nearly inescapable: flopped trials, slashed drug pipelines, bankruptcies and stock price collapses that destroyed billions of dollars in value. It is all led to layoffs, plunging thousands of workers into unemployment amid a competitive job market.
  - SF Gate, 25 July 2025

• Leadership of the biotech industry in the USA is being eroded by a skeptical FDA
  - Real Clear Markets, 25 July 2025

• Shares of Sarepta plummet again after Europe rejects its Elevidys gene therapy drug
  - Zero Hedge, 25 July 2025

• $78,000,000 - Real estate agent Stephen Costa will be going back to prison after being sentenced to about 14 years in prison for spearheading a $78 million prescription drug gang - comprised of medicine meant for HIV and cancer patients
  - Miami Herald, 24 July 2025

• Alcohol drug delivery companies, Big Alcohol, prepare to compete harder with the marijuana drug delivery industry as cannabis drinks steal sales from alcohol companies
  - Thomson's Reuters, 24 July 2025

• The government of Zhōngguó is approving innovative drugs at a record pace. "If we are not careful, every drug could be made in Zhōngguó.", warns a former head of the USA FDA.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 24 July 2025

• More authoritarian health policies: Health Secretary (and non-scientist) Kennedy approves the removal of thimerosal, a preservative for vaccines, from flu shots. The CDC says that there is no evidence of harm from thimerosal.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 23 July 2025

• Trump idiotically brags that he will reduce medicine prices in the USA by up to "1400%", idiotically not realizing the maximum reduction can only be 100%
  - The Daily Beast, 23 July 2025

• How pesticides are distrupting the sleep patterns of farmers in Bharat, for example, by suppressing production of melatonin in the body.
  - ZME Science, 22 July 2025

• Weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic help you lose a lot of weight. Until you stop using the drugs, and then the lost weight starts returning to your body.
  - ZME Science, 22 July 2025

• Shares of nicotine drug trafficker Philip Morris drop 7% after slightly missing the analysts' consensus estimates of revenues
  - Benzinga, 22 July 2025

• Shares of MindMed surge 10% as psychedelic drugs gain political support within the Trump adminstration
  - Zero Hedge, 21 July 2025

• Shares of Sarepta dropped as much as 11% in premarket trading and remain down about 6% after the cash open this morning. One analyst has a price target of $0 for the shares. The FDA has requested that Sarepta voluntarily withdraw its ELEVIDYS gene therapy from the market. Sarepta has reportedly declined to comply.
  - Zero Hedge, 21 July 2025

• The FDA authorizes Juul to restart selling its electronic nicotine drug delivery devices in the USA, including its controversial menthol flavored nicotine drug delivery cartridges
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 18 July 2025

• $56,000,000 - Barclays is fined $56 million for money-laundering failures with customers in the United Kingdom related to a gold investment company, Stunt & Company, run by a rich white guy
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 18 July 2025

• Why people cannot quit their addiction to ChatGPT and other AI chatbots
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 17 July 2025

• An experimental weekly injection developed by Chinese drugmaker Hengrui Pharma and its USA-based partner, Kailera Therapeutics, succeeded in a late-stage trial in Zhōngguó, putting the drugmakers on track to seek approval there, and will become a potential competitor for Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk and their anti-obesity drugs
  - Comcast's CNBC, 16 July 2025

• Biotech companies in Zhōngguó are becoming much more competitive with Big Pharma in the USA
  - Zero Hedge, 15 July 2025

• As the popularity soars of nicotine-trafficking drug pouches, the drug pouches are also responsible for more poisonings in young children
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 14 July 2025

• Scopolamine, an alkaloid used for motion sickness (and used by criminals to render victims unconscious) is shown to quickly relieve symptoms of depression within hours, as opposed to days and weeks needed with traditional anti-depression drugs
  - Psychology Today, 11 July 2025

• Thanks to Trump, about 60% of people in Canada consider the USA as the biggest threat to Canada
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 11 July 2025

• Trump relies on a lie to threaten new 35% taxes/tariff on some imports from Canada- the lie being that Canada is a big source of supply for fentanyl, a lie repeatedly discredited
  - Comcast's MSNBC, 11 July 2025

• Trump threatens new 35% taxes/tariff on some imports from Canada. The new taxes/tariffs would exempt, for now, goods compliant with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 11 July 2025

• In an "unhinged letter peppered with random capital letters and catty insults", the authoritarian Trump annoucnes taxes/tariffs of 35% on imports from Canada, starting August 1st, and threatens higher taxes/tariffs if Canada retaliates. Trump lies to justify the 'national security threat' to justify the taxes/tariffs, using the lie that Canada is allowing a lot of fentanyl to be smuggled into the USA - a lie which has been repeatedly disproved.
  - The Daily Beast, 11 July 2025

• The authoritarian Trump annoucnes taxes/tariffs of 35% on imports from Canada, starting August 1st, and threatens higher taxes/tariffs if Canada retaliates. Trump lies to justify the 'national security threat' to justify the taxes/tariffs, using the lie that Canada is allowing a lot of fentanyl to be smuggled into the USA - a lie which has been repeatedly disproved.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 11 July 2025

• The pharmaceutical industry is quickly making new plans, after the authoritarian Trump threatens to impose taxes/taiffs of 200% on imports of drugs into the USA. While they won't be imposed, if ever, for another 12 to 18 months, the uncertainty will disrupt the companies' planning for years.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 11 July 2025

• Merck to buy Verona Pharma in $10 billion deal. In 2028, Merck will suffer the loss of patent protection for Keytruda, it very successful anti-cancer drug.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 10 July 2025

• Psilocybin, the active compound derived from psychedelic mushrooms, significantly delayed cellular aging and extended lifespan in a preclinical study. The compound appeared to reduce oxidative stress, preserve telomeres, and improve DNA repair, all key to slowing aging. These findings suggest psilocybin may one day enhance not just lifespan but also quality of life in aging populations.
  - Neuroscience News, 09 July 2025

• Trump's tax/tariff on imports of copper, automobiles, drugs and aluminum could hurt the economy of the USA more than his other taxes/tariffs, given the major role of these commodities
  - Comcast's CNBC, 09 July 2025

• New evidence is emerging on the bodily harms of vaping nicotine due to the high levels of heavy metals found in the mist of legal vaping nicotine drug-delivery devices. No harms in drinking illegal coca tea.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 09 July 2025

• Hims & Hers to offer generic semaglutide (the popular weight loss drug) in Canada as Novo Nordisk patent lapses
  - Comcast's CNBC, 09 July 2025

• New research shows that diquat, the weedkiller widely used in the USA (as an alternative to the cancer-causing glyphostate) can damage bodily organs in people and kill important gut bacteria. While diquat is banned in the UK, European Union, and Zhōngguó - politicians in the USA refuse to ban it for use in the USA
  - The Guardian, 06 July 2025

• The naval forces of Colombia seized a 'narco submarine' off its Caribbean coast. Nothing unusual with that, except the sub was equipepd with a Starlink antenna. Innovation by drug traffickers, since the Starlink connection allows such submarines to navigate more independently.
  - CBS News, 03 July 2025

• For many years, federal investigators in the USA acquired evidence of a corrupt collusion between the Bukele government of El Salvador and the MS-13 criminal gang. Now Trump is sending high ranking members of the MS-13 gang back to El Salvador to be imprisoned by Bukele, crippling USA corruption investigations.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 01 July 2025

• While Trump lessens investigations into the leaders of the MS-13 criminal gang, he orders federal investigators to instead investigate Abrego Garcia - at best a minor criminal gang member - because of the huge political controversy over Garcia's deportation. [KXnote: fighting politics is more important to Trump than fighting crime].
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 01 July 2025

• While Christian Republicans in Florida remove flouride from water supplies, the city of Calgary in Canada is restoring flouride in its water supplies (removed in 2011) because the removal worsened dental health in children (as it willin Florida).
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 01 July 2025

• Republicans in Oklahona end recommendations to add flouride to state water supplies, for some reason, want to worsen the dental health of children
  - Zero Hedge, 01 July 2025

• Staring 01 July 2025, France bans smoking in all outdoor areas frequented by children. Violation of the law will incur about a $100 penalty.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 01 July 2025

• New Zealand approved therapy with psychedelic drugs. One doctor, Cameron Lacey, has been permitted to to prescribe psilocybin, a hallucinogenic compound found in 'magic mushrooms', for depression.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 29 June 2025

• Thailand was the first country in Asia to fully decriminalize marijuana. But Thailand failed to pass regulations for the industry, so now it has grown out of control (including smuggling by tourists and into nearby countries, and overproduction ruining the economics). So the government wants to partially re-criminalize marijuana by only allowing medical uses of marijuana, requiring a doctor's prescription (easily obtained).
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 28 June 2025

• Inside a corporate plan to use AI to amplify doubts about the dangers of pollutants. Both the tobacco and oil industries have a history of weaponizing scientific uncertainty, experts say, with some arguing that similar tactics drive the Trump administration's current deregulatory efforts. These lies become easier with AI.
  - The Guardian, 27 June 2025

• Oklahoma has become the latest state to request federal permission to exclude soft drinks and candy from the list of items that can be purchased through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
  - Zero Hedge, 27 June 2025

• How Big Pharma, Big Oil and Big Banks funded Trump's tax scam by getting Trump and a puppet Congress elected
  - The Lever, 26 June 2025

• Nicotine drug trafficking devices, disposable vapes, release more cancer causing chemicals than traditional cigarettes. Vapor from three of the tested devices contained levels of lead and nickel above cancer safety limits, and two had elevated levels of antimony -- an element used in batteries and as a flame retardant.
  - The Daily Mail, 25 June 2025

• Trump's and Health Secretary Kennedy's overhaul of an important CDC committee on vaccines could cause "vaccine chaos" in the USA
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 25 June 2025

• Shares of Hims & Hers plummet 35% after Novo Nordisk ends a deal with Wegovy
  - Apollo Global's Yahoo Finance, 23 June 2025

• Novo Nordisk ends deal with Hims & Hers, a telehealth company, over sales of Wegovy copycats; shares of HIMS drop 20%. Novo Nordisk said Hims & Hers has "failed to adhere to the law which prohibits mass sales of compounded drugs" and accused Him & Hers of "deceptive" marketing that is putting patient safety at risk.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 23 June 2025

• Shares of Him & Hers crash after Novo Nordisk ends deal with Hims & Hers, a telehealth company, over sales of Wegovy copycats; shares of HIMS drop 20%.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 23 June 2025

• Lifespan models of life insurance companies are being rendered obsolete by GLP-1-like weight loss drugs, which are helping people live longer. If someone has a life insurance policy assuming a death-age before using the drugs, the life insurance company could lose money in the long-term caring for the longer-living person.
  - GLP1 Digest, 22 June 2025

• How weight-loss drugs blew out the trade deficit of the USA. Shipments of weight loss drugs have propelled Ireland, a country of 5.4 million, to the second-largest goods-trade imbalance with the USA, behind Zhōngguó. Laws in the USA that make it easy for drug companies to reduce their taxes by manufacturing in Ireland is the cause, a loss of tax dollars and jobs for the USA to make the rich richer.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 21 June 2025

• The Catholic Christian controlled Supreme Court ruled in favor of more rich entities, ruling that nicotine drug-trafficking Big Tobaaco can pick the judges hearing their lawsuits challenging federal regulations.
  - HuffPost, 20 June 2025

• Drugs that help preserve muscles could generate over $30 billion in sales by 2035, TD Cowen says
  - Thomson's Reuters, 20 June 2025

• Sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass surgery are five-times more effective for weight loss than GLP-1 weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic. Note: the study was funded by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS), who would have a vested interest in promoting surgical options.
  - Science Alert, 20 June 2025

• A new report from Reuters, citing multiple sources, reveals that the upcoming U.S. Dietary Guidelines may drop the long-standing recommendation that adults limit alcohol consumption to one drink per day for women and two for men, shifting to "drink in moderation". It also raises questions about whether the Department of Health and Human Services, even under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s leadership, remains an agency still captured by industry influence, drifting far from the "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) mission, if it drops these alcohol consumption guidelines. Critics, including public health advocates, warn that the new language downplays well-documented risks such as increased cancer, including breast cancer, even from moderate drinking.
  - Zero Hedge, 18 June 2025

• "Americans are going to die": why a vaccine expert left the CDC. Dr. Fiona Havers is influential among researchers who study immunizations. The wholesale dismissal of the CDC'as scientific advisers crossed the line, she said.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 18 June 2025

• Trump's/Kennedy's stacking the CDC's vaccine committee with losers threatens a "disaster". The new composition of the committee reflects what can happen when ideology and cronyism replace competence, expertise, and proper vetting. The result: the replacement of evidence-based vaccine policy with ideology-driven decision-making will affect public health negatively for generations to come.
  - American Council on Science and Health, 18 June 2025

• Manufacturers of generic drugs resist Trump's demand for more manufacturing in the USA of generic drugs. Companies say further domestic investment is too risky in such a low-margin and unpredictable business.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 18 June 2025

• Use of marijuana doubles the risk of dying from heart attakcs and strokes. "We found that vascular function was reduced by 42% in marijuana smokers and by 56% in THC-edible users compared to nonusers."
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 17 June 2025

• $3,100,000 - DNA testing firm 23andMe has been fined 2.31 million pounds (about 3.1 million dollars) by a UK government regulator over a data breach in 2023 which affected thousands of people
  - BBC, 17 June 2025

• Shares of Sarepta Therapeutics crash as much as 48% after a second death is reported for its gene therapy drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy
  - Zero Hedge, 16 June 2025

• Two senators propose a ban on drug advertising to consumers. Bernie Sanders and Angus King introduced a proposed law that would ban pharmaceutical manufacturers from using direct-to-consumer advertising, including social media, to promote their products.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 13 June 2025

• Two senators propose a ban on drug advertising to consumers. This will greatly hurt the finance of television networks, with such ads comprising 24 percecnt of all advertising minutes on evening news broadcasts across major networks.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 13 June 2025

• Two senators propose a ban on drug advertising to consumers. This will greatly hurt the finance of television networks, with such ads comprising 24 percecnt of all advertising minutes on evening news broadcasts across major networks.
  - Zero Hedge, 13 June 2025

• The FDA, having fired 2000 paid human employees, will rely on non-paid AI in its drug approval activities.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 11 June 2025

• Editorial: Health Secretary RFK Junior conducts his purge of the government's vaccine advisory committee. His claims about conflicts of interest proved to be nothing - "thou shalt not" lies.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 11 June 2025

• Redburn Atlantic analyst Edward Lewis became the first in recent memory to downgrade McDonald's, cutting the stock from "Buy" to "Sell" on the premise that GLP-1 weight-loss drugs will suppress consumer appetites.
  - Zero Hedge, 10 June 2025

• 73% of the men in Islamic Indonesia are addicted to cigarettes, followed by 44% of the men in Zhōngguó, and 40% of the men in South Korea. Less than 20% of women in most countries smoke cigarettes, though 34% of the women in France smoke.
  - Zero Hedge, 09 June 2025

• The latest Nasdaq drug trafficking: OpenAI wants to get college students addicted to AI. AI chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT have been shown repeatedly to provide false information, hallucinate completely made-up sources and facts, and lead people astray with their confidently wrong answers to questions. For that reason, AI tools are viewed with skepticism by many educators. So, of course, OpenAI and its competitors are targeting colleges and pushing its addictive services on students -- mental health concerns be damned.
  - Gizmodo, 07 June 2025

• The environment-hating Trump approves expansion of a scandal-hit coal mine in Montana, the Bull Mountain mine. The mine has been allegedly been involved with cocaine trafficking and the faked kidnapping of an executive.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 07 June 2025

• Despite Trump's tax/tariff trade war, drug companies in the USA are partnering with companies in Zhōngguó for important cancer treatments. The recent deals could be worth up to $25 billion.
  - Barron's, 07 June 2025

• The FDA has approved hundreds of drugs in recent years, without evidence that the drugs have any medical benefit. Many of the drugs are dangerous.
  - The Lever, 05 June 2025

• Brown-Forman, the parent of alcohol drug-trafficker Jack Daniels, is having its sales hurt by weight-loss drugs and marijuana. Its latest earnings decline sent its stock price down 17%.
  - Murdoch's MarketWatch, 05 June 2025

• Brown-Forman, the parent of alcohol drug-trafficker Jack Daniels, is having its sales hurt by weight-loss drugs and marijuana. Its latest earnings decline sent its stock price down 17%.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 05 June 2025

• It is not just AI - Zhōngguó is gaining an advantage over the USA in biotech
  - Comcast's CNBC, 05 June 2025

• Secretary of Health RFK Junior plans to tell American medical schools they must offer nutrition courses to students or risk losing federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services. "There is almost no medical schools that have nutrition courses, and so [aspiring physicians] are taught how to treat illnesses with drugs but not how to treat them with food or to keep people healthy so they do not need the drugs."
  - Disney's ABC News, 04 June 2025

• Nicotine drug trafficker British American Tobacco raises outlook on better-than-expected revenue. BAT expects the U.S. to return to revenue and profit growth, driven by strengthening delivery in the combustibles category and the performance of its Velo Plus product.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 04 June 2025

• Deadly superbugs thrive as access to antibiotics falters in Bharat. On the one hand, antibiotics are being overused until they no longer work, driving resistance and fuelling the rise of deadly superbugs. On the other hand, people are dying because they can't access these life-saving drugs. "For years, the dominant narrative has been that antibiotics are being overused, but the stark reality is that many people with highly drug-resistant infections in low- and middle-income countries are not getting access to the antibiotics they need."
  - BBC, 03 June 2025

• Trump's tax/tariff threat on imports of pharmaceuticals brings to light the tight grip that Zhōngguó has on the global pharmaceuticals industry. Zhōngguó controls 80% of the raw materials required for the production of amoxicillin, a popular antibiotic in the USA. In 2024, 96% of US imports of hydrocortisone (the active ingredient in the anti-itch cream), 90% of imports of ibuprofen (found in common over-the-counter pain relievers), and 73% of imports of acetaminophen (in other kinds of pain relievers) all came from Zhōngguó. 90% of the drugs sold in the USA are generics. Bharat produced many of these generic drugs, often from ingredients imported from Zhōngguó.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 03 June 2025

• $700,000,000 - Bristol-Myers Squibb and three subsidiares of Sanofi will pay the state of Hawai'i $700 to settle a pharmaceutial lawsuit
  - State of Hawai'i, 02 June 2025

• An AI therapy chatbot tells a recovering addict to use a little methamphetamine as a treat
  - Futurism, 02 June 2025

• Elon Musk's drug addiction problems are much worse than you think. What happens when you mix ketamine, ecstasy, and mushrooms with Trump's far-right MAGA ideology? Spoiler: The results are not pretty.
  - The Nation, 02 June 2025

• How your cellphone is a parasite. Despite their many benefits, many of us are hostage to our phones and slaves to the endless scroll, unable to fully disconnect. Phone users are paying the price with a lack of sleep, weaker offline relationships and mood disorders. Some some of the most popular apps they offer have come to serve the interests of the app-making companies and their advertisers more faithfully than those of their human users. These addictive apps are designed to nudge our behaviour to keep us scrolling, clicking on advertising and simmering in perpetual outrage - [KM: to make rich cellphone companies richer].
  - Real Clear Science, 02 June 2025

• "We are under a dictatorship!": six years into his rule, El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele tightens his grip. The government has signficiantly reduced gang violence, but opponents say it has come at the cost of mass incarceration of 87,000 people, and the erosion of civil liberties. And he pays no attention to the drug addiction of the USA causing the crime from drug trafficking of cocaine through El Salvador. Bukele has also long faced allegations that he negotiated the peaceful security situation in El Salvador through back-door dealings with the gangs.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 01 June 2025

• Urgent health warnings are issued as the terrifying side effects of Ozempic emerge. Some users of these weight loss drugs reported hepatitis symptoms. Patients on GLP-1 agonists Wegovy and Ozempic reported flu-like symptoms, fatigue, abdominal cramps and vomiting, thought to be related to liver injury.
  - The Daily Mail, 01 June 2025

• Heart disease could be a goner when these new cholesterol-reducting drugs hit the marketplace
  - Barron's, 31 May 2025

• White House insiders report on the frenzied drug use of Elon Musk while working alongside Trump. Ketamine, ecstasy, magic mushrooms, and Adderall are said to be among the cocktail of drugs the billionaire was using.
  - Daily Beast, 30 May 2025

• White House insiders report on the frenzied drug use of Elon Musk while working alongside Trump. Ketamine, ecstasy, magic mushrooms, and Adderall are said to be among the cocktail of drugs the billionaire was using.
  - The Guardian, 30 May 2025

• Extreme weather and human activity (agriculture, drug trafficking, illegal gold mining) are "accelerating the degradation of the Amazon" river in Colombia
  - Colombia Reports, 29 May 2025

• How does mildly addictive caffeine in coffee affect the sleeping brain?
  - Univ. Montreal news, 29 May 2025

• Drug production and trafficking has surged in the infamous 'Golden Triangle', where the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has warned in a new report on the scale of the regional trade in synthetic drugs
  - Al Jazeera, 29 May 2025

• In what could be a massive shift away from bird flu pandemic orchestration, the Trump administration has canceled its contract with Moderna for developing an avian influenza "bird flu" vaccine for humans, including purchase rights.
  - Zero Hedge, 29 May 2025

• In what could be a massive shift away from bird flu pandemic orchestration, the Trump administration has canceled its contract with Moderna for developing an avian influenza "bird flu" vaccine for humans, including purchase rights.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 29 May 2025

• Non-alcoholic beer projected to overtake alcoholic ale as the second-largest beer category worldwide this year, behind alcoholic lager beer
  - Comcast's CNBC, 29 May 2025

• How the maker of Ozempic lost its grip on the obesity market it created. Novo Nordisk's blockbuster weight-loss drug Wegovy has been surpassed in weekly USA prescriptions by Eli Lilly's Zepbound, and now Novo Nordisk is trying to get back on track.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 29 May 2025

• Whether it is smoking marijuana or eating edible marijuana, marijuana is bad for your heart
  - Univ. California, San Francisco, 27 May 2025

• More than 4% of Americans are taking the blockbuster class of GLP-1 drugs for overweight or obesity, up nearly 600% over six years.
  - Axios, 27 May 2025

• Phenazopyridine, a common medication taken by more than 100 million worldwide for urinary tract infections, has been linked to cancer. In one study conducted by the National Institutes for Health (NIH), it was found that dietary exposure to phenazopyridine caused tumors in two rodent species at two different tissue sites.
  - The Daily Mail, 27 May 2025

• How 'laughing gas' - nitrous oxide - became a deadly, but lega, addiction in the USA
  - BBC, 27 May 2025

• Tim Cook, CEO of dopamine drug trafficker Apple, once Trump's technology 'whisperer', goes quiet as his influence fades. The CEO of Apple has gone from winning Trump's praise to drawing his ire, deepening the business woes of Apple in a very bad year.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 26 May 2025

• Alibaba's addictive new Taobao Instant Commerce portal acquires more than 40 million daily orders.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 26 May 2025

• $67 in France and $798 in the USA - why prescription drug prices are so high in the USA. One answer is that other governments leverage the power of their national health plans to control pricing, while the United States lacks a comprehensive national prescription drug strategy. Drug companies argue that this causes shortages for some drugs, and make other drugs harder to obtain.
  - Zero Hedge, 25 May 2025

• Online gambling is an engineered addiction. Online gambling is, like drugs or alcohol, an addictive product that many can enjoy safely -- but some cannot. Gambling companies use sophisticated algorithms, flashy graphics/sounds to produce dopamine, and troves of personal data to extract the maximum amount of money from customers.
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 25 May 2025

• Empty lab space keeps piling up around Greater Boston. Nearly one-third of lab space in the region is empty, and 3 to 4 million more square feet of lab space is still under construction, with about 16 million square feet of empty lab space currently.
  - Boston.com, 23 May 2025

• The rising value of the stock market in México could be at risk if President Claudia Sheinbaum fails to rein in the powerful drug cartels and reduce shipments of fentanyl across the border of the USA.
  - Barron's, 23 May 2025

• The FDA approves a non-opioid painkiller from Zhōngguó, an alternative to morphine, that could reduce fentanyl overdoses
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 23 May 2025

• New ketamine study promises extended relief for depression. For some people, a single dose of ketamine can provide relief from depression for up to two months.
  - Vanerbilt University, 22 May 2025

• Deaths due to cancer that are linked to the addictive drug alcohol are rising fast, doubling in the last 30 years
  - Disney's ABC News, 22 May 2025

• Regeneron to buy bankrupt DNA testing firm 23andMe for $256 million
  - Comcast's CNBC, 19 May 2025

• Novo Nordisk rode GLP-1/Ozempic's success (th ehugely popular weight-loss drug) to becoming the top company in Europe. Not it is faltering and its CEO has been fired. Novo Nordisk has lost half of its market valyue in less than a year, due to competition from other weight-loss drug companies, and compounders selling equivalents.
  - Murdoch's MarketWatch, 16 May 2025

• Trump's taxes/tariffs on pharmaceuticals could reduce exports of pharmaceuticals from Zhōngguó, hurting profit margins. The USA is reliant on companies in Zhōngguó for the the raw materials needed to make life-saving drugs, but experts say import taxes are likely.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 16 May 2025

• Relying on non-science arguments, Florida becomes the 2nd state to ban flourine from the public water supply (after Utah). Scores of dentists and dental advocacy groups warned lawmakers in Florida and Utah against banning fluoride, arguing fluoride in toothpaste is not enough to help teeth as they grow.
  - Politico, 15 May 2025

• Researchers say flouride pills may harm the health of children. Researchers disagree.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 15 May 2025

• Deaths due to drug overdoses plummeted in the USA in 2024, declining by 30,000 deaths in 2024. About 80,000 people died from all drug overdoses in 2024. That is about the same as people that died from drinking sugary beverages.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 15 May 2025

• Bags of cash from drug cartels flood teller windows at banks in the USA. Money-launderers based in Zhōngguó allegedly made six-figure deposits at Chase, Bank of America and Citibank branches across Los Angeles County.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 15 May 2025

• Women are drinking more alcohol -- and doctors are worried. Women are experiencing rising alcohol-related deaths at a faster clip than men, data show.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 15 May 2025

• [KM: To make more billions more for Jeff Bezos], YouTube viewers will start being force to view ads after 'peak emotional' moments in videos - emotion-based targeting that is an obnoxious disruption of the aesthetic pleasure of viewing a video.
  - TechCrunch, 14 May 2025

• Montana just passed a new bill backed by longevity enthusiasts that will enable access to drugs and therapies that are not approved by the FDA. This will allow hubs for experimental medical treatments to be launched.
  - Technology Review, 14 May 2025

• The consumption of alcohol is declining in the USA. The consumption, especially in beverages of THC (less addictive than alcohol, from marijuana) is increasing.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 14 May 2025

• A 2024 report by the RAND Corporation found that drug prices in the USA were almost three times higher than in 33 other high-income countries. That is largely due to the "highly complex and fragmented reimbursement system and lack of national pricing control for the USA
  - Comcast's CNBC, 14 May 2025

• Walgreens closing dozens of stores across 17 states
  - The Hill, 13 May 2025

• Aimed at pressuring Big Pharma, Goldman Sachs says that Trump's drug executive order is "symbolic, not substantial"
  - Zero Hedge, 12 May 2025

• With no real policy, Trump asks drugmakers to lower their prices in the USA. Trump has long complained that the USA pays more for medicines than other wealthy countries. But he offered no clear legal authority to mandate lower prices.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 12 May 2025

• Price controls on pharamceuticals will not make the USA healthy. Trump's executive order will stifle pharmaceutical innovation, raise costs and endanger the lives of patients.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 12 May 2025

• Trump's plan to lower drug prices in the USA contains threats but few 'teeth'. Trump announced a plan that was less aggressive than his first-term effort in 2020, surprising analysts who were bracing for something tougher.
  - Bezos' Washington Post, 12 May 2025

• Shares of global pharmaceutical companies rebound, having declined, as investors see legal hurdles to Trump's new executive order on drug prices
  - Investopedia, 12 May 2025

• Shares of global pharmaceutical companies rebound, having declined, as investors see legal hurdles to Trump's new executive order on drug prices
  - Thomson's Reuters, 12 May 2025

• Trump signs an executive order to reduce prescription drug prices. He said the "most favored nation" policy would tie the prices the U.S. government pays for certain medications to lower rates charged in other developed countries, a policy that drug companies have severely attacked for decades. Trump warned that, if necessary, his administration would launch investigations into pharmaceutical companies, vowing to confront the pharmaceutical industrial complex and powerful pharma lobby groups.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 12 May 2025

• Trump signs an executive order to reduce prescription drug prices. He said the "most favored nation" policy would tie the prices the U.S. government pays for certain medications to lower rates charged in other developed countries, a policy that drug companies have severely attacked for decades. Trump warned that, if necessary, his administration would launch investigations into pharmaceutical companies, vowing to confront the pharmaceutical industrial complex and powerful pharma lobby groups.
  - HuffPost, 12 May 2025

• Trump signs an executive order to reduce prescription drug prices. He said the "most favored nation" policy would tie the prices the U.S. government pays for certain medications to lower rates charged in other developed countries, a policy that drug companies have severely attacked for decades. Trump warned that, if necessary, his administration would launch investigations into pharmaceutical companies, vowing to confront the pharmaceutical industrial complex and powerful pharma lobby groups.
  - The Hill, 12 May 2025

• Trump will sign an executive order to reduce prescription drug prices. He said the "most favored nation" policy would tie the prices the U.S. government pays for certain medications to lower rates charged in other developed countries, a policy that drug companies have severely attacked for decades. Trump warned that, if necessary, his administration would launch investigations into pharmaceutical companies, vowing to confront the pharmaceutical industrial complex and powerful pharma lobby groups.
  - Zero Hedge, 12 May 2025

• Weight loss drugs may cut cancer risk by 50% according to a new study out of Israel. Obesity is associated with 13 cancers, and losing weight can slash that risk. But the researchers found that the impact these drugs have on cancer development is greater than just aiding weight loss.
  - New York Post, 12 May 2025

• To save money, Walgreens will start using non-paid robots to fill prescriptions
  - Comcast's CNBC, 12 May 2025

• The drug-resistant fungus, Candida auris, is reported in 17 states in the USA. People with a healthy immune system may be able to fight off infection on their own, but Candida auris mainly spreads in health care settings, where people are sick and vulnerable.
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 11 May 2025

• People using GLP-1 weight loss drugs are starting to dislike meat and fried foods, and are avoiding sugary beverages and junk foods
  - Live Science, 10 May 2025

• WeightWatchers, after dominating the diet industry for more than half a century, it has lost more than a million members and filed for bankruptcy, struggling to compete in a market transformed by social media influencers and weight loss injections. In a statement, WeightWatchers says its weight loss program (which also includes its own brand of weight loss drugs) and weight loss workshops will continue.
  - BBC, 10 May 2025

• "It is not a question that cannabis drinks are effecting alcohol sales". Cannabis-infused drinks are gaining popularity as an alternative for consumers embracing an alcohol-free lifestyle. This year, the cannabis market in the U.S. is anticipated to exceed $45 billion.
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 10 May 2025

• Dopamine drug-trafficker made over $10 billion in commissions from sales of apps at its USA App Store in 2024
  - TechCrunch, 10 May 2025

• A new survey in the USA estimates that 7.5 percent of adults in the USA use illegally-produced fentanyl each year, 25 times the rate indicated by a survey conducted by the government.
  - Reason, 09 May 2025

• Apple lied in court, having commissioned a sham report and lied on the stand to justify its App Store policies (though which its sells huge numbers of addictive apps), which could cast a long shadow on Apple's business.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 09 May 2025

• Republican fiscal conservatives protest and resist, insisting that the mega-proposed law for the budget and taxes "must not add to the deficit" to avoid a $50 trillion debt by 2035
  - Zero Hedge, 08 May 2025

• House Republicans are considering nixing a Medicaid drug pricing plan proposed by Trump and fiercely opposed by the pharmaceutical industry as the party pushes to strike a massive tax and spending deal in the coming days. Lawmakers have separately discussed eliminating a tax deduction for pharmaceutical advertising.
  - Bloomberg, 08 May 2025

• Editorial: Trump's worst economic idea since taxes/tariffs. Trump is proposing a plan to outdo the Democrats on drug price controls. The [idiotic] idea is for Medicaid to pay drug manufacturers the lowest price charged to other developed countries.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 08 May 2025

• The bankruptcy of Rite Aid is a warning about health care in the USA. This is more than a story of a less-than-current business model failing to keep up with customers. Instead, Rite Aid is an instructional tale about a mismanaged company that was so fatally weakened it could not survive amid the increasing consolidation of health care in the USA.
  - Comcast's MSNBC, 07 May 2025

• The Christian Senator Josh Hawley introduces a woman-hating law to ban mailing of abortion pills, citing junk science report . It is unlikely the bill will pass, but it sends a clear message that Republicans are unafraid to use misinformation to ramp up attacks on abortion.
  - Huff Post, 07 May 2025

• The USA trade deficit rises to a record high as companies front-load pharmaceuticals. The deficit ballooned to $140.5 billion in March, as businesses stockpiled goods to get ahead of Trump's taxes/tariffs imposed the following month.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 07 May 2025

• Naloxone saves lives of people overdosing drugs. The Trump administration may eliminate funding for the drug to save lives. A draft HHS budget proposal would cut funding for a crucial program that equips first responders with the opioid antagonist.
  - Comcast's MSNBC, 06 May 2025

• Shares of Moderna plummet 11% after a critic of Covid vaccines is named to be the next head of the FDA's vaccine research effort
  - Zero Hedge, 06 May 2025

• Drugstore chain Rite Aid Corporation has again filed for bankruptcy less than a year after exiting from the previous one, with the chain now looking to sell "substantially all of its assets".
  - Zero Hedge, 06 May 2025

• WeightWatchers files for bankruptcy protection to eliminate a debt burden of $1.5 billion, so it can focus on its transition into a telehealth services provider.
  - Associated Press, 06 May 2025

• The next superbug threat is already here. It is going to be even harder to overcome. The culprit: microscopic fungal spores that live in and on human bodies and in the dirt and air. Recent global estimates indicate there are 6.5 million invasive fungal infections and some 3.8 million deaths annually. There are only 17 antifungal drugs are in use, compared to hundreds for bacterial superbugs.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 06 May 2025

• Do not punish pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) for the pricing problems due to pharmaceutical companies. Politicians should target the actual source of inflated pharmaceutical costs, namely, the limited competition in the pharmaceutical market, abetted by slow and cumbersome regulatory approval processes.
  - Real Clear Markets, 05 May 2025

• A new survey of users of weight loss drugs such as GLP-1 determines that users are spending less at restaurants
  - Zero Hedge, 04 May 2025

• $92,000,000 - Three men are convicted for using banks in suburban Charlotte in a major international drug money laundering scheme.
  - Charlotte Observer, 03 May 2025

• Trump and the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, argue over how to deal with drug cartels. Trump is pressuring México to allow deeper involvement of the USA military in the fight against drug cartels.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 03 May 2025

• Trump and the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, argue over how to deal with drug cartels. Trump is pressuring México to allow deeper involvement of the USA military in the fight against drug cartels.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 03 May 2025

• Roche and Zealand Pharma in March struck a deal worth up to $5.3 billion to co-develop and co-commercialize amylin analog petrelintide as a potentially "next generation" weight loss drug
  - Comcast's CNBC, 03 May 2025

• Shares of Eli Lilly fall 6% despite "strong demand" for its weight-loss drug, results which were overshadowed by earngins guidance reduction
  - Zero Hedge, 01 May 2025

• Could Apple exist without its ties to Zhōngguó? Probably Not. The world's most valuable company has become so reliant on suppliers and sales in Zhōngguó that it would be worth half as much or less without them.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 01 May 2025

• Apple delivers better than expected results for iPhone sales, and announces a $100 billion stock buyback
  - Investopedia, 01 May 2025

• How the American Right learned to love psychedelic drugs
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 01 May 2025

• The Republican Party laws groundwork to hurt women further by restricting access to an abortion pill - mifepristone, based on junk science
  - HuffPost, 30 April 2025

• Sugar drug trafficker Coca-Cola sales decline to a boycott by the Hispanic community, and lower demand in general
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 30 April 2025

• GLP-1 weight loss drugs can help employers lower medical costs in 2 years. "There was a 44% reduction in major cardiovascular issues. There was substantial reduction in osteoporosis. There was substantial reduction in pneumonia of multiple types." Welcome news, since 2023, GLP-1s have driven up employer spending on drugs at a faster pace than high-priced specialty drugs used to treat cancer and autoimmune conditions, according to an Evernorth study.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 29 April 2025

• New weight-loss drugs are sending a surprising number of people in the USA to the emergency room. New research finds that ER visits related to semaglutide use might be on the rise.
  - Gizmodo, 29 April 2025

• $202,000,000 - Gilead Sciences agrees to pay $202 million to settle claims of kickbacks to doctors for HIV drug prescriptions
  - Comcast's CNBC, 29 April 2025

• The pharmaceutical industry in Europe prepares for financial losses as Trump's tax/tariff threats loom. Medicines and chemicals are huge exports for European Union countries. That makes the sector a weak spot as trade tensions continue without resolution.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 28 April 2025

• Wall Street's new safe haven from Trump's tax/tariff trade wars: buying shares of biotech stocks with strong patents and that pay higher taxes in the USA (which means they are not importing their products from countries with lower taxes)
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 28 April 2025

• Trump's proposed 25% tax/tariff on pharmaceutical imports would increase drug costs in the USA by nearly $51 billion annually, boosting retail prices in the USA by as much as 12.9% if the tax/tariffs are passed onto consumers
  - Thomson's Reuters, 25 April 2025

• "No one can concentrate on anything for long these days. It is completely ruining society." "It is social media. Everyone is spending their days scrolling to get 3 and 4-second hits of instant gratification from content that has no meaning. We have lost patience for extended and meaningful narratives." [KM: But the rich tech companies get richer.]
  - Zero Hedge, 24 April 2025

• Nearly 50% of teenagers in the USA say social media is bad for their mental health, and almost the same percentage are reducing their use of social media.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 22 April 2025

• 61 percent of all Americans are taking at least one pharmaceutical drug, making the USA one of the most drugged nations in the history of the world, and one reason drug companies spent $15 billion a year on advertising. 27 percent of Americans are taking at least four pharmaceutical drugs. 75 percent of medicines are imported from Zhōngguó and Bharat. With Trump's taxes/tariffs driving up medicine costs, a lot of people will suffer.
  - Zero Hedge, 21 April 2025

• $300,000,000 - Opioid drug traffickers Walgreens to pay $300 million to settle allegations in the USA that it illegally filled millions of invalid prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances. Unlike Colombian and Mexican drug traffickers, none of the white executives will go to jail.
  - CNBC.com, 21 April 2025

• 'Peak Booze': Global alcohol consumption has entered what appears to be a permanent decline, with total volume peaking at 25.4 billion liters in 2016 and falling approximately 13% since then
  - Bloomberg, 20 April 2025

• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is removing pharmaceutical company representatives from advisory committees in a bid to limit industry influence
  - Zero Hedge, 20 April 2025

• $18,000,000 - Oregon business owner accused of laundering $18 million in 'dirty money' for drug traffickers in México and Honduras
  - KOIN News, 18 April 2025

• Trump's budget reductions at the FDA is slowing down drug development. The FDA is missing deadlines and not responding to biotech companies, forcing some to push back clinical trials.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 18 April 2025

• Trump has signed an executive order on April 15 that directs a wide range of actions to lower the cost of prescription medications, including through the importation of prescription drugs from Canada by the states.
  - Zero Hedge, 17 April 2025

• Shares of Eli Lilly jump 14% after it announces that its daily obesity pill met the company's goals in the first of several closely watched late-stage trials. The pill helped Type 2 diabetes patients lower their blood sugar and body weight and showed safety on par with popular injections on the market.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 17 April 2025

• Salmon migration affected by drug pollution in water from a popular antianxiety medication, clobazam
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 16 April 2025

• Albertsons saw its top-line figure increase in the latest quarter as its pharmacy business powered identical sales growth
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 16 April 2025

• Johnson & Johnson plan $400 million in extra tax/tariff costs even before Trump's drug taxes/tariffs begin. The price of pharmaceuticals will likely go up soon, and generics are poised to be hit the hardest.
  - GizModo, 15 April 2025

• The CIA prepares to unleash a "finely tuned machine" to destroy drug cartels in Mexico. The CIA is establishing the Americas Counternarcotics Mission Center, combining its counternarcotics and Western Hemisphere teams to enable faster, more effective collaboration. [The historical irony is lost on this reporter.]
  - Zero Hedge, 15 April 2025

• Trump's threats to raise taxes/tariffs on imports of medicines poses political risks for Republicans. Taxes on the daily medicines of people in the USA could raise costs, spur rationing and lead to shortages of critical drugs. A big problem for many of the poor people who voted for Trump.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 15 April 2025

• More than three million children around the world are thought to have died in 2022 as a result of infections that are resistant to antibiotics. One huge problem is the overuse of antibiotics in health care, including the idiocy of treating viral infections with antibiotic (anti-BACTERIA) drugs.
  - BBC, 12 April 2025

• The economy of Denmark was reshaped by Novo Nordisk and obesity drugs. That identity now is under attack on multiple fronts, from science to geopolitics.
  - Barron's, 12 April 2025

• Millions of Americans rely on the anti-coagulant drug, heparin. The vast majority is manufactured in Zhōngguó. Trump's taxes/taxes on pharmaceuticals will make the drug much more expensive - some Americans could end up dying.
  - Bezos' Washington Post, 11 April 2025

• Trump's idea to use military drones to attack drug cartels in México could make cartel violence worse. The only problem with such attacks? It is a risky, counterproductive and utterly boneheaded idea. Some drug cartel leaders will be killed, but they will be replaced - survival of the fitest, i.e., the most dangerous.
  - Comcast's MSNBC, 10 April 2025

• Trump threatens to end the tax/tariff exemption on imported drugs that benefits the pharmaceutical industry. In 1995, a World Trade Organization agreement resulted in few or no taxes/tariffs on finished drugs, to keep medicines affordable. Bharat supplies nearly half of all US generics, or cheaper versions of popular drugs, saving the USA billions in healthcare costs. Europe exports over $100 billion of drugs to the USA.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 09 April 2025

• Shares of pharmaceutical stocks fall as Trump doubles down on his tax/tariff threats. Trump has said tariffs will incentivize drugmakers to move manufacturing operations to the U.S., but analysts and experts argue that it will be difficult and costly for them to do so and could disrupt the pharmaceutical supply chain at the expense of patients.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 09 April 2025

• The Trump allows the FDA to destroy the division that trains staff and health-care professionals on key practices like opioid safety and avoiding drug errors that protect the public
  - Comcast's CNBC, 08 April 2025

• Walgreens reported fiscal second-quarter earnings and revenue that topped expectations, as the retail drugstore giant benefits from cost cuts and prepares to go private. Walgreens reported fiscal second-quarter earnings and revenue that topped expectations, as the retail drugstore giant benefits from cost cuts and prepares to go private. The results include a $4.2 billion charge related to a loss in value of its U.S. retail pharmacy and investment in primary care clinic chain VillageMD.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 08 April 2025

• Digital despair: how addictive social media worsens teen anxiety and overmedication. More teens are experiencing anxiety and depression, taking medication, and struggling with the fallout of drugs -- problems that can carry into adulthood. [KM: but the rich AI companies get richer].
  - Zero Hedge, 07 April 2025

• The CIA is reviewing its authorities to use lethal force against drug cartels in Mexico
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 07 April 2025

• Trump's Secretary of Health, RFK Junior, who spent years promoting debunked and unscientific fantasies and sowing doubts about the safety of vaccines, on Sunday promoted the measles shot. His promise comes amid a resurgence of measles cases and reports that a second child with measles died from the virus.
  - Axel Springer's Politico, 6 April 2025

• Trump's next tariffs target could be foreign-made medicines. Trump wants to bring pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the United States. Experts warn that tariffs could result in shortages and higher prices for generic drugs.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 05 April 2025

• The Trump administration rejects expanding Medicare and Medicaid coverage of obesity drugs
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 05 April 2025

• The Trump administration rejects expanding Medicare and Medicaid coverage of obesity drugs
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 05 April 2025

• Trump is destroying the infrastructure of the National Institutes for Health. Trump will also end-up destroying drug discovery needed for non-rich public health. NIH-funded research was behind every single U.S. drug approval from 2010 through 2016.
  - Barron's, 05 April 2025

• Pharmacy chain Rite Aid is weighing a possible second bankruptcy after its recent financial restructuring failed to put the drugstore chain on a sustainable path. It entered and exited bankruptcy in 2023/2024, when it filed for Chapter 11 in October 2023, after reporting $750 million in losses and $24 billion in revenue for the fiscal year ended March 2023. The pharmacy has used its bankruptcy to close hundreds of stores, sell its pharmacy benefit company Elixir and negotiate settlements with its lenders, drug distribution partner McKesson and other creditors.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 04 April 2025

• Trump's taxes/tariffs could destroy Big Pharma's tax shelters. Major pharmaceutical companies reap most of their profits in the USA but shift their tax burdens to low-tax havens such as Ireland.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 03 April 2025

• Shares of Johnson & Johnson fall more than 5% after a bankruptcy judge rejected its $10 billion proposal to end tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging that its baby powder and other talc products cause ovarian cancer
  - Thomson's Reuters, 01 April 2025

• To make business easier for nicotine drug traffickers, Trump has the FDA fire its top official who managed efforts to regulate the nicotine drug trafficking industry. Dozens of other employees at the FDA regulating nicotine drug traffickers were fired.
  - Associated Press, 01 April 2025

• Hong Kong plans to ban flavored smoking items next year, starting with non-menthol. Source says authorities will also propose banning smoking within three metres of entrances of sites such as schools and hospitals.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 01 April 2025

• Vaccine stocks decline after a top FDA regulator and strong supporter of vaccines, Peter Marks, resigns. Moderna plunged 12% (now down 95% from Covid highs, and Novavax is down 10%.
  - Zero Hedge, 31 March 2025

• Banks in Canada linked to laundering money for criminal groups in Canada based in Zhōngguó - such banks risk sanctions by the US Treasury Department after drug cartels were designated as terrorist groups.
  - Zero Hedge, 30 March 2025

• FBI agents stationed in Asia (Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand) paid for sex from prostitutes from at least 2009 to 2018. Prostitution is widespread but illegal in Cambodia, the Philippines, and Thailand -- countries where FBI agents engaged in misconduct, despite the FBI's ban on paying for sex and its stated focus on fighting human trafficking.
  - Zero Hedge, 29 March 2025

• The top official for vaccines at the FDA, Dr. Peter Markets, resigns in opposition to the "thou shalt not" lies and misinformation of the Christian Trump administration about vaccines. "However, it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Catholic Christian Secretary - RFK Junior, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and [thou shalt not] lies.". Lies of a Christian supported by the Christian Trump, his boss.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 29 March 2025

• The top official for vaccines at the FDA, Dr. Peter Markets, resigns in opposition to the "thou shalt not" lies and misinformation of the Christian Trump administration about vaccines. "However, it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Catholic Christian Secretary - RFK Junior, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and [thou shalt not] lies.". Lies of a Christian supported by the Christian Trump, his boss.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 29 March 2025

• $1,640,000,000 - A federal judge ordered a Johnson & Johnson's Janssen unit on Friday to pay the U.S. government $1.64 billion after a jury found it liable in a whistleblower lawsuit for illegally promoting the HIV drugs Prezista and Intelence for off-label uses.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 28 March 2025

• $400,000 - IMC Pro International, a North Carolina-based private shipping company, has agreed to pay $400,000 to settle claims it helped companies based in Zhōngguó to ship fentanyl into the country in a landmark case.
  - Murdochs's New York Post, 28 March 2025

• Most people assume vaccines are tested like other drugs -- with placebo controls. False! Instead, vaccines are actually tested against other vaccines, which obscures negative outcomes. The dramatic drop in the number of cases of people acquiring polio was not due to drugs, but calling many cases of polio by some other disease such as Guillain-Barre syndrome. As use of neurotoxic pesticides like DDT, arsenic, and lead declined, so did toxic exposures that mimicked polio symptoms. Fewer kids were bathing in poisons that caused spinal nerve damage, so naturally, paralysis decreased. Polio disappeared under a mountain of redefinitions, environmental triggers, manmade disasters, and a lot of propaganda.
  - Zero Hedge, 27 March 2025

• Trump renders impotent an important law, the Corporate Transparency Act, which targeted drug cartels and other criminals who use shell companies. Why help drug traffickers? Especially when Trump is trying to destroy Canada because of small amounts of fentanyl that pass through Canada to the USA. "Trump is working to weaken legislation passed by Congress that helps law enforcement combat the use of shell companies for financing illicit activities like drug trafficking."
  - CBC News, 27 March 2025

• $2,800,000+ - Walgreens to pay over $2.8 million in settlement agreements in violation of federal, Georgia and Massachusetts False Claim Acts. The settlement alleges Walgreen inflated prices for generic medications to Georgia and Massachusetts Medicaid programs.
  - WRBL News, 27 March 2025

• Trump has ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to abruptly cancel more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues - all vital services
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 27 March 2025

• Nicotine drug trafficker Imperial Brands to remained focused on tobacco core markets to drive the growth of its nicotine trafficking
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 27 March 2025

• RFK Junior, Health and Human Services Secretary, is pushing a plan to ban pharmaceutical advertisements from television. Television drug ads are not designed to inform - they are design to manipulate. Make viewers want a drug before they even talk to their doctor. America has normalized a pill-for-everything culture, supercharged by the fact that doctors are often nudged by patients demanding whatever drug they saw advertised last night during a commercial break. This revenue isn't just padding Big Pharma's pockets - it is quietly buying influence in the media. Nearly 31% of ad minutes on major nightly news broadcasts in 2024 came from pharmaceutical brands. That means a huge portion of media budgets depend on the very companies they should be holding accountable. And surprise, surprise: when Big Pharma misleads the public, many news outlets are either silent or hesitant to report critically. The financial conflict of interest is baked in.
  - Zero Hedge, 26 March 2025

• Shares of 23andMe crashed in premarket trading on Monday after the genetic testing unicorn startup filed for bankruptcy in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, following a slide in demand for its ancestry kits and a data breach.
  - Zero Hedge, 24 March 2025

• Trump promises that new taxes/tariffs on imports of drugs and cars will happen in the "near future", sowing more trade confusion. Trump later added the lumber and semiconductor industries to his list. All taxes/tariffs will be imposed on April 2, but "not all tariffs are included that day". Thus the confusion.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 24 March 2025

• Creatine, a popular health supplement to build muscle mass, might be worthless. "We have shown that taking 5 grams of creatine supplement per day does not make any difference to the amount of lean muscle mass people put on while resistance training."
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 24 March 2025

• Omega-3s oil are great for your health - but supplements may not be. Fish oil can reduce inflammation and lower cardiovascular disease risk. Yet a growing body of research suggests that supplements may not offer those same benefits.
  - National Geographic, 21 March 2025

• Microdosing with LSD for ADHD is not better than a placebo, according to clinical trials
  - Medical Xpress, 21 March 2025

• Why the USA has not passed a law to treat addiction better. Methadone can help addicts. But many Christian politicians hate the (Christian) charitable idea of making addiction treatments more readily available. The only drug they like (other than sugar, alcohol, nicotine, opioids protected by lawyers, gambling, cellphone apps, etc.) is the "opiate of the masses".
  - Economist, 20 March 2025

• The administration of Trump quietly lifts a ban on imports of sugar imposed on a sugar company in the Dominican Republic - Central Romana, a ban put in placed because of allegations of forced/slave labor at the company. The owners of the company, the Fanjul family, has given millions to the Republican party to help get the racist Trump re-elected. Nice return for its donations. Labor right groups expressed frustration at the change, saying that Central Romana, whose sugar had been sold in the United States under the Domino brand, had not significantly improved its labor practices. A government official in the USA, who declined to be named because the person was not authorized to speak publicly, said that the decision to rescind the rule and allow the company to begin exporting had not followed established processes.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 20 March 2025

• Trump's tax/tariff trade war is no cure for the fentanyl crisis in the USA. The public health disaster due to fentanyl results from the legal-but-should-be-criminal opioid painkiller culture of the USA, caused by large opioid drug companies profiting in the billions of dollars and only paying fines. Meanwhile, Trump's taxes/tariffs (which won't solve the fentanyl crisis) are sparking serious concerns about a recession.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 19 March 2025

• Trump says that he is cracking down on fentanyl smugglers at the borde , but customs officers are more likely to bust people sneaking in eggs. Customs officers have seized 3,768 poultry-related products, compared to 352 busts of fentanyl.
  - The Daily Beast, 17 March 2025

• Employers get big socialist drug discounts through program for hospitals that serve poor patients. Companies sell benefit plans to employers that lower prescription drug costs for workers by tapping a federal hospital program.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 17 March 2025

• The stock of Philip Morris is doing well. The reason: smokeless nicotine drug delivery devices such as IQOS and Zyn.
  - Barron's, 15 March 2025

• Over 1 in 3 Americans are hurt by "second-hand drinking", more injuries than from "second-hand" exposure to marijuana and cocaine. These harms range from minor disputes to life-altering events such as domestic violence or fatal car accidents.
  - ZME Science, 13 March 2025

• A startup in California is selling injectable CBD. The FDA is not happy. Pico IV sells a purified version of CBD, a non-intoxicating compound produced by cannabis, that is designed to be injected into the bloodstream through an intravenous infusion. he FDA, however, warned Pico IV in a Monday letter that it is breaking the law by marketing CBD as a "dietary supplement", even though it is explicitly designed to not be ingested and instead be injected.
  - SF Gate, 13 March 2025

• Don't underestimate the risks of addictive benzodiazepines ('downers' such as lorazepam and diazepam/Valium and alprazolam/Xanax) for treating anxiety, panic attacks and sleep disorders. They can be highly addictive, and sometimes have fatal withdrawal symptoms.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 13 March 2025

• Don't underestimate the risks of addictive benzodiazepines ('downers' such as lorazepam and diazepam/Valium and alprazolam/Xanax) for treating anxiety, panic attacks and sleep disorders. They can be highly addictive, and sometimes have fatal withdrawal symptoms.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, 13 March 2025

• Drugmakers Mallinckrodt and Endo in talks to merge, creating a company worth $7 billion
  - Thomson's Reuters, 12 March 2025

• Former President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by the Philippine government on Tuesday after it said it received an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant accusing him of crimes against humanity. Duterte has been investigated by the ICC over his brutal anti-drugs crackdown during his time in office that killed more than 6,000 people based on police data, though independent monitors believe the number of extrajudicial killings could be much higher.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 11 March 2025

• A class of drugs commonly used to treat movement disorders like Parkinson's disease and restless leg syndrome is pushing people into risky sexual behavior. Patients taking dopamine agonists say the drugs have triggered uncontrollable impulses, including flashing, sex addiction and even pedophilia -- leaving them struggling with feelings of shame and confusion.
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 11 March 2025

• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on March 9 that Trump is likely to maintain his tariff pressure on Mexico, Canada, and Zhōngguó regarding their role in fentanyl trafficking into the UsA. Which will never happen until the USA addresses its mental health crisis that results in a huge demand for drugs such as fentanyl in the USA.
  - Zero Hedge, 10 March 2025

• CVS's new mini stores go all in on medicine and skip everything else. The national drugstore chain is preparing to open a dozen stores offering full-service pharmacies but very limited retail.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 10 March 2025

• Trump fires the very experienced director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces. Instead of combatting drug trafficking, the task force will now focus on combating illegal immigration, a lesser problem.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 09 March 2025

• Trump fires the very experienced director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces. Instead of combatting drug trafficking, the task force will now focus on combating illegal immigration, a lesser problem.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 09 March 2025

• $22,700,000,000 - Units of Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco will pay $22.7 billion to settle all smoking-related lawsuits in Canada
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 08 March 2025

• After everyone in industrial America complains about his taxes/tariffs, Trump exempts these taxes/tariffs on USMCA-complaint goods (all the important ones) until April 2nd. "Hopefully México and Canada will have done a good enough job on fentanyl that this part of the conversation will be off the table.", even though Canada is barely used as a route to smuggle fentanyl into the USA.
  - Zero Hedge, 06 March 2025

• After everyone in industrial America complains about his taxes/tariffs, Trump exempts these taxes/tariffs on USMCA-complaint goods (all the important ones) until April 2nd. "Hopefully México and Canada will have done a good enough job on fentanyl that this part of the conversation will be off the table.", even though Canada is barely used as a route to smuggle fentanyl into the USA.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 06 March 2025

• After everyone in industrial America complains about his taxes/tariffs, Trump exempts these taxes/tariffs on USMCA-complaint goods (all the important ones) until April 2nd. "Hopefully México and Canada will have done a good enough job on fentanyl that this part of the conversation will be off the table.", even though Canada is barely used as a route to smuggle fentanyl into the USA.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 06 March 2025

• McDonald's is now using non-paid AI to improve order accuracy and help restaurants detect equipment issues before they fail
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 05 March 2025

• Excessive use of ketamine alters the brain - ketamine can make anyone feel like they rule the world
  - The Atlantic, 05 March 2025

• Novo Nordisk slashes the prices of the Wegovy weight-loss drug, by offering a direct-to-patient program for uninsured and underinsured individuals to be able to pay cash for its weight loss product Wegovy at a significantly reduced cost
  - Nextstar Media's The Hill, 05 March 2025

• Zhōngguó defends fentanyl controls, dismisses allegations of the USA that Zhōngguó supports drug trafficking as "lies".
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 04 March 2025

• At the Supreme Court of the USA, México to offer a culprit for the violence of drug cartels that Trump whines about: gun makers in the Christian USA. Lawyers for México argue that U.S. manufacturers and gun dealers are complicit in what they call an "iron river" of firearms pouring into the country and arming cartels. They point to strict controls on gun purchases in Mexico, where civilians are not allowed to purchase the types of rapid-fire, powerful military-style weapons favored by the cartels, as evidence that as many as half a million firearms are smuggled from the United States into México each year.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 04 March 2025

• Trump's threats and Mexico's crackdown hit the drug cartels in Mexico. Several cartel operatives said that for the first time in years, they genuinely feared arrest or death at the hands of the authorities.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 03 March 2025

• Signs of a riskier future for children in the outbreak of measles in Texas. Vaccine hesitancy among stupid and/or Christian parents has been rising for years in the United States. Doctors and parents in one rural county are confronting the consequences.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 03 March 2025

• México transfers dozens of drug cartel operatives to the custody of the USA. The handover of so many significant cartel figures is one of the most important efforts by México in the modern history of the drug war. The USA is not transferring any members of the Sackler drug cartel to the custody of Mexico.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 28 February 2025

• The tobacco epidemic is still one of the world's deadliest threats. There remain about 1.3 billion tobacco users globally, prompted by a multibillion-dollar industry that peddles addictive and deadly products and profits from the suffering of those who use them. The economic cost of smoking, in terms of health expenditures and productivity losses, is estimated at 1.8 percent of the annual gross domestic product of the world. Roughly 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are discarded every year into our environment -- the second highest form of plastic pollution in our world. Valuable agricultural land and water are wasted on growing tobacco instead of food. Production and consumption of tobacco also contribute to global heating, releasing 80 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air every year.
  - Al Jazeera, 27 February 2025

• 18 horrifying statistics about medical bills, medical debt, and the healthcare industry . Our "healthcare industry" has turned large numbers of doctors, lawyers, health insurance company executives and pharmaceutical company executives into multi-millionaires.
  - Zero Hedge, 26 February 2025

• Authorities in Thailand warn of deadly drug-laced vapes - "zombie cigarettes". The e-cigarettes contain the narcotic etomidate, an anaesthetic agent that is potentially fatal.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 26 February 2025

• Apple vows to build AI data centers in Houston, and spend $500 billion in the USA, to make its products and apps more addictive
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 25 February 2025

• Why the Sinaloa drug cartel may never be the same again. Residents of Culiacán dodge bullets and fear the possible arrival of rival gangs while pressure by the USA to stamp out the Mexican fentanyl trade mounts.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 25 February 2025

• A recent study suggests that bingeing short-form videos (such as at TikTok) is bad for your brain. Repeated viewing can cause a "heightened sensitivity to the rewards and stimuli associated with short video content" - i.e., become more addicted.
  - BBC, 23 February 2025

• Trump's idiotic border czar, Tom Homan, voews that "The USA is going to wipe drug cartels off the face of the earth". This is ignorance: prohibition has never worked in the highly addicted USA; the first drug cartels to destroy are the major USA companies that trafficked opioids, which created the damand for fentanyl; and ignores the racist drug policies of the USA that makes cocaine illegal, but more addictive/deadly nicotine legal. Attacks on the cartel's money flows will fail because they are using the cryptocurrencies for which Trump wants less control.
  - Zero Hedge, 23 February 2025

• The USA now considers that these four cartels and gangs are terrorist groups: Tren de Aragua (from Venezuela), MS-13 (from Salvador, but trained in American prisons before being dumped back in El Salvador), Cartel de Sinoloa (Mexico) and Cartel del Gulfo (Mexico) - the latter two exploiting the hypocrisy of USA drug laws, and exploiting the opioid crisis caused by large USA corporations that were mildly punished
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 22 February 2025

• Yale researchers released a study today that posits millions of Americans thought to have Long COVID may have been misdiagnosed and actually have post-vaccination syndrome caused by exposure to the spike protein in COVID vaccines
  - Zero Hedge, 21 February 2025

• President Sheinbaum of México warns that the USA cannot 'invade' México in its fight against drug cartels
  - Nextstar Media's The Hill, 19 February 2025

• The argument against designating cartels as terrorists. It risks diluting the term into meaninglessness while proving little or no benefit to law enforcement.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 19 February 2025

• The USA designates drug cartels in México as "foreign terrorists", signaling financial warfare looms. Will this designation be applied to Purdue Pharma, the Sacklers, and all of the other companies that terrorized the USA with the opioid epidemic?
  - Zero Hedge, 19 February 2025

• The USA designates drug cartels in México as "foreign terrorists", signaling financial warfare looms. Will this designation be applied to Purdue Pharma, the Sacklers, and all of the other companies that terrorized the USA with the opioid epidemic?
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 19 February 2025

• How dirty money from fentanyl sales is flowing through Zhōngguó. Money brokers in Zhōngguó are teaming up with drug cartels in Mexico, greasing the wheels of the fentanyl trade.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 19 February 2025

• The CIA is reportedly flying MQ-9 spy drones over México as fight nears with drug cartels
  - Zero Hedge, 18 February 2025

• The CIA is reportedly flying MQ-9 spy drones over México as fight nears with drug cartels
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 18 February 2025

• Trump warns that taxes/tariffs on 25% imports of automobiles, medicines and semiconductors will be imposed starting in April.
  - Zero Hedge, 18 February 2025

• Trump warns that taxes/tariffs of 25% on imports of automobiles, medicines and semiconductors will be imposed starting in April.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 18 February 2025

• High-cost sickle cell gene therapies push insurers and Medicaid programs to find new payment models so that the financial burden of the treatments is spread beyond just one state or one company.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 18 February 2025

• The residue from vaping in cars (it sticks to windows) can cause cancer in children. Scientists found children and teenagers were highly susceptible to ingestion, absorption and inhalation of e-cigarette vapor simply by being within close proximity of the residue left behind by vaping.
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 17 February 2025

• Criminals in Brazil are targeting pharmacies and stealing weight-loss medication in a country with body image insecurities and where many cannot afford the drugs
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 16 February 2025

• Police in Italy arrest 130 in biggest crackdown in decades against the Mafia in Sicily
  - Zero Hedge, 15 February 2025

• The FDA misled the judiciary about documents related to Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine. It became evident that the FDA had withheld records directly tied to its emergency use authorization of Pfizer's vaccine, estimated to be over one million pages. These documents, which the FDA had full knowledge of, were excluded from earlier disclosures, effectively misleading the judiciary and undermining public trust.
  - Zero Hedge, 13 February 2025

• Federal prosecutors have charged a prominent Miami defense attorney with orchestrating a bribery conspiracy involving two former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration supervisors who leaked confidential information about drug investigations.
  - Associated Press, 13 February 2025

• The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, has accused the Christian USA of harboring drug cartels and American citizens of working with organized crime groups in Mexico, in a riposte to Trump's allegation of an "intolerable alliance" between drug traffickers and the government of Mexico. American citizens have become increasingly involved in smuggling drugs across the border. The arrests of US citizens for offenses related to organized crime had increased by more than 450% during the tenure of her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
  - The Guardian, 13 February 2025

• How Venezuela helps fuel violence in Colombia. After finding refuge and building power in Venezuela, ELN, a decades-old rebel group has waged the worst violence in Colombia in a generation, setting off troubling regional tensions.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 13 February 2025

• Investors and Big Pharma in the USA rush to find new medicines in Zhōngguó. Almost 30% of Big Pharma deals with at least $50 million up front came from Zhōngguó last year, up from 20% the year before and 0% only five years before.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 13 February 2025

• The spending by Colorado on costly weight-loss drugs for state workers quadrupled from 2023 to 2024, with costs continuing to double every six months. The state wants to end the coverage, while the state employee's union doesn't want the coverage ended. The Colorado case underscores the broader struggle of states -- many of which are facing budget shortfalls this year -- that cover expensive eight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy for state workers. This is a benefit that costs over $1000/month per state employee seeking coverage.
  - Axel Springer's Politico, 3 February 2025

• Shares of CVS rise 10% after a big earnings beat, even as high medical costs drag down insurance unit. The company also issued a full-year 2025 adjusted profit outlook of $5.75 to $6.00 per share, which was in line with Wall Street's predictions.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 12 February 2025

• Elon Musk does not understand industrial economics. He wants to greatly reduce the budget of the NIH, accusing it of waste. But every dollar in N.I.H. grants spurs $2.09 in economic activity, and every $100 million in investment leads to 78 patents and $598 million in further research, according to NIH calculations. Someone like Musk addicated to socialist subsidies would not understand this.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 11 February 2025

• The FDA has approved suzetrigine, a new non-opioid painkiller that promises to avoid addiction risk. But some experts say that it can't replace opioids. A report noted several warnings: we do not know how many patients in the phase 3 trial resorted to rescue medications (probably opioids); we do not yet have data on how suzetrigine stacks up against non-steroidal inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), the other main alternative to opioids but one that often comes with serious side effects or intolerability; and we do not have data comparing suzetrigine with real-world opioid doses, which are often much higher than those used in the trial.
  - Salon, 10 February 2025

• More questionable economics: Trump's new taxes/tariffs on imports from Zhōngguó could drive up the cost, or cause shortages, of popular generic medicines such as antibiotics or cancer treatment drugs for consumers in the USA, since most of the most common medicines in the USA are made in ... Zhōngguó
  - The Independent, 10 February 2025

• Trump bullied México into sending 10,000 troops to the border to stifle the flow of fentanyl. But analysts and former diplomats who brokered the first deployment of 28,000 troops in 2019 are doubtful that additional soldiers will have much effect thwarting the movement of migrants or drugs, particularly fentanyl. Instead, they say, the deployment agreed to by President Claudia Sheinbaum of México may be catering to the narcisticistic Trump's affinity for meaningless deal-making rather than being part of a well-thought-out military campaign.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 08 February 2025

• Why is it so difficult to stop the flow of fentanyl into the USA
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 07 February 2025

• Trump whines about fentanyl entering the USA from Mexico. Well, México rightly complains about the flow of guns from the USA into Mexico. During the tariff showdown, the U.S. pledged to stem the smuggling of weapons into Mexico. But this will be no easy task, especially as the Christian USA loves the flow of guns everywhere.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 07 February 2025

• Revenue at nicotine drug trafficker Philip Morris tops estimate as demand for its addictive Zyn nicotine pounches continued to increase profits. Of course, highly addictive drugs are also profitable. And legal, if you are a white executive.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 07 February 2025

• Trump administration Border Czar Tom Homan told ABC News in an exclusive interview that he anticipates a potential kinetic engagement between the US military and drug cartels, though he did not specify a location. His remarks come as thousands of US troops have been deployed to the southern border. Additionally, earlier this week, a US Air Force surveillance aircraft conducted a signals intelligence (SIGINT) operation over cartel-controlled areas in Baja California.
  - Zero Hedge, 06 February 2025

• Trump's idiotic and measily weak plans to fight the drug cartels of Mexico. They are not terrorists - they are illicit multinational corporations with almost bottomless resources. Simply sending more troops to the border is unlikely to do much of anything to dent their business model. They earn $10 billion a year from drug trafficking. Plenty to "invest" to stay in power.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 06 February 2025

• Trump's idiotic and measily designating drug cartels in México as terrorists. They are, in reality, more illegal versions of Purdue Pharma and all of the non-terrorist companies in the USA that made billions trafficking opioids.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 06 February 2025

• The CIA is about to get a Trump makeover. The agency offered buyouts to its entire workforce in what officials said is a bid to bring it in line with Trump's priorities, including targeting drug cartels.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 05 February 2025

• Shares of Merck tumbled more than 11% Tuesday morning after the drugmaker gave 2025 revenue guidance that fell short of analyst expectations and said it was pausing shipments to Zhōngguó of its top-selling vaccine Gardasil.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 05 February 2025

• Shares of Moderna (a vaccine company) decline 5.5%, after after Robert F. Kennedy Junior (a vaccine critic for hire), Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, cleared a hurdle from the Senate Finance Committee. Since the hearings began, shares of Moderna have dropped from $44 to $35, a decline of about 20%
  - Zero Hedge, 04 February 2025

• Trump's decision to impose sweeping tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and Zhōngguó, justified under emergency economic powers to combat the fentanyl crisis, is legally questionable, economically risky, and geopolitically shortsighted, writes Dewardric McNeal, who worked on a federal commission to stop illegal opioids from entering the USA. The linkage of trade policy to narcotics enforcement sets a dangerous precedent, destabilizing fragile diplomatic efforts, potentially undermining constitutional prerogatives, and threatening global supply chains critical to businesses in the USA.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 03 February 2025

• The FDA approves a new drug to treat pain without opioid effects. The drug, suzetrigine (sold as Journavax) works only on nerves outside the brain, blocking pain signals. It cannot get into the brain. Researchers say they expect it to be the first of a new generation of more powerful nonaddictive drugs to relieve pain.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 01 February 2025

• Editorial: the dumbest economic trade war in history, due to the actions of Trump . Trump will impose 25% taxes/tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and 10% taxes/tariffs on Zhōngguó, for no good reason. This economic assault on the neighbors makes no sense. It won't stop the flow of drugs into the highly addicted/depressed USA.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 01 February 2025

• Trump threatens widening trade war as first taxe/tariffs loom Saturday. Trump will impose tariffs on computer chips, pharmaceuticals, steel, aluminum, copper, oil and gas imports as soon as mid-February.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 01 February 2025

• Walgreens to suspend dividend in cash-saving push. Cash needs for the next several years, "including with respect to litigation and debt refinancing", were important considerations, the company said.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 01 February 2025

• The "Make American Healthy Again" champion RFK Junior is seen popping a pouch of highly addictive nicotine in his mouth while testifying before Congress. Donald Trump Junior is also addicted to nicotine pouches. Highly addictive drugs controlled by white people are OK. Lesser addictive drugs controlled by non-white people are not OK.
  - The Daily Beast, 31 January 2025

• The Christian Trump "thou shalt not" lies about Canada being a big player in the fentanyl trade, a lie not supported by reorts of the government of the USA. But the lying Christian Trump doesn't care if it lets him be a bully.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 31 January 2025

• Sanofi expects strong earnings growth this year, plans $5.2 billion buyback. The pharmaceutical company forecasts business earnings per share growth at a low double-digit percentage and plans to launch a $5.2 billion share buyback.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 31 January 2025

• Roche expects sales, earnings growth after better-than-expected results. The company expects sales and core earnings to keep growing this year after beating analysts' expectations for 2024, and the CEO said it remained committed to keeping its R&D spending broadly flat in 2025.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 31 January 2025

• Teenagers are overwhelmed by boredom and there is one big reason why: social media, apps meant for entertainment and engagement - scrolling through Instagram, TikTok or other social media. Some addicted teenagers dread their families' digital 'detox days' to wean teenagers off their addictions to cellphone apps.
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 30 January 2025

• The reading skills of children in the USA reach new lows (in parallel with the declining reading skills of adults). Major cause is the addiction to cellphones and social media, which don't involve much reading, [KM: while making rich AI companies richer].
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 30 January 2025

• The reading skills of children in the USA reach new lows (in parallel with the declining reading skills of adults). Major cause is the addiction to cellphones and social media, which don't involve much reading, [KM: while making rich AI companies richer].
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 30 January 2025

• Weight-loss drugs are linked to an increased risk of 19 health conditions
  - Zero Hedge, 29 January 2025

• Trump's new taxes/tariffs on semiconductors and drugs would economically hurt allies of the USA in Asia, including Taiwan, South Korea and Nihon
  - Thomson's Reuters, 28 January 2025

• When a group of prominent doctors in Zhōngguó publicly raised worries last week about the quality of domestic drugs, the government sent officials to investigate. But now data about the drugs that appeared on a government website as recently as Friday is no longer publicly available. A social media post from a doctor who scrutinized the data has been taken down.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 28 January 2025

• RFK Junior, Trump's pick for Secretary of Health, states that he can support the seizing of the patents of high-priced medicines from manufacturers and share them with other drug makers as a way to force down costs, a very liberal/Democrat type of proposal
  - Axel Springer's Politico, 7 January 2025

• The hemp industry has boomed since Congress legalized the category of cannabis in 2018. Hemp has historically been used to describe cannabis used for non-drug purposes, like food and clothing, but Congress wrote a broad definition of hemp that has allowed intoxicating drugs to be sold as hemp everywhere from gas stations to online retailers. But Colombia cannot do the same to allow sales of cocaine.
  - SF Gate, 27 January 2025

• In Zhōngguó, a rare dissent over a program to save on drug costs. Top doctors raised concerns about domestically made drugs, saying Beijing's effort to lower costs is sacrificing quality.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 27 January 2025

• $60,000,000 - Pfizer will pay $60 million to settle criminal allegations that one of its subsidiaries incentivized healthcare providers to prescribe one of its drugs, resulting in the submission of false claims to federal healthcare programs
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 27 January 2025

• Inside the $32 billion industry transforming marijuana, its consumption and beliefs about its ability to heal. Businesses in the USA are enticing customers with unproven health claims, while largely escaping rigorous oversight. Potentcy has gone up - with some products advertised as having as much as 99 percent THC - and prices have gone down. All the while, marijuana remains a completely illegal Schedule I drug.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 26 January 2025

• Over 50% of the illegal immigrants that Trump wants to expel from the USA are from Central American countries suffering huge violence because of drug trafficking caused by the USA's huge addiction to drugs, a social problem Trump does not care about.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 26 January 2025

• An estimated 210 million people suffer from social media addiction, which can result in mood swings, disrupted sleep, neglected responsibilities, desire for validation and a lack of hobbies. Far less people are addicted to cocaine while suffering the same problems.
  - Zero Hedge, 25 January 2025

• Trump, who called for the death penalty for drug dealers, pardons the most influential drug dealer in human history, Ross Ulbricht. Ulbricht singlehandedly creating an entire new model that directly connected drug buyers with drug sellers -- and taking a handsome cut in the process. In terms of long term impact, Ubricht probably had more of an impact on the global drug trade than Pablo Escobar.
  - Futurism, 25 January 2025

• Trump says that the USA doesn't need to import cars from Canada, which is why he is so happy to impose a tax of 25% on autos from Canada. But a study from TD Economics argues this would hurt Americans financially . "High integration" of the auto sector, with car parts and finished goods crossing both the Canadian and Mexican borders, means tariffs would exact a high cost and the industry would suffer the "deepest negative impacts" from the taxes. TD also noted that Canada has the second-smallest trade deficit with the US, behind only France, highlighting the flow of products between the countries. Canada is not the cause of American's huge drug addiction.
  - Apollo Global's Yahoo Finance, 5 January 2025

• Canada is becoming a fentanyl exporter, and a target for Trump. The drug is increasingly manufactured in and trafficked from Canada, though the numbers remain small compared with Mexico.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 25 January 2025

• Shares of Novo Nordisk rise as much as 14% after their new generation drug shows results of over 20% weight loss
  - Zero Hedge, 24 January 2025

• $7,400,000,000 - Opioid drug trafficker Purdue Pharma, and the criminally heinous opioid drug traffickig family - the Sacklers, will pay $7.4 billlion to settle claims regarding all of the evil caused by their opioid drug trafficking. Like any other good criminal, they stashed their drug trafficking profits overseas. Court filings allege the Sackler family was long aware of the legal risks, and withdrew some $11bn from the company in the decade before its bankruptcy. They stashed much of the money overseas, while using some of it to pay company taxes, making recovery difficult. The entire family are more heinous, and caused more deaths, than Pablo Escobar. If the world needed Escobar assassinated, why not the Sackler family? It is because they are white?
  - BBC, 23 January 2025

• Opioid drug trafficker Purdue Pharma, and the criminally heinous opioid drug traffickig family - the Sacklers, will pay $7.4 billlion to settle claims regarding all of the evil caused by their opioid drug trafficking. Like any other good criminal, they stashed their drug trafficking profits overseas. Court filings allege the Sackler family was long aware of the legal risks, and withdrew some $11bn from the company in the decade before its bankruptcy. They stashed much of the money overseas, while using some of it to pay company taxes, making recovery difficult. The entire family are more heinous, and caused more deaths, than Pablo Escobar. If the world needed Escobar assassinated, why not the Sackler family? It is because they are white?
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 23 January 2025

• How labeling drug cartels as "terrorists" could hurt the economy of the USA. Isolating companies in USA from drug cartel activities could be almost impossible given that the criminal groups operate in sectors like agriculture and tourism, leaving some American businesses vulnerable to sanctions
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 23 January 2025

• Is social media designed to as addictive as very addictive cigarettes, or as addictive as less addictive junk food, especially sugary junk food?
  - The New Yorker, 22 January 2025

• Trump wants to stop buying oil from Venezuela. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Venezuela is "governed by a narco-trafficking organization".
  - Zero Hedge, 22 January 2025

• The 'good' Christian Trump pardons Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for creating a site in a shady corner of the internet to sell heroin, cocaine and other illicit substances. Meanwhile, Trump has no mercy for transgender people and immigrants.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 22 January 2025

• A law that coaxed companies to lower the price of insulin drugs came with a little-known consequence: smaller discounts for low-income health clinics.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 21 January 2025

• The alcohol industry is financially addicted to the most heavily-addicted drinkers of alcohol
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 21 January 2025

• Big Pharma, beaten down under Biden, hopes for better profits under Trump. With morale at a low point, biotech and pharma CEOs are cautiously optimistic about the incoming Trump administration.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 21 January 2025

• A pledge by RFK Junior to ban high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and seed oils could severely economically damage farmers, especially in Trump-supporting Ohio. Corn farming in this area is a major industry, and a significant portion of the crop is used to produce HFCS, an addictive sweetener found in a wide range of processed foods.
  - Benzinga, 20 January 2025

• The Justice Department sues Walgreens, alleges it filled and trafficked millions of illegal prescriptions for opioids and other controlled drugs. According to the complaint, the violations began around August 2012 and continued through the present, with millions of prescriptions allegedly written and trafficked for opioids and other controlled substances that lacked a valid medical purpose. Walgreens argues that its pharmacists obeyed all of the rules that apply to drug trafficking.
  - Zero Hedge, 20 January 2025

• Sugar farmers/traffickers in Thailand, squeezed by climate change and health concerns, face bitter outlook. Sugar farmers/traffickers say they feel besieged as global prices collapse, Zhōngguó imposes a ban on sugary syrup imports, and the government's fight aginst air pollution.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 19 January 2025

• Don't call RFK Junior a vaccine skeptic. He is a Christian cynic. I [a pediatrician] am an actual vaccine skeptic. In fact, everyone who serves with me on the Food and Drug Administration's vaccine advisory committee is a vaccine skeptic. Pharmaceutical companies must prove to us that a vaccine is safe, that it is effective. Then and only then will we recommend that it be authorized or licensed for use by Americans. Mr. Kennedy, on the other hand, is a vaccine cynic, failing to accept studies that refute his beliefs. He claims that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism, despite more than a dozen studies performed in seven countries on three continents involving thousands of children showing that it doesn't.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 19 January 2025

• Ozempic among the next drugs subject to price negotiations with Medicare. The list of drugs account for $41 billion in annual Medicare spending.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 17 January 2025

• President Biden commutes sentences for nearly 2,500 non-violent drug offenders convicted on crack cocaine-related charges
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 17 January 2025

• President Biden commutes sentences for nearly 2,500 non-violent drug offenders convicted on crack cocaine-related charges
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 17 January 2025

• President Biden commutes sentences for nearly 2,500 non-violent drug offenders convicted on crack cocaine-related charges
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 17 January 2025

• The FDA allows flavored Zyn nicotine pouches to be continued to be legally trafficked with the highly addictive nicotine. The FDA determined that the benefit of Zyn's nicotine trafficking as a safer alternative for addicted adult cigarette smokers outweighs its risk of creating news addictions to nicotine in young people.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 17 January 2025

• How a company, Apexus, makes millions of dollars off a hospital program (340B Drug Pricing Program) meant to help the poor. But Apexus is allowed to collect a fee for almost every drug sold, which the company has exploited to encourage hospitals and clinics to buy as many prescriptions as possible. Patients rarely know they are part of this system. Apexus is a subsidiary of Vizient, a private business owned by hospitals. One problem, as usual, are the poorly written laws that govern the program.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 16 January 2025

• The rates of childhood vaccinations were falling even before the rise of RFK Junior. The declines began with the pandemic, well before routine vaccines became part of the national political conversation.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 16 January 2025

• A top doctor has revealed an alarming new symptom he has seen emerge among Ozempic patients. Dr. Daniel Rosen, who is a surgeon and obesity medicine specialist based out of New York, says a 'legitimate number' of his patients have developed a condition called allodynia, or a hypersensitivity to pain.
  - The Daily Mail, 15 January 2025

• The FDA proposes sweeping limits on levels of highly addictive nicotine in cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco - major nicotine drug delivery devices sold by drug trafficking nicotine companies
  - Nextstar Media's The Hill, 15 January 2025

• The FDA proposes sweeping limits on levels of highly addictive nicotine in cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco - major nicotine drug delivery devices sold by drug trafficking nicotine companies
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 15 January 2025

• The 'good' Catholic Christian RFK Junior admits that he "thou shalt not" lied, when he said he was never paid by his non-profit that unscientifically fights against the use of vaccines. Instead of volunteering, as he "thou shalt not" lied about in the past, he earned over $1 million.
  - The Daily Beast, 15 January 2025

• The FDA proposes sweeping limits on levels of highly addictive nicotine in cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco - major nicotine drug delivery devices sold by drug trafficking nicotine companies
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 15 January 2025

• The FDA proposes new food labels to detail the levels of sugar, fat and salt in foods and beverages
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 15 January 2025

• The FDA proposes new food labels to detail the levels of sugar, fat and salt in foods and beverages
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 15 January 2025

• $7,300,000,000 - The largest pharmacy-benefit managers hiked the prices of dozens of drugs dispensed through their own pharmacies, according to a new report by the Federal Trade Commission released on Tuesday. The excessive markups helped the PBMs reap $7.3 billion from 2017 to 2022.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 15 January 2025

• The top three insureres in the USA reaped/stole $7.3 billion through the markups charged by the drug middlemen subsidiaries. Regulators published their most detailed findings yet on how some of the largest companies in the USA profited from "excess" prescription price hinks of 1000% or more. The three companies - CVS Health's Caremark, Cigna's Excess Scripts and UnitedHealth Group's Optum - generated roughly $7.3 billion through price hikes over about five years starting in 2017.
  - NBC News, 14 January 2025

• To help racist nicotine drug traffickers, Trump has ordered the FDA to withdraw a plan to ban menthol cigarettes in the USA. Menthol cigarettes have a worse impact on the health of communities of Black Americans. Scientists and activists have correctly argued that menthol cigarettes are highly addictive, and play a role in addicting young people to smoking. But a ban means less billions of dollars of profits for the white people that control the cigarette companies.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 14 January 2025

• Shares of Eli Lilly plummeted almost 8% in the first 30 minutes of trading, the worst decline in 4 years, on declining demand for its obesity and diabetes drugs.
  - Zero Hedge, 14 January 2025

• Shares of Eli Lilly plummeted almost 8% in the first 30 minutes of trading, the worst decline in 4 years, on declining demand for its obesity and diabetes drugs.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 14 January 2025

• Shares of Moderna plunge 20% after the company lowers its 2025 sales forecast by $1 billion. The announcement comes as Moderna charts a path forward after the rapid decline in demand for its Covid vaccine.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 13 January 2025

• I am the governor of Hawaii. I have seen what irrational skepticism of vaccine can do to hurt people and communities.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 11 January 2025

• Abortion pills prescribed by pharmacists are newest effort in abortion fight. The state of Washington's program is the first, but other states are expected to try allowing pharmacists to prescribe the pills to counter growing efforts to curtail abortion access.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 08 January 2025

• Variant Bio, a small biotech company based in Seattle, is using genetic information from indigenous people to develop drugs for obesity and diabetes. The company will share revenues from sales of these drugs to the indigenous people who donated their genes.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 07 January 2025

• A sedentary lifestyle, much enabled by addictive social media and cellphone apps, is linked to a higher risk of 19 health conditions
  - Zero Hedge, 06 January 2025

• Federal agents of the Department of Homeland Security are charged with selling illegal drugs seized as evidence
  - Zero Hedge, 03 January 2025

• Shares of alcohol stocks drop around 3% after the Surgeon General of the USA calls for cancer warnings on drink labels
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 03 January 2025

• The Surgeon General of the USA, Dr. Vivek Murthy, on Friday issued a Surgeon General's Advisory on Alcohol and Cancer Risk. "This advisory highlights alcohol use as a leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, contributing to nearly 100,000 cancer cases and about 20,000 cancer deaths each year.", the advisory reads. "The more alcohol consumed, the greater the risk of cancer. For certain cancers, like breast, mouth, and throat cancers, evidence shows that this risk may start to increase around one or fewer drinks per day."
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 03 January 2025

• The Surgeon General of the USA, Dr. Vivek Murthy, on Friday issued a Surgeon General's Advisory on Alcohol and Cancer Risk. "This advisory highlights alcohol use as a leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, contributing to nearly 100,000 cancer cases and about 20,000 cancer deaths each year.", the advisory reads. "The more alcohol consumed, the greater the risk of cancer. For certain cancers, like breast, mouth, and throat cancers, evidence shows that this risk may start to increase around one or fewer drinks per day."
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 03 January 2025

• The Surgeon General of the USA, Dr. Vivek Murthy, on Friday issued a Surgeon General's Advisory on Alcohol and Cancer Risk. "This advisory highlights alcohol use as a leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, contributing to nearly 100,000 cancer cases and about 20,000 cancer deaths each year.", the advisory reads. "The more alcohol consumed, the greater the risk of cancer. For certain cancers, like breast, mouth, and throat cancers, evidence shows that this risk may start to increase around one or fewer drinks per day."
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 03 January 2025

• Ozempic could destroy modern civilization. But would that be such a bad thing? What if it turned out that the next generation of Ozempic-like drugs was an antidote not just for overeating but all compulsive behaviours? What would happen to the world that we have created? Here is my theory: very quickly, everything would fall apart. Whole industries would collapse. The economy would hit rock bottom. Individually and collectively, d have to figure out how to rehabilitate ourselves. That is because we live in a world of what the historian David Courtwright calls "limbic capitalism": an economic system that drives profit by capturing the part of our brains responsible for emotions, rewards and behavior -- regardless of the havoc it wreaks on our bodies and minds.
  - UnHerd, 02 January 2025

• Make lithium greatly used again: a peer-reviewed study reveals whole-body benefits of supplementation at doses mush smaller (5 milligrams) than those use to treat manic-depression conditions
  - Zero Hedge, 02 January 2025

• Belgium becomes the first country in the European Union to ban sale of disposable nicotine-delivery vapes. The nicotine drug-delivery devices are banned on health and environmental grounds, while Milan outlaws outdoor smoking.
  - The Guardian, 01 January 2025

• The Sinaloa drug cartel, based in Mexico, has chosen South Africa as a major operational base, they said, largely because of its strong trade links to Zhōngguó, which produces the chemicals used to make the synthetic opioid. In July, top police in South Africa raided what they later described as a "drug superlab" in the northern province of Limpopo in South Africa, seizing large quantities of methamphetamine, a small quantity of fentanyl, and about 500 pounds of chemicals used to manufacture both drugs. South Africa is an ideal place for drug trafickers because of the high level of offical corruption, good trade logicstics with Zhōngguó and Latin America, and a flawed international banking sector.
  - Zero Hedge, 01 January 2025

• As Colorado becomes the second state to legalize psychedelic therapy this week, a clash is playing out in Colorado Springs, where conservative leaders are restricting the treatment over objections from some of the city's 90,000 veterans, who've become flagbearers for psychedelic therapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Colorado residents voted to legalize the therapeutic use of psilocybin, the chemical compound found in psychedelic mushrooms, in a 2022 ballot measure, launching two years of rulemaking before it could be used to treat conditions such as depression and PTSD.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 01 January 2025

• Smoking a single cigarette reduces a person's expected lifespan by an average of 20 minutes
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 01 January 2025

• "This is what makes us rich": inside a fentanyl laboratory in Sinaloa. New York Times reporters witnessed the dangerous fentanyl production process inside a secret lab in Culiacán run by the Sinaloa, the most powerful criminal syndicate in Mexico.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 31 December 2024

• Drugmakers plan to raise prices on at least 250 branded medications in the USA, including Pfizer COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid, Bristol Myers Squibb's cancer cell therapies and vaccines from France's Sanofi at the start of 2025, according to data analyzed by healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors. Nearly all of the drug price increases are below 10% - most well below. The median price increase of the drugs being hiked Jan. 1 is 4.5%, which is in line with the median for all price increases last year. Larger drug price increases were once far more common in the U.S. but in recent years drugmakers have scaled them back after price hikes drew sharp criticism in the middle of the last decade.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 31 December 2024

• People in Greece are so addicted to nicotine, that they defy an ban on indoor smoking, even after 14 years. People in Greece are also resisting an effort to ban outdoor smoking, they are so addicted to nicotine.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 31 December 2024

• More and more young people are becoming addicted to nicotine-delivery tobacco packets such as Zyn, no surprise, given that nicotine is one of the most addictive, fully legal, drugs in the world
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 30 December 2024

• How drug cartels in Mexico test fentanyl on vulnerable people and animals. A global crackdown on fentanyl has led cartels to innovate production methods and test their risky formulas on people, as well as rabbits and chickens.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 29 December 2024

• $259,500,000 - UnitedHealth and CVS received millions in opioid rebates through Medicare. As the USA opioid crisis deepened, Medicare plans administered by UnitedHealth and CVS Health were a top source of OxyContin sales, a Barron's investigation found. Barron's found that Medicare plans using CVS' PBM comprised the largest source of OxyContin sales in 2016, according to internal Purdue documents listing health plan accounts. The PBM, CVS Caremark, collected $132.6 million in rebates and fees on the sales. Another set of Medicare plans, those using UnitedHealth's Optum Rx PBM, were the third-largest source of sales in 2016, the documents show. Optum Rx took in $126.9 million in rebates.
  - Barron's, 27 December 2024

• RFK Junior wants to ban ads for drugs on television. It will not be easy. Attempts to restrict pharmaceutical advertisements have failed many times over the years, often on First Amendment grounds.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 27 December 2024

• People are in the USA are experiencing a severe epidemic of loneliness
  - Zero Hedge, 26 December 2024

• The Paraguay River is a 2,100-mile (3,400-kilometer) waterway that carries much of the agricultural and mineral wealth of South America to the Atlantic. The riverine waterway connects Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay and carries much of the world's soybeans, ore and minerals. But the waterway also carries violence and drug trafficking. And the drug cartels, among them, the First Capital Command of Brazil, have found devious and complex ways to use the waterway to ship cocaine as far away as Belgium and Holland. In the last two years, more than 50 tons of cocaine that traveled this route through South America were seized from the European ports of Antwerp, Belgium and Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Much of it was controlled by the First Capital Command.
  - Associated Press, 26 December 2024

• The peyote plant, sacred to Native Americans, is threatened by the renaissance in psychedelic drugs, and urban development. Native Americans say that poaching and excessive harvesting of the slow-growing cactus, which flowers and matures over 10 to 30 years, are endangering the species and ruining its delicate habitat. Agriculture, housing developments, wind farms in the region and the border wall, are also damaging the habitat in sourthern Texas, experts say.
  - Associated Press, 26 December 2024

• Temu's takeover of the online retail world with its addictive apps is now complete. Despite the arrival of new competitors and growing political tensions between the USA and Zhōngguó, the addictive ecommerce juggernaut Temu proved in 2024 that is here to stay.
  - Wired, 26 December 2024

• Trump announces an anti-drug ad blitz, vows to designate drug cartels in Mexico as terrorists (for killing less people than the alcohol and tobacco industries)
  - Zero Hedge, 25 December 2024

• The number of Americans turning to marijuana as a substitute for alcohol, cigarettes, and painkillers has surged in recent years, according to a new survey by Bloomberg Intelligence. Amir Islam of Bloomberg Intelligence highlighted a "sudden spike" in the substitution of marijuana for alcohol, with the latest survey showing 44% of respondents making the switch, up from 33% in 2022.
  - Zero Hedge, 25 December 2024

• A federal initiative that began during the Obama administration with the goal of debanking certain industries disfavored by federal officials has apparently been resurrected and is taking aim at cryptocurrencies. Operation Choke Point was started by the U.S. Dept. of Justice in 2013 as a way to put pressure on banks to sever their ties, without due process, with legal businesses like gun dealers, cannabis dispensaries and payday lenders which the administration found objectionable.
  - Zero Hedge, 24 December 2024

• The old distinction between medical and recreational drugs is breaking down. It is no longer clear what even counts as a drug anymore. As states embrace the legalization of cannabis and, in some cases, psychedelics, there are opportunities for regulators to intervene and improve public health outcomes by setting price controls, age limits and mandated product testing and labeling.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 24 December 2024

• More teenagers are using dangerously potent marijuana for intense highs. Dabbing involves inhaling fumes from highly concentrated cannabis that is heated at high temperatures.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 23 December 2024

• The CEOs are 'tripping'. Can psychedelics help the C-suite? A growing cottage industry is dedicated to the theory that mind-altering drugs can improve business leadership.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 22 December 2024

• More men are addicted to the 'crack cocine' of the stock market. Gamblers Anonymous meetings are filling up with people hooked on trading and betting.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 21 December 2024

• Eli Lilly is now comfortably ahead of Novo Nordisk in the race to dominate the market for obesity treatments
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 21 December 2024

• A woman lost her life savings. How Big Tech addicts shoppers . The rise of affiliate links, Buy Now buttons, and other technology has made it easier than ever to binge, often with dire consequences to consumers' debt.
  - Barron's, 21 December 2024

• The drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro who see themselves as God's "soldiers of crime". When police in Rio de Janeiro seize blocks of cocaine and bundles of marijuana they may well find them branded with a religious symbol - the star of David. This is not a reference to the Jewish faith, but to the belief of some Pentecostal Christians that the return of Jews to Israel will lead to the Second Coming of Christ. The gang selling these branded drugs is the Pure Third Command, one of Rio's most powerful criminal groups, with a reputation both for making its opponents disappear, and for fanatical evangelical Christianity. It is how the British got control of Hong Kong for 99 years, though trafficking heroin.
  - BBC, 20 December 2024

• Deadly carfentanil is 100 times more potent than fentanyl
  - Real Clear Science, 20 December 2024

• Novo Nordisk's top-line efficacy results for its experimental obesity drug, CagriSema, were just released, missing the pharma's estimate of 25% weight loss over 68 weeks, coming in at just 22.7%. This sent shares of Novo in Europe crashing the most on record, down as much as 29%, wiping out one year's worth of gains
  - Zero Hedge, 20 December 2024

• Novo Nordisk's top-line efficacy results for its experimental obesity drug, CagriSema, were just released, missing the pharma's estimate of 25% weight loss over 68 weeks, coming in at just 22.7%. This sent shares of Novo in Europe crashing the most on record, down as much as 29%, wiping out one year's worth of gains
  - Comcast's CNBC, 20 December 2024

• The shadowy brokers helping drug cartels in Mexico smuggle fentanyl chemicals from Zhōngguó
  - Thomson's Reuters, 18 December 2024

• Because of large rich healthcare insurance companies, Minnesota has lost hundreds of pharmacies in a little over a decade, creating "pharmacy deserts" that are forcing people to travel a lot farther or rely on mail service to obtain their prescription medications.
  - Murdoch's Fox News, 18 December 2024

• Trump criticizes "rich as hell" pharmacy benefits managers, accusing them of being responsible for raising drug prices
  - Jiaravanon's Fortune, 18 December 2024

• Seeking relief from brain injury, some veterans turn to psychedelic drugs. Unable to find effective treatments at home, veterans with brain-injury symptoms are going abroad for psychedelics drugs like ibogaine that are illegal in the USA.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 18 December 2024

• Merck to develop a weight loss pill from Hansoh Pharma, a drugmaker in Zhōngguó, in a licensing deal worth up to $2 billion with $112 million paid upfront.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 18 December 2024

• $275,000,000 - Sandoz agrees to pay $275 settlement in a price-fixing case in the USA involving generic drugs
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 18 December 2024

• Giant pharmacy benefit managers were paid huge amounts of money by the opioid drug traffickers, Purdue Pharma and owners - the 'Sucklers', to allow the free flow of highly addictive opioids by not restricting painkiller prescriptions. Pablo Escobar was assassinated for lesser crimes. The drug trafficking pharmacy benefit managers received billions of dollars to help addict and get killed hundreds of thousands of people in the USA.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 17 December 2024

• The fall of Assad upends the largest drug empire in the Middle East. The Islamic regime's trade in captagon, a methamphetamine-like drug, helped sustain its rule and fueled war and addiction across the region.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 17 December 2024

• More than a million nicotine-delivery vaping cartridges are discarded each day in the United Kingdom, the nicotine drug addicts causing an environmental nightmare. From June 2025 it will be illegal to sell single-use vapes, a move designed to combat environmental damage and their widespread use by children.
  - The Guardian, 16 December 2024

• The drugs that young bankers use to survive their working conditions. Many on Wall Street see Adderall and Vyvanse as tools to plow through long hours of tedious work amid high-pressure competition.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 16 December 2024

• The $1 billion cookie empire that teens love and parents hate. Crumbl Cookies, sugar traffickers, addicts young fans with social media and sugar. Each cookie packs in 700 calories and costs $5.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 14 December 2024

• Another study has been published suggesting that patients taking semaglutide -- the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk's blockbuster drug Ozempic -- may face a higher risk of developing a rare eye condition that can lead to blindness. The results indicate that a type 2 diabetes patient taking Ozempic for two decades would have a .3% to .5% chance of developing the irreversible loss of vision for which there is no treatment.
  - Zero Hedge, 13 December 2024

• $650,000,000 - McKinsey & Company agreed to pay $650 million in a deferred prosecution agreement that will resolve a federal criminal probe into the company's opioid drug trafficking consulting work advising opioid drug trafficker Purdue Pharma on how to increase its drug trafficking sales of its opioid painkiller OxyContin, a court filing said.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 13 December 2024

• McKinsey & Company agreed to pay $650 million in a deferred prosecution agreement that will resolve a federal criminal probe into the company's opioid drug trafficking consulting work advising opioid drug trafficker Purdue Pharma on how to increase its drug trafficking sales of its opioid painkiller OxyContin, a court filing said.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 13 December 2024

• Social media companies have so addicted teenagers in the USA that nearly 50% of teenagers in the USA are "constantly" online, despite concerns about the effects of social media and smartphones on their mental health. [KM: rich social media companies must get richer]
  - Associated Press, 12 December 2024

• How did the Islamic government of Syria be overthrown so quickly by militant groups? Some analysts argue that one factor is Islamic Syria's huge drug trafficking of captagon, a synthetic and amphetamine that is wildly popular in the Middle East. Neighboring countries, wanting to tamp down on the flood of pills, abandoned the president of Syria because of his drug trafficking, which made it easier for militant groups to overthrow the government in Syria.
  - Disney's ABC News, 12 December 2024

• The FDA is asking the White House, in the final days of the Biden era, to move ahead with plans to drastically reduce the addictive substance in traditional tobacco cigarettes. But the FDA is battling huge bribes given by nicotine drug traffickers who oppose the proposal. For example, the nicotine drug trafficker Reynolds American had given $8.5 million to the main super PAC of Trump by October 2024. Bribes paid in part by USA taxpayers, since from 2015 to 2020, the Agricultural Department had given $437 million in socialist subsidies to tobacco farmers.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 12 December 2024

• Politicians in Washington are proposing to force insurance companies to sell their pharmacies. Bipartisan proposed laws would force healthcare companies with pharmacy-benefit managers to divest their pharmacies.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 11 December 2024

• Life expectancy in the USA will drop to 66th in the world by 2050, thanks to an incredibly corrupt health industry
  - Zero Hedge, 10 December 2024

• Shares of Walgreens spike 25%, from a plateau of a 28-year-low, after reports that Walgreens is in talks to sell itself to a private-equity firm in a deal that would take the pharmacy chain off the public market after its shares have been on a downward slide for nearly a decade
  - Zero Hedge, 10 December 2024

• Shares of Walgreens spike 25%, from a plateau of a 28-year-low, after reports that Walgreens is in talks to sell itself to a private-equity firm in a deal that would take the pharmacy chain off the public market after its shares have been on a downward slide for nearly a decade
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 10 December 2024

• Sugar trafficker Mars seeks to raise at least $1 billion through the sale of private debt ahead of its acquisition of foodmaker Kellanova
  - Bloomberg, 10 December 2024

• Alcohol deaths have more than doubled in two decades, study finds. Americans are dying of illnesses related to alcohol at roughly twice the rate seen in 1999. The number of deaths caused by alcohol-related diseases more than doubled among Americans between 1999 and 2020, according to new research. Alcohol was involved in nearly 50,000 deaths among adults ages 25 to 85 in 2020, up from just under 20,000 in 1999. Fewer people are killed who use cocaine. The study did not include other deaths influenced by alcohol, such as accidents.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 10 December 2024

• Global antibiotic use in livestock varies dramatically across regions, with some Asian countries using up to 80 times more antibiotics per kilogram of meat than European nations, according to new research published by Our World in Data. Thailand leads global antibiotic consumption in livestock, while Norway reports the lowest usage rates. The study found that around 70% of global antibiotics are administered to farm animals rather than humans, raising concerns about antimicrobial resistance. Several European countries have successfully reduced veterinary antibiotic sales by more than half between 2011 and 2022 through stricter regulations, including requiring prescriptions and imposing taxes on sales.
  - Our World in Data, 08 December 2024

• Fraud and fakery at the largest chain of clinics that distribute methadone (used to treat opioid withdrawal) in the USA operated by Acadia Healthcare. The company falsifies records at its methadone clinics and enrolls patients who are not addicted to opioids, a Times investigation found. The clinics by law must provide counseling, but Acadia often fails to do so (cuts into profits and bonuses for executives). Instead, employees at times falsify the medical records that Acadia uses to bill insurers, according to employees and internal emails. Clinic directors can get bonuses when their patient enrollment goes up, an incentive that has led Acadia to treat people who do not have opioid addictions but are dependent on other drugs, according to current and former executives and employees. People who are not addicted to opioids can get high from methadone.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 08 December 2024

• Several members of Congress have asked the Department of Justice to investigate pharmacy-benefit manager's business related to opioids, citing a Barron's investigation on rebate payments that the companies received on sales of OxyContin. Barron's reported in October on internal drug company documents detailing rebate payments that are usually kept secret. During a one-year period between 2016 and 2017, Barron's found, opioid drug trafficker Purdue Pharma paid about $400 million in rebates and fees to three major opioid drug trafficking pharmacy-benefit managers, or PBM's -- CVS Health's Caremark, UnitedHealth's Optum Rx, and Cigna's Express Scripts.
  - Barron's, 07 December 2024

• Police and the military in Mexico seize 20 millin doses of fentanyl in a record seizure
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 06 December 2024

• Retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Target have figured out that if they get you your online order today - with a bit of dopamine resulting, you will probably be more addictied to spend more tomorrow.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 05 December 2024

• Over 70 percent of adults 60 years and older have high blood pressure, and over half of those take blood pressure medication to prevent cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes. For those who do not need blood pressure medication, taking these drugs may do more harm than good.
  - Zero Hedge, 04 December 2024

• Fear and loathing in Culiacan, Sinaloa. The situation in the home city of one of the most notorious cartels in Mexico is explosive and likely to get much worse with Trump's return to power. Never mind that the United States itself has been a key participant in the international drug trade since forever [the CIA, money laundering banks, etc.] - or that the simultaneous US demand for and criminalisation of drugs is what makes their trafficking so lucrative, thereby enabling cartels. But the US is an old pro at trafficking in hypocrisy -- not to mention fuelling violence and brutality in Mexico, as in the case of the US-backed "war on drugs" which quickly proved to be more of a war on people.
  - Al Jazeera, 04 December 2024

• A generation of survivors of drug-addiction is entering old age. Overdose deaths are dropping, but millions of former users live with compromised health and prospects.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 03 December 2024

• Police in Australia sizes a fishing boat with 2.34 metric tons of cocaine, the largest seizure in the history of Australia. The police exploited an opportunity to seize the boat when it suffered a mechanical breakdown, stranding the boat offshore.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 02 December 2024

• The business 'moat' around the obesity drugs sold by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk just got stronger. Data from their most serious competitor, Amgen, suggests the biotech will not signficiantly hurt the market leaders.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 02 December 2024

• Drug cartels in Mexico lure chemistry students to make fentanyl. Criminals turn college campuses into recruitment hubs, recruiting chemistry students in Mexico with big paydays. The cartels also have a more ambitious goal: to synthesize the chemical compounds, known as precursors, that are essential to making fentanyl, freeing them from having to import those raw materials from Zhōngguó. If they succeed, U.S. officials say, it would mark a terrifying new phase in the fentanyl crisis, in which Mexican cartels have more control than ever over one of the deadliest drugs in recent history.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 01 December 2024

• Why online retailers Temu and Shein could give retailers in the West much competition for sales this holiday season. The two companies have mastered 'impulse buying', a place of guilty pleasures where the selection is vast, every day is Cyber Monday, and an instant dopamine hit that will have faded by the time your package arrives is always just a click away.
  - Associated Press, 01 December 2024

• Six 'narco submarines' travelling from Colombia to Australia are seized in a massive international operation that netter 225 metric tons of cocaine, the rest being marijuana.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 28 November 2024

• US says a drug cartel, the Gulf Cartel, is behind the longstanding problem of illegal fishing in the Gulf of Mexico
  - Associated Press, 26 November 2024

• Shares of Amgen crashed 12% after a disappointing Phase 2 study with its anti-obesity drug, MariTide, showed only a 20% average weight loss at 52 weeks in 592 obese patients. Wall Street analysts forecasted MariTide would be able to shed about 25% of the patient's body weight on average over the course of one year and exceed the performance of existing drugs offered by Lilly and Novo. About 11% of patients discontinued MariTide during the trial, a much higher discontinuation rate versus the other medications on the market.
  - Zero Hedge, 26 November 2024

• Tilray Brands, a leading marijuana company in Canada, is buying lots of craft beer brewers in the USA
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 25 November 2024

• At bible study for the homeless - the masses, a search for meaning (or their next high). Religion, the opium of the masses, is often overlooked as a factor in the lives of the needy, but those who gather at a center in Virginia say it helps sustain them.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 24 November 2024

• As many as 1 in 5 people will not lose weight with GLP-1 drugs, experts say. Genetics, hormones and variability in how the brain regulates energy can all influence weight.
  - Associated Press, 23 November 2024

• Up to 70% of the diet of Americans is ultraprocessed foods, many with high levels of salt, sugar and fat. But the USA still has no policy on ultraprocessed foods [as politicians in Washington continue to accept bribes donations to do nothing.]
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 22 November 2024

• U.S. government researchers have found that a widely prescribed asthma drug originally sold by Merck may be linked to serious mental health problems for some patients, according to a scientific presentation reviewed by Reuters. The researchers found that the drug, sold under the brand name Singulair and generically as montelukast, attaches to multiple brain receptors critical to psychiatric functioning.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 22 November 2024

• The Justice Department orders the DEA to stop random searches and seizures of cash at airports, after a series of Atlanta News First investigations uncovered how the agents often search innocent passengers at airport gates, looking for cash.
  - Atlanta News First, 21 November 2024

• In Bharat, to quit their jobs, workers at sugar cane farms risk kidnapping, assault and murder. Why would anyone stay in a job where abuse is rampant and women are coerced into hysterectomies? Because the cost of escaping the sugar cane fields of Bharat is often even higher. Earlier this year, The New York Times and The Fuller Project revealed that household-name companies (such as CocaCola and PepsiCo) and politicians in Bharat profit off a brutal system that forces children to work, pushes them into underage marriages and coerces women to get unnecessary hysterectomies to keep them working in the fields, unencumbered by menstruation or routine ailments.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 22 November 2024

• Marijuana for PTSD? Eager for better science research for cannabis, the FDA approves a study. The decision is the latest sign that federal health officials want more research on medical marijuana as its use grows.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 22 November 2024

• Prediction: Tilray Brands will not be a marijuana company in 5 years, as it focuses on easier drugs to sell - alcohol and sugary beverages
  - Motley Fool, 20 November 2024

• Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese. The rate of obesity in particular rose steeply, doubling in adults between 1990 and 2021 to more than 40 percent -- and nearly tripling, to 29 percent, among girls and women aged 15 to 24. Obesity will result in up to $9.1 trillion in excess medical expenditures over the next 10 years. Ultraprocessed foods with addictive sugar are one cause of the problem.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 19 November 2024

• In most OECD countries that collect self-reported weight data, more than half of adults are overweight or obese (2023 or latest available data). Processed foods, especially with addictive added sugar, are a big cause of the obesity.
  - Zero Hedge, 17 November 2024

• How California allowed large marijuana farms, using lots of technology from Silicon Valley, to destroy all of the small marijuana family-farms, despite promises to protect the small farms. Legalization that supported big corporate marijuana farms has shuttered thousands of pot farms across Northern California, destroying multi-generational cannabis businesses and leaving rural towns boarded up.
  - SF Gate, 17 November 2024

• New drug approvals in Zhōngguó take market size beyond $13 billion as innovation increases. Zhōngguó has already approved nearly thrice the number of innovative drugs than in the 13th five-year plan.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 17 November 2024

• A study reveals why Covid-19 vaccine antibodies rapidly lose effectiveness. The mRNA vaccines cause the body to produce short-lived plasma cells that can only generate antibodies for a period of time before dying off.
  - Zero Hedge, 15 November 2024

• Trump has declared war on drug cartels in Mexico during his second-term as president. The United States has every ethical reason to launch a war on the cartels. They use chemical precursors from Zhōngguó to produce the vast majority of the illegal fentanyl that causes most of the 82,000 opioid overdose deaths in 2022 in the United States. f Mexico fails to help or take over these tasks to fight the cartels, Trump could unmask the Mexican politicians who cooperate with the cartels, entirely close the border, impose tariffs on Mexico, and impose a naval blockade to stop precursor shipments. The 'good' Christian Trump of course refuses to address the issue of why the majority of Americans need to consume so many drugs - alcohol, nicotine, suga, opioids, cocaine, etc. [Can you blame the cartels for being good demand-satisfying capitalists?]
  - Zero Hedge, 15 November 2024

• The famous actor Josh Brolin admits being heavily addicted to nicotine, using nicotine pouches 24 hours a day
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 15 November 2024

• Global diabetes cases are increasing. According to the International Diabetes Federation, 537 million people between the ages of 20 and 79 suffered from diabetes worldwide in 2021. This represents 10.5 percent of the world population in this age group. The total number of adults with the disease is projected to increase to 787 million (12.2 percent of the global population) by 2045. Thank addictive added sugar in many consumer products.
  - Zero Hedge, 15 November 2024

• Shares of vaccine makers fell Thursday as President-elect Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Shares of Moderna fell 5%, shares of Novavax fell 7%, and shares of BioNTech fell 6%
  - Comcast's CNBC, 15 November 2024

• The drug of online gambling is creating big debts for gamblers in Brazil. Some gmablers in Brazil are paying 400% loan rates to fund their betting frenzy. Nearly one out of every three Brazilians lives below the poverty line. And poverty amplifies the desire to make an instantaneous fortune betting on the hometown soccer team or spinning the virtual roulette wheel at online casinos designed to be addictive.
  - Bloomberg, 13 November 2024

• 23andMe fires 40% of its people, shuts drug development business. The genetics company is closing a unit that was once seen as core to its future.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 12 November 2024

• Zhōngguó Tobacco, the state-owned tobacco company of Zhōngguó, is booming and defying global trends and anti-smoking efforts. Its revenues in 2023 were $210 billion, six times the net revenue of Philip Morris, the second-largest nicotine drug trafficker in the world. At more than 300 million, Zhōngguó has the most cigarette smokers in the world, making up nearly a third of the total smokers in the world. The company is estimated to be contributing as much as 12% to the tax revenues of the government.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 11 November 2024

• Shares of Abbvie fell the most in three years after two mid-stage trials of its drug to treat schizophrenia failed to meet their primary goal, a blow to the company's $8.7 billion acquisition of Cerevel Therapeutics earlier this year
  - Bloomberg, 11 November 2024

• Bipolar disorder: how lithium as a treatment fell out of favor. "Globally, the most common reason medical professionals give for not prescribing lithium is the negative beliefs of patients."
  - The Guardian, 09 November 2024

• The FDA is preparing to prohibit the use of oral phenylephrine used in over-the-counter could and cold medicines, because FDA scientists have concluded that the drug is completely ineffective, acting no better than a placebo. One problem is that only a tiny fraction of phenylephrine is absorbed into the body when digested from a pill or syrup containing phenylephrine. This is different from other formulations like the inhaled nasal spray versions of the drug, where larger percentages of the drug can make it into the bloodstream.
  - CBS News, 07 November 2024

• Trump's top healthcare priority must be repealing Big Pharma's legal immunity for vaccines
  - Zero Hedge, 07 November 2024

• Shares of Moderna rise 9% pre-market after reporting a surprise profit for the third quarter, smashing Wall Street estimates, as its cost-cutting efforts took hold and sales of its Covid vaccine came in higher than expected
  - Comcast's CNBC, 07 November 2024

• Exclusive: Locking eyes with mass murderers in the Cecot prison of El Salvador, where the "worst of the worst" are jailed - Mass murderers, drug dealers and gangsters, they are accused of once holding El Salvador hostage, gripping the nation with fear as they ruled cities and streets. Today, they are stripped of freedom, influence, and individuality. And they may never get them back.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 06 November 2024

• Drugs of the 'hippies' - magic mushrooms, LSD or other psychoactive compounds - can improve your enjoyment of sex, feelings of arousal, and sense of attraction to your partner for up to six months after the psychedelic experience, a UK study has found
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 06 November 2024

• Children in Australia under the age of 16 will be banned from social media as part of a push to protect the mental health of young people, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, with firms involved required to enforce the new regulations or face potential fines.
  - Bloomberg, 06 November 2024

• Children in Australia under the age of 16 will be banned from social media as part of a push to protect the mental health of young people, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, with firms involved required to enforce the new regulations or face potential fines.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 06 November 2024

• Children in Australia under the age of 16 will be banned from social media as part of a push to protect the mental health of young people, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, with firms involved required to enforce the new regulations or face potential fines.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 06 November 2024

• The Navy of Mexico seizes 3.6 tons of cocaine aboard a boat off the Pacific coast
  - Associated Press, 05 November 2024

• The United Kingdom proposes a law that would eventually make the purchase of cigarettes illegal, starting by making it illegal now for children to smoke, gradually raising the minimum age for buying tobacco by one year each year, so that no one born after Jan. 1, 2009 will ever be able to buy cigarettes legally in Britain
  - Associated Press, 05 November 2024

• The mpox epidemic in Africa continues to grow, prompting fears of another outbreak in the USA. But the vaccine is no longer free, and vulnerable people are going without the vaccine.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 05 November 2024

• Is metformin more than just a diabetes treatment? Research suggests it may have an array of uses, such as promoting longevity and weight loss and protecting against cancer.
  - Zero Hedge, 02 November 2024

• The extremely profitable inner workings of digital addiction
  - Of Two Minds, 01 November 2024

• Drugmakers in the USA and biotech companies have come to rely on partners in Zhōngguó. Now, some of them are looking for alternatives as geopolitical tensions rise.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 01 November 2024

• The European Union to investigate Temu, the online marketplace based in Zhōngguó, over suspected illegal products and exploiting an "addictive" platform. If found guilty, Temu could face fines amounting to 6 percent of annual global revenue.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 31 October 2024

• Shares of Bristol Myers Squibb rise over 5% after it eported third-quarter earnings and revenue that blew past expectations on strong sales from its blood thinner Eliquis and a portfolio of drugs it expects to deliver long-term growth
  - Comcast's CNBC, 31 October 2024

• Shares of Eli Lilly decline 10% after drug giant misses estimates and slashes profit guidance
  - Comcast's CNBC, 30 October 2024

• Shares of Eli Lilly decline 10% after drug giant misses estimates and slashes profit guidance
  - Zero Hedge, 30 October 2024

• Trump to unleash financial attacks on drug cartels based in Mexico, having the Treasury Department seize their financial assets, if is re-elected as president.
  - Zero Hedge, 29 October 2024

• Captagon - the drug made in the Islamic Middle East that is fueling war, crime and all-night parties. Captagon is bringing in billions for the Islamic regime in Syria and Iran-backed Islamic militias including Hezbollah -- and it is triggering a health crisis.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 29 October 2024

• Surgery for weight-loss has declined 25 percent as the use of new anti-obesity drugs has soared.
  - Harvard Gazette, 28 October 2024

• Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, a 'good' Catholic Christian, stunned a senate hearing on Monday when he admitted having an illegal "death squad" to help carry out his deadly war on drugs for over a decade during his tenure as mayor of Davao City. "I used gangsters, I would order him - 'Kill this person, because if you do not, I will kill you now."
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 28 October 2024

• Shares of camera giant Olympus Corporation fall 5% on Monday after the company announced the resignation of its chief executive officer over a drug allegation (though shares were up 31% for the year)
  - Comcast's CNBC, 28 October 2024

• England plans to ban disposable vapes, nicotine drug delivery devices, next year. The measure, which echoes plans in Scotland and Wales, aims to protect the health of young people, and reduce environmental damage.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 27 October 2024

• Keurig Dr Pepper to buy energy-drink maker ghost for over $1 billion. The energy-drink market includes bigger rivals Monster Beverage and Celsius.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 25 October 2024

• Coca-Cola tops earnings estimates, as higher prices offset sluggish demand. The unit case volume for Coca-Cola in North America was flat for the quarter, as shrinking demand for its healthier water, sports, coffee and tea products offset growth in its namesake sugary soda, juice, dairy, plant-based beverages and sparkling flavors.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 23 October 2024

• Walmart will start delivering prescriptions to doorsteps as CVS and Walgreens financially struggle, the two companies shuttering hundreds of stores nationwide. The prescription delivery service is another example of how Walmart is trying to outmatch competitors on convenience along with low prices. With the new service, customers can get a mix of items dropped off during the same delivery, such as a box of tissues, blanket or chicken noodle soup.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 22 October 2024

• President Biden to propose that insurers to pay for over-the-counter birth control pills and condoms. The new rules under the Affordable Care Act would include emergency contraception, a newly approved nonprescription birth control pill, spermicides and condoms.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 22 October 2024

• Rates of antibiotic resistance have tripled to 44% from 2001 to 2020, causing 1.3 million deaths per year. For too long, people and corporations have misused and overused antibiotics to prevent, control, and treat infections in humans, animals, and plants. In some cases, idiots uses antibiotics to treat viral infections.
  - Zero Hedge, 21 October 2024

• The powerful authoritarian companies driving local drugstores out of business. The biggest pharmacy benefit managers are profiting by systematically underpaying independent drugstores, creating 'pharmacy deserts' across the country. PBMs frequently pay the pharmacies at rates that do not cover the costs of the drugs, according to more than 100 pharmacists around the country and dozens of examples of insurance paperwork and legal documents. The PBMs make money in part by charging employers more for certain drugs than what the PBMs pay pharmacies for them.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 20 October 2024

• $123,000,000 - Walmart said Friday it has reached a proposed settlement pact related to three lawsuits filed by shareholders on behalf of the company over the handling of prescription opioids. According to the terms of the settlement that were disclosed in a regulatory filing, insurance carriers will pay Walmart $123 million, excluding any fees and expenses awarded by the court to the plaintiffs' counsel.
  - Zero Hedge, 19 October 2024

• AfroColombians in the Choco region of Colombia fight the efects of illegal gold mining through biodiversity projects in a violent region
  - Associated Press, 18 October 2024

• The ex-security chief of Mexico, Genaro Garcia Luna, is sentenced to 38 years in prison for accepting bribes from drug cartels
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 18 October 2024

• Weight-loss drugs cut drug and alcohol abuse, according to new study. Drugs such as Novo Nordisk's Ozempic can cut drug and alcohol abuse by up to 50%, a study found, adding to mounting evidence that the drugs yield health benefits beyond diabetes and weight loss.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 18 October 2024

• The prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, is being criticized by conservatives over recommendations he seeks to implement from a standing committee on "black justice" in Canada. The recommendations include a 30% reduction in incarceration over 10 years, decriminalizing a 30-day supply of hard drugs like cocaine, heroin, and meth, and cutting 25% of federal grants to police departments.
  - Zero Hedge, 17 October 2024

• Canadian snowboarder Ryan Wedding, a former Olympic athelte, and 15 others are accused of shipping 60 tons of cocaine a year to the USA and Canada
  - Al Jazeera, 17 October 2024

• Consumption of alcohol in the USA hit highest levels since 1970s inflation storm, as tequila demand soars
  - Zero Hedge, 16 October 2024

• $500,000,000+ - McKinsey & Company is nearing a deal with federal prosecutors in the USA to pay at least $500 million to settle federal probes into its past work helping opioid makers boost sales
  - Bloomberg, 16 October 2024

• A pharmacist explains driving forces behind Walgreens closures. Walgreens said it currently operates about 8,500 stores and about 6,000 are profitable. Two reasons: first, insurance companies are failing to reimburse pharmacies at a fair rate. Second, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) dictate where patients can go to fill a prescription. He said PBMs work on behalf of insurance companies.
  - WXYZ News, 16 October 2024

• Shares of Walgreens surged 15%, the most in 16 years, after the struggling pharmacy chain delivered an unexpectedly optimistic forecast for 2025. Simultaneously, Walgreens announced plans to shutter over a thousand stores nationwide as its turnaround plan gains steam
  - Zero Hedge, 15 October 2024

• Pharmaceutical companies in Zhōngguó expand to Africa in an expansion labelled the 'health Silk road'. Pharmaceutical giants in Zhōngguó are building factories in Africa in search of new markets in belt and road countries.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 14 October 2024

• Drug studies sponsored by drug manufacturers tend to report higher drug efficacy than studies not sponsored by the drug company, a new report published in the Journal of Political Economy on October 7 reports. "Removing the sponsorship effect would reduce the difference in efficacy ...by about 50%".
  - Zero Hedge, 11 October 2024

• Brides losing weight before their wedddings, using Ozempic-like weight reducing drugs, is wrecking havoc on the wedding dress industry, which has to order wedding dresses nine months or so before the wedding. Drastic weight loss requires an expensive re-fitting of the wedding dress.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 11 October 2024

• How OnlyFan's addictive porn-heavy website has ruin the finances of people, caused divorces and family trauma and extreme unacceptable social behavior
  - Thomson's Reuters, 11 October 2024

• Confidential files detail the backroom negotiations of pharmacy benefits managers - and their role in the opioid drug trafficking crisis. An investigation by Barron's shows how PBMs enabled sales of opioids at a peak of the epidemic. During a 12-month period that ended in late 2017, the three largest PBMs -- today units of CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group and Cigna Group -- received about $400 million in rebates and fees from Purdue.
  - Barron's, 11 October 2024

• A slump in sales of snack foods hits Big Food. Blame high prices, not obesity medications.
  - Barron's, 11 October 2024

• $450,000,000 - Teva Pharmaceuticals USA and Teva Neuroscience (collectively, Teva) have agreed to pay $450 million to resolve allegations that they violated the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the False Claims Act (FCA), according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
  - Zero Hedge, 11 October 2024

• Pharmacy 'deserts' are appearing across the USA as Rite Aid, Walgreens, CVS drug store closures spread. Decreased reimbursements are putting the squeeze on drug retailers, and some point the finger at pharmacy benefit managers, which are the target of a new FTC lawsuit, but PBMs are not the only cause of the struggles.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 11 October 2024

• Danish biotech Zealand Pharma is targeting the "next generation" of weight loss drugs as competitors pile into a market dominated by heavyweights Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. CEO Adam Steensberg told CNBC Thursday that early-stage trials of its experimental obesity injection point to higher-quality weight loss -- with reduced muscle loss and fewer side effects -- versus traditional GLP-1 treatments. The company is now scouting for a global pharma firm to partner with, he added.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 11 October 2024

• Mexico sends 660 soldiers and the National Guard officers to protect lime growers suffering extortion by cartels in the western state of Michoacan. In August, more than half of lime packing warehouses in the lowlands of Michoacan closed temporarily after growers and distributors said they had received demands from the Los Viagras and other cartels for a cut of their income. While limes might seem to be an odd target for drug cartels, they have been a source of income for the gangs for much of this century. In 2013, cartels had taken control of distribution, manipulating domestic prices for crops like avocados and limes, telling growers when they could harvest and at what price they could sell their crops.
  - Associated Press, 10 October 2024

• How a diabetes drug, metformin (a chemical in herbs of French lilac), failed clinical trials as an anticancer drug. Its success against cancer in labs failed human trials.
  - Knowable Magazine, 10 October 2024

• $2,200,000,000 - GSK agrees to settle about 80,000 Zantac lawsuits for up to $2.2 billion. The lawsuits alleged that a discontinued version of the heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 09 October 2024

• Shares of GSK rise 6% after it settles a lawsuit about Zantac for $2.2 billion
  - The Motley Fool, 09 October 2024

• $3,100,000,000 - TD Bank to pay a fine of $3.1 billion as part of a settlement with USA regulators and prosecutors over charges it failed to properly monitor money laundering by drug cartels
  - Thomson's Reuters, 09 October 2024

• TD Bank to pay a fine of $3.1 billion as part of a settlement with USA regulators and prosecutors over charges it failed to properly monitor money laundering by drug cartels
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 09 October 2024

• Shares of German life sciences company Bayer fell more than 7% on Wednesday, after a U.S. court said it would review a case alleging that exposure products made by Bayer's Monsanto unit harmed individuals. The Washington Supreme Court this week accepted a review of a litigation against the German company over alleged polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) exposure at the Sky Valley Education Center. Previously, an appeals court had overturned a $185 million award in the trial after finding flaws in the case in May.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 09 October 2024

• TikTok is "digital nicotine" meant to get kids addicted, Attorney Generals fume in new suits. A dozen states and the District of Columbia sued TikTok on Tuesday, accusing the social media giant of preying on children's and teens' vulnerabilities for profit.
  - Courthouse News Service, 08 October 2024

• Thirteen states and the District of Columbia sued TikTok on Tuesday, accusing the company of creating an intentionally addictive app that harmed children and teenagers while making false claims to the public about its commitment to safety. They said that TikTok, which is owned by the Zhōngguó-based ByteDance, had relentlessly designed features to prompt heavy, compulsive use of TikTok and that many children were using the app late at night when they would otherwise have been asleep.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 08 October 2024

• Thirteen states and the District of Columbia sued TikTok on Tuesday, accusing the company of creating an intentionally addictive app that harmed children and teenagers while making false claims to the public about its commitment to safety. They said that TikTok, which is owned by the Zhōngguó-based ByteDance, had relentlessly designed features to prompt heavy, compulsive use of TikTok and that many children were using the app late at night when they would otherwise have been asleep.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 08 October 2024

• Why Pfizer will find it hard to appease its activist investor. The drugmaker has cut costs already and has no coming product approvals or research that could offer a quick lift.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 08 October 2024

• The diets of children in the USA are now "over 70%" addictive ultra-processed foods, according to one dietitian. "We are seeing a strong decline in mental health and well-being."
  - Zero Hedge, 07 October 2024

• Activist investor Starboard Value has a roughly $1 billion stake in pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and is seeking to mount a turnaround at the struggling company. Starboard believes that the current leadership of Pfizer under CEO Albert Bourla has stepped away from its historically disciplined cost structure and investment in novel drugs.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 07 October 2024

• As the use increases of marijuana in the USA, so do the harms increase. The drug, legal in much of the country, is widely seen as nonaddictive and safe. For some users, these assumptions are dangerously wrong.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 05 October 2024

• GLP-1 weight loss drugs are everywhere now. How the copycats took over. Wegovy and Zepbound are still hard to get. Knockoff versions from Noom, Ro, and others are filling in the gaps.
  - Barron's, 05 October 2024

• What is financially wrong with CVS? Start with its drugstores. The drugstore business stinks, as evidenced by Rite Aid filing for bankruptcy a year ago. One problem is that the top three PBMs now control 81% of the market by prescription volume, up from 48% in 2008. The top five control 96%, up from 60%. That leaves druggists with little bargaining power on reimbursement rates.
  - Barron's, 05 October 2024

• $40,000,000 - Officials cast doubt on a dementia drug being tested by Cassava Sciences, but human trials continue. Why? The SEC alleged that the company had made misleading statements about the results of clinical trial data, and its Cassava Sciences agreed to a $40 million settlement. Some experts wonder why clinical trials have not been stopped.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 04 October 2024

• Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) has renewed popularity. The drug, a mild anesethetic, creates short-term euphoria in people. A popular recreational drug, nitrous oxide is considered relatively safe for people who do not use it often and do not take too much. The main risk is that it causes vitamin B12 deficiency. While it does not seem to build the same physical dependency as opioids, it does still carry the risk of habit formation in some cases.
  - Vox, 03 October 2024

• On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration announced that the supply shortages of Eli Lilly's popular weight-loss and diabetes drugs have been resolved. These drugs have been in short supply since the anti-obesity drug craze erupted several years ago. Now, an ample supply of GLP-1 drugs could signal that the 'fat bubble' in equity markets has popped. Shares of telehealth firm Hims & Hers Health plunged nearly 12% in premarket trading in New York.
  - Zero Hedge, 03 October 2024

• Eli Lilly's weight-loss and diabetes drug shortages are over, FDA says. The removal of Zepbound and Mounjaro from the FDA's shortage list could lead to restrictions on pharmacies making custom-made versions.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 03 October 2024

• CVS, considering a breakup, will find it is hard to do. Splitting the healthcare company into stand-alone pharmacy or health insurance businesses could leave each struggling.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 02 October 2024

• Eli Lilly to build a $4.5 billion center for research and manufacturing in Indiana
  - Comcast's CNBC, 02 October 2024

• Shares of CVS rise nearly 2% on report of a meeting with hedge fund Glenview Capital. The reported meeting signals potential changes to improve shareholder value after weak stock performance.
  - Murdoch's MarketWatch, 30 September 2024

• Why drug distributors are buying cancer specialists. The big three drug distributors are going all in on oncology practices to eliminate intermediaries who raise costs.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 30 September 2024

• Drug cartels in Mexico are turning thousands of Americans into fentanyl smugglers, sending an army of couriers who can easily cross between both countries. The amount of fentanyl crossing the border has increased tenfold in the past five years. While racists such as Trump and other Republicans racistly blame these fentanyl imports on immigrants, in reality, more than 80 percent of the people sentenced for fentanyl trafficking at the southern border are legal citizens of the USA.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 29 September 2024

• A crackdown in the USA targeted an Adderall 'pill mill'. Secretly, it had already moved to Zhōngguó. The owner of Silicon s Done Global was arrested, but the telehealth company's staff in Zhōngguó still provides easy access to stimulants for poeple in the USA.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 28 September 2024

• Drinking alcohol is linked to six types of cancer, experts say: "It is toxic". Limiting or eliminating alcohol can reduce the risk of developing alcohol-related cancers by 8% and the risk of all cancers by 4%.
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 28 September 2024

• The attorney general of Kentucky has sued Express Scripts, claiming the big pharmacy benefit manager was at the center of an opioid dispensing chain that fueled a deadly addiction crisis still haunting his state.
  - Associated Press, 27 September 2024

• Ongoing shortages of popular weight loss and diabetes drugs in the USA have spurred fierce competition between established drugmakers and an emerging market of compounded versions as telehealth companies look to tap into the fast-growing industry
  - The Hill, 25 September 2024

• Anti-aging enthusiasts are consuming rapamycin pills to extend their lives. Will it work? Rapamycin is typically prescribed as an immunosuppressive, but off-label users believe it can do much more. Studies showed that across different animals - worms, flies, mice -- all of the animals using rapamycin extended their life spans. Closer to humans, one study shows that rapamycin extends the lives of marmosets. Studies on humans are mixed. In older animals, rapamycin appears to "prevent and preserve things" rather than rejuvenate them.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 25 September 2024

• Drug overdose deaths are dropping. The reasons are not perfectly clear. The decrease across the country is a major breakthrough in efforts to reverse the effects of fentanyl. Researchers and health officials say there is no easy explanation for the trend.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 22 September 2024

• In 2013, the American Medical Association recognized obesity as a disease. But is it a disease?
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 22 September 2024

• The price war in weight-loss drugs is here. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are offering discounts to encourage more insurance coverage of the medicines, which carry price tags of over $1,000 a month.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 21 September 2024

• The 'good' Christian Tucker Carlson plans to enter the drug trafficking business by selling highly addictive nicotine pouches called Alp
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 20 September 2024

• Deep links between alcohol and cancer are described in new report. Scientists continue to rethink the idea that moderate drinking offers health benefits.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 19 September 2024

• Inflammation may be the root of many diseases of our bodies. The new weight loss drugs seem to help reduce inflammation. A better drug to treat inflammation is needed.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 19 September 2024

• US Senator Sanders says generic drugmakers could sell Ozempic for less than $100/month. A month's supply of Novo's Ozempic carries a U.S. list price of $935.77 while Wegovy lists for $1,349.02 per month, according to the drugmaker's website, although most consumers pay less.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 17 September 2024

• The superbug crisis, bacteria resistnt to most/all medications, could get worse, killing nearly 40 million people by 2050, study estimates. The crisis is driven by the misuse and overuse of antimicrobial medications in humans, animals and plants, which can help pathogens develop a resistance to them. The industrial world needs to reduce the use of antibiotics in livestock, food production and the environment, which can breed more resistance, which of course, requires the rich to make less riches.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 17 September 2024

• Another country being damaged by the hypocrisy of the drug laws of the Christian USA: the lush rainforests of Costa Rica, which blanket a quarter of the country, are being infiltrated by cartels on a quest to find new trafficking routes to evade the authorities.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 16 September 2024

• Drug prescriptions to treat dementia up 46 percent over a decade in Australia. A new report has revealed that the disease is the second highest cause of death in the nation.
  - Zero Hedge, 15 September 2024

• The rate of depression among Americans has reached a new high
  - Zero Hedge, 14 September 2024

• A team of biologists has found that giving cynomolgus monkeys the diabetes drug metformin can reduce aging in multiple organs, including the brain. The research team found evidence of a slowdown in biological aging in many of the organs, including the kidneys, lungs and the skin. They also found that the organ that seemed to benefit the most was the brain.
  - MedicalXpress, 13 September 2024

• The state of New York legalized marijuana. So why does it still have an illegal weed problem? City and state officials say that they have shut down more than 1,300 illicit outlets. It is believed that thousands more remain in business. Without enough licensed dispensaries to serve demand, thousands of unlicensed sellers stepped in, often flouting rules by popping up near schools and selling weed in colorful packaging. One reason why enforcement agents do not immediately punish unlicensed cannabis retailers is because it takes time to investigate connected ownership groups.
  - Politico, 13 September 2024

• A Venezuelan gang is expanding its deadly reach to the USA. Founded in a prison, Tren de Aragua involvement is suspected in 100 crimes in the USA, bringing its violent brand of robbery and drug trafficking north.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 13 September 2024

• Shares of Moderna plunge 15% on plans to reduce costs by $1.1 billion by 2027 as it charts a path forward after the rapid decline of its Covid business. Moderna is also deprioritizing certain parts of its pipeline, which involves pausing work on some products and scrapping others.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 12 September 2024

• Shares of Moderna plunge 11% after the company revealed new plans to slash $1.1 billion in expenses by 2027 to steer toward profitability. This comes a little over a month after investors were left disappointed following management's outlook cut on slumping vaccine sales amid a sliding Covid business.
  - Zero Hedge, 12 September 2024

• FTC accuses drug middlemen companies of inflating insulin prices. The case takes aim at the major pharmacy benefit managers, agency officials said, claiming that they favored more expensive insulin products and forced patients to pay more.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 20 September 2024

• FTC accuses drug middlemen companies of inflating insulin prices. The case takes aim at the major pharmacy benefit managers, agency officials said, claiming that they favored more expensive insulin products and forced patients to pay more.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 20 September 2024

• FTC accuses drug middlemen companies of inflating insulin prices. The case takes aim at the major pharmacy benefit managers, agency officials said, claiming that they favored more expensive insulin products and forced patients to pay more.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 20 September 2024

• Pandemic darling Moderna needs a reality check. Moderna is spending aggressively to broaden the uses of its mRNA technology. Investors are losing patience.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 07 September 2024

• Our dopamine-driven brains drive us to choose cheap distraction (of cellphone apps) over entertainment (non-challenging art) and then at last, art. A 15-second video causes a dopamine release in the brain, which creates a desire for more stimulus, which leads to the habit of more scrolling on your phone, which leads to an addiction to more stimulus. If distraction is swallowing entertainment in our culture, addiction is also swallowing distraction.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 06 September 2024

• This once hot real-estate type is now being offered as office space. Developers thought the pandemic era's supercharged demand for life-science properties was sustainable, but they were wrong.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 04 September 2024

• Attorneys representing both living and deceased patients of an Oregon hospital filed a $303 million lawsuit against the facility on Tuesday after a nurse was accused of replacing prescribed fentanyl with nonsterile tap water in intravenous drips. The wrongful death and medical malpractice complaint accuses Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford of negligence. The suit says the hospital failed to monitor medication administration procedures and prevent drug diversion by their employees, among other claims.
  - Associated Press, 03 September 2024

• Use of marijuana linked to epigenetic changes in human DNA
  - Science Alert, 02 September 2024

• Fentanyl responsible for 81% of overdose deaths of people under the age of 24. Of the nearly 108,000 recorded overdose deaths in 2022, almost 74,000 were directly linked to synthetic opioids, with fentanyl being the most prevalent. All of the traces back to the evil of the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma (and every other company involved the 'legal' trafficking of opioids)
  - Zero Hedge, 02 September 2024

• The Minister of Defense of Honduras, Carlos Zelaya, and his father, a deputy, who are the nephew and brother-in-law of President Xiomara Castro, resigned on Saturday amid a scandal over alleged links to drug trafficking, three days after the leftist leader canceled the extradition treaty with the United States.
  - Tico Times, 01 September 2024

• Honduras is threatening to ditch a bilateral extradition treaty, furthering a pattern of snubs delivered against the USA by an array of leaders in Latin America. Latin America resents the drug hypocrisy of the USA, and interference in local politics.
  - The Hill, 01 September 2024

• How Big Pharma traded principles for profits : 'hype fears' and "exaggerated supposed benefits". Both the public and physicians have been repeatedly deceived ""to believe that drugs are much better and much safer than they really are". Many doctors do not know that the medical journals they rely upon "are filled with unreliable studies hopelessly tainted by drug industry interests".
  - Murdochs's New York Post, 01 September 2024

• The new addiction - weight loss drugs. Once you stop using the drugs, all the weight that you lost returns to your body.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 31 August 2024

• Zepbound and other weight-loss drugs get more good news. But it is too soon to celebrate. Despite falling prices and other advances, questions remain over who will pay for the GLP-1 revolution.
  - Barron's, 31 August 2024

• The state of Mississippi sues drug trafficking drugmakers and pharmacy benefit managers over their role in trafficking opioid drugs causing ""the worst man-made epidemic in modern medical history". Opioids have been linked to about 800,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999, including more than 80,000 annually in recent years, with most of those involving illicitly produced fentanyl.
  - Zero Hedge, 30 August 2024

• Stop & Shop, a major grocery chain in the northeast of the USA, announces that it will stop trafficking the deadly/addictive drug nicotine by ending the sales of tobacco products.
  - The Hill, 30 August 2024

• Addiction to gambling on sports is leading to an increase in bankruptcies in the USA, in some cases, with a nearly 30% increase in bankruptcies in states where sports betting is legal. One sports betting addiction counselor says the impulse to bet on sports is devastating families across the state.
  - KSN News, 29 August 2024

• Did the 'fatty bubble' pop? Eli Lilly discounts low-dose Zepbound vials by 50%. "This new option helps millions of adults with obesity access the medicine they need."
  - Zero Hedge, 27 August 2024

• Eli Lilly will now sell cheaper vials of Zepbound, presenting a direct challenge to telehealth companies that offer compounded versions of the medication.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 27 August 2024

• Shocking testimony links the clan of former president of Philippiens, Eduardo Duterte, to a massive methamphetamine smuggling scheme. A convicted trafficker's explosive testimony has implicated the former first family in the very narcotics trade they vowed to eradicate. Jimmy Guban, a former customs intelligence officer with 17 years of experience, told lawmakers that Congressman Paolo Duterte; lawyer Manases Carpio, husband of Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio; and Chinese businessman and economic adviser Michael Yang owned the massive magnetic lifters used to secretly transport hundreds of kilograms of crystal meth, or 'shabu', into the country in 2018.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 24 August 2024

• Johnson & Johnson takes aim at hospital drug-discount program. The drugmaker told hospitals participating in the discounting program that they will have to pay full price upfront, then wait for rebates.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 24 August 2024

• Carlsbad, a city in southern California, bans the smoking and vaping of drug-trafficking nicotine products in apartments and condos
  - Zero Hedge, 23 August 2024

• The USA sanctions the former president of Haiti for drug trafficking. The Treasury Department said former President Michel Martelly's actions have contributed significantly to the unraveling of security in the country.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 22 August 2024

• The Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Zhōngguó reported that new COVID-19 infections in the country of origin have increased to nearly 20 percent in the past few weeks, as two new Omicron subvariants spread across the country
  - Zero Hedge, 21 August 2024

• Why diseases caused by fungi are so frightening. Compared to bacteria, fungi are much harder to kill once they take root in the body. One problem is that there are only 10 approved anti-fungal drugs, versus hundreds of antibiotics.
  - GizModo, 21 August 2024

• A new study has linked semaglutide, the active drug ingredient in weight-loss and diabetic drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic, to suicidal ideation. The results show semaglutide was linked with a 45 percent greater likelihood of suicidal ideation when compared to other drugs.
  - Zero Hedge, 21 August 2024

• Eli Lilly says weight-loss drug sharply reduces diabetes progression. Eli Lilly's anti-obesity drug Zepbound significantly reduced the risk of Type 2 diabetes among people with excess weight and elevated blood-sugar levels in a new study.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 21 August 2024

• A federal district court Thursday threw out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's lawsuit challenging the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program established through the Inflation Reduction Act, with a judge finding that several plaintiffs in the suit lacked standing. The judge rule that members of the Chamber can sue, not the Chamber itself.
  - The Hill, 18 August 2024

• MindBloom, a startup that sends ketamine by mail to people in their hoems, has added injectable doses to its product line, making a risky practice even riskier, doctors say. Mindbloom provides ketamine, an anesthetic, off-label to treat conditions including depression and anxiety. Legal drug trafficking. The actor Matthew Perry died from home use of ketamine.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 17 August 2024

• Medtronic stock has been hit by anti-obesity concerns. Why it should rebound.
  - Barron's, 17 August 2024

• Over the past few decades, the cost of insulin in the USA skyrocketed, affecting millions of people with diabetes relying on it every day. Insulin is produced by three major manufacturers in the USA - Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi. Over the 10 years from 2006 to 2016, the cost of insulin in the USA climbed to $255 for 10 mL Humalog, a 264% increase. By 2017 it reached $275 before increasing public scrutiny and legislation to cap prices in certain states stopped the climb.
  - Zero Hedge, 16 August 2024

• A gunshot, a murdered rival and a kidnapped drug lord: Mexico's ruling party faces growing scandal. At issue is whether Rubén Rocha - the governor of the cartel-dominated state of Sinaloa and a close ally of the president - may have held meetings with top leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, the main producer of deadly fentanyl that kills 70,000 Americans per year.
  - Associated Press, 16 August 2024

• Medicare to save $6 billion in 2026 from the first ever Part D drug pricing negotiations. The new prices will save seniors $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs. The power to negotiate was part of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. The largest industry lobbying firm, PhRMA, which is suing the government over the negotiation process, said the IRA did not do enough to protect patients from unintended consequences.
  - Apollo Global's Yahoo Finance, 15 August 2024

• Medicare to save $6 billion in 2026 from the first ever Part D drug pricing negotiations. The new prices will save seniors $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs. The power to negotiate was part of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. The largest industry lobbying firm, PhRMA, which is suing the government over the negotiation process, said the IRA did not do enough to protect patients from unintended consequences.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 15 August 2024

• The cancer causing chemical benzene has been found in generic store-brand versions of Mucinex cold medicine, according to a new report by Bloomberg. Bloomberg writes that despite international warnings, regulators in the USA have permitted the use of benzene in drugs for decades. The FDA announced plans to phase out benzene by 2025, but the deadline was extended to 2026 after pushback from the industry. Swapping benzene-containing carbomers is costly and time-consuming due to the need for additional testing and FDA approval. Prices for safer carbomers are higher, with Bloomberg noting a $4 price difference on Amazon between benzene-made and benzene-free versions.
  - Zero Hedge, 14 August 2024

• A hot summer threatens efficacy of mail-order medications. The temperatures inside delivery trucks (150 Fahrenheit) can reach twice the recommended threshold (68 to 77), but federal rules on drug storage conditions do not apply to the booming world of mail-order delivery, which the FDA says is regulated by the states.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 14 August 2024

• Ozempic may have another side effect: better sex. Drugs used for weight loss have helped millions of people take control of their physical health. But some patients are reporting unexpected improvements to their intimate lives.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 14 August 2024

• $4,500,000 - Enzo Biochem will pay $4.5 million to settle claims it failed to adequately safeguard personal and private health information of its patients, New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Tuedsay.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 13 August 2024

• The journal Psychopharmacology has retracted three papers about MDMA-assisted therapy based on what the publication said was unethical conduct at one of the study sites where the research took place. Several of the authors of the papers are affiliated with Lykos Therapeutics, the drug company whose application for MDMA-assisted therapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder was rejected last week by the Food and Drug Administration.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 13 August 2024

• Older adults do not benefit from moderate drinking, a large study finds. Virtually any amount increased the risk for cancer, and there were no heart benefits, the researchers reported.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 13 August 2024

• The parties where volunteers pack abortion pills for women in 'red states'. Amid risks, volunteers are mobilizing to assist networks that mail abortion medication to women in states with strict limits on abortions imposed by white male politicians.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 13 August 2024

• Book review: "Rinsed" - inside the crazy world of moneylaundering for drug traffickes
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 10 August 2024

• A new e-cigarette with built-in video games is being illegally sold in New York and other parts of the United States - for being double addictive. These new drug trafficking devices offer prizes as incentives depending on how much a person vapes, and critics caution they are being used to illegally lure the youth of the USA into nicotine addiction (nicotine being more addictive than cocaine).
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 10 August 2024

• Harvard University has decided against removing from campus buildings the name of the Sackler family, the opioid drug traffickers responible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the USA, while earning billions of dollars from their drug trafficking, used in part to bribe immoral institutions such as ... Harvard University
  - Associated Press, 09 August 2024

• As opioid deaths plague Baltimore, the city's strategy is silence. The city has declined to divulge its plans or hold hearings on one of the worst public health crises in the United States, saying it does not want to jeopardize its lawsuit against drugmaking opioid traffickers.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 09 August 2024

• Zhōngguó restricts the sale of chemicals used to make fentanyl, after years of pressure from the USA. The progress on a diplomatic sticking point between the two countries suggests Beijing is eager to smooth ties ahead of the November election.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 09 August 2024

• Big Pharma reduces their R&D budgets, sending shudders through industry. Results from Charles River Laboratories, a provider of drug-discovery services to pharma companies, signal an era of cost cutting.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 09 August 2024

• Heat waves and droughts are a bonanza for sugary junk food companies. It is hard to find drinking water in La Guajira, an arid peninsula in northern Colombia, where drought and overuse are sucking wells and small reservoirs dry. But it is easy to find soda for sale. In 2017, Postobon, the largest soda company in Colombia, adopting drug trafficking tactics, gave free sugary fruit drinks to thousands of young people in La Guajira under the guise of ending malnutrition. As of 2020, children there still had a malnutrition mortality rate that was six times the national average. Since at least the early 2000s, from Bharat to Mexico to South Africa, Coca-Cola has been accused of extracting water from drought-prone areas. The company claims it returns 94 percent of the water it uses to nature, but the process is still incredibly water-intensive: One 2010 paper estimated that it takes hundreds of liters of water to produce just a liter of a standard carbonated, sugary beverage.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 08 August 2024

• Shares of Eli Lilly jump 11% pre-market after it reported second-quarter earnings and revenue that blew past expectations and hiked its full-year revenue outlook by $3 billion as sales of its blockbuster diabetes drug Mounjaro and weight loss injection Zepbound spike
  - Comcast's CNBC, 08 August 2024

• Some nicotine drug traffickers are using chemicals in e-cigarettes that mimic nicotine, chemicals that are not regulated - anything to keep people highly addicted to their products
  - Medical Xpress, 07 August 2024

• Novo Nordisk shares in Copenhagen fell 7.7%, marking the steepest intraday plunge in two years. The Danish pharmaceutical giant delivered underwhelming second-quarter sales for its Wegovy (semaglutide) blockbuster anti-obesity drug.
  - Zero Hedge, 07 August 2024

• Novo Nordisk shares in Copenhagen fell 7.7%, marking the steepest intraday plunge in two years. The Danish pharmaceutical giant delivered underwhelming second-quarter sales for its Wegovy (semaglutide) blockbuster anti-obesity drug.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 07 August 2024

• Alejandro Martínez, a reporter in Mexico, had received so many threats that the government of Mexico appointed him protection. On Sunday, he was shot and killed and his bodyguards wounded, in Celaya, Guanajuato. In the past few years, the powerful Jalisco New Generation cartel has been in a dangerous turf war with the local Santa Rosa de Lima cartel for control in the state, resulting in a spike in disappearances and homicides where almost everyone, from aspiring politicians to vendors suffering extortion to relatives searching for their loved ones, has been attacked.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 06 August 2024

• Drug trials for 'ectasy' missed suicidal thoughts of subjects. Participants in studies of the psychedelic, which is up for approval in the USA, told the WSJ they felt pressure to report positive benefits.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 06 August 2024

• Excessive Internet use disrupts key parts of the teenage brain. Internet addiction alters teenage brains in ways that encourage other addictive behaviors.
  - Zero Hedge, 05 August 2024

• Scientists develop new compound that kills flesh-eating and other drug-resistant Gram-positive bacteria
  - Zero Hedge, 05 August 2024

• 100 million times more difficult: revolutionary dual action antibiotic makes bacterial resistance nearly impossible
  - SciTechDaily, 05 August 2024

• Merck created the biggest drug in the world, an immunotherapy drug that has revolutionized how doctors treat cancer. Now it has to replace it. Keytruda will generate $25 billion in sales for Merck this year, about 40% of its total revenue. But its patent is will expire in 2028, leaving Merck with a gaping hole to fill -- and a stock price that could be at risk. Generic competition will happen just as Keytruda becomes eligible for a government program that could allow Medicare to pay reduced prices for the medicine beginning in 2028. That could all cause a dramatic revenue drop for Merck as the decade comes to a close.
  - Barron's, 03 August 2024

• This biotech risk-taker created Moderna. Now he is harnessing AI. Noubar Afeyan's Flagship Pioneering has hundreds of scientists working at in-house labs. They are seeking discoveries as valuable as the mRNA vaccines of s best-known spinoff, Moderna.
  - Barron's, 03 August 2024

• A "hypervirulent" super-bacteria is spreading and scaring health experts. The WHO is urging countries to track hardy strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae that can severely sicken anyone. Some strains that can resist the last remaining antibiotics available against the bacteria and can severely sicken anyone.
  - GizModo, 02 August 2024

• Oxxo, the largest convenience store chain in Mexico owned by FEMSA, said Friday it will reopen 191 stores in the border city of Nuevo Laredo that it had closed last week because of drug cartel threats.
  - Associated Press, 02 August 2024

• As stock prices plummet, Wall Street begs the Federal Reserve to panic and give Wall Street more of its favorite 'drug' - interest rate reductions. Goldman predicts 3 consecutive rate reductions, JPMorgan hopes for a reduction of 05%, and Citi even more
  - Zero Hedge, 02 August 2024

• Arrests of drug kingpings will not solve the addication crisis in the USA. What is needed is reforming idiotic drug laws that have failed for decades (e.g., the ten billion spent in Colombia that achieved nothing), and addressing the reason why so many people in the USA need to use drugs
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 01 August 2024

• Facebook and Instagram have run hundreds of ads for cocaine, opioids and other drugs. Instagram and Facebook are still running ads for illegal drugs, months after the WSJ revealed they were under federal investigation for the practice.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 01 August 2024

• Shares of Merck decline 9%, despite reported second-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that topped estimates as it saw strong sales from its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda as well as other treatments in its oncology and vaccines portfolios and a new cardiovascular drug. But the shares fell as investors considered to consider over lighter-than-expected sales of Gardasil.
  - Zero Hedge, 30 July 2024

• The USA is running out of generic drugmakers. Another one, USAntibiotics, is on the brink. The last maker of amoxicillin in the USA, a vitally important medicine, was once a powerhouse of domestic antibiotic manufacturing. Now it is not even close to breaking even financially.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 30 July 2024

• Shares of Reckitt Benckiser plunge 10% to the lowest since 2013, after Similac-maker Abbott was ordered by a jury to pay almost $500 million over allegations it hid the risk that its premature infant formula can cause potentially fatal bowel disease. Abbott fell 5.5% in New York premarket trade. Reckitt's Mead Johnson subsidiary faces similar lawsuits.
  - Bloomberg, 29 July 2024

• Governments around the world have tried to kill the nicotine-trafficking tobacco industry. Zyn, the brand of flavored oral nicotine pouches that comes in small, round containers resembling breath mints, is the latest strategy of the nicotine-trafficking tobacco industry. And all legal, despite nicotine being more addictive than cocaine.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 27 July 2024

• $495,000,000 - Abbott Laboratories is ordered to pay $495 million in a baby-formula trial. Jury says Similac maker failed to warn of risk; Abbott says it disagrees with verdict. The jury determined that Abbott failed to warn that its formula for premature infants increased the risk for a bowel disease.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 27 July 2024

• A major Mexican drug lord was tricked on Thursday into flying aboard a small plane that landed near El Paso, Texas, where federal agents greeted him on the tarmac with handcuffs. That big prize was 76-year-old Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who co-founded the infamous Sinaloa cartel with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in the late 1980s. El Mayo was led to believe the small aircraft he was boarding would take him to survey covert airstrips inside Mexico. Ironically, El Chapo's son, Guzman Lopez, was said to have turned on El Mayo because he blamed him for his father's apprehension.
  - Zero Hedge, 26 July 2024

• Shares of Eli Lilly drop 4.5%, a loss of $120 billion in shareholder value, with at least two rivals posting encouraging developments for their obesity treatments.
  - Bloomberg, 25 July 2024

• We bought everything needed to make $3 million worth of fentanyl from chemical suppliers in Zhōngguó. All it took was $3,600 and a web browser, and the chemicals were air-shipped door-to-door to anywhere in North America. Reuters purchased enough to make 3 million pills.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 25 July 2024

• The deadly chemistry of fentanyl - how rogue labs make opioids. The illicit synthetic opioid industry is built on surprisingly simple chemistry. Here is the science between fentanyl, and how underworld 'chemistry cooks' exploit the simple chemistry.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 25 July 2024

• Drug middlemen push patients to pricier medicines, a probe by the House of Representatives determines. Findings from the House Oversight investigation add to criticism that pharmacy-benefit managers are driving up drug spending.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 23 July 2024

• Middlemen for the pharmaceutical industry in the USA defended their role in the healthcare system during a Congressional hearing on Tuesday after committee members accused them of pushing patients toward expensive treatments even when lower-cost options are available. The middlemen, pharmacy benefit managers, blamed "patent abuses" by drug manufacturers that delay launches of cheaper generic and biosimilar medicines for the heightened costs to consumers. The launch price of new drugs was also an issue, they said.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 23 July 2024

• A new e-cigarette with built-in video games is being illegally sold in New York and other parts of the United States - for being double addictive. These new drug trafficking devices offer prizes as incentives depending on how much a person vapes, and critics caution they are being used to illegally lure the youth of the USA into nicotine addiction (nicotine being more addictive than cocaine).
  - Medical Xpress, 10 August 2024

• The FDA authorizes the sale of tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes sold by the nicotine drug trafficking company, Vuse
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 19 July 2024

• The tobacco and vape regulation by the FDA is still a failure. A recent authorization of 4 menthol-flavored e-cigarettes illustrates how the FDA's tobacco regulatory authority is hampered by politics rather than guided by science.
  - Real Clear Markets, 19 July 2024

• Shares of Novo Nordisk (down 3.77%) and Eli Lilly (down 2.7%) decline on new obesity drug trial from Roche. Roche said its experimental once-daily pill showed average weight loss of 6.1% in four week. Shares of Roche were up 5.87%.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 17 July 2024

• Cookies. Pizza. Cake. All are delicious -- but potentially deadly. In addition to their often-high sugar, salt or fat content, these foods can also contain a toxic ingredient that kills almost 300,000 people from coronary heart disease each year (five times more deaths than from cocaine): industrially produced trans fat. This invisible killer must be eliminated from the the food supply of the world.
  - Al Jazeera, 12 July 2024

• States and creditors for Purdue Pharma threaten the drug-trafficking Sackler family with a gush of lawsuits. Legal maneuverings followed a Supreme Court ruling last month that denied the Sackler family immunity from liability over its role in the opioid crisis.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 12 July 2024

• How large corporations conspired with the government of the USA to create the Covid-era lockdowns, a massive violation of human rights, in order to increase corporate profits. Lockdowns are a massive interference with competitive capitalism. They provide the best possible subsidy to big business while shutting down independent small businesses and putting them at a huge disadvantage once the opening up happens. In other words, it is an industrial racket, very much akin to interwar-style fascism, a corporatist combination of big business and big government. Throw pharma into the mix and you see exactly what came to pass in 2020, which amounted to the largest transfer of wealth from small and medium-sized business plus the middle class to wealthy industrialists in the history of humanity.
  - Brownstone Institute, 11 July 2024

• Nearly two weeks after the US Supreme Court tossed out a $6 billion bankruptcy settlement agreed upon by the drug-trafficking Sackler family to address claims that the OxyContin manufacturer fueled America's opioid crisis, the court-appointed committee of Purdue creditors on Monday asked a US bankruptcy court if they could sue individual Sackler family members. The creditors allege that the Sacklers illegally transferred billions of dollars to offshore private trusts before Purdue's 2019 bankruptcy filing. If a new round of mediation between the estate, which represents the Purdue company and not the Sackler family, fails, creditors could begin the process of suing the family to recover more than $11.5 billion.
  - Zero Hedge, 09 July 2024

• Purdue Pharma backs creditor lawsuit against drug-trafficking Sacklers for shifting assets. Creditors of the bankrupt OxyContin maker seek exclusive authority to sue its family owners for $11.5 billion.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 09 July 2024

• Shares in Novo Nordisk, maker of the wildly popular obesity drug Wegovy, were down 1.9% on Tuesday after the publication of a data analysis showing rival Eli Lilly's own treatment Mounjaro leads to faster and greater weight loss.
  - Zero Hedge, 09 July 2024

• How drug middlemen keep beating the system. Pharmacy-benefit managers are outsmarting regulators by adapting their opaque business models and keeping data from the public.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 09 July 2024

• FTC to sue drug managers over insulin prices. Preparations to sue follow a two-year probe into whether the firms steer patients away from less-expensive medicines.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 09 July 2024

• The consolidation of pharmacies and health insurance companies through years of deal making has led to a handful of pharmacy benefit managers exercising outsized influence over prescription drug prices, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday. The FTC argues the three biggest PBMs - managing 79% of U.S. prescription drug claims - have greatly enriched themselves at the expense of smaller pharmacies and consumers, according to an interim staff report calling for possible greater regulation.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 09 July 2024

• The consolidation of pharmacies and health insurance companies through years of deal making has led to a handful of pharmacy benefit managers exercising outsized influence over prescription drug prices, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday. The FTC argues the three biggest PBMs - managing 79% of U.S. prescription drug claims - have greatly enriched themselves at the expense of smaller pharmacies and consumers, according to an interim staff report calling for possible greater regulation.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 09 July 2024

• The destructive influence of pharmacy benefit managers. Due to the outsized influence of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the prescription drugs that save both money and lives are not the same ones that get into the hands of patients.
  - Issues and Insights, 09 July 2024

• The consolidation of pharmacies and health insurance companies through years of deal making has led to a handful of pharmacy benefit managers exercising outsized influence over prescription drug prices, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday. The FTC argues the three biggest PBMs - managing 79% of U.S. prescription drug claims - have greatly enriched themselves at the expense of smaller pharmacies and consumers, according to an interim staff report calling for possible greater regulation.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 09 July 2024

• Authorities in Zhōngguó have quietly shut down chemical sellers and say they will regulate other opioid precursors that are used to manufacture fentanyl. But officials in the USA are pressing Zhōngguó to do more to help lessen the fentanyl crisis, but USA officials still have no interest in recognizing or dealing with the reason why Americans consume huge amounts of drugs
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 06 July 2024

• An online pharmacy pledged to make prescriptions easier. It sent the wrong drugs instead. Elevance's CarelonRx customers waited weeks for prescriptions or received medications that could have harmed them.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 05 July 2024

• Large drug cartels in Mexico ramp up operations in Hawaii as the fentanyl crisis broadens across the USA
  - Zero Hedge, 04 July 2024

• Shares of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly extended declines after Mass Eye and Ear, a Harvard-affiliated hospital, revealed in a new study published in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology that people prescribed semaglutide, sold as Ozempic and Wegovy (Novo), have an elevated risk of developing a "potentially blinding eye condition" called nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 04 July 2024

• Shares of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly decline slightly, after President Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders co-authored an opinion piece in USA Today, urging big pharma to slash the prices of anti-obesity drugs
  - Zero Hedge, 03 July 2024

• Message from President Biden and Senator Sanders: Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly must stop ripping off Americans with high drug prices. If Novo Nordisk and other pharmaceutical companies refuse to substantially lower prescription drug prices in our country and end their greed, we will do everything within our power to end it for them.
  - USA Today, 03 July 2024

• The DEA says that drug money launderers targeted Citi ATMs because "they are more favorable to them", in terms of conducting multiple mini-transactions
  - Murdoch's MarketWatch, 02 July 2024

• Insurance companies in the USA are charging women in the USA for contraceptives that, under federal law, should be free as mandated by law (the Affordable Care Act) -- and that they were also denying appeals from consumers who were seeking to have their contraceptives covered. Some experts estimate that those practices could affect access to birth control for millions of women. Despite the fact that the federal mandate has existed for more than a decade, companies continue to skirt the law because "these mandates are rarely enforced, and the penalties for ignoring them are relatively low", i.e., commit the crime and not worry too much about the penalty.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 02 July 2024

• Years later, Philippines reckons with a brutal drug war launched by a previous government, Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte's vow to fight drugs unleashed violence and fostered a culture of impunity. But the crimes are finally getting a look, including from the International Criminal Court. During this 'war', police officers and vigilantes mercilessly gunned down tens of thousands of people in summary executions, under a criminal promise of immunity by the Duterte. Few people have been held responsible, and the killings continue.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 30 June 2024

• How the reduction of opium production ordered by the Taliban in Afghanistan, which drove up the prices of heroin, resulted in increased supply and demand for more deadly fentanyl.
  - Zero Hedge, 29 June 2024

• The Supreme Court on Thursday morning rejected a bankruptcy reorganization of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma that would have shielded the opioid drug-trafficking Sackler family members from civil lawsuits related to the hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths attributed to the opioid crisis that they created and profitted from with their drug trafficking activities. As part of the accord, Sackler members agreed to give up Purdue ownership and pay upwards of $6 billion. Pablo Escobar was assassinated for lesser drug-trafficking activities.
  - Zero Hedge, 27 June 2024

• Why Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid are closing thousands of drug stores across America. Walgreens and other retailers have been hit by shoplifting and resorted to locking up items or closing high-theft stores since the pandemic. Drug store chains are struggling because of falling reimbursement rates for prescription drugs, according to analysts who cover the industry. The majority of sales of pharmacies comes from filling prescriptions. But their profits from that business have dropped in recent years because of lower reimbursement rates for prescription drugs and higher fees. The prices customers pay for drugs and the payments pharmacies receive are largely determined by pharmacy benefit managers, known as PBMs, which negotiate rebates from drug manufacturers to insurers. PBMs have been cutting reimbursement rates to boost their own profits.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 27 June 2024

• Shares of Walgreens plummet 22% after it reduced its profit forecast for fiscal 2024 and said it would close more underperforming U.S. stores as weak consumer spending hurts retail operations
  - Thomson's Reuters, 27 June 2024

• Walgreens plans major store closures in the USA. Shares of the pharmacy chain plummeted 25% after The Wall Street Journal reported the CEO's plans and the company lowered its guidance for the full year.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 27 June 2024

• Walgreens is planning to close more of its roughly 8,700 stores in the United States, its parent company said on Thursday, after the retail pharmacy giant reported third-quarter earnings that fell short of analyst expectations
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 27 June 2024

• Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras, is sentenced to 45 years in jail in the USA for working with drug traffickers as his country became a base of operations for cocaine shipments to the United States. He is responsible for less deaths than the Sackler drug trafficking family, and made less money than the Sacklers, so why aren't the Sacklers in jail for 45 years?
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 27 June 2024

• The war over cheaper forms of Ozempic will not end well for some investors. Once Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk increase the supply of weight-loss medications, companies such as Hims & Hers may find it trickier to sell compounded versions of the drugs.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 27 June 2024

• Finland plans to offer preemptive bird flu vaccination as soon as next week to some workers with exposure to animals, health authorities said on Tuesday, making it the first country in the world to do so. The Nordic country has bought vaccines for 10,000 people, each consisting of two injections, as part of a joint EU procurement of up to 40 million doses for 15 nations from manufacturer CSL Seqirus.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 26 June 2024

• Daily multivitamins do not help people live longer, major study finds. Analysis of 400,000 healthy adults finds no health benefits from taking daily multivitamins.
  - The Guardian, 26 June 2024

• Biden administration to lower costs for 64 drugs through inflation penalties on drugmakers. A provision of Biden's Inflation Reduction Act requires drugmakers to pay rebates to Medicare if they hike the price of a medication faster than the rate of inflation.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 26 June 2024

• Mail-order drugs were supposed to keep costs down. It is doing the opposite. One employer was paying about $100 for a prescription for a generic antidepressant, though it could be bought elsewhere for about $12. Another scammy Internet business model.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 26 June 2024

• Intermittent fasting "may serve as an effective initial lifestyle intervention" for patients with Type 2 diabetes ... potentially eliminating need for antidiabetic drugs
  - Zero Hedge, 25 June 2024

• Shares of Novo Nordisk hit new record as its weight-loss drug, Wegovy, gets approval in Zhōngguó
  - Zero Hedge, 25 June 2024

• Do Americans drink too much? Alcohol is driving a debate in Washington. The struggle is on to set new federal guidelines for alcohol consumption -- with input from researchers whose work has led other countries to recommend drinking less.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 25 June 2024

• Since mass innoculation with the Covid vaccines, there has been an alarming surge in deaths from neurological disease among young adults
  - Zero Hedge, 24 June 2024

• "Breakthrough" weight-loss drug data from Eli Lilly, to treat obesity and sleep apnea, sends CPAP device-makers plunging. Shares on Monday of ResMed plunged 15%, along with Inspire Medical Systems -17% and AdaptHealth -11.5%.
  - Zero Hedge, 24 June 2024

• It is time to ban the advertising of pharmaceuticals. Drug companies are avoiding FDA rules for advertising by using telehealth companies to promote their drugs. The FDA has not updated its nonbinding draft guidance on social media advertising since 2014. "Consumers can be inundated with promotions for medications from influencers with no expertise and whether or not the influencer has ever used the medication. ... Such ads often overstate benefits and minimize harms."
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 24 June 2024

• The FDA authorizes the first electronic cigarettes that have menthol flavors. The FDA authorized four types of menthol-flavored e-cigarettes made by NJOY, part of the tobacco company Altria. But criticism remains harsh. "Today's decision is hard to understand in light of the FDA's own repeated conclusions that flavored e-cigarettes, including menthol-flavored nicotine products, appeal to kids and have fueled the youth e-cigarette epidemic of addiction to nicotine."
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 24 June 2024

• Shares of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals soar almost 40% in pre-market trading, after ts drug succeeded in clinical trials in treating a progressive and deadly form of heart disease
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 24 June 2024

• The opaque industry secretly inflating prices for prescription drugs. Pharmacy benefit managers are driving up drug costs for millions of people, employers and the government. The three largest are owned by CVS Health, Cigna and UnitedHealth Group. They steer patients toward pricier drugs, charge steep markups on what would otherwise be inexpensive medicines and extract billions of dollars in hidden fees. Falsely-claimed savings for consumers are likely a mirage, a product of a system where prices have been artificially inflated so that major PBMs and drug companies can boost their profits while taking credit for reducing prices. If they were stand-alone companies, the three biggest PBMs would each rank among the top 40 U.S. companies by revenue.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 23 June 2024

• Cancer-drug costs skyrocket, leaving even insured patients in financial ruin. As cancer rates rise for people under 50, the cost of life-saving treatment is rising far past their ability to pay.
  - Zero Hedge, 22 June 2024

• Six years after California legalized marijuana, the bodies keep piling up. Drug legalization has failed on every level. The legal drug business is collapsing. Cartels and gang members dominate the business. And open borders allowed them to bring massive numbers of laborers to boost their ranks.
  - Gatestone Institute, 21 June 2024

• Shares of Zealand Pharma (Denmark) popped 17% on Friday, notching a record high after an early-stage study of its weight loss drug challenger produced positive results
  - Comcast's CNBC, 21 June 2024

• South Africa runs out of insulin pens as global supply shifts to weight-loss drugs. The shortage highlights a widening gulf in the standard of care for people with diabetes, most of whom live in low-income countries.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 20 June 2024

• California joins growing national effort to ban smartphone use in schools. Governor Gavin Newsom called for a statewide ban as states and large school districts have pursued similar prohibitions to prevent addictive distractions, disruption and cyberbullying.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 20 June 2024

• The Los Angeles School District votes in favor of a cellphone ban. Implementing the ban in one of the country's largest school districts could be a challenge.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 20 June 2024

• As patents on various weight-loss drugs near expiry, companies in Bharat and Zhōngguó are vying to make lower-cost versions that will widen access to such treatments.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 19 June 2024

• $50,000,000+ - A five-year investigation by officials in the USA has uncovered a complex partnership between one of the most notorious drug cartels in Mexico and underground banking groups based in Zhōngguó, and operating in the USA, that laundered money from the sale of fentanyl, cocaine and other drugs, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. Associates of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel conspired with the groups from Zhōngguó to cover up more than $50 million in drug profits, much of which was processed in the Los Angeles area.
  - The Atlantic, 18 June 2024

• Some "sovereign flex": how a tribe defied officials through cannabis. The Eastern Band of Cherokees says opening a dispensary is an act of sovereignty. But North Carolina officials have sought to restrict sales. Some Republicans are striking back with a proposed law to withhold certain federal funds from states and tribes that permit the use of recreational marijuana. The Cherokees are getting support from other Native American tribes, who want to launch their marijuana businesses as well.
  - Al Jazeera, 17 June 2024

• Drugs like Ozempic can target and erase our desire for food -- and perhaps other cravings too. This pathologises desire as something that exists outside of us, to which we passively submit. But in losing our desires, we risk losing valuable parts of our experience -- instead, argues Uku Tooming, we should view desire as an attitude that we shape with our imagination, and use our imagination to harness it to better ends.
  - IAI News, 17 June 2024

• Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (a Democrat) pardoned more than 175,000 marijuana convictions for an estimated 100,000 people on Monday morning. Something you think that Republicans would want to do to help people rehabilitate over a non-crime.
  - Axios, 17 June 2024

• The US surgeon general has called on Congress to require warning labels on addictive social media platforms similar to those now mandatory on boxes of addictive cigarettes. Dr. Vivek Murthy said that social media is a contributing factor in the mental health crisis among young people.
  - Alibaba's South China Morning Post, 17 June 2024

• Dr. Vivek Murthy: why I am calling for a warning label on social media platforms
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 17 June 2024

• The USA Surgeon General calls for warning labels on social media platforms. Dr. Vivek Murthy said he would urge Congress to require a warning that addictive social media use can harm the mental health of teenagers.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 17 June 2024

• Millions in drug money has made its way into the south Florida commercial real estate market
  - Zero Hedge, 14 June 2024

• $100,000,000 - Federal prosecutors have charged the CEO and head doctor of Done GLobal -- a telehealth company that distributes stimulant drugs to thousands of patients across the USA -- with fraud in an alleged $100 million scheme to provide "easy access" to Adderall and other stimulants.
  - CBS News, 13 June 2024

• Why America is running low on addictive Zyn nicotine pouches. Nicotine trafficker Philip Morris expects the shortage to last until year-end, as the brand's single factory in the USA tries to meet surging demand in "Zyndemic".
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 13 June 2024

• The number of drug shortages has increased over a decade, with 125 active drug shortages monitored by FDA at the end of 2023. Most of the drugs in short supply cost less than $5 to make - not enough profits for drug companies. "The economics of generic drugs often leave manufacturers with razor-thin margins, making it challenging to prioritize investment in modern machinery or to elevate standards of quality. Without sufficient profitability, the cycle of innovation and improvement becomes difficult to sustain."
  - Zero Hedge, 12 June 2024

• A new book reveals the racism staffers experience in a mostly white, Christian Congress. "How Congress became the 'last plantation'." "The unequal racial makeup of congressional staff is one of the most important problems subverting our multiracial democracy."
  - Politico, 07 June 2024

• Novo Nordisk braces for a generic challenge to Ozempic and Wegovy in Zhōngguó. The patent on semaglutide, the active ingredient in both Wegovy and Ozempic, expires in 2026 in Zhōngguó. Competitors are developing at least 15 generic versions.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 06 June 2024

• Why is everyone on steroids right now? Across the internet and in gyms everywhere, body-modifying drug use has become ubiquitous, effective and ... normal. Can this really be a good thing?
  - GQ, 05 June 2024

• Shares of heavily-shorted Novavax rise 25% as the FDA decides on the next Covid shot
  - Zero Hedge, 05 June 2024

• Psychedelic stocks were battered in premarket trading after a panel of experts advising the Food and Drug Administration rejected the approval of MDMA for post-traumatic (PTSD) stress disorder. In premarket trading, psychedelic stocks were clubbed like a baby seal. Mind Medicine fell 14%, Compass Pathways down 11%, and Atai Life Sciences slid 8%.
  - Zero Hedge, 05 June 2024

• Jordan has foiled two plots to smuggle millions of captagon pills through a border post to Saudi Arabia, the biggest seizure in years of drugs bound for lucrative Islamic Gulf markets from what Jordanian security officials say are Syria-based gangs with ties to Islamic Iran.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 05 June 2024

• Internet addiction alters brain chemistry in young people, study finds. Changes in multiple neural networks can result in further addictive tendencies and negative behaviours.
  - The Guardian, 04 June 2024

• Mexican drug traffickers rule the drug market thanks to partners in Zhōngguó. The DEA denounced that the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels, the most dangerous in the world, grew due to obtaining chemicals from and money laundering through Asian mafias. [Note: these cartels mostly grew from irrational and unconstitutional drug laws in the USA]
  - El Colombiano, 04 June 2024

• Public health authorities are warning of a new fentanyl drug concoction laced with a veterinary sedative (medetomidine) that is more potent than previous cocktails.
  - Zero Hedge, 04 June 2024

• Mexico's election: a victory for organized crime
  - Al Jazeera, 03 June 2024

• Shares of GSK plunge 10% in London, the most in 2 years, after a Delaware judge allowed jury trials to proceed in cases concerning the discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, which is allegedly linked to cancer.
  - Zero Hedge, 03 June 2024

• New data from the National Institutes of Health reveals the agency and its scientists collected $710 million in royalties during the pandemic, from late 2021 through 2023. These are payments made by private companies, like pharmaceuticals, to license medical innovations from government scientists. Almost all that -- $690 million -- went to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. Two lawsuits had to be filed against the NIH to obtain the data. Anthony Fauci has spent years scoffing at questions about potential conflicts of interest between COVID policymakers, who relentlessly pushed vaccines, and recipients of private royalties.
  - Zero Hedge, 02 June 2024

• Zhōngguó halts beef shipments from a JBS plant in Colorado over a feed additive drug, ractopamine, banned in 160 countries but not in the USA. Multiple civic groups are suing the FDA for not investigating this globally-banned drug. The lawsuit cites a study of ractopamine's impacts on human health. The study was discontinued because low doses administered to patients increased heart rate significantly. Farmers use the drug to promote muscle growth in pigs, turkeys, and cows.
  - Zero Hedge, 30 May 2024

• The junk-food industrial complex is on notice after pumping American consumers with sugars and carbs for decades, sparking an obesity crisis that has weighed on the nation's healthcare system. Remarkably, big pharma's response to the obesity crisis is an injectable drug, while the federal government is nowhere to be found in promoting healthy diets and exercise to the masses.
  - Zero Hedge, 28 May 2024

• One of the deadliest jobs in Mexico is campaigning for political office. The assassination of Gisela Gaytán shocked Mexico. She was among dozens of aspirants for public office killed in recent months.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 26 May 2024

• Why are so many election candidates in Mexico getting killed? Across Mexico, dozens of candidates, their relatives and party members have been targeted in violent attacks before general election in June.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 26 May 2024

• Socially alienated children in the USAM are playing a new neighborhood game - "Senior Assassin" (chasing each other with big squirt guns). It is an attempt for children to physically connect with each other. Their generation spends less time with friends and more on social media - bad for their health, earns billions for billionaire owners of social media companies.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 26 May 2024

• Kush, a synthetic drug, is ravaging young people in Sierra Leone. Kush is marijuana mixed with synthetic drugs like fentanyl and tramadol and chemicals like formaldehyde.
  - Associated Press, 25 May 2024

• New Christian laws to hate women: white Christian politicians in Louisiana pass a law that will classify abortion drugs, such as mifepristone, as controlled substances, criminalizing their use
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 23 May 2024

• Nebraska is sueing TikTok for allegedly harming minors. The office of the state Attorney General said the social-media app is contributing to mental-health problems in children.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 23 May 2024

• CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid are closing hundreds of stores as discount retailers and e-commerce outlets increase competition
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 22 May 2024

• Regular use of fish oil supplements, a source of omega-3 fatty acids, may increase, not reduce, the risk of first-time stroke and atrial fibrillation among people in good cardiovascular health.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 22 May 2024

• No surprise, the DEA is slow to support President Biden's plan to loosen federal marijuana restrictions, the drug historically controlled by non-white people
  - Associated Press, 21 May 2024

• Another online pharmacy, Him & Hers Health, bypasses the FDA to offer cut-rate weight loss drugs. The copycat versions are made by compounding pharmacies. The formulations are not the same as the FDA-approved versions of the drug and have not been directly evaluated by the FDA, either. But they are cheaper than the real thing: $199 a month, compared to the branded version, which can cost more than $1,000 a month without insurance.
  - The Verge, 20 May 2024

• The "outrageously" priced weight-less drugs could bankrupt the health care system of the USA. Prices would need to be dramatically slashed to avoid increasing the national deficit. If just half of the adults in the US with obesity start taking a new weight-loss drug, such as Wegovy, the collective cost would total an estimated $411 billion per year, the analysis found. That's more than the $406 billion Americans spent in 2022 on all prescription drugs combined. In the US, the estimated net price (after rebates) of Wegovy is $809 per month. In Denmark, the price is $186 per month. A study by researchers at Yale estimated that drugs like Wegovy can be profitably manufactured for less than $5 per month.
  - Condé Nast's Ars Technica, 17 May 2024

• The European Union investigates Facebook and Instgram over addictive social media effects on children, social media that may "exploit the weaknesses and inexperience of minors".
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 17 May 2024

• The European Union investigates Facebook and Instgram over addictive social media effects on children, social media that may "exploit the weaknesses and inexperience of minors".
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 17 May 2024

• Walgreens to offers its own cheaper version of the opioid overdose reveral drug, naloxone
  - Comcast's CNBC, 15 May 2024

• Drugs, sacraments or medicine? Psychedelic churches blur the line. Organizations that describe themselves as churches are providing psychedelics to followers. The compounds, which show promise as treatments for depression, are illegal in most settings.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 13 May 2024

• Coffee is anti-aging, linked to prevention of dementia and sarcopenia. As we age, muscle mass gradually declines, and with it, sometimes cognitive function. But recent research suggests drinking coffee may help.
  - Zero Hedge, 12 May 2024

• Shares of Novavax spike 120% on a deal with Sanofi to commercialise vaccines for Covid, and develop combination shorts
  - Comcast's CNBC, 10 May 2024

• Trump is considering the deployment of special military forces to assassinate non-white drug lords in Mexico, while not considering any of the white people in the USA responsible for the much bigger opioid drug trafficking that has caused huge social damage in the USA
  - Zero Hedge, 09 May 2024

• AstraZeneca withdraws its sub-optimal Covid vaccine from the markets in Europe
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 08 May 2024

• Yes, we in the medical profession got millions of Americans addicted to heroin and fentanyl. But that was all just a big misunderstanding. Why get into it? Let them keep their drug trafficking billions.
  - Racket News, 07 May 2024

• Shares of Pfizer drop 2% in the afternoon, after a young boy receiving experimental gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy died during the trial
  - Zero Hedge, 07 May 2024

• How TikTok is wiring Gen Z's money brain. Endless videos about the economy and consumerism are giving 20-somethings a case of "money dysmorphia" - worrying that they don't have enough -- stuff.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 07 May 2024

• Thousands of people believe that Covid vaccines harmed them. Is anyone listening? People who say they were injured by Covid vaccines believe their reports of side effects have been ignored.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 05 May 2024

• Shares of Amgen rise 15% after its announces a successful clinical trial for its weight-loss drug
  - Zero Hedge, 03 May 2024

• A Justice Department investigation into TD Bank's internal controls focuses on how crime groups from Zhōngguó and drug traffickers used the ban in Canada to launder money from sales of fentanyl in the USA.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 03 May 2024

• Big business in the USA will gain most from the rescheduling of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. The change will do little to help legal businesses growing and selling marijuana, since legal businesses at the state level will still remain illegal at the national level. But due to a law, 26 USC 280E, companies can deduct business expenses related to marijuana (not permissible for Schedule I and II drugs). This will mostly benefit big marijuana companies.
  - City Journal, 01 May 2024

• Study finds elevated risk of eye inflammatory disorder following Covid-19 vaccination
  - Zero Hedge, 01 May 2024

• The FTC states that the more than 300 patent listings stall generic competition, keeping prices high for diabetes drugs, inhalers and more.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 01 May 2024

• A new study, building upon previous evidence, has found that among teens, vaping often may spike the risk of exposure to lead and uranium -- potentially harming brain and organ development in young people.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 30 April 2024

• How fentanyl laid waste to the time-worn opium trade in Guatemala. Reshaping the drug war in one of the most lawless corners of Central America, the fentanyl boom has devastated the trade in opium poppies used to make heroin. Prices of opium have plunged from $64 per ounce to $10. In Guatemala, poppy farmers are losing their primary income from what had been their only cash crop, forcing many in already poverty-stricken areas to migrate to the United States. At the same time, local and international authorities fear that Guatemala could emerge as a new hub for trading in the chemicals used to make fentanyl.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 29 April 2024

• Cannabis use is linked to epigenetic changes. Multiple epigenetic changes associated with cannabis use had previously been linked to things like cellular proliferation, hormone signaling, infections, neurological disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and substance use disorders.
  - Science Alert, 26 April 2024

• Biden administration abandons plan to ban menthol cigarettes to avoid 'angering Black voters'
  - Zero Hedge, 26 April 2024

• Biden administration abandons plan to ban menthol cigarettes to avoid 'angering Black voters'
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 26 April 2024

• With new salt and sugar limits in food for children, school cafeterias are "cringing". Many parents and nutritionists applauded stricter federal regulations to protect the health of their children, but food companies say the changes could increase costs and waste. Rapid inflation has made it harder for schools to prepare meals at or below the cost of $4.30 per student, the federal reimbursement level for the roughly 30 million students who receive federally subsidized meals. Meanwhile, competition for labor has resulted in higher wages -- putting a strain on lunch program budgets -- and shortages of employees in some cafeterias.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 26 April 2024

• The powerful international consulting firm, McKinsey, is under criminal investigation in the USA for its role in "turbocharging" opioid drug trafficking
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 25 April 2024

• The powerful international consulting firm, McKinsey, is under criminal investigation in the USA for its role in "turbocharging" opioid drug trafficking
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 25 April 2024

• Covid-19 vaccine protection among children plumments within months
  - Zero Hedge, 24 April 2024

• The people of Ecuador, a country awash in violence, support their president's hard-line stance. Voters in Ecuador gave their new president, Daniel Noboa, who deployed the military to fight gangs in January, even more powers, in national elections on Sunday.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 22 April 2024

• Philip Morris will soon be able to sell its most successful smoke-free nicotine drug delivery product in the USA, setting up a battle with its former parent company Altria.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 20 April 2024

• $110,000,000 - Walgreens will pay the city of Philadelphia $110 million to settle charge of the drug trafficking of opioids
  - WHYY News, 19 April 2024

• $108,000,000 - The state of Virginia will receive $108 million from seven pharmacy chains and healthcare companies, for their role in the drug trafficking of opioids: Teva, Allergan, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, Cencora/AmeriSourceBergen and Cardinal Health
  - 13 News Now, 19 April 2024

• Long-acting drugs may revolutionize the prevention and treatment of HIV. New regimens in development, including once-weekly pills and semiannual shots, could help control the virus in hard-to-reach populations.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 19 April 2024

• Long-acting drugs may revolutionize the prevention and treatment of HIV. New regimens in development, including once-weekly pills and semiannual shots, could help control the virus in hard-to-reach populations.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 19 April 2024

• Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are essentially middlemen/grifters who make obscene profits playing a sophisticated arbitrage game. One of the Big Three PBMs, Express Scripts/Evernorth - made $153.5 billion in revenue, which made up nearly 80 percent of the revenues of its parent The Cigna Group, which, in turn, holds the Cigna health plans. How can a humble PBM, supposedly working to drive down healthcare costs on behalf of health plans, get richer than the health plans? PBMs are oligarchic, anti-competitive creators of pharmacy deserts -- and bad for the health of patients.
  - Real Clear Markets, 18 April 2024

• Pfizer lied to us again, this time about the usefulness of its useless Paxlovid treatment for Covid
  - Brownstone, 17 April 2024

• WuXi AppTec (and its subsidiary WuXi Biologics), a pharmaceutical company based in Zhōngguó is under Congressional scrutiny in the USA, but makes key drugs for people in the USA. Lawmakers raising national security concerns and seeking to disconnect WuXi from pharmaceutical interests in the USA have rattled the biotech industry. WuXi is deeply involved in development and manufacturing of crucial therapies for cancer, cystic fibrosis, HIV and other illnesses.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 16 April 2024

• $5,000,000,000+ - Is Paxlovid a dud for treating Covid? Of all the antiviral drugs for Covid-19, Pfizer's Paxlovid has been the most successful... Not for its safety and efficacy, but for its ability to earn the company billions in profits despite being largely ineffective for most people.
  - Zero Hedge, 15 April 2024

• Spirulina helps reduce the mortality of Covid-19. Study participants took spirulina for six days. 189 patients were randomized to take 15.2 grams of spirulina capsules alongside standard COVID-19 treatment or only receive standard treatment.
  - Zero Hedge, 15 April 2024

• Complications from alcohol use are rising among women. New research shows that alcohol-related liver disease and other health problems increased even more than expected among women ages 40 to 64 during the pandemic.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 14 April 2024

• How clinical trials for the use of ivermectin against Covid were designed to fail. They used doses that were too small, for too little of a time, and didn't not do the recommendation of taking the pills with food.
  - Zero Hedge, 11 April 2024

• In the first three months of 2024 in the USA, there were 323 active medication shortages, surpassing the previous high of 320 shortages in 2014. Experts have pointed to demand outstripping supplies, manufacturing constraints and disruptions in supply lines for raw materials.
  - CBS News, 11 April 2024

• In the first three months of 2024 in the USA, there were 323 active medication shortages, surpassing the previous high of 320 shortages in 2014. Experts have pointed to demand outstripping supplies, manufacturing constraints and disruptions in supply lines for raw materials.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 11 April 2024

• $39,000,000 - Pzifer subsidiary Wyeth has agreed to pay $39 million to resolve claims from drug purchasers that it conspired with rival Teva to delay launching a less-expensive version of the antidepressant drug Effexor XR.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 10 April 2024

• Sierra Leone declares national emergency after steep rise in use of deadly synthetic drug kush (a mixture of marijuana and two opioids)
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 06 April 2024

• Stocks of Big Pharma company need a rethink. Investors keep making the same mistake. Pfizer's patent expirations are great for humanity but terrible for investors. It is a common story across the drug industry. Key Big Pharma stocks have underperformed the S&P 500 over the past 20 years -- even when including dividends.
  - Barron's, 06 April 2024

• $12,000,000,000 - A Pfizer-funded, peer-reviewed paper authored by Pfizer scientists reveals that Pfizer's antiviral Covid medication Paxlovid completely sucks, confirming what everyone's known since it came out. The results showed that the median time until Covid-19 symptoms ended through day 28 was 12 days in the treatment group versus 13 days in the placebo group. The government of the USA spent $12 billion buy Paxlovid, a complete waste of money.
  - Zero Hedge, 04 April 2024

• Major medical bandages, including from brands Band-Aid and Curad, were found to contain dangerous levels of 'forever chemicals' linked to cancer, according to a new report. The chemical, fluorine, was found in over two-dozen different bandages.
  - The Daily Mail, 03 April 2024

• Following concerns over research to embed vaccines in produce, the Tennessee Senate has passed a bill which would require any food containing vaccines or vaccine materials to be labeled as pharmaceutical drugs.
  - Zero Hedge, 02 April 2024

• Inside a high-stakes fight to limit social media's addictive hold on children. A push by leading Democrats to restrict how social media companies use algorithms to serve addictive content to children has been met by a high-stakes lobbying effort, as Big Tech spends millions to bribe lobby politicians.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 30 March 2024

• Zhōngguó is joining the rest of the world in having a big problem of pubilch health, due to a growing number of cases of 'super' gonorrhea which are mostly resistant to all antibiotics
  - Condé Nast's Ars Technica, 29 March 2024

• If Americans just ate healthy and exercised, then politicians wouldn't be clamoring about $1,000 weight loss drugs "bankrupting" Medicare
  - Zero Hedge, 28 March 2024

• Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1,000 appetite suppressant can be made for just $5. Senator Bernie Sanders called on Novo Nordisk to lower the list price of Ozempic to $155 a month or less, in line with what it charges in other countries.
  - Jiaravanon's Fortune, 28 March 2024

• Human trafficking-fueled fraud is exploding in Southeast Asia with organized crime rings raking in close to $3 trillion in illicit revenue annually, the head of Interpol has said in comments that reveal the huge profits being earned by cartels. While drug trafficking contributes around 40% to 70% of organized crime income, criminal groups are also using those smuggling networks to illegally move humans, arms and stolen products among other things.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 28 March 2024

• The cocaine trade is booming in the Caribbean territories of Europe
  - Economist, 28 March 2024

• Novo Nordisk's $1,000 diabetes drug Ozempic can be made for less than $5 a month, a study suggests
  - Comcast's CNBC, 27 March 2024

• The FDA just handed quacks a massive propaganda victory on ivermectin. Ivermectin still does not work against COVID-19. but by settling a lawsuit the way it did, the FDA did hand quacks and antivaxxers a massive propaganda victory that they will regret for years to come.
  - Respectual Insolence, 26 March 2024

• The youngest mayor in Ecuador, Brigitte Garcia, is murdered along with her advisor, amid a state of emergency against gangs after violence ensued following "internal armed conflict".
  - USA Today, 26 March 2024

• Christian groups appealing to the Supreme Court to ban shipments of abortion pills, "thou shalt not" lie about the science research they rely upon for their arguments
  - Thomson's Reuters, 25 March 2024

• $1,000,000,000 (near to) - Taxpayers were overcharged for patient medications. Then came the lawyers. A group of politically connected lawyers teamed up to go after insurers and made millions in fees from one of the largest Medicaid settlements in history against Centene, a pharmacy benefit managers accused of overcharging Medicare for prescription drug prices. Centene has paid nearly $1 billion in fines.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 25 March 2024

• The new target of a drug cartel in Mexico? Seniors and their timeshares. One the most violent criminal groups in Mexico, Jalisco New Generation, offer to buy the vacation properties of retirees. Then the cartel empties its victims' bank accounts. Over the last ten years, the cartel has stolen hundreds of milions of dollars. This crime builds on the crime of timeshare businesses in general, which charge high fees and make it hard for owners to cancel their contracts.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 24 March 2024

• The pre-publication version of a research report in Nihon calls for mRNA vaccinesto be suspended over blood bank contamination concerns
  - Zero Hedge, 23 March 2024

• The DEA needs to stop interfering with the practice of medicine. Its crude policies to control opioids by limiting production not only makes it harder to for doctors to treat pain, but will force many patients to buy more deadly illegal opioids.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 22 March 2024

• Queenpin of a drug cartel in Guatemala sentenced over international trafficking conspiracy. A Queenpin of the Lorenzana drug trafficking network has been sentenced to 33 years in prison and forced to forfeit $27 million for charges related to international drug trafficking. Why not the same treament for the members of the Sackler family?
  - Zero Hedge, 18 March 2024

• Federal prosecutors are looking into whether platforms including Facebook facilitate and profit from the illicit sale of drugs in the USA
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 18 March 2024

• Deaths due to cancer in 2021 and 2022 among 15-44 year-olds "in large excess over trend," marking jumps of 5.6% and 7.9% respectively vs. a rise of 1.7% in 2020. Caused by Covid, Covid vaccines, or something else?
  - Zero Hedge, 16 March 2024

• What a trip: psychedelic medicine company MindMed shares rocket 50% after positive data
  - Zero Hedge, 10 March 2024

• Juan Orlando Hernández, an ex-president of Honduras (from 2014 until 2022), is found guilty of drug trafficking in a fdeeral court in the USA. He had been accused of conspiring to import cocaine into the USA and working with notorious drug traffickers like El Chapo.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 08 March 2024

• Legal sports betting in the USA - the next addiction crisis. A disease, "gambling addiction", affects an estimated two million adults in the USA each year. [KM: yes, but makes rich gmabling companies richer]
  - The Incidental Economist, 07 March 2024

• Shares of Novo Nordisk rise 8% to a record high, after the company reported progress in its pill-based next-generation obesity treatment during an investor event
  - Zero Hedge, 07 March 2024

• A proposed law would remove liability protection from the manufacturers of Covid-19 vaccines
  - Zero Hedge, 07 March 2024

• Popular acne products like Clearasil, Proactiv and Clinique found to contain cancer-causing benzoyl peroxide (which breaks down into cancer-causing benzene). In recent research, Valisure tested 66 benzoyl peroxide acne treatments and found some contained up to 12 times the FDA's allowed benzene level, especially under conditions mimicking high temperatures.
  - Zero Hedge, 06 March 2024

• A cyberattack paralyzes the largest health care payment system in the USA, Change Healthcare. The hacking shut down the biggest health care payment system in the nation, causing financial chaos that affected a broad spectrum ranging from large hospitals to single-doctor practices. The attack forced the shutdown of parts of the electronic system operated by Change Healthcare, a sizable unit of UnitedHealth Group, leaving hundreds, if not thousands, of providers without the ability to obtain insurance approval for services ranging from a drug prescription to a mastectomy -- or to be paid for those services. The prolonged effects of the attack have once again exposed the vast interconnected webs of electronic health information and the vulnerability of patient data.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 06 March 2024

• The USA Health and human services department intervenes in Change Healthcare hack crisis. The Federal government says it will consider accelerated Medicare payments on an individual basis, relax prior authorization requirements for struggling healthcare providers.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 06 March 2024

• Patients lose access to weight-loss drugs as employers stop coverage. To rein in spiraling spending, employers are discontinuing reimbursement or placing new limits on who is covered.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 06 March 2024

• Shares of Sandoz drop 3.4% after the company said its finance chief would retire at the end of June, news that came as a surprise to some analysts
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 06 March 2024

• A new killer has emerged in the illegal drug market, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. Synthetic opioids called nitazenes -- up to 20 times more potent than fentanyl -- have infiltrated street drugs from heroin to benzodiazepines, catching unsuspecting users in a web of addiction and overdose death.
  - Zero Hedge, 05 March 2024

• Covid-19 vaccines can affect menstrual cycle, researchers determine. Women who received a COVID-19 shot in the first half of their menstrual cycle are more likely to receive cycle length changes than those who received the vaccine in the second half.
  - Zero Hedge, 05 March 2024

• A powerful psychedelic gains renewed attention as a treatment for opioid addiction. New research is stirring interest in ibogaine, which appears to help ease the agony of detox and prevent relapse. Used in other countries, it remains illegal in the USA.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 05 March 2024

• Powerful psychedelic gains renewed attention as a treatment for opioid addiction. New research is stirring interest in ibogaine, which appears to help ease the agony of detox and prevent relapse. Used in other countries, it remains illegal in the USA.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 05 March 2024

• $1,500,000 - Ohio fines CVS Health $1.5 million over safety and staffing issues. The penalty is part of a settlement of 27 cases involving safety concerns revealed during inspections of nearly two dozen stores, officials said.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 05 March 2024

• The DEA has new target in fentanyl fight: sellers of pill presses. The DEA has warned more than 450 digital-commerce businesses they could be breaking federal law if they offer presses without giving sales details to law enforcement.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 05 March 2024

• The miracle weight-loss drugs are also a major budgetary threat, posing an enormous risk to the taxpayer's of the USA. One estimate is that making this class of drugs available to all obese Americans could eventually cost over $1 trillion per year. That exceeds the savings to the government from reduced diabetes incidence and other health care costs from excess weight by $800 billion annually. This is a staggering sum. It is almost as much as the government spends on the entire Medicare program and almost one-fifth of the entire amount America spends on health care.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 04 March 2024

• Oregon decriminalized hard drugs. Now the state is reversing course. The state legislature passed a bill restoring criminal penalties following widespread anger over public drug use.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 04 March 2024

• How the Searle family fortune, dervied from the major American pharma company G.D. Searle, has quietly funded conservative causes
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 03 March 2024

• CVS and Walgreens will start selling the abortion pill mifepristone this month at certain pharmacy locations in states where it is legal to do so. CVS and Walgreens have received certification from the Food and Drug Administration to dispense the commonly used mifepristone at their retail pharmacies.
  - Comcast's CNBC, 01 March 2024

• CVS and Walgreens will start selling the abortion pill mifepristone this month at certain pharmacy locations in states where it is legal to do so. CVS and Walgreens have received certification from the Food and Drug Administration to dispense the commonly used mifepristone at their retail pharmacies.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 01 March 2024

• Fentanyl cannot be defeated without new tactics. Suppression works even less well than with other narcotics.
  - Economist, 29 February 2024

• The ten-year-old fentanyl epidemic in the USA is still getting worse. The government is spending record amounts, just to slow its growth.
  - Economist, 29 February 2024

• Can non-profits beat antibiotic resistance and soaring drug costs? Effective, affordable antimicrobial drugs are not moneymakers for large drug companies, despite being desperately needed. Can non-profit organizations pick up the abandonment by the big drug companies?
  - Nature, 28 February 2024

• Smoking, vaping or eating marijuana is linked to a significantly higher risk of heart attack and stroke, even if a person had no existing heart conditions and did not smoke or vape tobacco, a new study published in the Journal of the AMA is reporting.
  - Warner Brothers CNN, 28 February 2024

• Shares of Novavax fall 20% as vaccine maker misses quarterly estimates, predicts sluggish 2024 sales
  - Zero Hedge, 28 February 2024

• Cigarettes are losing their hold on the nicotine fix. Consumers have more nicotine alternatives than ever and they are making the switch faster than expected, putting fresh pressure on tobacco giants.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 27 February 2024

• Study finds hearing and balance disorders among people vaccinated against Covid-19
  - Zero Hedge, 26 February 2024

• Between 2013 and 2021, rates of immunosuppression in adults have doubled in the USA, linked to the use of medications and Covid
  - Zero Hedge, 23 February 2024

• Across rural America, the expanding crisis of fentanyl-fueled overdoses is ravaging a generation. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl deaths in the USA have tripled since 2016, and initial data from 2022 indicates that synthetic opioids cause about 90% of all opioid overdose deaths -- which translates to nearly 75,000 Americans killed in that year alone. Rural communities, where hundreds of hospitals have already closed and more are on the chopping block, are bearing the additional weight of overdoses. We need states to do more to protect Americans and ensure access to all overdose reversal agents that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
  - Zero Hedge, 23 February 2024

• In Latin America, prison guards do not control prisons, the gangs do. Intended to fight crime, Latin American prisons have instead become safe havens and recruitment centers for gangs, fueling a surge in violence.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 22 February 2024

• High levels of niacin/vitamin B3 may increase risk of heart disease
  - Zero Hedge, 21 February 2024

• Covid vaccines, based on mRNA, can 'spread systemically' to placenta and infants of women vaccinated during pregnancy
  - Zero Hedge, 21 February 2024

• America's anti-obesity craze, courtesy of GLP-1-based weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro, produced by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, continues to create anxiety among the food-industrial complex after a new study cited by Morgan Stanley shows households on the weight-loss drugs are spending less at the supermarket. Many GLP-1 households increased purchases of fish, vegetables, and yogurt while sales of snacks, pastries, and ice cream fell.
  - Zero Hedge, 20 February 2024

• European Union regulators on Monday opened an investigation into TikTok over potential breaches of online content rules aimed at protecting children, saying the "addictive design" of the popular social media platform risked exposing young people to harmful content. This addictive design includes algorithmic systems that "may stimulate behavioral addictions" or "create so-called 'rabbit hole' effects", where a user is pulled further and further into the content of TikTok.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 20 February 2024

• A psychiatrist tried to quit gambling. Betting apps kept her addicted. While Kavita Fischer sank deeper into six-figure losses, companies kept her going with bonus credits, VIP treatment and data tracking. [KM: yes, the tactics od drug dealers to keep people addicted]
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 20 February 2024

• Will psychedelic drugs save out health? No! And Wall Street will turn psychedelics into another high-priced profit center, expensive, specialty medications controlled by a handful of biotech companies. Worse, there is still little rigorous evidence -- beyond personal testimonials and small, poorly controlled trials -- that psychedelics produce enduring mental-health benefits.
  - John Morgan, 17 February 2024

• A study finds that 80% of Americans are exposed to fertility-lowering chemicals in Cheerios, Quaker Oats, and other cereals. The EPA proposed in April last year to allow the use of chlormequat on oats, barley, wheat, and triticale grown in the USA.
  - Zero Hedge, 16 February 2024

• Taking abortion pills prescribed through telemedicine and received by mail -- a method used by growing numbers of abortion patients -- is as safe and effective as when the pills are obtained by visiting a doctor. The method was about 98 percent effective and was safe for over 99 percent of patients.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 16 February 2024

• A new study has found that exercise is twice as effective at alleviating depression than taking anti-depressant drugs. Walking or jogging two to three times a week was the best way to improve mood, the researchers found, improving symptoms by 63 per cent, compared to taking SSRI drugs, which only produced a 26 per cent improvement (not to mention all the risks and side-effects). Unfortunately, there is no profit for drug companies in promoting exercise.
  - Modernity, 15 February 2024

• Shares of CymaBay Therapeutics jump nearly 25%, after the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company agreed to be acquired by Gilead Sciences for $4.3 billion
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 13 February 2024

• The armed forces of Mexico said on Monday that they had dismantled a clandestine methampetamine "mega-laboratory" in northern Sonora state, marking the largest drug laboratory busted under the current administration. Seized were 4.13 metric tons (91,073 lb) of meth and 1.27 tons of precursor chemicals used to make the synthetic drug. The site counted 72 laboratory reactors, it added, five times more than the 13 discovered at what was previously considered the country's largest clandestine lab, which had also been discovered in Sonora.
  - Thomson's Reuters, 12 February 2024

• Ecuador follows El Salvador in arresting gangs and retaking prisons. Homicides fall 70% as President Daniel Noboa deploys troops on the streets and in prisons, emulating the crackdowns in El Salvador.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 12 February 2024

• Drug cartels based in Mexico are targeting the "last best place" in the USA - Montana. Why Montana? With the rise of fentanyl, cartel associates have pushed more aggressively into Montana, where pills can be sold for 20 times the price they get in urban centers closer to the border, state and federal law enforcement officials said.
  - NBC News, 10 February 2024

• Pharmacy chains are in a world of financial hurt. You can blame shrinking remimbursements for drugs and pharmaceuticals. Chains like Walgreens and CVS have pivoted from endless expansion to closing stores to boost profits.
  - Murdoch's Barron's, 10 February 2024

• Pharmacy chains are in a world of financial hurt. A tale of one troubled CVS store in Virginia Beach.
  - Murdoch's Barron's, 10 February 2024

• There are now huge sales of nicotine drug delivery pouches. Critics say that they are dangerous for children in making it so easy to obtain a hit of a highly addictive drug. Philip Morris International announced Thursday that it shipped about 350 million cans of Zyn in 2023, a whopping 62% growth compared to the previous year.
  - Newhouse CNN, 09 February 2024

• Shares of AstraZeneca drop 6% on a weak quarterly report despite 2024 growth guidance
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 09 February 2024

• Terrorized by gangs, Ecuador embraces the authoritarian policies of the 'Noboa Way'. President Daniel Noboa's new war on gangs has widespread support in a nation overwhelmed by violence. But experts warn it could endanger civil liberties, similar to what is happening in El Salvador.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 08 February 2024

• With considerably lower efficacy rates, mRNA Covid-19 vaccines caused more deaths than saved: peer-reviewed study. "For every life saved, there were nearly 14 times more deaths caused by the modified mRNA injections."
  - Zero Hedge, 07 February 2024

• $20,000,000 - Trump pardon recipient fined $20 million in predatory lending case. Jonathan Braun, whose sentence for drug smuggling was commuted in the final hours of the Trump presidency, was fined over separate accusations that he bilked and threatened borrowers.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 07 February 2024

• Why Eli Lilly deserves to unseat Tesla among the 'Magnificent Seven'. The market capitalization of Eli Lilly has surpassed that of Tesla, thanks to the rapid growth of its GLP-1 business involving weight-loss drugs.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 07 February 2024

• The biotechnology used in Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine carries toxicity risks, scientists with the company said in a new paper. The toxicity risks include "lipid nanoparticle structural components, production methods, route of administration and proteins produced from complexed mRNAS."
  - Zero Hedge, 06 February 2024

• The hottest beer in the USA does not have alcohol. Founded by a hedge-fund trader and a brewer, Athletic Brewing has become the king of nonalcoholic beers. So what is all the buzz about?
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 03 February 2024

• $350,000,000 - The health-care division of French ad giant Publicis agreed to pay $350 million to settle claims that its past marketing efforts for drugmakers helped fuel the opioid crisis in the USA
  - Comcast's CNBC, 01 February 2024

• The health-care division of French ad giant Publicis agreed to pay $350 million to settle claims that its past marketing efforts for drugmakers helped fuel the opioid crisis in the USA
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 01 February 2024

• Shares of Novartis dropped around 5% after it reported fourth-quarter earnings and sales that missed consensus expectations and issued guidance that analysts said fell short of hopes
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 01 February 2024

• $59,000,000 - EBay to pay $59 million in settlement over pill pre
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 01 February 2024

• No longer able to afford the huge costs of wegovy, North Carolina will stop paying for obesity drugs. Starting April 1, state employees in North Carolina will no longer have insurance coverage for costly weight-loss medications like Wegovy and Zepbound.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 27 January 2024

• 149,500,000 - Johnson & Johnson will pay the state of Washington $149.5 million to settle charge of the drug trafficking of opioids
  - PBS News, 23 January 2024

• Mexico demands investigation into US military-grade weapons being used by drug cartels. The military of Mexico is finding belt-fed machine guns, rocket launchers and grenades that are not sold for civilian use in the USA.
  - Associated Press, 22 January 2024

• The FDA warned that an asthma drug (Singulair/montelukast) could induce despair. Many people/victims were never told by their doctors. The FDA had required that doctors be educated about the side effects of the drug. The F.D.A. was slow to alert the public as reports of psychiatric problems surfaced, highlighting deficiencies of a drug-monitoring system that puts the onus on drugmakers to report problems.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 18 January 2024

• Six reasons drug prices are so high in the USA. Research shows prices in the United States are nearly double those in other well-off countries.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 18 January 2024

• Teachers say addictive mobile phones make their lives a living hell -- so one school in western Massachusetts banned them, replacing them with dumnb phones mostly useful for telephone calls. The result? "Most everyone agrees, however, that the school is better off without these hell/addictive devices. There are fewer interruptions during class, more meaningful interactions around campus, and less time spent on screens."
  - The Guardian, 17 January 2024

• Diabetes is fueling an amputation crisis for men in San Antonio. A lethal combination of genetics, access to health care and diets high in processed foods is fueling a diabetes crisis in Latino communities, especially in Texas.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 17 January 2024

• $1,100,000,000 - Uber is closer its drug alcohol delivery service, Drizaly, three years after it wasted $1.1 billion to buy Drizly
  - BBC, 15 January 2024

• Federal scientists at the FDA and NIH have recommend easing restrictions on marijuana. In newly disclosed documents, federal researchers find that cannabis may have medical uses and is less likely to cause harm than drugs like heroin. The scientists have recommended that the Drug Enforcement Administration make marijuana a Schedule III drug, alongside the likes of ketamine and testosterone, which are available by prescription.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 13 January 2024

• A federal dietary panel in the USA adds another researcher with paid connections to the alcohol Industry. After dropping two Harvard experts who had received financial support from the alcohol industry, the National Academies turned to a colleague with a similar background of paid financial support from the alcohol industry.
  - Zero Hedge, 10 January 2024

• Ecuador plunges into crisis amid prison riots and the disappearance of the leader of a drug trafficking gang, in a country awash in gang violence fueled by a flourishing drug trade
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 10 January 2024

• Dopamine drug traffickers Facebook, Twitter/X and Google sue the state of Ohio over a law that requires the consent of parents for children under the age of 16 to open accounts with the drug traffickers - their profits more important than the mental health of children
  - Murdoch's New York Post, 09 January 2024

• $360,000,000 - Walgreens Boots Alliance has agreed to pay $360 million to insurance company Humana to settle a lawsuit alleging the retail-pharmacy chain overcharged for prescription-drug reimbursements.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 09 January 2024

• The FDA issues first approval for mass drug imports to states from Canada. The agency authorized Florida to purchase medicines directly from wholesalers in Canada, where prices are far cheaper. Pharmaceutical companies oppose the plan. But significant hurdles remain. Some drug manufacturers have agreements with Canadian wholesalers not to export their medicines, and the Canadian government has already taken steps to block the export of prescription drugs that are in short supply. Several experts in pharmaceutical policy said that importation from Canada would not address the root cause of high drug prices: the ability of pharmaceutical makers to fend off generic competition by gaming the patent system, and the federal government's broad failure to negotiate directly with drugmakers over cost.
  - Ochs-Sulzberger's New York Times, 06 January 2024

• Drugs like LSD have shown potential for treating psychiatric disorders. Wall Street and big pharma are not convinced enought to invest.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 06 January 2024

• Cities in Canada, and the First Nations of Canada, oppose the Purdue opioid settlement that left them empty-handed. The groups, both left out of the $6 billion agreement, hope a U.S. Supreme Court decision could pave the way for them to seek compensation through litigation.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 05 January 2024

• Most people still pick up prescriptions at their local drugstore. More and more insurance companies want to just mail medications -- and are working on their apps to make that happen.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 05 January 2024

• A drug cartel in Michoacán, a central state of Mexico, provided wifi to locals -- with threat of death if they didn't use it. Criminal group charged $20-$30 a month to about 5,000 people as gangs diversify into sectors other than the drug trade.
  - The Guardian, 04 January 2024

• An analysis of Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data indicates that the Covid-19 vaccines are "significantly" more deadly than the flu vaccine
  - Zero Hedge, 03 January 2024

• Wealthy investors rescued Juul from bankruptcy. Others are crying foul. Two of Juul's longtime directors -- a Hyatt Hotels heir and a venture capitalist -- helped bail out the e-cigarette maker from the edge of insolvency. Now other investors are suing.
  - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (locked), 03 January 2024

• Shares of Moderna rise 15% after Oppenheimer says Covid shot maker could launch more products over next two years
  - Comcast's CNBC, 02 January 2024