tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80715386343031007672024-03-13T22:20:56.196+07:00Cempaka Health, Welfare and SocietyNews, Subjects Related to Health & WelfareUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3445125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-42965277452937623912023-05-03T01:55:00.001+07:002023-05-03T01:55:48.595+07:00Why does your life flash before your eyes near death?<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/why-does-life-flash-eyes-201247176.html" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, Issam AHMED, May 1, 2023</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="text-align: center;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP-LPa9y36dgUL03bKoeT-S8JupaVmoQ_02IPELVMSXWYFOzcy5bgfu6fZZuDmUDy3BJPA8FMWj7rlwuPSBhcSTYIkoULhekLZugw2lGjbRPoWlw9sFzibabBMew1DqOh_fle3QdkndrTNcABNohKlAfiThVwMqi1Pb7rCyDBy9DlN2gjzKajR7wp9iQ/s768/320a99ecff597c729d0e80f6a1a5ad82.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="768" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP-LPa9y36dgUL03bKoeT-S8JupaVmoQ_02IPELVMSXWYFOzcy5bgfu6fZZuDmUDy3BJPA8FMWj7rlwuPSBhcSTYIkoULhekLZugw2lGjbRPoWlw9sFzibabBMew1DqOh_fle3QdkndrTNcABNohKlAfiThVwMqi1Pb7rCyDBy9DlN2gjzKajR7wp9iQ/w400-h265/320a99ecff597c729d0e80f6a1a5ad82.webp" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">In a new paper researchers at the University of Michigan found evidence of <br />surges in brain activity in two dying patients</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial;"><br />Survivors of close calls with death often recall
extraordinary experiences: seeing light at the end of a tunnel, floating
outside their own bodies, encountering deceased loved ones or recapping major
life events in an instant.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The fact that these stories share so many elements in
common and come from people from diverse cultural backgrounds points to a
possible biological mechanism -- one that has yet to be de-mystified by
scientists.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In a new paper published Monday in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Science (PNAS), researchers at the University of
Michigan found evidence of surges in brain activity associated with
consciousness in two dying patients.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">While not the first study of its kind, what sets the
new research apart is that it's detailed in a way "that's never been done
before," senior author Jimo Borjigin, whose lab is devoted to
understanding the neurological basis of consciousness, told AFP.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The team looked back at the records of four patients who
died from cardiac arrest while on electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">All four fell into comas and were removed from life
support after it was determined they were beyond medical help.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When taken off their ventilators, two of the four
patients -- a 24-year-old woman and a 77-year-old woman -- saw increases in
their heart rates as well as surges of brain waves in the gamma frequency --
the fastest such brain activity, which is associated with consciousness.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Earlier studies -- including a prominent paper
published in 2022 about an 87-year-old man who died from a fall -- have also
found spikes in gamma waves in some people near the point of death.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The University of Michigan paper went further by
examining in greater depth which parts of the brain lit up, with the activity
detected in the "posterior cortical hot zone" -- comprised of the
temporal, parietal and occipital lobes, which are associated with changes in
consciousness.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"If this part of the brain lights up, that means
the patient is seeing something, can hear something, and they might feel
sensations out of the body," said Borjigin, adding that the region was
"on fire."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Brain and heart activity were monitored, second by
second, for the last few hours of the patients' life, contributing to the
strength of the analysis, she added.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It's not clear why two of the patients experienced
these potential signs of "covert consciousness" while two did not,
though Borjigin speculated their history of seizures might have primed their
brains in some way.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Owing to the small sample size, the authors cautioned
against making wide-ranging inferences.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What's more, it's not possible to confirm that the
patients really had any visions as they did not live to tell the tale.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Borjigin hopes in the future to collect data on
hundreds more people -- increasing the chances that some will actually survive.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One way to do so might be to create an experiment that
simulates a near-death experience while the patient is being monitored under
lab conditions.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-20456173037421987632023-03-02T03:46:00.001+07:002023-03-02T03:46:07.249+07:00US drugmaker Eli Lilly says slashing insulin prices<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/us-drugmaker-eli-lilly-says-141749725.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP,</a> John BIERS, March 1, 2023</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqCi2aSFhwjLkcI8a-gpozZ1MlUQmdhu6I5ymZ87UUbo48KhSpUGft5kF3-Kl0Sui-2jk1IyWGMVhivTrwfYTagf5FRT3h1IKzfBqMBT1yAsJM_FDFfqBg28Ik962IvtDljqUqdQ6rXo2vR1WaALcIHcypKPjKManDYnDg9YlXCYLtN7Nhp-IkGIAFRA/s705/2bce9ec495ff4a6ffb0a391edc1c6518.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="705" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqCi2aSFhwjLkcI8a-gpozZ1MlUQmdhu6I5ymZ87UUbo48KhSpUGft5kF3-Kl0Sui-2jk1IyWGMVhivTrwfYTagf5FRT3h1IKzfBqMBT1yAsJM_FDFfqBg28Ik962IvtDljqUqdQ6rXo2vR1WaALcIHcypKPjKManDYnDg9YlXCYLtN7Nhp-IkGIAFRA/w400-h240/2bce9ec495ff4a6ffb0a391edc1c6518.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">US pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly announced Wednesday
it would cut the cost of its insulin by 70 percent, with President Joe Biden
calling on others to follow suit to tackle soaring drug prices.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Manufacturers have ratcheted up insulin prices in
recent years, hitting millions of Americans living with diabetes -- and drawing
sharp political criticism.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"Insulin costs less than $10 to make, but
Americans are sometimes forced to pay over $300 for it. It's flat wrong,"
said Biden in a statement. He hailed Eli Lilly's price cut as "huge
news."</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"It's time for other manufacturers to
follow," Biden added.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Indianapolis-based Lilly announced a series of steps
to rein in prices of the life-saving drug, such as capping out-of-pocket costs
at $35 per month for people with insurance.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"Lilly is taking these actions to make it easier
to access Lilly insulin and help Americans who may have difficulty navigating a
complex healthcare system," the drugmaker said in a statement.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">While the $35 cap takes effect immediately, other
measures will be implemented in the course of 2023.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A centerpiece is the 70 percent price drop in Humalog,
Lilly's most commonly prescribed insulin.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The incidence of diabetes in the United States in
adults has doubled over the last 20 years, afflicting 37.3 million people,
according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Insulin prices have soared in the US, costing over
eight times more than in 32 comparable high-income countries, a 2020 Rand
Corporation study found.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But much of the bounty from lofty prices do not go to
pharma firms. Instead, they are passed on to health insurers in the form of
rebates. As a result, the financial hit from Lilly's decision could fall
hardest on insurers.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The unaffordability of insulin -- particularly to
uninsured Americans -- has become a rallying cry for pharmaceutical industry
critics.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Self-rationing insulin</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The cost of a five-pack of Humalog is currently
$530.40, although the out-of-pocket price to a user varies depending on one's
insurance plan. Average monthly use varies by user, Eli Lilly says on its
website.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Drug pricing in the United States is affected not only
by the cost of producing and distributing the pharmaceutical, but also other
players such as insurers and pharmacy benefit management companies.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Critics such as progressive Senator Bernie Sanders
have blasted the industry as emblematic of "unacceptable corporate
greed."</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"At a time when Eli Lilly made over $7 billion in
profits last year, public pressure forced them to reduce the price of insulin
by 70%," Sanders said on Twitter after the price-cut announcement.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"Sanofi and Novo Nordisk must do the same,"
he added, referring to two other companies which along with Lilly dominate the
insulin market.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Both Sanofi and Novo Nordisk released statements to
AFP pointing to programs to help make insulin more affordable, including to
uninsured users. But neither company commented directly on whether they would
match the Lilly plan.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A survey by nonprofit T1International showed that one
in four respondents living with diabetes reported rationing their insulin
because of the financial strain.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law last year
by Biden, capped insulin prices for Medicare recipients at $35 per month, but
people with private insurance or without insurance were left out.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Biden, in his State of the Union Address, called on
lawmakers to rein in "Big Pharma" and "finish the job this
time" by instituting a national cap on insulin costs.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the company's statement, Eli Lilly Chief Executive
David Ricks urged rival producers to join the effort.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"We know that 7 out of 10 Americans don't use
Lilly insulin. We are calling on policymakers, employers and others to join us
in making insulin more affordable," said Ricks.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The company's statement referred uninsured consumers
to an insulin affordability website, saying they could "receive Lilly
insulins for $35 per month."</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Lily shares were up 1.2 percent at $315.07 in
afternoon trading.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Because most of the price cut will affect rebates from
Lilly to insurers rather than revenues to the drugmaker itself, Wednesday's
announcement will leave "Lilly less affected than the price cuts would
suggest," said Morningstar analyst Damien Conover in a note.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The cut should not "significantly disrupt"
Lilly sales, while insurers "will need to take the hit" from
Washington's fixation on runaway prices, he added.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"Addressing the pricing concerns around insulin
should help Lilly maintain pricing power with new innovative drugs," said
Conover.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-80069503956774468292023-02-17T03:56:00.003+07:002023-02-17T03:56:47.133+07:00Most baby formula health claims not backed by science: study<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/most-baby-formula-health-claims-234200132.html" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, Daniel Lawler, 16 February 2023</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-nAVcB2bd1xi0Fk8-gTuP76DMD_HiFbhdDvz_nufkOjZ3g57LSvirWZYm_17dm7-l4X5iQqWZAsqohhKCzFaeALMnBAmPq8T0B-3m9WgsVg_s8kuKOZEnGk1O9_QDG0Kr-Rnlg-Z1fANW07ckykixCiX1Y5FEZFUOQor1cFsW_ZjAyTjT7nuOWyJqTQ/s768/e9f5e9432daa50bddf4fa82f4ab700d0.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-nAVcB2bd1xi0Fk8-gTuP76DMD_HiFbhdDvz_nufkOjZ3g57LSvirWZYm_17dm7-l4X5iQqWZAsqohhKCzFaeALMnBAmPq8T0B-3m9WgsVg_s8kuKOZEnGk1O9_QDG0Kr-Rnlg-Z1fANW07ckykixCiX1Y5FEZFUOQor1cFsW_ZjAyTjT7nuOWyJqTQ/w400-h266/e9f5e9432daa50bddf4fa82f4ab700d0.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The vast majority of health claims used to advertise
baby formula worldwide are not supported by rigorous scientific evidence, a
study said Thursday, leading researchers to urge the breast milk substitutes be
sold in plain packaging.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The study comes a week after a group of doctors and
scientists called for a regulatory crackdown on the $55-billion formula
industry for "predatory" marketing which they said exploits the fears
of new parents to convince them not to breastfeed.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Breastfeeding is widely recognised to have huge health
benefits for babies. The World Health Organization and the US CDC recommend
breastfeeding exclusively during the first six months of a newborn's life.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However that recommendation is followed for less than
half of infants globally, according to the WHO.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Daniel Munblit, an honorary senior lecturer at
Imperial College London and an author of the new study, said researchers were
not on a "crusade" against infant formula, which should remain an
option for mothers who cannot or choose not to breastfeed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"But we are very much against inappropriate
infant formula marketing, which provides misleading claims not backed up by
solid evidence," Munblit told AFP.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Munblit and an international team of researchers
looked at the health claims made for 608 products on the websites of infant
formula companies in 15 countries, including the United States, India, Britain
and Nigeria.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The most common claims were that formula supports
brain development, strengthens immune systems and more broadly helps growth.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Half of the products did not link the claimed health
benefit to a specific ingredient, according to the study published in the BMJ
journal.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Three quarters did not refer to scientific evidence
supporting their claims.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Of those that provided a scientific reference, more
than half pointed to reviews, opinion pieces or research on animals.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Just 14 percent of the products referred to registered
clinical trials on humans. However 90 percent of those trials carried a high
risk of bias, including missing data or the finding not supporting the claim,
the study said.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And nearly 90 percent of the clinical trials had
authors who received funding from or had ties to the formula industry, it
added.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">'Distressing'</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The most commonly cited ingredient was polyunsaturated
fatty acids, which is in breast milk and is considered important for brain
development.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However there is no evidence of any added benefit when
the ingredient is added to baby formula, according to a Cochrane systematic
review.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Munblit said the health claims were mostly used to
advertise premium formula products, which could be "distressing" for
parents who are misled into believing the ingredients are essential but cannot
afford them.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When asked what he thinks needs to be done to address
the problem, Munblit was concise.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"Plain packaging," he said.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The study comes after a series of papers were
published in the Lancet journal last week calling for global policy makers to
end exploitative formula marketing.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">WHO infant health specialist Nigel Rollins, an author
of one of the Lancet papers, said busy parents "lack the time to properly
scrutinise claims" about infant formula.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The new study showed that "governments and
regulatory authorities must commit the necessary time and attention to review
the claims of formula milk products," Rollins said in a linked BMJ
editorial.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-21620455565486700392023-01-24T04:06:00.004+07:002023-01-24T04:06:41.359+07:00How long can a healthy human live?<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/long-healthy-human-live-155039642.html" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, Isabelle Tourne, 23 January 2023</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2M2PQzHWpfbTe4a5Odc4RjIo5h7B2K0q-zfbf6UyD84ez7AdirqUHMJKG_ij4bwqu2JYSGI60mIhhte0eMr4n44bVyPjJUu8Vit-fbxkdRBuPWm_LsaiHMcG4nSa8bOurkFAl88SpfpC_2XJlgT9rplq7e1a5CXTMO39SBEnYm9DkTpvDLAMPPytRKw/s768/e9a99a61257a91a92a14953bc6cb8bce.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2M2PQzHWpfbTe4a5Odc4RjIo5h7B2K0q-zfbf6UyD84ez7AdirqUHMJKG_ij4bwqu2JYSGI60mIhhte0eMr4n44bVyPjJUu8Vit-fbxkdRBuPWm_LsaiHMcG4nSa8bOurkFAl88SpfpC_2XJlgT9rplq7e1a5CXTMO39SBEnYm9DkTpvDLAMPPytRKw/w400-h266/e9a99a61257a91a92a14953bc6cb8bce.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The death of the world's oldest person at the age of
118 has reignited a debate that has divided scientists for centuries: is there
a limit on how long a healthy human can live?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">After French nun Lucile Randon died last week, Spanish
great-grandmother Maria Branyas Morera, 115, has assumed the title of the
oldest living person, according to Guinness World Records.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Back in the 18th century, French naturalist
Georges-Louis Leclerc, known as the Comte de Buffon, theorised that a person
who had not suffered an accident or illness could live for a theoretical
maximum of 100 years.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Since then, medical advancements and improving living
conditions have pushed the limit back by a couple of decades.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A new milestone was reached when Frenchwoman Jeanne
Calment celebrated her 120th birthday in 1995.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Calment died two years later at the age of 122. She
remains the oldest person ever to have lived -- that has been verified, at
least.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">According to the United Nations, there were an
estimated 593,000 people aged 100 years or older in 2021, up from 353,000 a
decade earlier.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The number of centenarians is expected to more than
double over the next decade, according to the Statista data agency.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Comte de Buffon might also have been surprised by
the rise of supercentenarians -- people aged 110 or over -- whose numbers have
been increasing since the 1980s.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Natural limit at 115?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So how far could we go? Scientists disagree, with some
maintaining that the lifespan of our species is limited by strict biological
constraints.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In 2016, geneticists writing in the journal Nature
said there had been no improvement in human longevity since the late 1990s.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Analysing global demographic data, they found that the
maximum human lifespan had declined since Calment's death -- even though there
were more elderly people in the world.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"They concluded that human lifespan has a natural
limit and that longevity is limited to around 115 years," French
demographer Jean-Marie Robine told AFP.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"But this hypothesis is partly disputed by many
demographers," said Robine, a specialist in centenarians at the INSERM
medical research institute.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Research in 2018 found that while the rate of death
increases with age, it slows down after 85.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Around the age of 107, the rate of death peaks at
50-60 percent every year, the research said.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"Under this theory, if there are 12 people aged
110, six will survive to be 111, three to be 112, and so on," Robine said.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A numbers game</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But the more supercentenarians, the higher chance a
few have to live to make it to record ages.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If there are 100 supercentenarians, "50 will live
to be 111 years old, 25 to 112," Robine said.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"Thanks to a 'volume effect', there are no longer
fixed limits to longevity."</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However Robine and his team are publishing research
this year which will show that the rate of death continues to increase beyond
the age of 105, further narrowing the window.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Does this mean there is a hard ceiling on how long we
can live? Robine will not go that far.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"We will continue to make discoveries, as we
always have, and little by little the health of the oldest people will
improve," he said.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Other experts are also cautious about choosing a side.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"There is no definitive answer for the
moment," said France Mesle, a demographer at the French institute of
demographic studies (INED).</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"Even if they are increasing, the number of
people reaching very old age is still quite small and we still cannot make any
significant statistical estimate," she told AFP.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So it might be a matter of waiting for rising numbers
of supercentenarians to test the "volume effect".</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And of course some future medical breakthroughs could
soon upend everything we know about death.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Eric Boulanger, a French doctor specialising in the
elderly, said that "genetic manipulation" could allow some people to
live for 140 or even 150 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-91284066239586061792022-10-27T02:50:00.006+07:002022-10-27T02:50:41.595+07:00Australia admits cyber defences 'inadequate' as medical hack hits millions<p> <span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221026-australia-admits-cyber-defences-inadequate-as-medical-hack-hits-millions" target="_blank">France24 – AFP</a>, 26 October 2022</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial; text-align: center;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYrhFO9ch8SPC_luHztCGP-cJ1KXz-ODhnbR0xBz3SJc_0cjG-lQKwy1VXpZ3Jx5jad_j77anV6Fg0RH6XOL-an58YWmbak8JtyB0LvZiK1jNmNp_A-iIYbaYVSk8LRI9ivzDUaCurZNowpW5epNPBrmyZX230oVbrAM-DDAu9Lcbz8vP1aABRh1oa/s1000/Ff-HJw7akAAe6Nc.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1000" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYrhFO9ch8SPC_luHztCGP-cJ1KXz-ODhnbR0xBz3SJc_0cjG-lQKwy1VXpZ3Jx5jad_j77anV6Fg0RH6XOL-an58YWmbak8JtyB0LvZiK1jNmNp_A-iIYbaYVSk8LRI9ivzDUaCurZNowpW5epNPBrmyZX230oVbrAM-DDAu9Lcbz8vP1aABRh1oa/w400-h253/Ff-HJw7akAAe6Nc.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Hackers have accessed millions of medical records at Medibank, one of Australia's<br />largest private insurers SAEED KHAN AFP/File</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Sydney (AFP) – Hackers accessed millions of medical records at one of Australia's largest private health insurers, the company said Wednesday, prompting the government to admit the nation's cyber safeguards were "inadequate".</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">This was the latest in a series of hacks targeting millions of people that have brought Australian companies' lax approach to cyber security into sharp relief.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Medibank chief executive David Koczkar said information about each of the company's 3.9 million policy holders -- some 15 percent of Australia's population -- had been compromised.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Our investigation has now established that this criminal has accessed all our private health insurance customers' personal data and significant amounts of their health claims data," he said in a statement to the Australian stock exchange.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"This is a terrible crime. This is a crime designed to cause maximum harm to the most vulnerable members of our community."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The cyber attack was revealed last week, but it was not known until now how many people were impacted.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The hackers have previously threatened to leak the data, starting with 1,000 famous Australians, unless Medibank pays a ransom.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Medibank on Wednesday also confirmed it was not insured against cyber attacks, estimating the hack could cost the company as much as Au$35 million (US$22 million).</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The Medibank hack followed an attack on telecom company Optus last month that exposed the personal information of some nine million Australians -- almost a third of the population.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The Optus attack was one of the largest data breaches in Australian history.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>'Inadequate'<o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Australia's Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has previously accused companies of stockpiling sensitive customer data they did not need.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Firms currently face paltry fines -- Au$2.2 million -- for failing to protect customer data.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Dreyfus last week said these fines would be ratcheted up to Au$50 million.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Unfortunately, significant privacy breaches in recent weeks have shown existing safeguards are inadequate," he said.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"It's not enough for a penalty for a major data breach to be seen as the cost of doing business."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil on Tuesday said the fallout from the Medibank hack was "potentially irreparable".</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"One of the reasons why the government is so worried about this is because of the nature of the data," she told Australia's parliament.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"When it comes to the personal health information of Australians, the damage here is potentially irreparable."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O'Neil has previously described hacking as a "dog act" -- an Australian phrase reserved for something especially shameful or despicable.</span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-43037473849808734892022-10-18T02:53:00.003+07:002022-10-18T02:53:37.710+07:00“Hidden Attributes of Innate” – (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><a href="https://www.kryon.com/CHAN2021/k_channel21_Innate.html" target="_blank">Kryon.com</a>, October 27, 2021</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Live Kryon Channelling. Healing Wednesday livestream</b></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX1WUI9b7_g8falOofKG6PTPsxUUHH2__kOs7iYLozrNJFCKiY01RqULqZPcwLOjTnM0mfb-rUw6vRy4oYiBiAqoeqVbbI3cjLgDhCmCpbSujqrzfxiwvdnl7o3FBhUsFi2JXW21tHRICMNBehbvulDTvEYSfNw6X1lV66GED6pZ6wLF_BMcnTCyfN/s183/Lee%20Carroll%20150.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="150" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX1WUI9b7_g8falOofKG6PTPsxUUHH2__kOs7iYLozrNJFCKiY01RqULqZPcwLOjTnM0mfb-rUw6vRy4oYiBiAqoeqVbbI3cjLgDhCmCpbSujqrzfxiwvdnl7o3FBhUsFi2JXW21tHRICMNBehbvulDTvEYSfNw6X1lV66GED6pZ6wLF_BMcnTCyfN/s1600/Lee%20Carroll%20150.jpg" width="150" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Lee Carroll</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Greetings, dear ones, I am Kryon of Magnetic Service.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">This is lesson four of four regarding that amazing thing called Innate. We encourage you to hear the other three channels that give information in a sequence that makes sense of this teaching. What is Innate? Where is it? How do you access it? And finally, what are some of the attributes that might be a mystery? [www.kryon.com/freeaudio]</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Innate is that amazing smart body, an attribute within you, which knows what you don’t about you. Innate is used for muscle testing. It’s responsible for “the placebo effect,” and for spontaneous remission. It is that which has many mysteries not yet solved regarding exactly how it works.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The first mystery is that it exists at all because it is not truly understandable, and often is seen as a miracle. There are processes in your body (I’ll call them triggers) that start a cascade of healing energy. When you can have a disease that goes into a spontaneous remission so fast you would assign it as a miracle, there must be some kind of process that your body has, which Innate triggered. It is truly amazing. What if Innate knows things about your body that can create an enhanced energy of miraculous, cascading healing? These are the things that my partner has seen on this planet with his own eyes. It takes your breath away to see it!</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Instantaneous healing is always assigned to a higher power, or to some kind of miracle. This is because there is no acknowledgment of the fact that this kind of thing might exist internally in your own body. The truth is bigger than you think: These kinds of healings are the actual chemical triggers of your own body. This has never been seen as a direct result of medicine, hence the disbelief. However, it has been seen constantly, especially in spiritual circles, for hundreds of years. I’ll tell you that these are the things that deserve analysis, which many believe are simply not explainable. However, these are the things that Innate has been doing in Humans for a very long time because you have asked for it, or because you needed it. These are life-saving mysteries to this day.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Innate is very unusual, and we “gave it away” in the last Circle of Twelve session. However, if you are listening to or reading this channel and you are not a member of the Circle of Twelve, I will inform you now: Innate is part of your Soul. Think about this. It is not sequestered to your chemistry. It has to be part of the “Bigger You” for these kinds of miracle-like actions, and especially for the next attribute to be explained.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">There would be those who would say, <i>“Now you’ve gone too far, Kryon, because Innate obviously is something that is part of your cellular structure. It tells you all of the things that you need for your body, and so why would it be part of your Soul?”</i></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The answer is an answer I will give about many things that you consider “body only.” Your chemistry and cellular structure are not in a prison of skin, as you often see it. Your body is huge, and it has a field that extends way beyond 3D. Do you really think your consciousness comes from your brain? No animal on Earth “ponders its existence.” Only Humans do that. You are part of a much larger system than you think.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Let’s go slowly. Part of profound healing is getting beyond the blocks that you’ve had from past lives. Let’s say it again. Part of profound healing is dealing with the blocks that have come with you from past lives. There is a subconscious “remembering mechanism” that sometimes comes in with your current life from past-life experience. Most of you know this. Those of you listening to this Circle of 12 program would be aware of it since so many of the guests who have been on the program have discussed it. “Rewriting the codes,” they will call it. Where did the codes come from? Many are with you from birth – from the Akashic memory of past lives.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">There’s a lot of clearing that must be done for the healing of these blocks. Quite often these are the blocks, plus other ones from your current upbringing, which keep healing from happening quickly. So, think about it: There has to be an energy that <i>knows you</i> and works with your subconscious to make anything happen. It must be an energy that knows what these blocks are, an energy that may have even been with you when the blocks occurred in a past life. Welcome to the amazing mystery of Innate. Innate must be part of your Soul because it knows about those blocks, dear ones. Innate, therefore, is multi-dimensional.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">If you start to think that Innate might be something far grander and more powerful than a simple body intelligence, you are on the path to a greater truth. Indeed, Innate might be a Soul partner: It comes in with you with some very, very interesting “awareness of your personal attributes.” Having Innate as part of something bigger explains how it might work.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Let me give you something else to think about: There are some women listening to or reading this now who have a genomic situation, and when they learn about it, it’s frightening. They will find out they may have an inherited disease that seems to come with the genes at birth somehow. They will say: <i>“My mother died of it; my sister died of it; and I’m afraid of it.”</i> Bless you, if you are one of these (women), for this is something that sits upon your consciousness, perhaps sits upon your very innermost thoughts. These are things that you awaken to and wonder if this situation may visit you.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Healings are accomplished many, many times that will remove the ancestral DNA or genome attribute that would cause that disease. Did you get that? In order for this to work for you, and be removed from your genome forever, the process has to come out of your past so completely that it affects even the lineage that you have. That is far more than a chemical healing. It’s almost like rewriting part of your lineage – yet the Innate can do it, and does, regularly. There are some of you who are also listening to or reading this who know I am right because you have had all that dysfunctional genomic chemistry eliminated through profound healings that you have generated yourself, through your consciousness, through cognizing the process of <i>talking to your cells</i>.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">So, a woman who says, <i>“Dear Innate, break my ancestral disease link so that I will not get the disease,”</i> starts the process of working with the blocks from her past-life genealogy. If she can cognize this and is successful – are you ready for this? – the link will also be broken in her existing and future children. Think about this one. The inherited negative genes stop here!</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">And the question is: can Innate really do that? Yes. I told you from earlier messages that you are in charge of all things biological. It’s a command to Innate because Innate is there as a Soul partner to do the things that you are awakening to and beginning to understand. You are understanding how to be able to speak to Innate. Is that too much to understand?</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The new energy of the planet is starting to enhance the awakening process for many, and they are starting to see how much more there is to their inner structure and the interaction of their spiritual selves to their biological selves.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">You are awakening to your power, you might say, to control your own body. And part of this is that there are dysfunctional ancestral links that you can stop right now. Oh, dear one, there is someone here who needed to hear that. Can we celebrate that together? You needed to hear that. It’s very doable.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">So, how big do you think Innate is now? It knows your biological ancestry. It also knows your Akashic Record. It’s a Soul partner that comes in with you.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Two more items that you should know about: The Innate has some attributes that you normally assign to Spirit itself. Number One: Innate is quiet. You never know it’s there until you awaken to its presence and start working with it. It’s an interesting thing that would come in with you, yet be silent, isn’t it? You’d think that Innate would arrive ready to help and start working with you immediately. But, if you say nothing, nothing happens.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">If you sit in a restaurant and never order food, it never comes. It’s an odd thing, is it not, to go to a restaurant over and over and simply sit at the table and then leave later? Welcome to humanism because that’s what you’ve been doing. You’ve been coming to that place, wishing to have the healing, never understanding there is a menu in front of you called Innate.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Innate will do no healing until you awaken to a place where you know you can work together to make it happen. Think of that for a moment. That explains so much. It explains why a Human can go into despair, or fear, or the real attributes of feeling they are a victim of life – and never know about the menu of Innate. If that’s you, now you know. Again, I would ask you to review the first three lessons. [www.kryon.com/freeaudio]</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Number Two: Here is the final attribute, a sobering one, and one that happens all the time: You order the wrong thing from the restaurant’s menu! Innate obeys your passionate instructions. Many are using the “menu” all the time and don’t know it. If you say, <i>“Innate, I want to be sick tomorrow,”</i> you will be sick tomorrow. Innate has no judgment, dear ones. It has no filters. It is here to serve you.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><i>“Wait a minute, Kryon, who would say that?” Thousands do, when they fear disease and say, “I’m going to catch that. I know it!”</i> or <i>“I wonder if I have that disease I saw on the commercial on TV last night? I think I do!”</i> This is energy given to the menu of Innate.So, in your life, if you are afraid of catching every disease that might be out there, Innate will make sure you do. Did you hear me? This is that Soul partner that does what you ask, dear ones. It does what it sees you are interested in! Hypochondriacs are invested in concentrating most of their efforts on worrying about the diseases – that, unknown to them, they are ordering on the menu.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Think about your words when you are at home alone. What instructions are you giving to Innate with the things that you say? When you say, <i>“Oh, I knew that would happen. Only bad things are happening to me. I wonder what’s going to happen tomorrow … some more bad things, perhaps?” </i>Innate will line it up for you and make certain you receive what you verbalized.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For those who would say, <i>“All manner of bad things happen to me all the time. So, is this just me thinking this, or is that really true?”</i> I will tell you, dear ones, yes, it’s really true. It is because you have brought it to you with your words and expectations. Did you ever think of that?</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Maybe it’s time to go to that restaurant, pick up that magnificent menu of healing and create a wonderful, purposefully-worded order. It would be an order that you will not ever, ever forget. It is done with your affirmative expectations and your verbalizations to others.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">One of the things on that menu, at the top, in big letters is this: I am magnificent. Here are the magnificent things: Number one: I am not a victim. Number two: I was born magnificent. Number three: I have a Soul partner called Innate that was built to heal and help and bring me into the magnificence of who I am. Number four: It’s waiting for my order.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">What a concept.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Mysterious, indeed. Actionable? Yes. Doable? Yes, it’s there in front of you, dear ones, and tens of thousands have discovered this and know about Innate and the magic that can be yours.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I am Kryon, in love with humanity.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">And so it is.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"><b>KRYON</b></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-4309347240579783552022-07-28T04:27:00.000+07:002022-07-28T04:27:06.740+07:00Israel's Teva reaches potential $4.25 bn US opioid settlement<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://sg.news.yahoo.com/israels-teva-reaches-potential-4-002246083.html" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, 27 July 2022</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL_LlarSjMQkb0AdmOWqRQaqxNKfXkTqqZOkmqH5eChq8Ga0MfPHPr3X_NVAVZZLvdE2De2Nqs6r-mIOz6leK4xvsniguBdV6S55yc_H6mQk-UjIvlNyG3HwOumLbB9j4j2xOcCmo_ToBGS-TMY7Sh9W-o0ckES31mhMaReU1rGNvV6KYNcjiNICywQA/s768/30a742a846060ba91d89b5ada1eb5773.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL_LlarSjMQkb0AdmOWqRQaqxNKfXkTqqZOkmqH5eChq8Ga0MfPHPr3X_NVAVZZLvdE2De2Nqs6r-mIOz6leK4xvsniguBdV6S55yc_H6mQk-UjIvlNyG3HwOumLbB9j4j2xOcCmo_ToBGS-TMY7Sh9W-o0ckES31mhMaReU1rGNvV6KYNcjiNICywQA/w400-h266/30a742a846060ba91d89b5ada1eb5773.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Israeli generic drug maker Teva has reached an
agreement in principle to pay $4.25 billion over 13 years to settle a series of
court cases over its role in the US opioid epidemic.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">If the deal is finalized, Teva would become the latest
major company to reach a settlement over the crisis which caused hundreds of
thousands of deaths and ravaged communities across the country.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Teva reached the potential agreement on the terms of a
"nationwide opioids settlement" with a working group of state
attorneys general and lawyers for Native American tribes and other plaintiffs,
the company said in its second-quarter financial results.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Teva will pay up to $4.25 billion (including the
already settled cases) plus approximately $100 million for the tribes, spread
over 13 years," it said.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The overall figure includes up to $1.2 billion in the
generic version of Narcan, which can reverse opioid overdoses.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The deal will include "no admission of
wrongdoing," but "it remains in our best interest to put these cases
behind us," the company added.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Teva has already gone through several opioid-related
lawsuits and reached agreements with some states.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The opioid crisis, which has caused more than 500,000
deaths over 20 years in the United States, has triggered a flurry of lawsuits
from victims as well as cities, counties and states impacted by the fallout.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and three major
distributors, McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health, have agreed to
pay out $24.5 billion over several years to end more than 3,000 lawsuits.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Purdue Pharma, considered by many to be a major driver
of the crisis because of its aggressive promotion of its pain killer OxyContin,
filed for bankruptcy in September 2019 as it faced a flood of legal action.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-87274301271392336862022-06-01T03:23:00.002+07:002022-06-01T03:23:11.863+07:00Mexico bans sales of 'harmful' e-cigarettes<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://sg.news.yahoo.com/mexico-bans-sales-harmful-e-175318907.html" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, 31 May 2022</span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: center;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOTbo926trM2ZyTSCkKfeShRg1kovmzLY1qMzQ7EBXcPMYoiX9YQ7Qzr5fRqlReYaOexi0pYZ5Jn7QuURA5YKpPpXaimGLRT9m4igiXf09cqK0XSBMrOBQYjf23gjwdOr7iIzTOhk5E5aPuCztjqXF96I1i1C36M8Ud72vG-4Cpn48EEaWSXqgK7EcA/s768/de54ca392febaa6743ff4741746af2e4.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOTbo926trM2ZyTSCkKfeShRg1kovmzLY1qMzQ7EBXcPMYoiX9YQ7Qzr5fRqlReYaOexi0pYZ5Jn7QuURA5YKpPpXaimGLRT9m4igiXf09cqK0XSBMrOBQYjf23gjwdOr7iIzTOhk5E5aPuCztjqXF96I1i1C36M8Ud72vG-4Cpn48EEaWSXqgK7EcA/w400-h266/de54ca392febaa6743ff4741746af2e4.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The World Health Organization considers electronic cigarettes to be harmful <br />to health (AFP/Valery HACHE) (Valery HACHE)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Mexico on Tuesday banned sales of electronic
cigarettes and other vaping devices because of concerns about their health
effects, the government announced.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said it was a
"lie" to claim that e-cigarettes are a safe alternative to inhaling
tobacco smoke.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">"The vapors are also harmful for health,"
Lopez Obrador told reporters as he announced the signing of a presidential
decree introducing the ban on World No Tobacco Day.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">He showed a pink vaping device to illustrate how the
products are intended to appeal to young people.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Look at the color, the design," Lopez
Obrador said.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Mexico prohibited the import and export of vaping
devices and cartridges in October, but the companies have continued to sell
their inventory, Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The new ban covers "the circulation and marketing
of these new products," he added.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">E-cigarettes heat up a cartridge of liquid typically
containing nicotine and other chemicals into an aerosol. The user inhales the
resulting vapor, mimicking traditional cigarettes.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Proponents of vaping say it is safer than traditional
tobacco.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The World Health Organization considers electronic
cigarettes to be harmful to health and has called for tight regulation to stop
young people in particular from using them.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">More than 30 countries have banned sales of electronic
cigarettes, the WHO said last July.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In April, e-cigarette firm Juul agreed to pay $22.5
million in a US lawsuit that alleged the company deliberately targeted
teenagers and lied about how addictive its products are.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-29291454998991121832022-05-17T02:37:00.009+07:002022-05-17T02:38:56.007+07:00Dutch doctor says group will keep sending abortion pills to US women<p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220516-dutch-doctor-says-group-will-keep-sending-abortion-pills-to-us-women" target="_blank">France24 – AFP</a>, 16 May 2022</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFhiWHrAQ7rTszXboAlVEHtCs9N8M6CU18zmbBjNyeh584yI0lqoiCvTWwSjvTzgNT1ddY0tOzH9h7sDHmqAOWPzRVaL5sV5Iw8E8HIi8Lb_k9ibMfsqxiJnN-z86gmiWi3Bv2347hlcKXMBWEEx8aUiI72qe3AdoD665XSlwW2BRVmUGmZAh_0XAFPQ/s1024/0be029ef674921d00e7814274e63ddb457f729d4.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFhiWHrAQ7rTszXboAlVEHtCs9N8M6CU18zmbBjNyeh584yI0lqoiCvTWwSjvTzgNT1ddY0tOzH9h7sDHmqAOWPzRVaL5sV5Iw8E8HIi8Lb_k9ibMfsqxiJnN-z86gmiWi3Bv2347hlcKXMBWEEx8aUiI72qe3AdoD665XSlwW2BRVmUGmZAh_0XAFPQ/w400-h225/0be029ef674921d00e7814274e63ddb457f729d4.webp" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Rebecca Gomperts, the founder of abortion-rights groups Women on Waves and <br />Aid Access, is seen in Amsterdam in September 2020 Remko de Waal ANP/AFP/File</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US">Washington (AFP) – Rebecca Gomperts, a 55-year-old
Dutch physician, has spent years fighting for women's access to abortion around
the world.</span> </span></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Made famous by her "abortion boat," as
recounted in the 2014 documentary "Vessel," she and her Women on
Waves group have anchored the ship in international waters off the coasts of
Poland, Spain, Mexico and other countries, offering medical abortions to women
otherwise unable to obtain them.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But it is in the United States that interest has been
surging in her other organization, Aid Access, which since 2018 has provided
abortion pills over the internet.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Behind the fast-rising demand is what appears -- based
on a rare leak from the US Supreme Court -- to be the imminent end of federal
protection for abortion rights. Once the court makes its decision official,
probably next month, some 20 states are poised to ban or severely restrict
abortions.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"We're already seeing a huge increase in
requests," Gomperts told AFP, saying some people were
"panicking."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"It's not only when this takes place; it has
already made people aware how vulnerable they are."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Aid Access, based in Austria, has been working with
physicians to fill requests in the 20 US states where abortion pills can be
legally prescribed by telemedicine.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For requests from the other states, Gompert's group
has exploited a legal loophole to send the pills from abroad.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Demand was strong even before word of the high court's
intentions leaked out. In a little more than a year (from October 2020 to
December 2021), Aid Access says it received more than 45,000 requests from the
United States.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Reasons for the requests vary: the high cost of other
abortion services, the cost and difficulty of traveling to distant abortion
clinics, or the impossibility of doing so due to job or child-care demands.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">After filling out a questionnaire, women are
instructed on how to take the pills at home. The price is adjusted depending on
their ability to pay, and the pills are mailed from a pharmacy in India. Aid
Access checks in with the women afterward.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>The most vulnerable</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The pills are easy to find elsewhere on the internet,
usually for a few hundred dollars. But those websites, also based outside the
United States, are purely commercial and provide no medical support.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For Gomperts, who in 2020 was listed as one of the world's
100 most influential people by Time magazine, the fight for abortion rights is
a matter of "social justice."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"The biggest problem is that the women that are
not literate, that cannot read and write, that have no access to internet --
the most impoverished group -- they will not be able to find these
solutions," she said.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Many of them would lack the resources to travel to a
state where abortion remains legal.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"These are the women that might be forced to give
birth or that will take drastic measures to end their pregnancy."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: center;"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYi9Px9Ha5sZHf7uTz8GgIpVcqTrrtADKseVoyn3vAj2qRsoXRsU08p5LrzmEfZFEfp_Ur8oUKJeQS3b1vj8nQMImqCaBAV9hkEBDJDuJBLHx1_CI-cI_LRm5yv8rpudCBTn4UQeLRLntZioDZ2MrgIJualS1Twld9dS3iR-GZYhNQ3px3ZlWbfl-YKQ/s2480/2652311585c3d0120f9eb05b73590d4d8832d7b0.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1719" data-original-width="2480" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYi9Px9Ha5sZHf7uTz8GgIpVcqTrrtADKseVoyn3vAj2qRsoXRsU08p5LrzmEfZFEfp_Ur8oUKJeQS3b1vj8nQMImqCaBAV9hkEBDJDuJBLHx1_CI-cI_LRm5yv8rpudCBTn4UQeLRLntZioDZ2MrgIJualS1Twld9dS3iR-GZYhNQ3px3ZlWbfl-YKQ/w400-h278/2652311585c3d0120f9eb05b73590d4d8832d7b0.webp" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">These pills -- mifepristone and misoprostol -- can be used in generally very safe <br />at-home abortions, experts say; this picture comes from the Plan C advocacy <br />group Elisa WELLS PLAN C/AFP/File</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">The certain result, Gomperts said, will be an increase
in maternal mortality and morbidity.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>A safe method</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">According to a 2017 survey of several thousand women
in the United States, 20 percent of those who had attempted an at-home abortion
used the pills, 29 percent used other drugs, 38 percent used plant-based
infusions and 20 percent tried physical methods (some used more than one method,
so the total exceeds 100 percent).</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">During recent demonstrations outside the Supreme
Court, women protesters brandished a disturbing object, something that seemed
an artifact from a long-ago era: metal clothes-hangers -- a symbol of highly
risky abortions performed clandestinely.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">And yet, up to the 10th week of pregnancy, abortion
pills are very safe, experts say.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="text-align: center;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-G00uKlHt1VKBrPl_fCPblMjyJ55K_k45zO8Sia6pPQFuxUViYqO9neaih2aZdD1i1WUcfbc-EWS0JIykUl1UWRZLZjPoH6uGg9N1K2_LdWThVQBsv4ky9lUw6Dk76JQZJ90EK5b3gNAYnT5NaZ04Z0ANHC6FP7Cg2vdIMQhEBURzT0QFXn2ENVfbuA/s850/Never%20Again.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="850" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-G00uKlHt1VKBrPl_fCPblMjyJ55K_k45zO8Sia6pPQFuxUViYqO9neaih2aZdD1i1WUcfbc-EWS0JIykUl1UWRZLZjPoH6uGg9N1K2_LdWThVQBsv4ky9lUw6Dk76JQZJ90EK5b3gNAYnT5NaZ04Z0ANHC6FP7Cg2vdIMQhEBURzT0QFXn2ENVfbuA/w400-h265/Never%20Again.png" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">A demonstrator holds up a clothes hanger marked 'Never Again' during an abortion <br />rights rally May 3, 2022 outside the US Supreme Court Stefani Reynolds AFP/File</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Today they represent half of all abortions in the
United States (in France, by way of comparison, the figure is 70 percent). And
their use outside of any medical setting is a "very acceptable"
option, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Two drugs are used: first a dose of mifepristone is
taken to block the hormones that support a pregnancy; then, 24 to 48 hours
later, misoprostol is taken to induce contractions.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Complications that might require medical help -- an
excessive flow of blood, an infection or an allergic reaction -- are rare.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">So, beyond the medical aspect, the real risk to
at-home abortions is legal complications.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The NGO If/When/How has counted 60 cases in which
women who allegedly self-managed abortions, or people who assisted them, were
arrested, charged or sentenced between 2000 and 2020.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The group, which says it envisions "a future when
all people can self-determine their reproductive lives free from
discrimination, coercion or violence," helps find legal representation for
such women.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">It fears the trend toward criminalizing abortion will
be greatly aggravated if the Supreme Court rules as expected.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Such a ruling, said Gomperts, "instills fear in
people, and especially in health-care providers -- and that is the biggest
impact."</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-16509237512957745562022-04-26T01:55:00.004+07:002022-04-26T01:56:11.561+07:00World's oldest person dies in Japan at 119<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/worlds-oldest-person-dies-japan-075511943.html" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, 25 April 2022</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="text-align: center;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPCFZopEOk5ksMigadDTqBklf9OFabs4PD3VMW4hGS9NKdv18WdtKnbb3TeRnpxOXMl5sjnIjJ_K1CQyRs5_xHCWXg9clyG_NW7UARvruvXurLMREI76ebpjTc4N1GVCG-HGmrA08613squmF012ziHHQmlqaEPVGB5_RL7ALpw4M7ix_otQU6wUJdA/s800/d22847a03ae50688d1c450de1d1c84365a290913.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="800" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPCFZopEOk5ksMigadDTqBklf9OFabs4PD3VMW4hGS9NKdv18WdtKnbb3TeRnpxOXMl5sjnIjJ_K1CQyRs5_xHCWXg9clyG_NW7UARvruvXurLMREI76ebpjTc4N1GVCG-HGmrA08613squmF012ziHHQmlqaEPVGB5_RL7ALpw4M7ix_otQU6wUJdA/w400-h325/d22847a03ae50688d1c450de1d1c84365a290913.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Kane Tanaka was recognised as the world's oldest person in 2019 (AFP/JIJI <br />PRESS) (JIJI PRESS)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US">A Japanese woman certified the world's oldest person
has died at the age of 119, local officials said Monday.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Kane Tanaka was born January 2, 1903, in the
southwestern Fukuoka region of Japan, the same year the Wright brothers flew
for the first time and Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Tanaka was in relatively good health until recently
and lived at a nursing home, where she enjoyed board games, solving maths
problems, soda and chocolate.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In her younger years, Tanaka ran various businesses
including a noodle shop and a rice cake store. She married Hideo Tanaka a
century ago in 1922, giving birth to four children and adopting a fifth.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">She had planned to use a wheelchair to take part in
the torch relay for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but the pandemic prevented her
from doing so.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">When the Guinness World Records recognised her as the
oldest person alive in 2019, she was asked what moment she was the most happy
in life. Her answer: "Now."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Her daily routine was described at the time as
including a 6:00 am wake-up, and afternoons spent studying mathematics and
practising calligraphy.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"One of Kane's favourite pastimes is a game of
Othello and she's become an expert at the classic board game, often beating
rest-home staff," Guinness said.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Local governor Seitaro Hattori hailed Tanaka's life
after she passed away on April 19.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"I was looking forward to seeing Kane-san on this
year's Respect for the Aged Day (a national holiday in September) and
celebrating together with her favorite soda and chocolate," he said in a
statement on Monday.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"I am extremely saddened by the news."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Japan has the world's most elderly population,
according to World Bank data, with around 28 percent aged 65 or over.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The oldest-ever living person verified by Guinness was
Frenchwoman Jeanne Louise Calment, who died aged 122 years and 164 days in
1997.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-725586603096463682022-04-08T02:01:00.002+07:002022-04-08T02:01:26.452+07:00Cosmetics and personal care products are riddled with microplastics<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/04/cosmetics-and-personal-care-products-are-riddled-with-microplastics/" target="_blank">DutchNews</a>, April 7, 2022 </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBUistKvnRd7Qq0A70lf7JhGeiiH2KYgv0rU7GQxA74AtkGTEvJhe7PGMLZ3a_rAXUVGaTeEG6JUs4NK46gXGizc7GzY2qnMvPB2DlI6i8uc64mJjcOINNzdm6zyBJxzai98oxCgSoCuNNYfYr0G4LVDm_JX0EIdaUAi2C2MIcMgyGZza59Jw0OwvhuA/s560/Depositphotos_141464342_S-560x374.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="374" data-original-width="560" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBUistKvnRd7Qq0A70lf7JhGeiiH2KYgv0rU7GQxA74AtkGTEvJhe7PGMLZ3a_rAXUVGaTeEG6JUs4NK46gXGizc7GzY2qnMvPB2DlI6i8uc64mJjcOINNzdm6zyBJxzai98oxCgSoCuNNYfYr0G4LVDm_JX0EIdaUAi2C2MIcMgyGZza59Jw0OwvhuA/w400-h268/Depositphotos_141464342_S-560x374.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: Depositphotos.com</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Personal care and
cosmetic products are riddled with plastic ingredients, with nine in 10 popular
brands using them, according to research by the Netherlands’ based <a href="https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/2022/04/almost-9-in-10-products-from-major-cosmetics-brands-contain-microplastics/" target="_blank">Plastic Soup Foundation</a>. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The EU is poised to take steps to control the unnecessary use of
microplastics but most will be exempt, particularly those used by the cosmetics
industry, the organisation says in a new report. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The campaign group looked at
the ingredients in 7,704 cosmetic and personal care items from the 10 most
popular European brands. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Of them, 87% contained microplastics, defined as ‘all
possible synthetic polymers, whether added in solid, liquid, semi-liquid or
water-soluble form, as well as nanoplastics and biodegradable plastics’. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The
foundation said it approached L’Oreal, Beiersdorf, Procter & Gamble and
Unilever to find out about their current and future plastic policies.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">‘All four
have indicated that they want to do more against plastic pollution, but they
focus only on microplastics in solid form. They follow the limited definition
of microplastics as proposed by the <a href="https://echa.europa.eu/nl/hot-topics/microplastics" target="_blank">European Chemicals Agency</a> (ECHA). </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The ECHA
says every minute, over seven kilos of microplastics from cosmetics and
personal care products end up in the European environment, but this would be 25
times higher using the wider Plastic Soup definition, the campaign group said. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">‘We want to urge the cosmetics industry to look beyond the proposed definition
by ECHA, to ensure the environmental and human health safety of the products
they bring on the market,’ the campaign group said. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">‘We want to encourage
consumers to demand transparency from brands and accountability for the
ingredients these brands put into our personal care and cosmetic products.’ </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Two
weeks ago, researchers at Amsterdam’s VU university reported finding
<a href="https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/03/dutch-scientists-find-evidence-of-plastic-particles-in-human-blood/" target="_blank">microplastics in human blood</a> for the first time.</span></div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-69517035180522630982022-02-03T03:12:00.008+07:002022-02-03T03:14:11.208+07:00Pharma giants to pay $590 mn to US Native Americans over opioids<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><a href="https://ph.news.yahoo.com/pharma-giants-pay-590-mn-212419626.html" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, John Biers, with Chris Stein in
Washington, 1 February 2022</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqlcDuCuRF0QhZhApwQ_5wkbe_-md3HxBvsXCsNyycN5ZD-dpZQHjH7ys83YzLsvSPPXOYh8rp9V-cBfLftf7w53WZ3yShzcGw2Lt74yWu-kibk3uIPVCOKW3Rf0K3dE1ZWb7Q4hgYq4TRK1jtbRkXyo0oZBP2m6yWiLu2rw-10hin6vMkZJ2CnC2xSA=s768" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqlcDuCuRF0QhZhApwQ_5wkbe_-md3HxBvsXCsNyycN5ZD-dpZQHjH7ys83YzLsvSPPXOYh8rp9V-cBfLftf7w53WZ3yShzcGw2Lt74yWu-kibk3uIPVCOKW3Rf0K3dE1ZWb7Q4hgYq4TRK1jtbRkXyo0oZBP2m6yWiLu2rw-10hin6vMkZJ2CnC2xSA=w400-h266" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Pharmaceutical companies and distributors have agreed to pay $590 million to <br />settle litigation related to opioid addiction in the Native American population <br />(AFP/Eric BARADAT) (Eric BARADAT)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US">A group of pharmaceutical companies and distributors
agreed to pay $590 million to settle lawsuits connected to opioid addiction
among Native American tribe members, according to a US court filing released
Tuesday.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The agreement is the latest amid a deluge of
litigation spawned by the US opioid crisis, which has claimed more than 500,000
lives over the last 20 years and ensnared some of the largest firms in the
world of American medicine.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Pharmaceutical companies McKesson, AmerisourceBergen
and Cardinal Health had already struck a separate deal with the Cherokee tribe
last September for $75 million.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">According to documents filed in an Ohio federal court
Tuesday by a committee of plaintiffs, the companies agreed to pay another $440
million over seven years to other Native American tribes.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson, for
its part, agreed to pay $150 million over two years to all the tribes, of which
$18 million are destined for the Cherokee.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Native Americans have "suffered some of the worst
consequences of the opioid epidemic of any population in the United
States," including the highest per-capita rate of opioid overdoses
compared to other racial groups, according to the filing from the Plaintiffs'
Tribal Leadership Committee.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"The burden of paying these increased costs has
diverted scarce funds from other needs and has imposed severe financial burdens
on the tribal plaintiffs."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Johnson & Johnson, McKesson and the other two
companies in the accord -- AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health -- previously
agreed to a $26 billion global settlement on opioid cases.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">J&J said Tuesday the $150 million it agreed to pay
in the Native American case has been deducted from what it owes in the global
settlement.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"This settlement is not an admission of any
liability or wrongdoing and the company will continue to defend against any
litigation that the final agreement does not resolve," the company said.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">It was unclear if the other companies would take their
portion under the latest agreement from the global settlement.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">'Measure of justice'</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Robins Kaplan, a law firm negotiating on the behalf of
the plaintiffs, said the agreement still must be approved by the Native
American tribes.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"This initial settlement for tribes in the
national opioid litigation is a crucial first step in delivering some measure
of justice to the tribes and reservation communities across the United States
that have been ground zero for the opioid epidemic," Tara Sutton, an
attorney at the firm, said in a statement.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Douglas Yankton, chairman of the North Dakota-based
Spirit Lake Nation, said the money from the settlement would "help fund
crucial, on-reservation, culturally appropriate opioid treatment
services."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Steven Skikos, an attorney representing the tribes,
told AFP the group is pursuing claims against other drugmakers.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"This is hopefully the first two of many other
settlements," he said.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Every tribe recognized by the US government, 574 in
all, will be able to participate in the agreement, even if they have not filed
lawsuits.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Many of the lawsuits regarding the opioid crisis have
centered on Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, a highly addictive
prescription painkiller blamed for causing a spike in addiction.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">A judge in December overturned the company's
bankruptcy plan because it provided some immunity for the owners of the company
in exchange for a $4.5 billion payout to victims of the opioid crisis.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The litigation wave has also swamped pharmacies owned
by Walmart, Walgreens and CVS, which a jury found in November bear
responsibility for the opioid crisis in two counties in Ohio.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-78477835173500066852022-01-16T03:18:00.003+07:002022-01-16T03:18:21.764+07:00US judge bans Shkreli for life from pharmaceutical industry<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/us-judge-bans-shkreli-life-212939027.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, Fri, January 14, 2022</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwPMBGNqNzPCJ_7F0mPAJU4p3Kj0clU7pmEwNSY0w4qiidyKpXHGo9RGwFIM-i-d6P2_62FgEGMSANeUI1kHFMxPWjsx0-y40uXkN-7_sx0UTpes2h8Hn212XJomBHIvXhAZGnRLlt7YNGLvv1awII1oN0Is4hkxcvMlx4IgN_4YQr9arYeFL2aMPJXg=s705" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="705" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwPMBGNqNzPCJ_7F0mPAJU4p3Kj0clU7pmEwNSY0w4qiidyKpXHGo9RGwFIM-i-d6P2_62FgEGMSANeUI1kHFMxPWjsx0-y40uXkN-7_sx0UTpes2h8Hn212XJomBHIvXhAZGnRLlt7YNGLvv1awII1oN0Is4hkxcvMlx4IgN_4YQr9arYeFL2aMPJXg=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A federal judge banned former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli from <br />working in the drug industry (AFP/SPENCER PLATT)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />A federal judge banned Martin Shkreli for life from
the pharmaceutical industry, ruling Friday that the former drug executive could
again harm society by monopolizing important medications.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Shkreli, who has been serving a seven-year prison
sentence on securities fraud, must also pay $64.6 million in damages to
victims, said US District Judge Denise Cote, ruling on a case brought by the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and six states.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Banning an individual from an entire industry
and limiting his future capacity to make a living in that field is a serious
remedy and must be done with care and only if equity demands," Cote wrote.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Shkreli's egregious, deliberate, repetitive,
long-running and ultimately dangerous illegal conduct warrants imposition of an
injunction of this scope."</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"The risk of recurrency here is real," Cote
said. "Shkreli has not expressed remorse or any awareness that his actions
violated the law."</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Once dubbed "the most hated man in America,"
Shkreli, 38, became infamous for suddenly raising the price of the HIV drug
Daraprim in 2015 by 5,000 percent -- from $13.50 a pill to $750.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Shkreli reached exclusive supply agreements for a key
ingredient for Daraprim, delaying generic competition for at least 18 months,
Cote wrote in the decision, which followed a December 2021 trial.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Shkreli's company, Turing, was renamed Vyera, and
settled with the FTC and other parties shortly before the trial, agreeing to
pay $40 million in ill-gotten gains.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In a 135-page ruling, Cote said Shkreli continued to
direct Vyera's policies and choose executives even from prison.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Whether he used a smuggled phone or the prison's
authorized phones, he stayed in touch with Vyera's management and exercised his
power over Vyera as its largest shareholder."</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Shkreli has been in prison since 2017 and is set to be
released in October 2023, or one year earlier pending succesful completion of
an early release program. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-33283597514611833132021-11-17T03:50:00.008+07:002021-11-17T03:50:43.688+07:00Pfizer strikes global licensing deal for Covid pill<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/pfizer-strikes-global-licensing-deal-114514464.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, Robin MILLARD, November 16, 2021</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-16X2Ziiph14/YZQZd7fg8sI/AAAAAAACU2E/NLDhgtj8kGYDYmE_iJJg78QNXUewccGlACLcBGAsYHQ/s705/ecec129acdde9ced3aceea236204e928.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="705" height="278" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-16X2Ziiph14/YZQZd7fg8sI/AAAAAAACU2E/NLDhgtj8kGYDYmE_iJJg78QNXUewccGlACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h278/ecec129acdde9ced3aceea236204e928.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Pfizer's Covid pill showed an 89 percent reduction in hospitalisation and <br />death in clinical trials. (AFP/Don EMMERT)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer on Tuesday announced a
deal to make its prospective antiviral Covid-19 pill available more cheaply in
the world's least wealthy countries.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Pfizer will sub-licence production of its promising
Paxlovid pill to generic drug manufacturers for supply in 95 low- and
middle-income nations covering around 53 percent of the world's population.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Under the deal struck with the global Medicines Patent
Pool (MPP), Pfizer -- which also produces one of the most widely-used Covid
vaccines with German lab BioNTech -- will not receive royalties from the
generic manufacturers, making the treatment cheaper.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The agreement is subject to the oral antiviral
medication passing ongoing trials and regulatory approval.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The Pfizer drug is to be taken with the HIV medicine
ritonavir.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Interim data from ongoing trials demonstrated an 89
percent reduction in the risk of Covid-19-related hospitalisation or death
compared to a placebo, in non-hospitalised high-risk adults with Covid-19
within three days of symptom onset, said Pfizer.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Similar results were seen within five days of symptom
onset, it added.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The Geneva-based MPP is a United Nations-backed
international organisation that works to facilitate the development of
medicines for low- and middle-income nations.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">If approved, the pill could be on the market in
"a matter of months", MPP policy chief Esteban Burrone told AFP.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>HIV drug mix</b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Pfizer will forego royalties on sales in all countries
covered by the agreement while Covid-19 remains classified as a Public Health
Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Last month, the WHO maintained the highest level of alert
over the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Paxlovid, or PF-07321332, is an investigational
antiviral therapy designed to block the activity of the SARS-CoV-2-3CL protease
-- an enzyme that the coronavirus needs to replicate.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Taking it together with a low dose of ritonavir helps
slow the breakdown of PF-07321332. It therefore remains active in the body for
a longer period at a high concentration, to help combat the virus.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The pill could potentially help patients avoid severe
illness, which can lead to hospitalisation and death, Pfizer said.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"We believe oral antiviral treatments can play a
vital role in reducing the severity of Covid-19 infections, decreasing the
strain on our healthcare systems and saving lives," said Pfizer chairman
and chief executive Albert Bourla.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">While a multitude of vaccines have been rolled out in
the pandemic, the hunt for treatments for those who have already caught the
disease has not been as fruitful.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Agreement follows Merck deal</b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The MPP was founded by Unitaid, which works on
innovations to prevent, diagnose and treat major diseases in poorer countries.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"During a pandemic, saving time means saving
lives. This agreement could help us to reach more people more quickly as soon
as the medicine is approved," said Unitaid executive director Philippe
Duneton.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Potential sublicensees have until December 6 to
register an expression of interest.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The announcement comes after the MPP signed a similar
voluntary licensing deal with Pfizer's US rivals Merck & Co last month for
its investigational oral antiviral medicine molnupiravir.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Subject to regulatory approval, the deal will help
create broad access to molnupiravir in 105 low- and middle-income countries.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Pills are easier to make than vaccines, do not require
a cold chain for delivery and can be self-administered by the patient.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In terms of relieving health systems by preventing
hospitalisations, "it's a game changer", said Burrone.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">He said pricing for the Pfizer pill had not yet been
set, but said that "in a competitive environment... the prices tend to
come down" to a low level.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Doctors Without Borders (MSF) meanwhile suggested it
might cost around $700 per Pfizer treatment course, in line with molnupiravir.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The medical charity said it was disheartened by the
deal, saying restrictive voluntary licences were no substitute for guaranteed
global access to Covid tools to bring the pandemic under control.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-5235687654175503462021-11-02T04:54:00.001+07:002021-11-02T04:54:27.582+07:00New rules for tattoo artists create confusion ahead of EU pigment ban<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/11/new-rules-for-tattoo-artists-create-confusion-ahead-of-eu-pigment-ban/" target="_blank">DutchNews</a>, November 1, 2021</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tpa0gL7Qb4c/YYBg9K6dtAI/AAAAAAACU1Q/3XLBs6RhVO0VpS3y7TN7EUD2s53CJRokQCLcBGAsYHQ/s560/Depositphotos_85615560_S-560x374.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="374" data-original-width="560" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tpa0gL7Qb4c/YYBg9K6dtAI/AAAAAAACU1Q/3XLBs6RhVO0VpS3y7TN7EUD2s53CJRokQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/Depositphotos_85615560_S-560x374.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: Depositphotos.com</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Tattoo artists in the Netherlands will have to abide
by new rules from January, in line with both Dutch and EU legislation, but with
two months before the switch, much remains unclear, tattoo shop owners have
<a href="https://nos.nl/artikel/2403718-onrust-door-nieuwe-tatoeage-regels-hij-blijft-nu-met-lelijke-creatie-rondlopen" target="_blank">told broadcaster NOS</a>. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The biggest changes involve new regulations for inks
which contain substances which can cause cancer and genetic mutations, or
irritate the skin. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This means thousands of hazardous chemicals found in tattoo
inks and permanent make-up will be restricted from 2022, the <a href="https://echa.europa.eu/hot-topics/tattoo-inks" target="_blank">European ChemicalsAgency has said</a>. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Two colours – Pigment Blue 15:3 and Pigment Green 7 – do not
yet have safer and technically adequate alternatives and will not be banned
until 2023, the agency said. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Tattoo artist Amanda Remmington told NOS she
understands little of the European rules. ‘My colleagues and I have never had a
complaint,’ she said. ‘The only colour that causes irritation is red.’ </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The ink
ban will also have an impact on larger tattoos which take time to complete and
may not now be finished, said tattoo artist Timen from Assen. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Chaos </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The
Netherlands’ most famous tattoo artist Henk Schiffmacher, <a href="https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/tatoeeerder-schiffmacher-woedend-om-nieuwe-europese-regels-over-tattoo-inkt~afbbbe4d/" target="_blank">told the AD</a> in
September, he is furious about the new rules. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">‘This is the work of an
overzealous civil servant and will create chaos,’ Schiffmacher said. ‘I’ve been
doing it for 45 years and now you are telling me I am doing it wrong?…The
people in charge don’t know a thing about tattooing, but are being influenced
by all kinds of lobbyists when making their decisions.’ </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Coloured ink is only an
health risk when it starts to move to other parts of the body, as it does when
a tattoo is being removed. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Hygiene </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The new Dutch rules involve <a href="https://www.rivm.nl/hygienerichtlijnen/EU-norm-tatoeeren" target="_blank">stricter hygiene measures</a>, and also state that the area where tattoos are placed must be
separate from the rest of the shop. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In the longer term, the Netherlands may
also raise the minimum age to get a tattoo from 16, or 12 with a parent’s
permission and increase training requirements, NOS said. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Monitoring compliance
with the new rules will be up to the Dutch food and product safety board and
will start from January, the health ministry has said.</span></div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-52492522502674458582021-10-13T02:41:00.002+07:002021-10-13T02:41:20.761+07:00“Coming Discoveries” – (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><a href="https://www.kryon.com/CHAN2021/k_channel21_Discoveries.html" target="_blank">Kryon.com</a>, August 25, 2021</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Live Kryon Channelling. Healing Wednesday livestream</b></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ys2zwVR9pwc/YWXfXFxM9KI/AAAAAAACUz0/DoTjCFYRhkAXNBItaFfjnT07OOG3fxZIACLcBGAsYHQ/s183/Lee%2BCarroll%2B150.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="150" height="183" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ys2zwVR9pwc/YWXfXFxM9KI/AAAAAAACUz0/DoTjCFYRhkAXNBItaFfjnT07OOG3fxZIACLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Lee%2BCarroll%2B150.jpg" width="150" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Lee Carroll</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Greetings, dear ones, I am Kryon of Magnetic Service</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">This is the fourth channel of the month regarding
change. The past three weeks, we’ve discussed several attributes of change that
are beginning to happen on this planet. The changes are mostly consciousness,
and we have given you some examples which show that many of these were
expected, and they coordinate with the messages of the indigenous. They revolve
around the cycle of our time, the precession of the equinox, and the 2012
shift.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">So, here you sit in a time of expected change, and the
first thing that happens is COVID. You have to ask, <i>“Is it related?”</i> And we’ve
given the answer now many times. Indeed (it is related)! More than related, it
is the catalyst to what follows next. This virus has almost stopped the normal
operational attributes of this planet, and I told you that this is like
stopping a large factory so that it can retool.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">We have discussed the metaphor of a factory that
cannot stop. After some time, it starts to be dysfunctional, and those
operating it start a process of greed and lack of integrity. It becomes so bad
that it becomes badly inefficient, yet, nobody can stop it. It’s too big.
However, COVID stopped it! This gives a space, does it not? It’s a space that
no one expected, given in order to see the inefficiencies of the factory (the
systems of Earth). It’s a time to retool and clearly see the dark things that
have grown in the dark corners where you never were able to look before. It’s a
chance to see more light than ever and identify those who are keeping you from
seeing it.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Dear ones, that’s just the beginning of what we
discussed. We’ve given you some messages of change in the past and said, “watch
for this,” or “look for that.” These things are coming. There are some things
coming that would surprise you, that are truly sensational and filled with
great things, and when I tell you about some of these things, you may ask, <i>“How
soon, Kryon, how soon?”</i> Every single one of these things that I’m going to give
you now actually already exists. They already exist in some form or are being
developed. Let me be clear: Some of these things lay on humanity, waiting for
the aha experience. <i>“Kryon, what are you talking about?”</i></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><i> </i></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Inventions are Given when They are Needed</b></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Let me go back and revisit some messages you may have
heard before: Major inventions that have changed the culture of this planet
often seem to happen all at once, all over the globe, almost like they were
delivered to consciousness all at once from somewhere else.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Seldom do you have just one individual with an idea
that then changes the planet. That may be the story they tell you in history,
but these profound inventions and discoveries usually happen simultaneously,
and the first individual to manifest it is the one who gets the credit.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Electricity:</b> Some of the inventions that manifest
themselves on the planet seem odd in their timing. You might look back and ask,
<i>“Why did it take so long? How is this possible?”</i> If you start looking at the
facts, the discovery of electricity is one. How long has this energy been
obvious to mankind in so many ways? Whether it’s static (electricity), like the
sparks you make when you move your feet on certain substances, or whether it’s
lightning in the sky … why did it take until only a couple of hundred years ago
for it really to be looked at, or the question asked: “I wonder if this is
energy we could use?” As to who actually invented it, you knew it was Michael
Faraday, right (or did you get another story)? And – that it wasn’t actually
electricity – but rather, electromagnetic induction (magnetics)?</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Flight is another one.</b> The Chinese have been flying
kites and have known about wind currents for 3,000 years. Why weren’t there men
in the sky, using kites and updrafts with the profound understanding that
humanity already had of these things? What took so long? Even today, you see
those who leap off mountain tops without powered flight – with a kite strapped
to them. Where was that? It should have been intuitive and should have occurred
a thousand years ago. You had watched the birds, you flew kites, yet, for
thousands of years, nobody did it. Does this make sense? It took until the
Wright brothers gave it to you using powered engines. That wasn’t that long
ago, dear ones, and they only beat the French with their famous first flight by
two weeks! Do you see what I’m saying? This invention was “delivered to the
Field” when it was ready – and all over the Earth at the same time.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Inventions that change the Earth profoundly in this
way happen when it’s time. You may disagree. You may say, <i>“Oh, we can think of
these things any time we want.”</i> This is not true or many inventions that were
completely “there and ready and intuitive” would have happened even sooner than
they did.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">There are some things coming that are already here,
dear ones, in certain ways. They are already in the Field, waiting to be
plucked out. I want to tell you about them. Some have heard this before.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>The Best Coming Inventions Will Not Be High Technology</b></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Don’t be surprised if the most advanced discoveries
that you’re going to make, which are going to change this planet profoundly,
have nothing to do with artificial intelligence or massive amounts of
computing. You might say, it’s “back to basics” because some of the best
inventions will be using patterns and basic physics that were always there, but
which you just haven’t thought of yet.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“Kryon, what are you talking about?”</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">THE END OF BATTERIES – AND THE GRID</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Let me talk about the magnetic energy wheel. It might
be two, or even three wheels, but there is a simple pattern, an array of
magnets that, when placed correctly, can keep a wheel spinning – forever.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Using the simple push/pull energy of small or large magnets
together in a specific array, you can keep this wheel going forever. You’re
aware, are you not, that natural magnets are very powerful, and they push and
they pull with a great deal of force, with no rest or refresh time, and no side
effects, and no fuel. This is a huge secret! Why have you not seen this before?
Put them together in an array where they will push and pull against each other
and spin whatever size wheel you wish – until the end of time! All you have to
do is oil the bearings occasionally. Have you thought of that? Dear ones,
listen: If you can make something spin, you can connect it to an electric
generator. Electricity, in any quantity, forever!</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I want you to think of what this means. Imagine: No
batteries. <i>“Kryon, what are you talking about. You’ve got to have batteries.”</i>
Dear ones, that statement is soooo yesterday! Imagine your favorite device. A
phone, perhaps? What if, instead of a battery, it had a tiny, miniature,
spinning magnetic motor that powered the device in real-time – forever! Not
only are there no batteries in the future, but no charging anything. Every
electronic thing you have has its own tiny, spinning generator built-in.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><i>“Kryon, how big can this wheel be?” </i>Well, let’s think:
Everything I have said can be enlarged. So, instead of a battery in an electric
car, there is a larger spinning electric engine underneath, always supplying
electricity to what we will now call <i>super capacitance</i> (something we have only
briefly discussed). You will always have enough electricity to go for hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds of miles without ever stopping. And even while you
sleep, electricity is still being generated to the “super cap.” It never stops.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><i>“Kryon, I still don’t understand how all this is going
to change the entire planet.”</i></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Dear ones, I’m talking about individual power for
every single building that exists on the planet – without being connected to
any grid. NO WIRES AND NO OUTSIDE SOURCE. No weather pattern will ever shut
down a city again or cause those to die because they can’t get electricity –
because it’s right outside in a little spinning motor that never stops and
always is running, to power whatever is needed. Magnetics is the answer. It’s
free, instant, and mobile electricity for all.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Every continent on this planet could have as much
electricity as they wanted or needed to instantly power villages, hospitals,
communications, teaching through the internet, and more. The internet would
work, no matter what. Can you imagine when everybody could talk to everybody? Cultures
and continents would start healing themselves and would finally start to be
educated.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">All of this can happen from one undiscovered pattern –
a magnetic array. Putting those magnets together so they will push and pull in
a way that they will spin forever, can be customizable to any size –
miniaturized or massive. They can power ships and cars – and they go forever.
There is no resource that is easier and safer to use to power this planet than
magnetics. No natural resources are burned, no pollution, and entirely safe.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Kryon – This Can’t Work</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><i>“Kryon: If I had this invention, there are forces out
there who would never let it be developed. I would be afraid to have it! The
power companies of the planet will buy it and pocket it because they want to sell
what they’ve got. They will never let this happen.”</i></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Let’s stop for a moment. Dear ones, this is not your
father’s world. What have I told you about change for the past 30 years? DO NOT
POSTULATE THE FUTURE ON WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE PAST. The shift is changing
the consciousness of the planet.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Right now, the power companies all over your land are
in trouble. Fossil fuel is in trouble, if you haven’t noticed. Nuclear power,
the former Holy Grail of power, has shown itself clearly to be exceptionally
dangerous! Every one of the accepted mass power generation systems is failing.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I will tell you that the power companies of this land
(USA), even if they are using steam or wind or sunlight, are all anxious for
this invention! It’s simple, efficient, no huge investment needed, and (ready?)
THEY will then be the ones to manufacture and sell the units, improving them
and finding more and more uses to free all of you from any kind of power grid.
So I’m telling you, it’s a new world, and those in the “power business” will be
the first to want to use this.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>The Highest and Most Powerful Force of Humanity</b></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Let me give you my favorite one: There are things that
this body of yours does, which has only to do with consciousness, nothing else.
In the last twenty years, there has been a revelation of proof. <b>Consciousness
is energy. It can alter physics.</b></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">This realization was not always thought to be the
case. In the past, consciousness was something esoteric, not well definable,
and it didn’t belong in physics. Now it does. There is now a slow awareness
that consciousness absolutely must be considered energy.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Think: If consciousness is energy, then, like all
other physical energies, there must be rules or axioms. It becomes predictive
science. When you start to figure that out and you understand what those are,
you will have some profound answers to some of the greatest mysteries of
health: The energy of consciousness is the reason for the placebo effect!
Someone takes a sugar-coated pill, and they are told that the pill is going to
create a cure – and then it does! What is the process? How is that possible?</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Someone takes a homeopathic tincture, a chemistry that
is too small to create a chemical reaction. Yet, it cures! What is happening?
How does that work? The answer is the energy and the physics of consciousness
combined with something called mirror neurons: What the body sees and expects,
it often creates by itself. Perhaps, you see someone else eating a meal and you
salivate. That’s consciousness over chemistry, dear ones.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Have you ever wondered if mirror neurons could play a
powerful and larger part in a coming system of healing? What if you could
convince your body that it was healing? Mirror neurons can’t tell the
difference between what you believe or what is happening chemically. Therefore,
consciousness instructs the body to heal itself, and it does! Now you
understand how spontaneous remission may work. When you convince the body that
a healing is occurring, it believes it so completely that it heals itself. This
will be a new healing process. It will be the best of any that ever existed –
using the energy of consciousness in new, measurable, scientific ways.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">No artificial intelligence – no super hi-tech
advancements</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Instead, this becomes the revelation of what you as
Humans have always had. Powerful!</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I want you to ponder these changes because they are in
the Field. Do you think when science discovered that <b>consciousness is energy</b>,
they just left that alone? No. They wanted to find out more about what it is.
The first thing they realized is that they are dealing with a multidimensional
energy. Indeed, science may not think immediately about the self-healing
potentials that exist, but eventually, they will</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">How long will it take? That’s up to you. How many of
you believe these things? For the belief itself, you might say, is a
transmitter of reality, because when you believe something, you can make it
happen.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Changes are coming to this planet, dear ones, and I
have told you this. We continue to tell you about the ones that will enhance
humanity, and there will come a time when the last thing you will ever want to
do to each other is to kill one another. There is precedent for this in other
places that I have talked about, so I have seen it. I have seen it.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I am Kryon, in love with humanity.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">And so it is</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">KRYON</span></b><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-73020576471489263202021-09-30T02:38:00.002+07:002021-09-30T02:46:25.839+07:00Want to live forever? Theoretically, you could, study says<p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/want-live-forever-theoretically-could-231826920.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, Sara HUSSEIN, September 29, 2021</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7vddfTi3QQ4/YVTAU3dGkRI/AAAAAAACUx8/EUad7YFuGH0KPGHdJmSrzHcwDpB4Y74TQCLcBGAsYHQ/s705/59213de5ffa2e6dfc3597512d8c3c965.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="705" height="325" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7vddfTi3QQ4/YVTAU3dGkRI/AAAAAAACUx8/EUad7YFuGH0KPGHdJmSrzHcwDpB4Y74TQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h325/59213de5ffa2e6dfc3597512d8c3c965.webp" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Kane Tanaka is currently the oldest living person in the world, at 118 (AFP/JIJI PRESS)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US">Humans can probably live to at least 130, and possibly
well beyond, though the chances of reaching such super old age remain
vanishingly small, according to new research.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The outer limit of the human lifespan has long been
hotly debated, with recent studies making the case we could live up to 150
years, or arguing that there is no maximum theoretical age for humans.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The new research, published Wednesday in the Royal
Society Open Science journal, wades into the debate by analysing new data on
supercentenarians -- people aged 110 or more -- and semi-supercentenarians,
aged 105 or more.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">While the risk of death generally increases throughout
our lifetime, the researchers' analysis shows that risk eventually plateaus and
remains constant at approximately 50-50.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Beyond age 110 one can think of living another
year as being almost like flipping a fair coin," said Anthony Davison, a
professor of statistics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in
Lausanne (EPFL), who led the research.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"If it comes up heads, then you live to your next
birthday, and if not, then you will die at some point within the next
year," he told AFP.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Based on the data available so far, it seems likely
that humans can live until at least 130, but extrapolating from the findings
"would imply that there is no limit to the human lifespan," the
research concludes.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The conclusions match similar statistical analyses
done on datasets of the very elderly.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"But this study strengthens those conclusions and
makes them more precise because more data are now available," Davison
said.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The first dataset the team studied is newly released
material from the International Database on Longevity, which covers more than
1,100 supercentenarians from 13 countries.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The second is from Italy on every person who was at
least 105 between January 2009 and December 2015.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>'One in a million'</b></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The work involves extrapolating from existing data,
but Davison said that was a logical approach.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Any study of extreme old age, whether
statistical or biological, will involve extrapolation," he said.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"We were able to show that if a limit below 130
years exists, we should have been able to detect it by now using the data now
available," he added.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Still, just because humans can theoretically reach 130
or beyond, doesn't mean we're likely to see it anytime soon.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For a start, the analysis is based on people who have
already achieved the relatively rare feat of making it to well over 100.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">And even at age 110, your chances of making it to 130
are "about one in a million... not impossible but very unlikely,"
said Davison.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">He thinks we could see people reaching 130 within the
century, as more people make it to supercentenarian status, increasing the chances
of one becoming that one in a million.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"But in the absence of major medical and social
advances, ages much over this are highly unlikely ever to be observed," he
added.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For now, the oldest person on record is Frenchwoman
Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the confirmed age of 122.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Her true age was the subject of some controversy, with
claims of a possible fraud, but in 2019 several experts said a review of the
evidence confirmed her age.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Other pretenders to the throne of oldest person ever
have a long way to go. The oldest verified living person in the world is
Japan's Kane Tanaka, a comparatively youthful 118.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"><b>Related Article:</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://audio.kryon.com/en/McCLOUD-3-Linear%20Reflections-1(R).mp3" target="_blank">“McCloud-3 Linear Reflections Part 1”, McCloud, California, US(5), June 28 – July 1, 2019 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) </a>– <i>(Old Souls can become on average 150 years old in the new – multidimensional - energy in the future - > 40 min)</i></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><br /></i></span></b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-17634825101157875962021-09-16T02:27:00.004+07:002021-09-16T02:27:39.016+07:00Pope rails against vaccine 'denier' cardinals<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/pope-rails-against-vaccine-denier-154015850.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, September 15, 2021</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JA7YEXyEsi8/YUJI4hgwIEI/AAAAAAACUxg/9IW4E16FQFkY9pUoEv6hBM5phVeeBsRJACLcBGAsYHQ/s705/de327af2e6040c52c981d3e9a1a733e3.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="455" data-original-width="705" height="259" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JA7YEXyEsi8/YUJI4hgwIEI/AAAAAAACUxg/9IW4E16FQFkY9pUoEv6hBM5phVeeBsRJACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h259/de327af2e6040c52c981d3e9a1a733e3.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The pope is a strong advocate of coronavirus vaccines and has previously <br />expressed his incomprehension with those who refuse to take it (AFP/Tiziana FABI)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Pope Francis on Wednesday spoke out against
"denier" cardinals who refused the coronavirus vaccine, in an
apparent swipe at his main opponent who recently contracted Covid-19.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"In the College of Cardinals, there are a few
deniers. One of them, the poor man, contracted the virus," the pontiff
told reporters as he flew home from a trip to Slovakia.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The 84-year-old did not name the man he was referring
to, but conservative US Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of Francis' fiercest and
most vocal critics in the Catholic Church, was recently admitted to hospital in
the United States with Covid-19.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The pope said that in the heart of the Vatican,
"everyone is vaccinated, with the exception of a small group".</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"We are studying how to help them," he said
during a press conference onboard the papal plane.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The pope is a strong advocate of coronavirus vaccines
and has previously expressed his incomprehension with those who refuse to take
it.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"It's a bit strange because humanity has a
history of friendship with vaccines," Francis said, highlighting the jabs
that have for decades protected children against measles or polio.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"We should clarify things and speak calmly,"
he advised, while also conceding that the debates over the different
anti-coronavirus vaccines could create uncertainty or fear.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The pope made a brief stopover in Budapest on Sunday
before visiting Slovakia, and held a private meeting with Hungarian Prime
Minister Viktor Orban.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">He is at odds with the populist leader's hardline
stance on migration, but said Wednesday they did not discuss the issue.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Hungarian President Janos Ader did most of the talking
during the three-way meeting, the pope said, and they focused on ecology as
well as Hungary's support for couples hoping to have children.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For his part, Orban -- who has claimed Europe is
threatened by a Muslim "invasion" -- said on Facebook that he had
asked the pope in their meeting "not to let Christian Hungary
perish".</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">During his press conference, the pope repeated his
call for Europe to return to the principles of solidarity on which it was founded,
warning of "the danger that it has become just a managerial office. </span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">And that is not good."<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-21730890591564447452021-07-01T02:42:00.000+07:002021-07-01T02:42:03.315+07:00112-year-old Puerto Rican becomes world’s oldest living man<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.khaleejtimes.com/world/americas/112-year-old-puerto-rican-becomes-worlds-oldest-living-man" target="_blank">Khaleejt Times – AFP</a>, June 30, 2021</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EFLkCTDVYNM/YNzI3YEe0pI/AAAAAAACT4k/XeHSSOOeQJMXOBhWQYwSaIkJoCUonb0jgCLcBGAsYHQ/s778/Oldest%2Bman.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="778" height="224" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EFLkCTDVYNM/YNzI3YEe0pI/AAAAAAACT4k/XeHSSOOeQJMXOBhWQYwSaIkJoCUonb0jgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h224/Oldest%2Bman.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">'My dad raised me with love and taught me to love everyone'</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Emilio Flores Marquez from Puerto Rico has become the
world’s oldest living man at an age of 112 years and 326 days old, Guinness
World Records announced on Wednesday.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Marquez, who was born in Carolina, east of the Puerto
Rican capital of San Juan in 1908, was recognised by Guinness and awarded a
certificate at his home just a few miles (kilometres) from his birthplace.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Asked about his longevity, Marquez — known as “Don
Milo” to his friends — said the secret to his advanced years lay in compassion.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“My dad raised me with love and taught me to love
everyone. He always told me and my brothers and sisters to do good, to share
everything with others. Besides, Christ lives in me,” Guinness quoted him as
saying.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The second oldest child of 11 siblings and his
parents’ first-born son, Marquez worked on the family’s sugarcane farm and
received only three years of formal schooling.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">He wife of 75 years Andrea Pérez De Flores, with whom
he had four children, died in 2010.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The previous oldest living man was recognised by
Guinness World Records as Romania’s Dumitru Comanescu, who died on June 27,
2020, at the age of 111 years 219 days.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">After Comanescu’s death, the record-breaking authority
received evidence Marquez had been born three months earlier than the previous
record holder.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“It’s always an honour to celebrate these remarkable
human beings, and this year we’ve processed applications from not one but two
contenders for the title of oldest living man,” Craig Glenday, Editor-in-Chief
at Guinness World Records, said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-74661497649535103332021-05-31T04:14:00.002+07:002021-05-31T04:20:49.305+07:00Why scientists are concerned about leaks at biolabs<p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/why-scientists-concerned-leaks-biolabs-012623259.html" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, Issam Ahmed, Lucie Aubourg and Paul Handley, May 30, 2021</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2XVjFgCZAoc/YLP-S7NpFDI/AAAAAAACTpk/6LOOGdV4uDAUWlpO2fLePybusvUz_k7JgCLcBGAsYHQ/s705/caa99a6a8955bac552d1b368f374a6b8.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="705" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2XVjFgCZAoc/YLP-S7NpFDI/AAAAAAACTpk/6LOOGdV4uDAUWlpO2fLePybusvUz_k7JgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h265/caa99a6a8955bac552d1b368f374a6b8.webp" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">This general view shows the Wuhan Institute of Virplogy in Wuhan,<br />in China's central Hubei province</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The theory that Covid-19 might be the result of
scientific experiments has thrown a spotlight on the work of the world's most
secure biolabs.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">While the evidence linking SARS-CoV-2 to the Wuhan
Institute of Virology in China is strictly circumstantial, a number of experts
want tougher controls on such facilities over fears that accidental leaks could
touch off the next pandemic.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Here's what you should know.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">59 top facilities</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The Wuhan lab belongs to the most secure class, commonly
referred to as biosafety level 4, or BSL4.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">These are built to work safely and securely with the
most dangerous bacteria and viruses that can cause serious diseases for which
there are no known treatment or vaccines.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"There are HVAC filtration systems, so that the
virus can't escape through exhaust; any waste water that leaves the facility is
treated with either chemicals or high temperatures to make sure that there's
nothing alive," Gregory Koblentz, director of the Biodefense Graduate
Program at George Mason University, told AFP.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The researchers themselves are highly trained and wear
hazmat suits.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">There are 59 such facilities across the world,
according to a report Koblentz co-authored that was released this week.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"There are no binding international standards for
safe, secure, and responsible work on pathogens," the report, called
Mapping Maximum Biological Containment Labs Globally, said.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Accidents do happen</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Accidents can happen, sometimes at the top tier facilities,
and much more frequently at lower rung labs of which there are thousands.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Human H1N1 virus -- the same flu that caused the 1918
pandemic -- leaked in 1977 in the Soviet Union and China and spread worldwide.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In 2001, a mentally disturbed employee at a US biolab
mailed out anthrax spores across the country, killing five people.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Two Chinese researchers exposed to SARS in 2004 spread
the disease to others, killing one.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In 2014, a handful of smallpox vials were uncovered
during an Food and Drug Administration office move.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Lynn Klotz, a senior science fellow at the Center for
Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, has been sounding the alarm for many years
about the public safety threats posed by such facilities.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Human errors constitute over 70 percent of the
errors in laboratories," he told AFP, adding that US researchers have to
rely on data from Freedom of Information requests to learn of these incidents.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">'Gain of function' controversy</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">There is disagreement between the US government, which
funded bat coronavirus research in Wuhan, and some independent scientists,
about whether this work was controversial "gain of function" (GOF)
research.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">GOF research entails modifying pathogens to make them
more transmissible, deadlier, or better able to evade treatment and vaccines --
all to learn how to fight them better.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">This field has long been contentious. Debate reached a
fever pitch when two research teams in 2011 showed they could make bird flu
transmissible between mammals.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch told AFP he was
concerned "that it would create a strain of virus that if it infected a
laboratory worker could not just kill that laboratory worker... but also cause
a pandemic."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"The research is not required and does not
contribute to the development of drugs or vaccines," added molecular
biologist Richard Ebright of Rutgers University, one of the staunchest
opponents of this kind of research.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In 2014 the US government announced a pause in federal
funding for such work, which gave way in 2017 to a framework that would
consider each application on a case-by-case basis.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But the process has been criticized as lacking
transparency and credibility.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">As late as last year, a nonprofit received funding
from the US on research to "predict spillover potential" of bat
coronavirus to humans in Wuhan.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Questioned by Congress this week, Francis Collins and
Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health denied this amounted to gain
of function research, but Ebright said it clearly does.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The path ahead</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">None of this means that Covid-19 definitely leaked
from a lab -- in fact there is no hard scientific evidence in favor of natural
origin or lab accident scenario, said Ebright.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But there are certain lines of circumstantial evidence
in favor of the latter. For instance, Wuhan is around 1,000 miles north of bat
caves that harbor the ancestor virus, well out of the animals' flight range.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Scientists from Wuhan were however known to be
carrying out routine trips to those caves to take samples.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Alina Chan, a molecular biologist from the Broad
Institute, said there were no signs of risky pathogen research dying down in
the wake of the pandemic -- in fact "it's possibly expanded."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Last year, Chan published research showing that,
unlike SARS, SARS-CoV-2 was not evolving fast when it was first detected in
humans -- another piece of circumstantial evidence that could point to lab
origin.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Chan considers herself a "fence-sitter" on
the competing hypotheses, but does not favor banning risky research, fearing it
would then go underground.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">One solution "might just be as simple as moving
these research institutes out into extremely remote areas...where you have to
quarantine for two weeks before we re-enter in human society," she said.<br /><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UPebW7_0vsM/YLE1reVOtmI/AAAAAAACTo0/15YnOBcGbgcPyzsE8s3zJTD43F2i5Jy7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1532/E2YOFxuUcAAtgU1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1124" data-original-width="1532" height="294" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UPebW7_0vsM/YLE1reVOtmI/AAAAAAACTo0/15YnOBcGbgcPyzsE8s3zJTD43F2i5Jy7wCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h294/E2YOFxuUcAAtgU1.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Related Articles:</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b><a href="https://cempaka-health.blogspot.com/2020/12/chinese-citizen-journalist-jailed-for.html">Chinese citizen journalist jailed for Wuhan virus reporting</a><br /></b></span><b><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/us-sees-pressure-point-coronavirus-hits-iran-081007284.html" target="_blank">US sees new pressure point as coronavirus hits Iran</a></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"></span></p><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://audio.kryon.com/en/corona.mp3" target="_blank">"Corona 1", Reykjavik, Iceland, Mar, 2020 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)</a> - </span></b></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>(>13.46 Min - Reference to the Global Coronavirus crisis)</b></div></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-59905678454174624022021-05-28T02:33:00.007+07:002021-05-31T04:21:45.858+07:00Facebook reverses course, won't ban lab virus theory<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/facebook-reverses-course-wont-ban-153441867.html" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, Rob Lever, May 27, 2021</span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: center;"> </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Kr3IkvNPXo/YLE03n6BgeI/AAAAAAACTok/30Idgu46kV4-2wwN1y7yjDq7mQonBdd2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s705/08806e52b3f192f83d251de5eef5809f%2B%25281%2529.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="458" data-original-width="705" height="260" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Kr3IkvNPXo/YLE03n6BgeI/AAAAAAACTok/30Idgu46kV4-2wwN1y7yjDq7mQonBdd2QCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h260/08806e52b3f192f83d251de5eef5809f%2B%25281%2529.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Facebook reversal of a ban on suggesting Covid-19 was man-made comes amid <br />renewed debate on the origins of the virus</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: center;"></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Facebook has reversed its policy banning posts
suggesting Covid-19 emerged from a laboratory amid renewed debate over the
origins of the virus, raising fresh questions about social media's role in
policing misinformation.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The latest move by Facebook, announced late Wednesday
on its website, highlights the challenge for the world's largest social network
of rooting out false and potentially harmful content while remaining open for
discourse.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"In light of ongoing investigations into the
origin of Covid-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no
longer remove the claim that Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured from our
apps," the statement said.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"We're continuing to work with health experts to
keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our
policies as new facts and trends emerge."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The new statement updates guidance from Facebook in
February when it said it would remove false or debunked claims about the novel
coronavirus which created a global pandemic killing more than three million.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The move followed President Joe Biden's directive to
US intelligence agencies to investigate competing theories on how the virus
first emerged -- through animal contact at a market in Wuhan, China, or through
accidental release from a research laboratory in the same city.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Biden's order signals an escalation in mounting
controversy over the origins of the virus.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The natural origin hypothesis holds that it emerged in
bats then passed to humans, likely via an intermediary species.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">This theory was widely accepted at the start of the
pandemic, but as time has worn on, scientists have not found a virus in either
bats or another animal that matches the genetic signature of SARS-CoV-2.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The lab-leak theory, meanwhile, is gaining increasing
traction in the United States, where it was initially fueled by former
president Donald Trump and his aides and dismissed by many as a political
talking point.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">A recent Wall Street Journal report, citing US intelligence
findings, said three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology
became sick in November 2019, a month before Beijing disclosed the existence of
a mysterious pneumonia outbreak.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-snZEhriLLfM/YLE1ZvI9uzI/AAAAAAACTos/u0Etzv4Fy8wza-ZRClZVShzbh-HUvyhNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s704/391e1c903d0beec577c54d9284bf5b88.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="477" data-original-width="704" height="271" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-snZEhriLLfM/YLE1ZvI9uzI/AAAAAAACTos/u0Etzv4Fy8wza-ZRClZVShzbh-HUvyhNQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h271/391e1c903d0beec577c54d9284bf5b88.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Facebook has updated previous guidance on removing false or debunked claims <br />about the novel coronavirus -- saying it will no longer remove the claim that <br />Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Pushback from the right</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></b></span></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Facebook's move, which could impact what some three
billion users of its family of apps see, highlights the controversy over social
media's aggressive efforts to root out misinformation on topics where facts may
be evolving.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The reversal may be "another exhibit for the
possibility that there will be a swing back against the more heavy-handed
moderation," tweeted Evelyn Douek, a Harvard University lecturer and
researcher of online speech regulation.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"When the pandemic started, there were many
arguments that 'what platforms are doing for health misinfo, they should do for
all misinfo all the time.' It was over-simplified then, and strikes me as
untenable now."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Facebook uses independent third-party fact checkers,
including AFP, to debunk misinformation. Although the origins of the virus
remain unproven, the lab leak theory has been subject to fact-checking.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">One fact checking organization, PolitiFact, reported
last September that public health authorities had "repeatedly said the
coronavirus was not derived from a lab" but earlier this month revised its
guidance, noting: "that assertion is now more widely disputed," and
saying it would continue to review the matter.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The abrupt Facebook reversal prompted angry responses
from conservatives and Trump supporters.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Wow! But they did suppress the story for a year,
defaming Trump and Republicans for a 'conspiracy theory' blacklisting
conservative press and banning us," tweeted Kelly Sadler, a blogger and
former Trump aide.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But Rebekah Tromble, director of Institute for Data,
Democracy & Politics at George Washington University, said Facebook
"is doing the right thing" by updating its guidance.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Information changes over time, and responsible
organizations -- social media outlets and fact-checkers alike -- make decisions
based on the best information available but remain open and willing to change
their evaluations as new information arises," Tromble told AFP.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Facebook will undoubtedly receive blowback for
this decision, as will fact-checkers. But that blowback will come from the same
people and groups that have always been critical."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Facebook in a separate statement said it was stepping
up its efforts to curb misinformation by limiting the reach of users who "repeatedly"
share false content.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Until now, Facebook had only taken this action on
individual posts, but now will clamp down on the users who are the largest
spreaders of false content.<br /><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UPebW7_0vsM/YLE1reVOtmI/AAAAAAACTo0/15YnOBcGbgcPyzsE8s3zJTD43F2i5Jy7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1532/E2YOFxuUcAAtgU1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1124" data-original-width="1532" height="294" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UPebW7_0vsM/YLE1reVOtmI/AAAAAAACTo0/15YnOBcGbgcPyzsE8s3zJTD43F2i5Jy7wCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h294/E2YOFxuUcAAtgU1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b><br />Related Articles:</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b><a href="https://cempaka-health.blogspot.com/2020/12/chinese-citizen-journalist-jailed-for.html">Chinese citizen journalist jailed for Wuhan virus reporting</a><br /></b></span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/us-sees-pressure-point-coronavirus-hits-iran-081007284.html" target="_blank">US sees new pressure point as coronavirus hits Iran</a></b></p><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://audio.kryon.com/en/corona.mp3" target="_blank">"Corona 1", Reykjavik, Iceland, Mar, 2020 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)</a> - </b></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>(>13.46 Min - Reference to the Global Coronavirus crisis)</b></div></span></div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-90599962698880273132021-05-15T03:53:00.003+07:002021-05-15T03:55:50.972+07:00US court denies appeal in Roundup cancer case<p><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><a href="https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/us-court-denies-appeal-roundup-183636866.html" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, 14 May 2021</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="text-align: center;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DjI0PLwBrvk/YJ7jDp3Bs2I/AAAAAAACTlg/J9GLoVgAYfI4AAlObLkNjMhML7N2bX19ACLcBGAsYHQ/s768/76b053f66324aec2ff82faea0093cb34.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="768" height="295" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DjI0PLwBrvk/YJ7jDp3Bs2I/AAAAAAACTlg/J9GLoVgAYfI4AAlObLkNjMhML7N2bX19ACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h295/76b053f66324aec2ff82faea0093cb34.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Roundup weed killer is the subject of thousands of lawsuits in the US</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US">A US federal court in San Francisco on Friday denied
an appeal by Monsanto in the cancer trial over its Roundup weedkiller and
upheld an award of $25 million in damages.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">It was the latest setback for Monsanto's parent,
German chemical giant Bayer, in its campaign to put an end more than 13,000 US
lawsuits over the chemical.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The three-judge panel affirmed the district court's
judgment in favor of Edwin Hardeman, who blamed the chemical in Roundup for
causing his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The ruling found the district court properly denied
Monsanto's appeal "because evidence showed the carcinogenic risk of
glyphosate was knowable at the time of Hardeman's exposure."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">A jury originally ordered the company to pay $75
million but a judge later reduced that amount.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The ruling Friday said the award was "at the
outer limits of constitutional propriety" but was acceptable,
"Considering the evidence of Monsanto's reprehensibility."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Hardeman said he used Roundup extensively on his land
in Sonoma County -- north of San Francisco -- from the 1980s until 2012.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">He filed a complaint against Monsanto in early 2016, a
year after being diagnosed with cancer.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The case was considered a "bellwether" in
the litigation against Monsanto, but the judges cautioned that "different
Roundup cases may present different considerations, leading to different
results."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"We are disappointed with the court's decision as
the verdict in this case is not supported by the evidence at trial or the
law," Bayer said in a statement, adding it would consider appealing to the
US Supreme Court.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The agrochemicals and drugs giant has been plagued by
legal woes since it bought Monsanto in 2018.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Bayer, which is not admitting any wrongdoing,
maintains that scientific studies and regulatory approvals show Roundup's main
ingredient glyphosate is safe.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The company set aside some $11 billion to deal with a
wave of US lawsuits, and in February said it had settled some 90,000 of the
cases.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-64923962186420917402020-12-29T04:54:00.003+07:002021-05-31T04:22:48.219+07:00Chinese citizen journalist jailed for Wuhan virus reporting<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><a href="https://sg.news.yahoo.com/chinese-citizen-journalist-jailed-four-053326085.html" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, 28 December 2020</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XbPRw-UbbNk/X-pSH59ZZHI/AAAAAAACTYk/di48QzK_MxYsWsWwFr0yvxcZMz7gCMAdQCLcBGAsYHQ/s768/78f412d92f986c4c360d9db9d1ef076c.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XbPRw-UbbNk/X-pSH59ZZHI/AAAAAAACTYk/di48QzK_MxYsWsWwFr0yvxcZMz7gCMAdQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h266/78f412d92f986c4c360d9db9d1ef076c.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Authoroties said former Chinese lawyer and citizen journalist <br />Zhang Zhan had spread "False remarks" online.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US">A Chinese citizen journalist was jailed for four years
Monday for her reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak began, her lawyer
said, almost a year after details of an "unknown viral pneumonia"
surfaced in the central China city.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer who arrived at court in a
wheelchair, was sentenced at a brief hearing in a Shanghai court for allegedly
"picking quarrels and provoking trouble" during her reporting in the
chaotic initial stages of the outbreak.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Her live reports and essays were shared on social
media platforms in February, grabbing the attention of authorities, who have
punished eight virus whistleblowers so far as they curb criticism of the
government's response to the outbreak.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Beijing has congratulated itself for
"extraordinary" success in controlling the virus inside its borders,
with an economy on the rebound while much of the rest of the world stutters
through painful lockdowns and surging caseloads a year on from the start of the
pandemic in Wuhan.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Controlling the information flow during an
unprecedented global health crisis has been pivotal in allowing China's
communist authorities to reframe the narrative in their favour, with President
Xi Jinping being garlanded for his leadership by the country's ruling party.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But that has come at a serious cost to anyone who has
picked holes in the official storyline.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The court said Zhang Zhan had spread "false
remarks" online, according to one of her lawyers Zhang Keke, but the
prosecution did not fully divulge its evidence in court.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"We had no way of understanding what exactly
Zhang Zhan was accused of doing," he added, describing it as "a
speedy, rushed hearing."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In return the defendant "didn't respond [to
questions]... She refused to answer when the judge asked her to confirm her
identity."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The defendant's mother sobbed loudly as the verdict
was read out, Ren Quanniu, another member of Zhang's defence team, told
reporters who were barred from entering the court.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Concerns are mounting over the health of 37-year-old
Zhang, who began a hunger strike in June and has been force-fed via a nasal
tube.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Her legal team said her health was in decline and she
suffered from headaches, dizziness and stomach pain, and that she had appeared
in court in a wheelchair.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"She said when I visited her (last week): 'If
they give me a heavy sentence then I will refuse food until the very end.'...
She thinks she will die in prison," Ren said before the trial.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"It's an extreme method of protesting against
this society and this environment."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">China's communist authorities have a history of
putting dissidents on trial in opaque courts between Christmas and New Year in
an effort to minimise Western scrutiny.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Example made</b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The sentencing comes just weeks before an
international team of World Health Organization experts is expected to arrive
in China to investigate the origins of Covid-19.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Zhang was critical of the early response in Wuhan,
writing in a February essay that the government "didn't give people enough
information, then simply locked down the city".</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"This is a great violation of human rights,"
she wrote.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Rights groups and embassies have also drawn attention
to her case, although diplomats from several countries were denied requests to
monitor the hearing.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Zhang Zhan's case raises serious concerns about
media freedom in China," the British embassy in Beijing said, urging
"China to release all those detained for their reporting."</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Authorities "want to use her case as an example to
scare off other dissidents from raising questions about the pandemic situation
in Wuhan earlier this year", added Leo Lan, research and advocacy
consultant at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders NGO.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">A United Nations official following the trial also expressed
"deep concern" about the verdict.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"We raised her case with the authorities
throughout 2020 as an example of the excessive clampdown on freedom of
expression linked to #COVID19 & continue to call for her release," the
office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a
tweet.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Zhang is the first of a group of four citizen
journalists detained by authorities after reporting from Wuhan to face trial.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Previous attempts by AFP to contact the other three --
Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua -- were unsuccessful.</span> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Related Article:</span></b></p><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://audio.kryon.com/en/corona.mp3" target="_blank">"Corona 1", Reykjavik, Iceland, Mar, 2020 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)</a> - </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">(>13.46 Min - Reference to the Global Coronavirus crisis)</span></b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-16341828186457341722020-12-23T05:50:00.004+07:002020-12-23T05:53:18.346+07:00US sues Walmart over opioid crisis<span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201222-us-sues-walmart-over-opio" target="_blank">France24 – AFP</a>, 22 Decemberb 2020</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_uU90TL7dl8/X-J3EK4ICnI/AAAAAAACTYU/-G8kKVdVguo45P_GVMGP8kO-_4Wf-s6_QCLcBGAsYHQ/s980/c256513673ff6da56b5a790941c9fdca4efc8e3d.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="980" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_uU90TL7dl8/X-J3EK4ICnI/AAAAAAACTYU/-G8kKVdVguo45P_GVMGP8kO-_4Wf-s6_QCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/c256513673ff6da56b5a790941c9fdca4efc8e3d.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Justice Department sued Walmart, alleging it worsened the <br />opioid crisis Paul Ratje AFP/File 2 min New York (AFP)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The US Justice Department sued Walmart over its role in the opioid crisis on Tuesday, alleging the giant retailer wrongly filled prescriptions and worsened a public health disaster.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The suit accuses Walmart of irresponsible handling of orders, filling thousands of "invalid" prescriptions. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"> Authorities could seek up to billions of dollars in penalties, in the litigation that followed a multi-year investigation, the Justice Department said in a press release.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"As one of the largest pharmacy chains and wholesale drug distributors in the country, Walmart had the responsibility and the means to help prevent the diversion of prescription opioids," said Jeffrey Bossert Clark, acting head of DOJ's civil division. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"Instead, for years, it did the opposite -- filling thousands of invalid prescriptions at its pharmacies and failing to report suspicious orders of opioids and other drugs placed by those pharmacies." </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company, the world's biggest retailer, filed its own lawsuit against the Justice Department in October that argued that the US crackdown put it in a no-win position. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Pharmacists "must make a difficult decision" of either accepting a doctor's "medical judgment and fill the opioid prescription, or second-guess the doctor's judgment and refuse to fill it," Walmart said in its suit. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"Either decision puts the pharmacist and pharmacy at great risk," the company argued.
It said </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">it faces potential federal action if prosecutors say an order was wrongly filled, or the chance of having a pharmacist license "stripped for the unauthorized practice of medicine, not to mention the potential harm to patients in need of their medicine."</span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8071538634303100767.post-29806732511564112502020-10-22T02:25:00.003+07:002020-10-22T02:25:40.035+07:00Purdue Pharma pleads guilty to criminal charges over opioid sales<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/purdue-pharma-pleads-guilty-criminal-170817938.html" target="_blank">Yahoo – AFP</a>, Paul HANDLEY, October 21, 2020</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7slauV1sAJc/X5CJsdiitiI/AAAAAAACTOY/B3ejypSDHiYZAs53xu_Wtf1ggbnO1Cx4QCLcBGAsYHQ/s768/bc19c2ebdc6f75e7220528ed7d982d76.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="768" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7slauV1sAJc/X5CJsdiitiI/AAAAAAACTOY/B3ejypSDHiYZAs53xu_Wtf1ggbnO1Cx4QCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h265/bc19c2ebdc6f75e7220528ed7d982d76.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Headquarters of Purdue Pharma LP, the maker of the painkiller OxyContin,<br />in Stamford, Connecticut</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">US drugmaker Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to three
criminal charges over its intense drive to push sales of the prescription
opioid OxyContin, which stoked a nationwide addiction crisis, the Justice
Department announced Wednesday.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Purdue also agreed to $8.3 billion in fines, damages
and forfeitures to settle the criminal case against it, the department said.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In a separate agreement, the billionaire Sackler
family, which built Purdue to a pharmaceutical giant on the back of lucrative
sales of OxyContin, agreed to pay $225 million to resolve civil liability
charges filed by the Justice Department.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Purdue, through greed and violation of the law,
prioritized money over the health and well-being of patients," said FBI
assistant director Steven D'Antuono.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Purdue, which filed for bankruptcy protection last
year, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud and two counts of violating kickback
laws over its marketing and sales of OxyContin and two other hydrocodone-based
treatments, which involved encouraging distributors and doctors to aggressively
push the highly addictive drugs to consumers.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Even after paying $600 million for falsely marketing
the painkiller as "less addictive," the Justice Department said,
Purdue ratched up its sales drive and developed new addictive applications
which it marketed through a network of 100,000 prescribing doctors and nurse practitioners.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Among them were thousands of hyper-prescribers that
Purdue "knew or should have known were prescribing opioids for uses many
of which were not for a medically accepted indication, were unsafe,
ineffective, and medically unnecessary," or which were resold on the black
market, the charges said.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">To encourage them Purdue had a program dubbed
"Evolve to Excellence" which offered financial and other incentives,
particularly offering doctors lucrative speaking gigs, which amounted to
kickbacks for pumping out more prescriptions of the company's drugs.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Its activities, combined with those of other
prescription opioid producers and distributors, fed an epidemic of addiction.
Millions of Americans became dependent on the painkillers while the drugmakers
reaped billions of dollars in profits.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FGcq_XXNOmU/X5CKGu90W-I/AAAAAAACTOk/vbSQSLea7vE2rbmepaxMDbqcJ21ogOwYACLcBGAsYHQ/s768/d8d74e72f9d1d6258999e2bac50a8d48.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FGcq_XXNOmU/X5CKGu90W-I/AAAAAAACTOk/vbSQSLea7vE2rbmepaxMDbqcJ21ogOwYACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h266/d8d74e72f9d1d6258999e2bac50a8d48.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13.3333px;">Deputy US Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen(C) announces that Purdue Pharma </span><br style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13.3333px;" /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13.3333px;">has agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges over its sales of the addictive</span><br style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13.3333px;" /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13.3333px;"> prescription opioid OxyContin, which fed a national addiction epidemic</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">According to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, more than 500,000 Americans have died of opioid overdoses -- both
prescription and non-prescription -- since 1999.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In a statement, Steven Miller, Purdue's chairman since
2018, said the company "deeply regrets and accepts responsibility for the
misconduct detailed by the Department of Justice."</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Purdue today is a very different company. We
have made significant changes to our leadership, operations, governance, and
oversight," he added.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Purdue also faces billions of dollars in claims from
state and local authorities around the country, and in September 2019 filed for
bankruptcy to fend off more legal claims against it.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Because of the bankruptcy and competing claims from
litigants and creditors, the Justice Department admitted it might not see all
of the $8.3 billion the company agreed to pay on Wednesday.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But the agreement mandated that the company be
dissolved and its assets be placed in a new "public benefit company."</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"The PBC would be charged with providing its
medicines in a manner as safe as possible, without diversions, while providing
millions of doses of medicines to treat opioids addiction and reverse overdoses
and otherwise taking into account long-term public health interests," said
Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The Sacklers, he added, would have no role in that
company. He added that the civil fine against the family did not preclude
future criminal charges against them, amid public pressure to wrest back the
profits they earned on the addiction epidemic.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In a statement, New York state Attorney General
Letitia James said her office will continue to pursue the family.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"Today's deal doesn't account for the hundreds of
thousands of deaths or millions of addictions caused by Purdue Pharma and the
Sackler family," James said in a statement.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"While no amount of money can ever compensate the
pain that so many now know, we will continue to litigate our case through the
courts to secure every cent we can to limit future opioid addictions," she
said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0