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penniesforthestorm · 3 years

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“I’m officially requisitioning this chicken”: ‘Justified’ Season 1, Episodes 6-9

As we move into the second half of Justified’s first season, things are heating up all over Kentucky. We get more insight into the operations of the Crowder clan, plus some even larger adversaries who’ll come into play further down the line. These notes cover Episodes 6 through 9, the next batch will be 10-12, with the finale getting its own entry. Notes on the pilot are here and Episodes 2-5 can be found here. Drop me a line any time-- if I could be sitting next to you in a dive bar, I would be. (Not much for Jim Beam, though, or, if I’m being honest, bourbon in general, owing to some unfortunate shenanigans in my early 20s. Mine’s a Jameson and ginger ale, with a squeeze of lime.)

Episode Six: “The Collection”

-We open with Raylan visiting Boyd, on his feet again after the shooting, and Boyd bending Raylan’s ear about his newfound ministry. Raylan doesn’t buy it for a minute, and he asks Boyd for dirt on Arlo.

-Raylan passes along Johnny Crowder’s warning to Ava about Bo-- she’s not overly concerned. Art, coming to pick Raylan up for the day’s work, is not terribly pleased to find Ava in his motel room.

-Case of the week: civil forfeiture, centering on a man named Owen Carnes trying to offload paintings purchased with stolen cash. Art and Raylan pick up a gallery owner, Karl Hanselman (Robert Picardo) in Cincinnati, and drive him down to Carnes’ place. Carnes and the gallery owner begin discussing his collection of Hitler paintings. Art, in disbelief, asks, “You mean Adolf?”

-Raylan, disgusted, wanders out and finds Carnes’ wife, who doesn’t seem particularly surprised or upset at the turn of events. I have in my notes “another blonde in trouble Jesus Raylan”--there’s nothing untoward, but... dude.

-On the way back to Cincinnati, Hanselman tells Raylan, with a smirk, to come see his “collection” any time. Raylan, never one to mince words- “I’d rather stick my dick in a blender.”

-Raylan finally meets ADA Vasquez, after some folderol at the office involving the now very dead Owen Carnes. Later, Winona shows up, asking Raylan to run a list of names through various criminal databases. Raylan visits Gary, and informs him that if Winona comes to grief through association with any of Gary’s shady dealings, Gary’s going to make another enemy.

-Back at the Carnes place, Raylan unravels the scam Caryn Carnes and the horse trainer, Greg Davis, are trying to pull-- he knows Owen didn’t kill himself, and he pulls Davis to his side by telling him, in an abstract way, about Gary, and how many more people he might have to kill. “Where will it end?” he asks.

-Finally, he goes to see Hanselman, and reluctantly agrees to see ‘the collection’. This is a great moment- the camera stays on Hanselman and Raylan as H. explains how his father used to work for Hitler, “a very charismatic man who knew who was to blame”. After the war, dad recanted publicly, but held onto his repugnant views in private. The camera then shows us shelves of glass jars filled with ash-- Hanselman has been tracking down Hitler’s paintings and burning them, in revenge.

-Raylan goes to see Boyd, and asks him to forget about Arlo. “I met a man whose whole life was crippled,” he explains. “I’m just going to let that old dog lie.”

Episode Seven: “Blind Spot”

-We open with Ava in the hardware store. Johnny Crowder comes in and loudly asks the proprietor for some specialty items-- rope, duct tape, plastic sheeting, and a shovel, on orders from the soon-to-be released Bo Crowder. Aunt Helen sees his bluff and raises him, aiming a shotgun at him-- a warning he wisely heeds.

-Later, Raylan visits Ava and she talks about Bowman, explaining that things weren’t miserable all the time. “I keep going back and forth, between light and dark,” she tells him. Just as they’re getting comfy, a masked intruder bursts in, blasting away, but Raylan manages to wrestle him out through the open second-floor window, firing off a few shots.

-Sheriff Mosley takes Raylan to question Johnny Crowder. On the drive, he explains his beef with the Crowders-- a certain Henry, widely known as ‘the good Crowder’, raped and killed Mosley’s ten-year-old niece. Johnny, for his part, knows nothing about the shooting, and confesses his affection for Ava.

-the next morning, we see a man watching Ava outside the Harlan County Sheriff’s Office. We then catch up to the actual shooter-- a cringing kid called Red, and we get a name for Ava’s watcher, Mr. Duke.

-Raylan gets chewed out by Art, since he has now literally tampered with the investigation against Boyd Crowder-- “Were you in her bedroom?” Unusually, Raylan has no smarty rejoinder.

-Ava and Winona share a strained conversation in the courthouse-- “You ever get tangled up with a law enforcement officer?” Winona asks. They’re interrupted by Sheriff Mosley, who asks Ava to come with him.

-Raylan visits Boyd, looking for answers. After a false start, Boyd explains that Bo didn’t order Ava to be shot, and plants a flea in Raylan’s ear-- what if Ava wasn’t the target?

-Answers arrive quickly: Mosley is in cahoots with the Miami cartel. Duke was supposed to kill Raylan, but, since Duke isn’t familiar with Kentucky, Mosley supplied Red. Mosley shoots Duke to prevent his mistake being exposed, and hatches a plan to bring Raylan to the cartel. Red, driving a bound and gagged Ava, gleefully expounds on Ava’s desirability among the straight men of Harlan County. Ava frees herself enough to strangle him, and the chase ends with Raylan and Ava free and Mosley under arrest. In a passing comment, Mosley brings up the Dixie Mafia, and their current alliance with Miami.

-Finally, we meet Bo Crowder (M.C. Gainey). Boyd’s ongoing conversations with Raylan have not gone unnoticed by his fellow inmates, and just as they start beating on him for being a snitch, Bo intervenes. “It’s good to see you, Daddy,” Boyd says with a smile.

Episode Eight, “Blowback”

-At a diner in Lexington, the newly-released Bo slides into a booth with Ava. He’s out early courtesy of Mosley’s arrest, and he delivers a truly nasty innuendo about ‘homemade pie’ before Raylan arrives on the scene.

-Case of the week: a prisoner, Cal Wallace (Deadwood’s W. Earl Brown), is in Lexington for a few hearings, pending transfer to a ‘supermax’ facility.

-Winona arrives home in the middle of the afternoon, to find an unexpected guest-- Wynn Duffy (Jere Burns), self-styled ‘home security consultant’ and possessor of a luxuriant blond coiffure. Right away, Winona smells a rat, and sends Duffy packing, but not before he snidely sends his regards to Gary.

-Prisoner Wallace places the Marshals’ Office under a hostage situation, and Art tells Raylan that if he gets a clear shot, he should take it. Raylan, due for a meeting with Vasquez, begins chatting with Wallace, attempting to defuse the situation. Wallace is a colorful sort-- he has no particular illusions about escape or amnesty. Eventually, Raylan teases out that Wallace is furious with the prison system for dehumanizing him, and under mounting pressure, offers Wallace some fried chicken, sending Tim Gutterson out to get it before Lexington SWAT arrives.

-Winona confronts Gary about Duffy’s visit-- he initially tries to play dumb, but then gets irritated when he realizes how much she knows. Duffy was on the list of names that Winona gave to Raylan in E6.

-Another parable from the Book of Raylan Givens: “People in terrible situations stay alive not because they think things will get better, but because they want to see how the story ends.” For now, Cal Wallace’s story ends in fried chicken, a shot of bourbon, and not dying on the carpet.

-Unfortunately for Raylan, he still has to meet with Vasquez, who brings bad news: thanks to Raylan hopping into bed with Ava, the case against Boyd Crowder has essentially disappeared. Raylan goes to greet an ebullient Boyd. “Who are any of us to fight the will of God?” Boyd proclaims. Raylan promises that he’ll see Boyd locked up again before long, as Boyd practically skips into his father’s arms.

Episode Nine: “Hatless”

-Raylan, on a week’s suspension, is drinking away his sorrows when he eavesdrops on two bros talking derogatorily about women. “I didn’t order assholes with my whiskey”, he sneers, and all three go outside. Hilariously, it’s the middle of the afternoon. In short order, Raylan gets the tar kicked out of him, and one of the troublemakers even steals his hat. Winona, who he was supposed to meet, finds him on the ground. (One has to wonder how many times she found him in these exact circumstances.)

-at Raylan’s motel, Winona asks him about Duffy as she tends to his wounds. As yet, he doesn’t know much, but it paints an unpleasant picture.

-Gary, meanwhile, goes to visit his old college friend Toby, a former football star. He’s trying to worm money out of him, but Toby tells him he can’t spare any. He offers, instead, to provide a little intimidation.

-Raylan tracks down Duffy in his shabby office. Duffy’s lackey makes a few menacing remarks, and Raylan, his face still raw from the bar fight, calmly says, “I already got one ass-kicking; I’m not looking for another”, but mentions that if Duffy goes after Gary and Winona, they’ll have more to discuss. After Raylan leaves, Duffy orders his pal to tail him and ‘put him in the ground’.

-Duffy makes a phone call to his boss, a Mr. Arnett, asking him for more instructions. Gary shows up with Toby, who gets slightly carried away with his role as a heavy. Gary, meanwhile, blabbers on about how Arnett could double his money on the land deal if he just waits.

-And it’s our buddy Arnold Pinter, back from a disappointing sojourn in Tahiti. (An aside: in my experience after more than a decade in NY, there are few people more parochial than born-and-raised Brooklynites. And, y’know, fair dues, it’s a great place, but it’s really fucking funny to this Montanan.) Pinter gives Raylan the rundown on Duffy and Arnett-- Arnett is with the Dixie Mafia, operating out of Frankfort, and Duffy is a dangerous loose cannon.

-Raylan tracks down Duffy’s sidekick Billy, who turns out not to be so tough on his own-- he reveals that Duffy plans to kidnap Winona that very night. Raylan immediately goes to get Winona. On the drive to safety, she tries to explain why she’s with Gary, and says maybe the most devastating thing she’s said so far, “I needed a little hope in my life.”

-After a talk, Raylan and Gary go to confront Duffy and Arnett. Gary offers Arnett the deed to his proposed ‘shopping destination’, and to everyone’s surprise, Arnett accepts. Duffy quite literally goes ballistic, screaming at Arnett, “Show me the Benjamins the homies are always rapping about!” But cooler heads (eventually) prevail, and Raylan takes Gary back to Winona.

-Finally, Raylan recovers his stolen hat, thanks to the bartender. He mocks the thief, saying, “That’s a ten-gallon hat on a twenty-gallon head.”

#tv #recap #long post #justified #did you miss my heart on purpose

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thenewscover · 4 years

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The Rise Of TikTok | Explained By The News Cover

The News Cover: 2020 has been a year of chaos, uncertainty and grief. A global pandemic, record unemployment and nationwide protests have left people reeling. Through it all though, there's been TikTok, providing moments of levity and new dance crazes, interspersed with more serious commentary on the issues that we face. TikTok, it's like the party you want to be at, a t the moment.

You'll see hair tutorials, cooking tutorials. People can create challenges, they can create duets, th ey can interact, they can engage. T ikTok is the most downloaded app of 2020. Since its global release less than two years ago, TikTok and its Chinese counterpart, Douyin, have amassed 800 million monthly active users, more than Reddit, Snapchat or Twitter. Its parent company, ByteDance, is the most valuable startup in the world. Its reach might surprise you unless you're a member of Gen Z or the parent of one. But as millions scramble for connection amidst quarantines, more and more users of all ages are hopping aboard.

We're all just kind of going through the same thing together. And we happen to be documenting it all through TikTok. It's not all rosy, though. The Chinese-owned app faces a slew of regulatory hurdles, privacy concerns and allegations of censorship. Amidst these struggles, it's brought in a new CEO. This guy is Kevin Mayer. Formerly the Head of Streaming at Disney. That's basically what Kevin Mayer's first priority needs to be, is to make sure that Americans trust TikTok. In the long run, t hat may prove complicated. But in the short term, it hasn't prevented tens of thousands of new users from signing up.

The predecessor to TikTok was an app called Musical.ly. Founded in 2014, it provided a platform for users to create short, 15 second videos set to a song of their choice. The content mostly involved lip-syncing and dancing, and it took off quickly among preteens and teens in the U.S. This is an app that was built around the fact that there was music that was licensed to be used on this app. This was something that Musical.ly decided really to invest in, because they knew that music and sharing music was inherently social.

By July 2015, a year after its launch, Musical.ly reached number one in the iTunes app store. It continued to grow and was bought by the Beijing-based startup ByteDance for one billion dollars in 2017. ByteDance already owned Tik Tok, a similar video sharing platform, and merged the two apps less than a year later. Now TikTok's main office is in Los Angeles, California. They're essentially an American startup that is subsidized by a successful Chinese tech company. As the app has grown, it's given rise to a whole new pack of social media celebrities.

Content is public by default on TikTok, and the algorithm that determines what appears on a user's home page gives every creator the chance to put their video in front of millions. Really what we saw was a different style of humor. It wasn't the sketches that you saw on Vine, and it wasn't longer-form YouTube videos. It was meme culture or like the general public's take on a meme. What I enjoyed about it is there was some deeper humor in there if you were paying attention to the trends that were happening.

On TikTok, King uses creative video editing to make it look like he's performing magic tricks, a skill which has earned him over 44 million followers, the second most on the app as of June 2020. But at 30, King represents the rare millennial that's broken into TikTok's top ranks. Many of the most followed users are in their teens, and lip syncing and dancing remain wildly popular. So I originally started when I was 14 years old, and so I started using my facial expressions and hand motions to make these like larger than life lip sync videos. And as I grew up, I think the app also grew up. Now there's so much more that you can do.

While Martin has found her niche with dancing and lifestyle content, she says there's something out there for everyone. There's like creators who are huge when it comes to comedy, some still do lip syncing, some cooking videos, tutorials. You can do whatever you want as long as it's fun, it's quick and it catches people's eye. Stay at home orders have propelled the app's rapid growth in the United States. So between October and March, according to research fro m Comscore, its unique visitors has grown from 27 million to 52 million, so doubled in the past five months.

And within that time period, just in March alone, according to Comscore TikTok added 12 million new unique visitors. People in the U.S. on TikTok spent more time on TikTok than Instagram users spent on Instagram or Snapchat users spent on Snapchat in the month of March. That's a big deal since Snap and Instagram are two of the app's main competitors. They're all extremely popular among young users, b ut in the U.S. at least, TikTok still has some catching up to do. We estimate that this year TikTok will have 45 million users.

But Instagram, we're estimating will have over 110 million and Snapchat will have 85 million users. But TikTok is also huge abroad, especially in India and China. In China, it operates as a technically separate but very similar app called Douyin. And in the first quarter of 2020, TikTok and Douyin were downloaded 315 million times globally, a 68 percent increase over the previous year. In April, the company reached two billion overall downloads.

India is by far the app's largest market when it comes to downloads, accounting for 30.3 percent of the total. But China is definitely the largest from a revenue standpoint, accounting for about 72 percent of total spending on the app. The U.S. is third in terms of downloads and second in terms of revenue, and its influence continues to grow. Viral dances and memes have propelled a number of songs to the top of the U.S. charts, most famously, Old Town Road in 2019 . And now the moms, dads and siblings of the TikTok o bsessed have started to get in on the trends as well, learning dances and performing challenges together.

You're still laughing at them, but actually the fact that parents are getting on it, I mean they needed that demo so badly to even make it to this level that they're at now. In order to build out a sustainable revenue model, e xperts say that TikTok eventually needs to attract older users. Advertisers are going after broader demographics and especially those with purchasing power. But TikTok is not under immediate pressure to make money just yet. Its parent company ByteDance is valued at over 100 billion dollars and made three billion dollars in revenue last year.

That's because it owns a host of other, more profitable Chinese apps, most notably Douyin and a news aggregator called Toutiao. TikTok's revenue model is still very, very nascent. This is a company that has some advertising, we have some of the users starting to do sponsorships. But at the end of the day, this is a company with hundreds of millions of users here in the U.S. that's still not making as much money as it could some day. Monetization aside, many say that CEO Kevin Mayer's first priority needs to be the regulatory and privacy concerns facing the app, which stem from its Chinese ownership as well as its popularity among children.

You know, it's never been the case that so many Americans are putting so much of their visual data in the hands of a Chinese company. And as we know, the relationship between the Chinese government and Chinese corporations is a pretty tight one. While TikTok claims that all American user's data is stored within the U.S. and is not subject to Chinese law, many security experts remain skeptical. Similar concerns exists in India, where data protection laws are weaker and thus citizens are more vulnerable. Regulators are going to be very weary of that separation.

Where's the data held? What's the cross-pollination look like? A number of incidents over the years have provided ample reason for worry. An investigation by The Guardian last September revealed that TikTok moderators were instructed to censor videos related to Tiananmen Square and other content deemed sensitive by the Chinese government.

While the company claimed that these guidelines had been phased out by the time of the investigation, it still helped spur the Federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to open an ongoing review into ByteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly. It seems unlikely that ByteDance would be forced to divest itself of what was Musical.ly, now is TikTok. But I do think that this all speaks to the great amount of concern and oversight over this app that's gone from a tiny little thing to this huge powerhouse.

Most recently, the app received criticism for what it said was a technical glitch, in which post tagged with #BlackLivesMatter and #GeorgeFloyd appeared to have zero views when they actually have over two billion. And in the past, both India and Indonesia have instituted brief bans on the app due to concerns over inappropriate content like violence and pornography.

Lastly, there are ongoing issues regarding children's privacy. Users under 13 are technically not allowed on TikTok, but there's not much really preventing them from signing up. In February 2019, the company paid 5.7 million dollars to the FTC to settle charges that it was illegally collecting children's personal information. This then prompted the U.K. to conduct their own investigation into the matter. While TikTok said it would make changes, in May 2020 a coalition of consumer groups filed a complaint stating that TikTok had not kept its promises.

It's all undoubtedly a lot for Mayer to inherit. But given his background at Disney, some say he may be exactly the right person to address these concerns. So he is someone who has experience dealing with regulation, dealing with oversight, and especially dealing with online security issues, which are certainly front of mind for TikTok as they navigate their relationship with the FTC. If Mayer can secure the trust of U.S. consumers and investors, Byt eDance could be well positioned for an IPO in the next year or two. Beyond that, experts say that TikTok's long-term prospects depend upon its ability to keep users engaged while building out a sustainable monetization strategy.

YouTube could be seen as a model in the way that YouTube shares advertising revenue with its content creators. Mayer's background in streaming services also has both analysts and creators excited about what new forms of content may lie on the horizon. I have been begging TikTok to get into the streaming game. People have speculated that TikTok might get involved in original programming.

To make TikTok sustainable, you're going to have to do long-form content. I don't see a version where you make 60 second videos forever and it stays cool for another two to three years. King also says TikTok's live-streaming feature has room to grow. It's super popular in China, but hasn't yet taken off in the U.S. I think what's next for TikTok is how they figure out how to make money, how they figure out how to create a home for advertisers, and how they make sure that content creators themselves want to stick around and don't want to go jump off to whatever the next cool app is going to be.

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renegadepharmacist · 4 years

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Could the DEA have stopped the opioid epidemic by cutting off the supply?

Congress and others want the supply restricted to curb abuse, but former DEA officials say it cannot be done without hurting legitimate pain patients.

By Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham

Dec. 28, 2019 at 10:24 a.m. CST

A little over a year ago, Congress ordered the Drug Enforcement Administration to combat the deadly abuse of legal painkillers by tightening up an arcane tool used to regulate the nation’s opioid supply.

As opioid deaths have mounted, the “Aggregate Production Quota” for oxycodone and hydrocodone has been seized upon by lawmakers, state officials and the drug companies as a possible solution to the crisis, a way for the federal government to stamp out illegal drug “diversion” to the black market.

In bipartisan legislation co-sponsored by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and passed by Congress in October 2018, lawmakers required the agency to consider diversion in setting the quota, along with overdose deaths and public health, in the hope that it might, in Durbin’s words, “rein in the pharmaceutical industry’s insatiable demand for excessive opioid quota increases.”

The congressional action has set off a wider debate about how the nation determines its painkiller supply and whether more could have been done to stop the opioid epidemic. If the DEA had simply cut the supply, critics argued, then the deaths would have dropped as well.

The DEA quota system was created nearly five decades ago to ensure that drug manufacturers would have enough controlled substances each year for medical, scientific, research, industrial and export needs and the maintenance of reserve stocks. The idea is to prevent shortages but also to limit the amount to what is necessary. The system was never set up to stop diversion.

Current and former DEA officials say that using the quota to attack the epidemic would not work and could harm legitimate pain patients, citing practical difficulties in calculating a precise number that can be cut from the supply.

In a notice placed in the Federal Register on Sept. 12, the DEA said it tried to carry out the new process mandated by Congress and determined that it could cut only 57 kilograms of oxycodone out of a total supply of nearly 72,600 — less than one-tenth of 1 percent.

“What Congress wants to do will be virtually impossible,” said John W. Partridge, a retired 28-year DEA veteran who helped to supervise the Diversion Control Division, which oversees the quota section. “It just infuriates me that you want to blame us for this. It’s an easy out.”

The DEA’s notice brought more criticism, including a blistering letter Oct. 17 from Durbin to the DEA’s administrator.

“The pharmaceutical industry flooded every corner of the country with 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills between 2006 and 2012 — outsized and unjustifiable numbers of painkillers shipped with DEA approval and awareness,” Durbin wrote. “The statute is clear that DEA must exercise its quota authority to serve as a gatekeeper and weigh the public health impact of how many opioids it allows to be sold each year in the United States.”

On Oct. 23, the DEA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that sought comments on how to meet the requirements of the new law. On Monday, a multistate coalition responded with “16 specific ways the DEA can better account for diversion” when setting quotas. Among the proposals was a suggestion to use six national databases to better track opioid abuse, along with state databases and information about unused opioids turned in to authorities.

“The coalition acknowledges no data is perfect or all-inclusive, but its members contend there is still plenty of material that when reviewed from different angles can help the agency better account for diversion and thereby gain a more accurate picture of the nation’s medical, scientific and industrial need,” states a news release accompanying the proposals, which were filed by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and co-signed by his counterparts from Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri and Nebraska.

In an interview with The Washington Post on Friday, Morrisey said: “The quota system has been plagued by so many challenges and neglect for a period of decades. This was a colossal failure in the enforcement of our drug system for many, many years.”

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, wrote in a 2016 report that the “process of setting quotas is very complex, requiring staff to weigh data from at least five different sources that may have contradictory information.”

Under the Controlled Substances Act and federal regulations, the DEA sets the production quota for each class of controlled substance, such as oxycodone and hydrocodone, that are prescribed for legitimate patients but also carry a high risk of abuse. Scientists working in the DEA’s United Nations Reporting and Quota Section make their determinations by conducting an analysis of a multitude of factors.

The DEA receives estimates from the Food and Drug Administration about what drug amount that agency believes should be manufactured based on legitimate medical needs. The DEA also analyzes requests from each drug manufacturer for its projected needs, product development, research and export, along with the amount of drugs still in its inventory. The primary factor is the number of prescriptions that were written by doctors and filled in the previous year, according to the DEA.

“Prescriptions drive the quota,” said Ruth Carter, a 30-year veteran of the DEA who served as a senior official until retiring in June from the Diversion Control Division. She is now a consultant for lawyers suing the drug companies. “It’s totally wrong that we could have controlled the epidemic by the quota,” Carter said.

'A balancing act'

The DEA sets two main quotas. The Aggregate Production Quota is the total amount of each drug that the agency allows to be manufactured — the whole pie, in the words of one DEA official. The Individual Manufacturing Quota represents each manufacturer’s piece of the pie.

In an interview last year published in the Pharmacy Times, Joseph T. Rannazzisi, who ran the DEA’s diversion division for a decade at the height of the crisis, called the system a “balancing act that is accomplished through a scientific and mathematical exercise conducted by DEA scientists.” Rannazzisi signed off on quotas, along with the DEA administrator, between 2005 and 2015.

Rannazzisi said that the assertion that lowering quotas could have curtailed the epidemic was “based on misinformation, misunderstanding and a thirst for an immediate solution to a problem that has risen to epidemic proportions over a 20-year period.” Rannazzisi said the only way to reduce quotas substantially is if prescriptions decrease. He said, for example, that a unilateral 20 percent cut could lead to shortages.

“You still have the same number of legitimate patients, overprescribed patients, and illegitimate patients accessing the drug from the same prescribers. If prescribing behavior does not change, the same number of individuals will be attempting to access the drug, but now there is 20% less drug to be shared.”

Rannazzisi, who is now a paid expert for plaintiffs suing the drug companies, declined to comment for this article because of the ongoing litigation.

Kathleen J. Frydl, a historian and author of “The Drug Wars in America: 1940-1973,” said that the DEA’s quota system is “absolutely, fundamentally broken” and has called for more openness.

“It should not be the DEA by itself setting quotas,” she told The Post. “This should be an interagency process that is transparent. All of us, public health activists, drug policy reformers, any number of people, should be able to watch and view how this process is unfolding — not just the very few people who know how this arcane process works.”

Former DEA officials acknowledged that the agency struggled to confront the opioid epidemic. They said the understaffed diversion division was overmatched by the need to track nearly 1.8 million medical professionals, manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies.

They point to successes using tools other than the quota. Led by Rannizzisi, the DEA shut down illicit Internet pharmacies and pill mills in Florida, and over a decade brought two dozen civil enforcement cases against drug distributors and manufacturers accused of failing to stop suspicious orders, resulting in nearly $500 million in fines.

In the years following these actions, prescriptions for opioids began to drop, falling nearly 30 percent between January 2017 and August 2019 for the seven most frequently diverted opioids, according to the DEA.

As the prescriptions dipped, quotas have been lowered, with oxycodone’s dropping 6 percent in 2018. In September, the DEA proposed more quota cuts in 2020 — oxycodone by 9 percent and hydrocodone by 19 percent.

'Quotas Rule'

Contradictory information about quotas has swirled around Capitol Hill for years.

In 2011, then-DEA administrator Michele Leonhart testified before Congress that the quota serves “the vital purpose of reducing the risk of diversion.” A former official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about internal deliberations said Leonhart was referring to only using thefts and seizures, not drug abuse and deaths, in setting the quota.

In 2015, around the peak of the epidemic, the GAO issued a report criticizing the DEA’s quota system — for creating possible drug shortages. “In the last decade, shortages of drugs containing controlled substances, such as narcotics and stimulants, have increased nationwide, preventing providers and patients from accessing essential medications for treatment,” the GAO said.

In 2017, West Virginia, one of the states hit hardest by the epidemic, sued the DEA, challenging the agency’s quotas.

“This lawsuit sought reform to the quota-setting process that would adjust sales figures to account for the rate at which opioids are diverted from legitimate medical uses,” Morrisey wrote in his Oct. 23 filing. “And as a result, the DEA undertook regulatory modifications designed to correct past practices.”

Under the new “Quotas Rule,” the DEA was required to account for diversion in the quota process.

On a parallel path, Congress in 2018 passed the Support Act, a legislative package including a provision that directed the DEA to specifically estimate “diversion” and also consider mortality and abuse rates.

In its notice in the Federal Register in September, the agency said it tried to estimate opioid diversion for the 2020 quota based on mortality and abuse rates, as required by the new law — and could not do it. The agency said it received overdose and death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state attorneys general and reviewed scholarly articles and other data sets. “This information could not be used in setting the Aggregate Production Quotas,” the notice said.

The notice said that federal data on overdose deaths is not precise enough to allow the DEA to target specific drugs for quota reductions.

“For example, patients that overdose from hydrocodone, oxycodone, or hydromorphone are grouped together under opioid-related overdose,” the notice said. “DEA is unable to determine the basic class that led to the overdose from this information. Additionally, DEA cannot determine from the data if the patient overdosed on an illicit opioid or an FDA-approved opioid product.”

Partridge also said there is no national database that collects reports of fraudulent prescriptions and other indications that drugs are being diverted to the black market, aside from the theft reports and seizures of illegal drugs.

“I don’t know how we can measure diversion and how you can reduce the quota of drugs for legitimate medical use based on diversion,” Partridge said.

In his October letter to Acting DEA Administrator Uttam Dhillon, Durbin said he was “discouraged” by the DEA’s Sept. 12 notice that it estimated diversion based “on reported theft loss and seizures, not data on drug sales, overdoses, or deaths.”

“While I appreciate the challenges in directly linking patient overdoses to a specific controlled substance, it defies logic that DEA would simply ignore or discard this information,” Durbin wrote.

The IG weighs in

On Oct. 1, the inspector general of the Justice Department released a report that poured gasoline on the issue. The report concluded that the DEA was “slow to respond” to the opioid epidemic and approved significant increases to the oxycodone manufacturing quota even as overdose deaths were rising.

The report generated headlines across the country and was embraced by the drug industry, which was being accused in a landmark lawsuit in Cleveland of causing the epidemic.

“Today’s report by the Inspector General highlights many concerns that distributors have consistently raised around the DEA’s oversight of the opioid epidemic, and, notably, the fact that previous DEA leadership consistently raised production quotas for opioids,” the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, which represents drug distributors, said in a statement.

The IG report said there was a 400 percent rise in the oxycodone quota from 2002 to 2013 as deaths were rising. But the IG’s report included in its calculation a 25 percent emergency reserve of oxycodone that was never put into production and was added in 2013 to protect against possible shortages in the event of war, natural disaster or terrorist attack.

The IG also made a mathematical error. The percentage increase from 34,482 to 153,750 kilograms is 346, not 400. After being alerted to this by The Post recently, the IG office revised the report by adding an asterisk directing readers to a footnote: “Stated otherwise, this represents an increase in the APQ of 346 percent from 2002 to 2013.” Eliminate the 25 percent reserve and the overall quota rise drops to 257 percent.

The IG credits DEA acting administrator Chuck Rosenberg with lowering the quota for oxycodone by making a “significant reduction” in 2017. But what Rosenberg actually did was to remove the 25 percent emergency reserve, according to the current and former agency officials.

A spokeswoman for the IG said the office obtained its data from the DEA, which reviewed the report “prior to publication to confirm its accuracy.”

DEA officials say that the agency has not had data that is either precise or reliable enough from the states or federal agencies to allow the agency to adjust the quota to reflect opioid abuse and overdose deaths.

“We are going to continue to ask,” a senior DEA official said. “We are hopeful that more and more folks will give us this data. We will continue to look and evaluate, but we can only do with what we have. And it all has to be legally defensible.”

Morrisey praised the DEA for taking steps to try to better use the quota as a tool to combat opioids.

“We are finally starting to see some real shifts,” Morrisey said. “But everything is not going to get fixed overnight.”

Steven Rich, Lenny Bernstein, Meryl Kornfield and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

#opioid epidemic

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number06fan · 4 years

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Maryland Ecoli Outbreak Goes Multistate – Are We Dealing with Romaine Again?

The CDC just announced a new multistate Ecoli outbreak. Their announcement, however, is a bit odd. It appears the Maryland Ecoli outbreak cases linked to Ready Pac Foods Bistro® Chicken Caesar Salad are part of the mix (no pun intended) but those in other states who have tested with the same strain of Ecoli have not reported eating that particular product. Nothing is mentioned in the announcement as to whether lettuce or lettuce products were eaten by others who are sick. Further, 6 Wisconsin cases are included in the outbreak. Could these be linked to the 20-case mystery source in the Wisconsin Ecoli outbreak? Could romaine be to blame again? While the theories are flying around about this multistate Ecoli outbreak, here’s what we know:

A total of 17 people infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7 have been reported from 8 states.

A total of 7 hospitalizations have been reported, and no deaths.

Whether or not ALL of the Wisconsin Ecoli cases are included is not yet known. It looks like they are though based on the CDC’s internal links.

The Maryland Department of Health identified E. coli O157 in an unopened package of Ready Pac Foods Bistro® Chicken Caesar Salad collected from a sick person’s home in Maryland.

Further laboratory testing is currently underway for this sample to determine if it is closely related genetically to the E. coli found in people in this outbreak.

Ill people in Maryland reported eating Ready Pac Foods Bistro® Chicken Caesar Salad.

In initial interviews, ill people in other states have not reported eating this particular salad.

So – State and local public health officials are interviewing ill people to determine what they ate and other exposures in the week before their illness started.

It is unknown if lettuce or romaine is a possible suspect in these cases.

BUT – The FDA is tracing back the supply of the romaine lettuce in the salad and has identified possible farms in Salinas, California. Preliminary information indicates that romaine lettuce used in the product that tested positive was harvested in mid-October and is no longer within current expiration dates.

The investigation is ongoing.

States Involved in the Multistate Ecoli Outbreak

StateIll PeopleArizona1California2Colorado1Idaho3Maryland2Montana1Washington1Wisconsin6Total17

About the Illnesses

We do know the timing of illnesses based on the current confirmed cases.

The illness onsets appear to have started in mid-September and have continued steadily through mid-November.

According to the CDC:

“Illnesses started on dates ranging from September 24, 2019, to November 8, 2019. Ill people range in age from 3 to 72 years, with a median age of 16. Fifty-six percent of ill people are female. Of 17 ill people with information available, 7 hospitalizations have been reported, including 2 people who developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a type of kidney failure. No deaths have been reported.”

Also, “Public health investigators are using the PulseNet system to identify illnesses that may be part of this outbreak. PulseNet is the national subtyping network of public health and food regulatory agency laboratories coordinated by CDC. DNA fingerprinting is performed on E. coli bacteria isolated from ill people by using a standardized laboratory and data analysis method called whole genome sequencing (WGS). CDC PulseNet manages a national database of these sequences that are used to identify possible outbreaks. WGS gives investigators detailed information about the bacteria causing illness. In this investigation, WGS showed that bacteria isolated from ill people were closely related genetically. This means that people in this outbreak are more likely to share a common source of infection.”

It is, however, very likely that there are more cases that have not yet been linked to the outbreak – due to the time it takes from illness to reporting to outbreak link. This process can sometimes take a few weeks.

CDC Recommends During this Multistate Ecoli Outbreak

Do not eat or sell Ready Pac Foods Bistro® Chicken Caesar Salads with a “Best By” date of October 31, 2019.

The salads were sold in many states and at many retailers.

The packages are marked with lot number 255406963.

If you have this salad at home, do not eat it and throw it away.

Take action if you have symptoms of an E. coli infection.

Talk to your healthcare provider.

Write down what you ate in the week before you started to get sick.

Report your illness to your local health department.

Assist public health investigators by answering questions about your illness.

Prevent infections in others by practicing proper hygiene, especially good handwashing.

What is Ecoli?

Ecoli (Escherichia coli) is a bacteria that lives in all animals, including humans. Most types of Ecoli are safe to husman, and even our intestines use Ecoli to break down food. The difference is some of E. coli strains are pathogenic. These are the types that cause unpleasant and sometimes serious illnesses.

Signs and Symptoms

Like most other foodborne symptoms, Ecoli is hard to diagnose. This is not due to the ability for hospitals to test to see what has made you ill, it is because the signs are mostly all the same. Do any of these symptoms look familiar?

Diarrhea

Cramping

Nausea

Vomiting

Fever

Fatigue

Looks like a list for the common flu. These are also what it feels like to have Ecoli. As you can see, there is little difference without seeking medical help. That is my admonishment: please do not take any sickness lightly. Make sure you see a medical professional as soon as possible because the alternative is not pleasant.

The majority of people infected with E. coli will exhibit symptoms of diarrhea and abdominal cramps within 2 to 8 days after ingestion of the bacteria.

Urgent medical attention is highly recommended if you or someone you love has the above symptoms. Early medical attention can help reduce the risk of more severe illness and potential long-term complications.

In extreme instances, pay special attention to these indicators that something is severely wrong:

Blood in the urine

Dehydration

Bruising

Pale skin

In some circumstances a more serious illness may develop, such as hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). HUS is a type of kidney failure that develops as a result of E. coli infection.

Our E coli Lawyer is Here to Help You

If you believe you have developed an E coli infection, we want you to know that an E coli Lawyer at the Lange Law Firm, PLLC is currently investigating this Multistate Ecoli Outbreak and offering free legal consultations. Our lawyer, Jory Lange became a lawyer to help make our communities and families safer. Anyone who was infected with E coli from this outbreak may be entitled to compensation for their injuries. To learn more about this outbreak or making an E coli food poisoning claim, please visit The Lange Law Firm, PLLC’s website www.MakeFoodSafe.com.

If you or a loved one have become ill with E coli, you can call (833) 330-3663 for a free legal consultation or complete the form here.

By: Candess Zona-Mendola, Editor (Non-Lawyer)

The post Maryland Ecoli Outbreak Goes Multistate – Are We Dealing with Romaine Again? appeared first on The Lange Law Firm.

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velmaemyers88 · 5 years

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As WNBA faces domestic violence problem, new commissioner stresses ‘protecting the brand’ – ThinkProgress

The WNBA doesn’t have a domestic violence policy. But, as this season has shown, it needs one. Desperately.

Last week, Los Angeles Sparks guard Riquana Williams was suspended 10 games for an alleged domestic violence incident with her ex-girlfriend during the offseason. Two weeks ago, the wife of Seattle Storm forward Natasha Howard accused Howard of domestic violence in Twitter posts that included graphic photos, videos, and text message conversations. Howard is still playing. This week, she was named the WNBA’s Player of the Week. On Saturday, she will start in the WNBA All-Star game in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The WNBA usually revels in being at the forefront of social justice causes. However, they’ve been rudderless when dealing with the Williams and Howard cases. Unlike sports leagues such as the NFL, NBA, and MLB, the WNBA’s current collective bargaining agreement does not address domestic violence specifically. Further complicating matters, both of these cases occurred while the WNBA was without a commissioner. Cathy Engelbert, the former CEO of Deloitte, was named the new WNBA commissioner in May, and just stepped into the role on July 17.

On Sunday afternoon, Engelbert met with ThinkProgress and two other reporters for an intimate conversation in Washington, D.C., ahead of a game between the Washington Mystics and Atlanta Dream, and addressed the steps the league needs to take when it comes to domestic violence.

“First, we take these all very serious, and obviously, I’ll jump right in,” Engelbert said.

She said that the current CBA negotiations — the players opted out of their current CBA last October, and the current one will expire this fall — provide a great opportunity to get all parties at the same table and “make sure that everybody understands this is a league where brand is really important.”

Engelbert’s concern over branding evokes NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s often amoral edict to “protect the shield.” Mere days into her tenure, it’s worth extending her the benefit of the doubt. Nevertheless, the league is under a spotlight, and needs to show it is willing and able to appropriately address the severity of the allegations its players are facing, handle the nuances that come with situations where women are the abusive partner, and show transparency and sincerity along the way.

Concern about “the brand”

Engelbert is very proud of her corporate background, and it’s a huge reason why she got the job. She is supposed to bring the business savvy that the WNBA craves as it attempts to stop merely sustaining, and start thriving — in the financial sense, of course. But her corporate career is very evident in the vocabulary she uses when discussing domestic violence.

“We need to make sure that we’re protecting the brand and enhancing the brand and that we’re doing the right thing around discipline and training and resources,” she said on Sunday. “[We need to make] sure everybody understands their obligations around that, because the brand is so important. Our brand here at the W is that important.”

Engelbert added that she wants to come up with a comprehensive way to address domestic violence, one that involves preventative and support resources, not just discipline.

“The league has to do its role in investigating them and getting all the facts. So that’s important,” Engelbert said. “But I do think we have an opportunity, because we’re in collective bargaining negotiations now, together with the players, to develop training, discipline, and resources for the players and their families, and make sure that we’re supporting them in these tough situations.”

Overall, she described this as an “opportunity” for the league to make a positive change, and said that because of her experience working in the corporate world, this was “something that I know how to tackle.”

The WNBA has dealt with domestic violence issues in the past. In 2015, when the then-married Brittney Griner of the Phoenix Mercury and Glory Johnson of the Dallas Wings were both arrested for domestic violence, the league suspended them both for seven games. Griner pleaded guilty, while Johnson pleaded not guilty. But even after that high-profile incident, the league failed to take steps towards developing a comprehensive policy.

In conversation with ThinkProgress, Engelbert could not immediately offer concrete recommendations on how to accomplish this goal — again, an understandable situation given the fact that it was only her fourth day on the job. Unfortunately, her predecessors’ lack of response will force her to act quickly. Fans are frustrated because domestic abuse — and the WNBA’s subsequent inaction — has cast a shadow over the season. And these allegations are far more than an exercise in bad branding.

The severity of the allegations

Williams was arrested in January on two felony charges stemming from a domestic violence investigation into a dispute with her ex-girlfriend. She faces one count of burglary with assault or battery, and one count of aggravated assault with a firearm. She has pleaded “not guilty” to both charges, but the videos and police reports from the night in question paint a disturbing picture.

Even given this information, the Sparks re-signed her in May, and played her in every game this season until the suspension was handed down last week. She was frequently promoted on social media channels for the Sparks and WNBA during this time, and her teammates and head coach Derek Fisher have stood by her.

The WNBA Players Union is currently appealing the suspension, saying that the league should have waited until her court case was complete to hand down discipline.

“We are disappointed with the league’s actions. There is an ongoing criminal proceeding and in fairness to the player, the league could have and should have awaited its completion before taking any action,” said WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson. If the league had a specific policy in place for these matters, such grey area could be avoided.

And now, just as the league was finally dealing with Williams, the allegations against Howard surfaced. Howard’s wife has not pressed criminal charges — she said she wants Howard to get help, not be put behind bars — and Howard has denied the allegations, filed for divorce, requested a restraining order, and accused her wife of stabbing her and stealing $600,000. But the photographs, videos, and text messages her wife shared on twitter, which have not yet been verified, are incredibly damning.

If the WNBA had a policy that allowed it to put players on a paid suspension while investigations into this matter were pending — similar to what the NFL and NBA do — then this wouldn’t be quite as big of a problem. The league wouldn’t have to put Howard front and center during its All-Star week celebrations. But, five years ago, when pro sports leagues across the country were revamping their domestic violence policies in the wake of the Ray Rice case, the WNBA wasn’t proactive.

“It’s sad to think about, but it’s almost like fixing something once it’s broken instead of taking the precautions to prevent situations like this from happening,” Los Angeles Sparks forward and WNBA Players’ Union president Nneka Ogwumike told High Post Hoops.

The question is, why didn’t a league which considers itself to be so progressive, not lead the way on this front? There’s no way to know for sure, but the answer might be right there in the name.

Same-sex intimate partner violence

Domestic violence is typically associated with with straight relationships where the male is the abuser and the female is the victim. But, of course, women can abuse their male partners, nonbinary individuals can abuse and be abused, and women can abuse their same-sex partner. This is why Aditi Bhattacharya, the the deputy director of client services at the New York City Anti-Violence Project — a group that specifically works to reduce violence against LGBTQ individuals — told ThinkProgress that she prefers to use the phrase “intimate partner violence (IPV).”

“There is a lot of sexism that has been engendered in domestic violence research over many, many years. So we are very explicit about naming intimate partner violence, over domestic violence,” she said.

It’s likely that the WNBA has been behind the times when it comes to addressing intimate partner violence because it’s a women’s league, and policies around IPV typically frame women as the victims, not the abusers. But in some cases, they’re both. Compounding the problem is the fact that until very recently, the league did not publicly embrace the reality that many of its players are members of the LGBTQ community.

Bhattacharya says that while there is very little research on the intersection of intimate partner violence and same-sex relationships, she knows that it is a “very prevalent problem.”

“We do know that [intimate partner violence in] same-sex relationships are notoriously underreported, even more so than heterosexual relationships,” she said.

Because society views domestic violence through a gendered lens, women in same-sex relationships who suffer IPV deal with unique challenges when they seek assistance, be it from law enforcement, courts, doctors, or therapists.

“[Survivors share] their suffering from having been silenced by systems,” Bhattacharya said. “Because their orientation was not understood, or was indeed misunderstood. And so a survivor was not given the necessary support, because they didn’t seem like a survivor, or the person who was harming them was not shown adequate justice, because they didn’t seem to be what a typical ‘abuser’ needs to look like, behave like, sound like, etc. And that’s the problem.”

Recently, Bhattacharya has noticed a growing number of women who identify as lesbians reaching out to APV looking for help. And while that could indicate an uptick in violence, it likely has more to do with the fact that they are becoming more comfortable opening up to APV about their sexual orientation. That’s progress. Ultimately, as awful as it is to see cases like Howard’s and Williams’ in the news, Bhattacharya is hopeful that this will bring awareness a problem that doesn’t get nearly enough attention.

“I want to really emphasize that one good thing that is coming out of all of this discourse is that it is beginning to tell our community that speaking about survivorship is okay,” she said. “And the only way that we can get change to happen is when we are able to engage with the community, and were able to rally more voices and more volume.”

On Sunday, Engelbert talked about how excited she was to work with an organization that promoted women, and led the way when it comes to women’s empowerment. While the league has dropped the ball on domestic violence in the past, it’s not too late to start leading the way on this issue, too.

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reneeacaseyfl · 5 years

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As WNBA faces domestic violence problem, new commissioner stresses ‘protecting the brand’ – ThinkProgress

The WNBA doesn’t have a domestic violence policy. But, as this season has shown, it needs one. Desperately.

“First, we take these all very serious, and obviously, I’ll jump right in,” Engelbert said.

Concern about “the brand”

Engelbert added that she wants to come up with a comprehensive way to address domestic violence, one that involves preventative and support resources, not just discipline.

The severity of the allegations

The WNBA Players Union is currently appealing the suspension, saying that the league should have waited until her court case was complete to hand down discipline.

The question is, why didn’t a league which considers itself to be so progressive, not lead the way on this front? There’s no way to know for sure, but the answer might be right there in the name.

Same-sex intimate partner violence

Bhattacharya says that while there is very little research on the intersection of intimate partner violence and same-sex relationships, she knows that it is a “very prevalent problem.”

“We do know that [intimate partner violence in] same-sex relationships are notoriously underreported, even more so than heterosexual relationships,” she said.

Credit: Source link

The post As WNBA faces domestic violence problem, new commissioner stresses ‘protecting the brand’ – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

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weeklyreviewer · 5 years

Text

As WNBA faces domestic violence problem, new commissioner stresses ‘protecting the brand’ – ThinkProgress

The WNBA doesn’t have a domestic violence policy. But, as this season has shown, it needs one. Desperately.

“First, we take these all very serious, and obviously, I’ll jump right in,” Engelbert said.

Concern about “the brand”

Engelbert added that she wants to come up with a comprehensive way to address domestic violence, one that involves preventative and support resources, not just discipline.

The severity of the allegations

The WNBA Players Union is currently appealing the suspension, saying that the league should have waited until her court case was complete to hand down discipline.

The question is, why didn’t a league which considers itself to be so progressive, not lead the way on this front? There’s no way to know for sure, but the answer might be right there in the name.

Same-sex intimate partner violence

Bhattacharya says that while there is very little research on the intersection of intimate partner violence and same-sex relationships, she knows that it is a “very prevalent problem.”

“We do know that [intimate partner violence in] same-sex relationships are notoriously underreported, even more so than heterosexual relationships,” she said.

Credit: Source link

The post As WNBA faces domestic violence problem, new commissioner stresses ‘protecting the brand’ – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

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toptecharena · 6 years

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Rep. Christopher Collins once said that the success of an obscure Australian company’s drug would be carved on his tombstone. Instead, its failure has upended his congressional career.

The three-term congressman’s infectious enthusiasm for Innate Immunotherapeutics, the tiny biotech firm, led to his indictment Wednesday, when he and several other investors were accused of insider trading, and his announcement Saturday that he would suspend his re-election campaign.

Prosecutors said that he tipped off his son to the poor results of the company’s clinical drug trial for a notoriously intractable form of multiple sclerosis before they were public, allowing the son and others to dump their stock and save hundreds of thousands of dollars. Collins sat on the company’s board until May, and at one point was its largest shareholder.

The stock scandal has rippled through Congress, where his favorite stock tip had enticed at least seven former or current House Republicans into investing along with him, his two grown children and other friends. It provided new ammunition for Democrats seeking to take back the House.

In his statement, Collins called the insider trading charges “meritless” and vowed to fight them to have his “good name cleared of any wrongdoing.”

While the other congressmen who invested in Innate were not implicated in the indictment, the allegations against Collins have revived calls for stricter rules about financial investments or corporate board seats held by members of Congress while they are sitting on committees with oversight into those businesses.

Collins may have been the largest investor in health companies on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but one-third of its members also bought and sold biotech, pharmaceutical and medical device stocks, an analysis by The New York Times has found. Republican Reps. William Long II, Larry Bucshon and Markwayne Mullin served with Collins on the panel’s health subcommittee, and each invested in Innate. The subcommittee weighed in on topics ranging from the Food and Drug Administration’s authority over speeding up approval of new drugs to the Affordable Care Act.

Beyond Innate Immunotherapeutics, Collins, among the wealthiest members of Congress, has held leadership roles in other biotech companies that were little known or mentioned on Capitol Hill. Until this past week, he was chairman of the board of directors of ZeptoMetrix, a private lab company based in Buffalo, New York, that he co-founded and that has received millions of dollars in federal contracts, according to government records. He also reported owning between $25 million and $50 million in shares of the company, but has since transferred an unknown amount into his wife’s name, a company spokesman said. In June, he sold as much as $1 million of stock in Chembio Diagnostics, a medical tests and equipment manufacturer, according to his ethics disclosure forms.

Collins did not disclose these ties in committee hearings when topics overlapped with his business interests, including the development of a test for the Zika virus and whether the FDA should more closely regulate some types of lab tests. Earlier, in 2013, he brought up the experimental drug that Innate was developing in a hearing about brain research, but did not mention his financial stake in the company.

“Mr. Collins had no business serving on this publicly traded company from the get-go,” said Meredith McGehee, executive director of Issue One, a Washington ethics watchdog, who noted that such a practice was not permitted in the Senate. “The House needs to update its rules.”

Since 2012, a federal law has prevented members of Congress from trading stocks based on confidential information they receive as lawmakers. Members of both chambers may hold stocks and members of the House of Representatives may serve on boards as long as they disclose it. Generally, lawmakers don’t have to recuse themselves from a vote or other action that might affect their holdings unless they are virtually the only investor who would benefit.

While many lawmakers have opted to invest using broad mutual funds to avoid potential conflicts on individual holdings, some — like Collins — have not.

In July 2017, a congressional ethics office found that Collins may have violated ethics rules by asking the National Institutes of Health for help with the design of Innate’s now-failed clinical trial. Last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan stripped Collins of his seat on the energy and commerce committee and asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate the allegations of insider trading.

Collins’ involvement with Innate dates to 2005, when he leveraged his wealthy circle of friends and neighbors — many of whom would become political donors — to help bail out the company. One investor was Lindy Ruff, former coach of the Buffalo Sabres, the congressman told federal ethics investigators last year. “I live in an upscale neighborhood with people that have means,” he explained in the interview.

He became acquainted with Innate’s chief executive, Simon Wilkinson, because ZeptoMetrix, his other company, was supplying HIV to Innate, then called Virionyx, which was developing a treatment for the disease using antibodies harvested from a herd of New Zealand goats.

Collins eventually became Innate’s top shareholder and a member of the board, sticking with the company after it pursued a treatment for multiple sclerosis and changed its name to Innate. Many investors had lost money with Virionyx. “They burned through an incredible amount of money back then,” Collins told the ethics investigators. “It was toxic, a toxic name.”

Collins won election to Congress in 2012, in part on his reputation as a businessman who could turn around failing companies. He cleared his financial entanglements with House ethics officials, he told investigators, and was allowed to remain on the boards although he could not accept any compensation. In some cases, he said, he switched his company ownerships to his wife’s name.

Last year, however, the Office of Congressional Ethics, a quasi-independent, bipartisan entity, not only concluded that Collins may have improperly used his position to benefit Innate but also said that he might have shared nonpublic information — which is illegal — about the company when he frequently talked to friends and family about developments.

Collins said Wilkinson would visit Buffalo on his trips to the United States. “I’d call all my friends in,” he said in his interview with ethics investigators. “We’d have wine and some hors d’oeuvres and he’d update everybody on what was going on.”

Wilkinson said in an email Wednesday that the company considers the indictment case against Collins to be a private matter, and declined to comment.

Collins has denied any wrongdoing, saying that his interest in multiple sclerosis stems from high rates of the disease in his district in western New York and that his visit to the NIH was “just nosy fun.” One of his aides also indicated that a family member had suffered from the disease.

His involvement with Innate surfaced in December of 2015, and came up again during the confirmation of Tom Price for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Price’s active investment in pharmaceutical and health care stocks drew scrutiny — and calls for an investigation — from Democrats. Price divested from his stock in Innate before becoming secretary, and later resigned from his Cabinet post after his use of expensive charter flights on government trips became public.

By comparison, little attention has been paid to Collins’ connection to ZeptoMetrix, a company he helped found in 1999 that supplies viruses, bacteria and other products to laboratories around the country.

Collins has said that his 50-percent holdings in ZeptoMetrix are in the name of his wife and daughter. The family’s interest in the company ranges from $25 million to $50 million, according to Collins’ financial disclosure forms. They earned $1 million to $5 million in interest from ZeptoMetrix. His wife, Mary Collins, receives a salary from the company, according to the disclosure.

Christopher Collins resigned from the board this past week, according to ZeptoMetrix’s chief executive, Shawn R. Smith.

ZeptoMetrix has received more than $3 million in federal contracts since 2004, according to public records, and Collins has described the connection between the NIH and ZeptoMetrix as “a very long-standing relationship.”

In an interview Friday, Smith said most of the federal contracts occurred years ago, before Collins took office, and mainly involved sales of products like viruses and bacteria to government scientists.

At two congressional hearings in 2016 and 2017, Collins asked detailed questions about development of a test for the Zika virus, not revealing his connection to ZeptoMetrix, which was selling the virus to laboratories that were developing tests for the disease. He also did not disclose his ties when he grilled an official with the FDA in 2015 about his concerns over more closely regulating certain laboratory tests.

Some ethics experts said that even if rules don’t formally prohibit it, close affiliations with a company — like serving on its board — are imprudent. “The advice I would give people is don’t serve on a corporate board because you will be suspect as a conduit for inside information even if in fact you are not,” said Stanley Brand, a former House general counsel and longtime criminal defense lawyer.

A spokeswoman for Collins on Friday pointed to statements that he made during a hearing in 2016 about bioresearch labs that disclosed that he founded and led a lab company. However, Collins did not reveal during the hearing that he remained on its board, nor his ongoing financial stake.

In January, the outgoing chief executive of ZeptoMetrix, Gregory R. Chiklis, sued the company in New York State Supreme Court, accusing the company of financial irregularities, including paying “phantom employees” annual salaries of $500,000. Chiklis also said that Collins “unilaterally” made most decisions.

The case was later settled, and Chiklis did not return calls for comment. But Smith, who replaced Chiklis, said Collins rarely weighed in on company business.

Collins had an estimated net worth of $43.5 million in 2017, according to Roll Call. When the company’s stock plunged last year, federal prosecutors have said Collins did not sell his own shares because he knew he was under investigation. He likely lost millions. According to his 2017 disclosure form, filed in April, Collins owned between $1 million and $5 million in Innate Immunotherapeutics stock.

In June of this year, financial disclosure records show he sold between $15,000 and $50,000 in stock in Innate, his only reported sale of the stock since it lost most of its value.

Oddly enough, some of the other Republican congressmen or their spouses who invested in Innate did so in January 2017, the same month that Price’s investments came under public scrutiny. Rep. John Culberson of Texas bought $13,982 in shares, and lost $9,194 when he sold it in June of last year, two weeks before the company announced that the drug trial had failed.

Mullin of Oklahoma made the largest investment; between $100,001 and $250,000, according to his financial disclosure form. He did not list a sale, nor did Long of Missouri, who invested between $15,001 and $50,000, according to his report. Colorado Rep. Doug Lamborn, whose wife had purchased between $15,001 and $50,000, reported a sale on June 27, of less than $1,000, suggesting that the couple lost most of the investment.

Rep. K. Michael Conaway of Texas reported making two investments of between $1,000 and $15,000 in Innate, around the same time last year.

Since its drug trial failed, Innate Immunotherapeutics has abandoned its multiple sclerosis treatment and announced it had acquired a company that is studying cancer drugs. Its stock is currently trading at less than 20 cents per share.

In his interview last year with ethics investigators after the MS drug trial failed, Collins sounded a note of regret over his proselytizing for the stock. Of his friends, he said, “everyone heard the presentation,” and, he added, “ultimately, it failed, so obviously they should’ve asked more questions than they did.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Go to Source Author: Katie Thomas and Sheila Kaplan World: Rep. Collins’ deep financial ties to biotech firms posed other conflicts Rep. Christopher Collins once said that the success of an obscure Australian company’s drug would be carved on his tombstone.

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thegroomnextdoor-blog-blog · 6 years

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Episode 231 "DR. COGER RETURNS"

This week our good friend Dr. Laurie Coger returns and we're going to be talking about everything current;y going on in the pet world.

AAFCO MEETING

2018 Annual Meeting July 29-August 1, 2018 Fort Lauderdale, Florida

WRITTEN BY SUSAN THIXTON (Truth about Pet Food)

Another Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) meeting is over.

This was the largest attendance of consumer advocates we’ve ever had at AAFCO. Dr. Karen Becker, Rodney Habib, Daniel Orrego, Dr. Barbara Royal, Dr. Natasha Lilly, Chelsea Kent, Tammy Akerman, B.C. Henschen, Laura Beveridge, Julie Elrod, Roxanne Stone, Billy Hoekman, (not pictured) Dr. Cathy Alinovi, and myself. (Also pictured who joined us for dinner is Audree, Dr. Josie, Jillian, and Maura.)

AAFCO meetings are a necessity. A necessity for us to be here, and a necessity for regulations to be established that properly regulate the food that animals consume. Part of the problem is that a great deal of effort is taken to write legal definitions of ingredients or determine the required font size on a label – but little enforcement of those detailed regulations happen.

As example…

We had a meeting with FDA right after the last session on Tuesday 7/31/18. One of the two pet owners that spoke with FDA had multiple pets get sick from a commercial dog food. She told FDA that she purchased the dog food – in part – based on the images of steak on the label (just like millions of other pet owners have). What the label told her was in the food (steak) she later learned was not even close to what her dogs actually ate. The misleading pet food label cost her more than $6000.00 in vet bills – and the misleading image almost cost her her dog.

In the AAFCO book is this pet food regulation: “A vignette, graphic, or pictorial representation on a pet food label shall not misrepresent the contents of the package.” At a previous AAFCO meeting – probably 20 years ago – regulatory officials meticulously wrote this legal requirement of pet food labels. But…20 years later, not one State Department of Agriculture and not one FDA representative bothers to enforce this law.

Millions of pet food consumers unknowingly buy pet foods based on those misleading images on the label – images that are supposed to be regulated…but are not.

So part of the insanity of AAFCO is that many people work very hard to write legal requirements of pet food/animal feed…and then those very legal requirements are ignored.

Another pet owner shared her story with FDA during our meeting. Her story was of her dog’s death directly linked to a dog treat. This pet owner reported the incident to FDA, had the treat tested, provided all test results to FDA. But a full year after her dog died, FDA has done little to investigate the death. Through tear filled eyes, we all listened to her story and her pleas with FDA to do something to get a risky product off the market. She told the agency how concerning it was that she has to be the one to investigate the dog treat – because no regulatory authority was.

And again, we have another glaring concern of pet food. Lack of properly investigating a dangerous pet food or treat. Consumer tax dollars support the authorities that are supposed to be investigating a pet food/treat illness or death…but if we want an unsafe product off store shelves, consumers are left to investigate on our own.

What AAFCO members care most about is industry. And they are not shy about stating that. During the Ingredient Definitions Committee session a State Department of Agriculture representative reminded committee members that “firms are going to be hurting” if they don’t push through these ingredient definitions (they want to sell the ingredient but cannot until it is legally defined). During the Pet Food Label Modernization session (discussion on future updates to pet food labels), a State Department of Agriculture representative openly encouraged industry to complain about these label updates stating “this is going to cost you money to change your labels, more of you need to speak out against this”. This same State Department of Agriculture representative told the committee to “consider the economic impact to industry” regarding pet food labeling changes.

FYI – after the 2007 pet food recall, Congress required FDA to update pet food labels. Congress required FDA to complete this work by September 2009. This has never been completed by FDA. Nine years after law required pet food labels be updated, government officials complain the changes will hurt industry.

The biggest concern of regulatory authorities – AAFCO, State Department of Agriculture, and FDA – is industry. And we have to change that. Consumers are the largest stakeholder group of pet food. We are the reason commercial pet food exists. Somehow, some way…we have to constantly remind authorities that consumers ARE the most important stakeholder of pet food.

Our amazing team at AAFCO was wonderful. The caring energy from everyone was empowering. We were – as typical at AAFCO meetings – followed and listened to. During our meeting with FDA, someone was reporting every word back to another on a cell phone (yes, we saw you). But we didn’t care. We have nothing to hide, they do.

A special thank you to Dr. Karen Becker, Rodney Habib, Dr. Barbara Royal and Dr. Natasha Lilly for coming to AAFCO. You are appreciated more than words can properly explain.

GRAIN FREE PET FOOD AND HEART DISEASE (By the FDA)

As previously reported by American Veterinarian®, there is a notable discrepancy between the types of pet foods veterinarians and pet owners believe to be healthy for dogs and cats. For instance, when asked whether low- or no-grain diets are healthier for dogs, 46% of pet owners said yes, while 63% of veterinary professionals said no, according to a survey conducted by the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. Similarly, 63% of pet owners said corn was not healthy for dogs, but 50% of veterinarians said it was. Could a gap in knowledge become detrimental to pets? Today, the FDA released a warning to veterinarians and pet owners about reports of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in dogs eating pet foods that contained peas, lentils, legume seeds, or potatoes as the main ingredients. It is not yet known how these ingredients are linked to cases of DCM. The reports raised a red flag because DCM is occurring more frequently in breeds that are not considered genetically predisposed to developing the disease, including golden retrievers, Labrador retrievers, whippets, a Shih Tzu, a bulldog, miniature schnauzers, and mixed breeds. In the cases reported to the FDA, the dogs were being fed diets that commonly listed potatoes or multiple legumes as well as their protein, starch, and fiber sources early in the ingredient list, indicating that those were the main ingredients. High levels of legumes or potatoes are found often in products labeled as “grain-free.” The medical records for 4 of the atypical DCM cases—3 golden retrievers and 1 Labrador retriever—revealed that the dogs had low whole blood levels of taurine, which is documented as potentially leading to DCM. The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine and the Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network are investigating this potential association. According to the FDA, early reports from the veterinary cardiology community indicate that the dogs ate these foods consistently for time periods ranging from months to years. In an article that originally appeared on the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University’s blog Petfoodology, Lisa M. Freeman, DVM, PhD, DACVN, recalled a recent patient that was diagnosed with DCM at the school’s hospital. Upon further evaluation, it was discovered that the 4-year-old beagle-Labrador mix had been fed a grain-free pet food that contained kangaroo meat and chickpeas. “Recently, some astute cardiologists noticed higher rates of DCM in golden retrievers and some atypical dog breeds,” Dr. Freeman wrote. “They also noticed that both the typical and atypical breeds were more likely to be eating boutique or grain-free diets, and diets with exotic ingredients—kangaroo, lentils, duck, pea, fava bean, buffalo, tapioca, salmon, lamb, barley, bison, venison, and chickpeas. Even some vegan diets have been associated. It has even been seen in dogs eating raw or home-prepared diets.” While the investigation is ongoing, the FDA is encouraging pet owners and veterinary professionals to report cases of DCM that may be linked to a dog’s diet by using the Safety Reporting Porta

Healthy Dog Expo

Speakers

Dr. Kendra Pope

As a board-certified veterinary oncologist, Dr. Pope knows the challenges pet owners face when their beloved companion is given a cancer diagnosis. She is one of only a handful of veterinary oncologists in the United States also extensively trained in holistic modalities such as acupuncture, herbal medicine and intravenous nutrient therapies, which provides her with additional tools to utilize towards the best possible outcome, and quality of life, for every patient.

Her philosophy combines the use of her conventional medical training with that of various integrative modalities to maximize the health, wellness, and quality of life of her patients. Through collaboration with coworkers, colleagues and experts in their field, Dr. Pope is passionate about improving the lives of both her patients, and their owners. While answering tough medical questions, through clinical research, Dr. Pope is committed to making a difference in the area of integrative veterinary medicine.

Outside of those diagnosed with cancer, Dr. Pope routinely treats patients with other difficult or chronic conditions as well as those seeking maximal health and wellness. Using acupuncture, herbal medicine, nutrition, and more, her practice works to restore health and vitality, and improve quality of life. For more information, visit Dr. Pope’s website.

Kimberly Gauthier

Kimberly Gauthier is the blogger behind Keep the Tail Wagging and author of A Novice’s Guide to Raw Feeding for Dogs. Kimberly and her Significant Other have raised two sets of happy, healthy littermates and one demanding cat (all raw fed) in the Pacific Northwest. When she’s not digging into the latest sci-fi program or Marvel movie, Kimberly is hanging out with friends and plotting to morph the world into a dog-friendly planet. Learn more at her website, Keep The Tail Wagging.

Kohl Harrington

Writer/director Kohl Harrington exposed the truth behind the pet food industry in his second directorial effort, Pet Fooled. As the winner of the aptly named Catalina Film Festival’s Unsung Hero award, Kohl brought forward many of the unsavory details of commercial pet foods, and the misleading marketing techniques that sell consumers on these products. Since its launch on Netflix, iTunes, and Vimeo, citizens in over 82 countries have seen the truth behind the colorful bags and cans. And Pet Fooled is just the tip of the iceberg. Kohl is already at work on Pet Fooled 2.0, which is sure to be a heart pounding, jaw dropping investigation bringing much needed clarity to consumers everywhere. Follow the story at the Pet Fooled Facebook page and the Pet Fooled 2.0 fundraiser.

Suzanne Clothier

Suzanne Clothier has been working with animals professionally since 1977, with a deep background of experience that includes obedience, agility, puppy testing, breeding, Search and Rescue, conformation, instructing, kennel management and canine midwifery. She is well respected for her holistic Relationship Centered Training™ approach to dogs and the people that love them.

She has taught in the US, Canada, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Japan, Australia and New Zealand for groups as varied as Wolf Park, NADOI, Association of Pet Dog Trainers, FEMA (Northeast Region Disaster Dog Teams), Alaskan Dog Musher Association, Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society, AKC Obedience judges, many national specialties, and numerous obedience, agility, breed, rescue, shelter and SAR groups.

Her book, Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships With Dogs has received wide spread praise from every corner of the dog world, including twice being included in the Wall Street Journal’s list of Top 5 Dog Books. An award winning author of videos, books, booklets and numerous articles, Suzanne has written articles for the AKC Gazette, Dog Fancy, Dogs In Canada, Off Lead, Clean Run, Wolf Clan and breed magazines and newsletters around the world. She served as a committee member for the AKC’s Agility Advisory Board, and as a committee member of the American Humane Association’s Task Force for the Development of Humane Standards in Dog Training.

She has served as a consultant to Guiding Eyes for the Blind (Patterson, NY), Southeastern Guide Dogs (Tampa, FL), Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation (Bloomfield, CT), Assistance Dogs of the West (Santa Fe, NM) and Guide Dogs of America (Sylmar, CA). For all these organizations, Suzanne utilized her Relationship Centered Training™ approach and her Enriched Puppy Protocol™ to assist in the restructuring of the puppy raising programs.

A German Shepherd breeder, her 8 generations of Hawks Hunt German Shepherds have been successful in obedience, agility, search and rescue, tracking, herding and therapy work; she is also the co-breeder of a National Specialty BOB Brittany. She lives on a working farm in upstate New York with husband John Rice, and their considerable animal family of dogs, cats, parrots, tortoises, Scottish Highland cattle, horses, donkeys, pigs and more. Find out more about Suzanne’s work at her website.

Dr. Debbie Torraca

Dr. Debbie (Gross) Torraca has been involved in the field of canine physical rehabilitation and conditioning for over twenty years. She began her career in human sports medicine and quickly made the transformation to canine physical rehabilitation and sports medicine. She began with a BS at Boston University, and then obtained an advanced MS from Quinnipiac College and a doctorate at the University of Tennessee. She is also a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner, and one of the founders of the University of Tennessee Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner program. Dr. Torraca believes that each day should be a learning experience and continuously seeks opportunities to further her education in the classroom and through real life experiences!

Debbie has taught throughout the world on many topics and is widely published in the field of canine physical rehabilitation, as well as canine performance. She has many DVDS, articles, and related information published for the dog lover in the areas of conditioning, structure, injury prevention, stretching, strengthening, performance, and rehabilitation. She has been very involved with professional research in the realm of canine performance. In addition, she absolutely loves spending time in her clinic, Wizard of Paws Physical Rehabilitation for Animals, LLC (www.wizardofpaws.net). She believes EVERY dog deserves the best quality of life for the longest time possible whether they are 8 weeks of age or 18 years of age. Her rapport with animals and passion for rehabilitation is evident in her practice and teaching. It’s no surprise that Debbie’s advice and insight is sought from all over the world by veterinarians, owners, and researchers.

Find out more at Wizard of Paws.

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amberdscott2 · 7 years

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Equifax Breach Response Turns Dumpster Fire

I cannot recall a previous data breach in which the breached company’s public outreach and response has been so haphazard and ill-conceived as the one coming right now from big-three credit bureau Equifax, which rather clumsily announced Thursday that an intrusion jeopardized Social security numbers and other information on 143 million Americans.

WEB SITE WOES

As noted in yesterday’s breaking story on this breach, the Web site that Equifax advertised as the place where concerned Americans could go to find out whether they were impacted by this breach — equifaxsecurity2017.com — is completely broken at best, and little more than a stalling tactic or sham at worst.

In the early hours after the breach announcement, the site was being flagged by various browsers as a phishing threat. In some cases, people visiting the site were told they were not affected, only to find they received a different answer when they checked the site with the same information on their mobile phones.

Others (myself included) received not a yes or no answer to the question of whether we were impacted, but instead a message that credit monitoring service we were eligible for was not available and to check back later in the month. The site asked users to enter their last name and last six digits of their SSN, but at the prompting of a reader’s comment I confirmed that just entering gibberish names and numbers produced the same result as the one I saw when I entered my real information: Come back on Sept. 13.

Who’s responsible for this debacle? Well, Equifax of course. But most large companies that can afford to do so hire outside public relations or disaster response firms to walk them through the safest ways to notify affected consumers. In this case, Equifax appears to have hired global PR firm Edelman PR.

What gives me this idea? Until just a couple of hours ago, the copy of WordPress installed at equifaxsecurity2017.com included a publicly accessible user database entry showing a user named “Edelman” was the first (and only?) user registered on the site.

Code that was publicly available on equifaxsecurity2017.com until very recently showed account information for an outside PR firm.

I reached out to Edelman for more information and will update this story when I hear from them.

EARLY WARNING?

In its breach disclosure Thursday, Equifax said it hired an outside computer security forensic firm to investigate as soon as it discovered unauthorized access to its Web site. ZDNet published a story Thursday saying that the outside firm was Alexandria, Va.-based Mandiant — a security firm bought by FireEye in 2014.

Interestingly, anyone who happened to have been monitoring look-alike domains for Equifax.com prior to yesterday’s breach announcement may have had an early clue about the upcoming announcement. One interesting domain that was registered on Sept. 5, 2017 is “equihax.com,” which according to domain registration records was purchased by an Alexandria, Va. resident named Brandan Schondorfer.

A quick Google search shows that Schondorfer works for Mandiant. Ray Watson, a cybersecurity researcher who messaged me this morning on Twitter about this curiosity, said it is likely that Mandiant has been registering domains that might by attractive to phishers hoping to take advantage of public attention to the breach and spoof Equifax’s domain.

Watson said it’s equally likely the equihax.com domain was registered to keep it out of the hands of people who may be looking for domain names they can use to lampoon Equifax for its breach. Schondorfer has not yet returned calls seeking comment.

EQUIFAX EXECS PULL GOLDEN PARACHUTES?

Bloomberg moved a story yesterday indicating that three top executives at Equifax sold millions of dollars worth of stock during the time between when the company says it discovered the breach and when it notified the public and investors.

Shares of Equifax’s stock on the New York Stock Exchange [NSYE:EFX] were down more than 13 percent at time of publication versus yesterday’s price.

The executives reportedly told Bloomberg they didn’t know about the breach when they sold their shares. A law firm in New York has already announced it is investigating potential insider trading claims against Equifax.

CLASS ACTION WAIVER?

Yesterday’s story here pointed out the gross conflict of interest in Equifax’s consumer remedy for this breach: Offering a year’s worth of free credit monitoring services to all Americans via its own in-house credit monitoring service.

This is particularly rich because a) why should anyone trust Equifax to do anything right security-wise after this debacle and b) these credit monitoring services typically hard-sell consumers to sign up for paid credit protection plans when the free coverage expires.

Verbiage from the terms of service from Equifax’s credit monitoring service TrustID Premier.

I have repeatedly urged readers to consider putting a security freeze on their accounts in lieu of or in addition to accepting these free credit monitoring offers, noting that credit monitoring services don’t protect you against identity theft (the most you can hope for is they alert you when ID thieves do steal your identity), while security freezes can prevent thieves from taking out new lines of credit in your name.

Several readers have written in to point out some legalese in the terms of service the Equifax requires all users to acknowledge before signing up for the service seems to include legal verbiage suggesting that those who do sign up for the free service will waive their rights to participate in future class action lawsuits against the company.

KrebsOnSecurity is still awaiting word from an actual lawyer who’s looking at this contract, but let me offer my own two cents on this. Equifax will almost certainly see itself the target of multiple class action lawsuits as a result of this breach, but there is no guarantee those lawsuits will go the distance and result in a monetary windfall for affected consumers.

Even when these cases do result in a win for the plaintiff class, it can take years. After KrebsOnSecurity broke the story in 2013 that Experian had given access to 200 million consumer records to Vietnamese man running an identity theft service, two different law firms filed class action suits against Experian.

That case was ultimately tossed out of federal court and remanded to state court, where it is ongoing. That case was filed in 2015.

To close out the subject of civil lawsuits as a way to hold companies accountable for sloppy security, class actions — even when successful — rarely result in much of a financial benefit for affected consumers (very often the “reward” is a gift card or two-digit dollar amount per victim), while greatly enriching law firms that file the suits.

It’s my view that these class action lawsuits serve principally to take the pressure off of lawmakers and regulators to do something that might actually prevent more sloppy security practices in the future for the victim culpable companies. And as I noted in yesterday’s story, the credit bureaus have shown themselves time and again to terribly unreliable stewards of sensitive consumer data: This time, the intruders were able to get in because Equifax apparently fell behind in patching its Internet-facing Web applications.

In May, KrebsOnSecurity reported that fraudsters exploited lax security at Equifax’s TALX payroll division, which provides online payroll, HR and tax services. In 2015, a breach at Experian jeopardized the personal data on at least 15 million consumers.

CAPITALIZING ON FEAR

Speaking of Experian, the company is now taking advantage of public fear over the breach — via hashtag #equifaxbreach, for example — to sign people up for their cleverly-named “CreditLock” subscription service (again, hat tip to @rayjwatson).

“When you have Experian Identity Theft Protection, you can instantly lock or unlock your Experian Credit File with the simple click of a button,” the ad enthuses. “Experian gives you instant access to your credit report.”

First off, all consumers have the legal right to instant access to their credit report via the Web site, annualcreditreport.com. This site, mandated by Congress, gives consumers the right to one free credit report from each of the three major bureaus (Equifax, Trans Union and Experian) every year.

Second, all consumers have a right to request that the bureaus “freeze” their credit files, which bars potential creditors or anyone else from viewing your credit history or credit file unless you thaw the freeze (temporarily or permanently).

I have made no secret of my disdain for the practice of companies offering credit monitoring in the wake of a data breach — especially in cases where the breach only involves credit card accounts, since credit monitoring services typically only look for new account fraud and do little or nothing to prevent fraud on existing consumer credit accounts.

Credit monitoring services rarely prevent identity thieves from stealing your identity. The most you can hope for from these services is that they will alert you as soon as someone does steal your identity. Also, the services can be useful in helping victims recover from ID theft.

My advice: Sign up for credit monitoring if you can (and you’re not holding out for a puny class action windfall) and then freeze your credit files at the major credit bureaus (it is generally not possible to sign up for credit monitoring services after a freeze is in place). Again, advice for how to file a freeze is available here.

Whether you are considering a freeze, credit monitoring, or a fraud alert (another, far less restrictive third option), please take a moment to read this story in its entirety. It includes a great deal of information that cannot be shared in a short column here.

from Amber Scott Technology News https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/09/equifax-breach-response-turns-dumpster-fire/

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jennifersnyderca90 · 7 years

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Equifax Breach Response Turns Dumpster Fire

WEB SITE WOES

Code that was publicly available on equifaxsecurity2017.com until very recently showed account information for an outside PR firm.

I reached out to Edelman for more information and will update this story when I hear from them.

EARLY WARNING?

EQUIFAX EXECS PULL GOLDEN PARACHUTES?

Shares of Equifax’s stock on the New York Stock Exchange [NSYE:EFX] were down more than 13 percent at time of publication versus yesterday’s price.

CLASS ACTION WAIVER?

Verbiage from the terms of service from Equifax’s credit monitoring service TrustID Premier.

That case was ultimately tossed out of federal court and remanded to state court, where it is ongoing. That case was filed in 2015.

CAPITALIZING ON FEAR

from https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/09/equifax-breach-response-turns-dumpster-fire/

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nedsvallesny · 7 years

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Equifax Breach Response Turns Dumpster Fire

WEB SITE WOES

Code that was publicly available on equifaxsecurity2017.com until very recently showed account information for an outside PR firm.

I reached out to Edelman for more information and will update this story when I hear from them.

EARLY WARNING?

EQUIFAX EXECS PULL GOLDEN PARACHUTES?

Shares of Equifax’s stock on the New York Stock Exchange [NSYE:EFX] were down more than 13 percent at time of publication versus yesterday’s price.

CLASS ACTION WAIVER?

Verbiage from the terms of service from Equifax’s credit monitoring service TrustID Premier.

That case was ultimately tossed out of federal court and remanded to state court, where it is ongoing. That case was filed in 2015.

CAPITALIZING ON FEAR

from Technology News https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/09/equifax-breach-response-turns-dumpster-fire/

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kansascityhappenings · 7 years

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Park Hill School District superintendent asks for videos of fight that forced football game cancellation

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The superintendent of Park Hill Schools sent out a new letter to Park Hill families on Tuesday, after administrators ended a football game early Friday night because of fighting between rivals Park Hill and Park Hill South.

The fight happened at Park Hill District Stadium, where the game ended with Park Hill beating Park Hill South 42-0. The district officially says that crowd safety was the reason the game was called.

To keep everyone safe after a fight, we ended game 10 minutes early with score of 42-0. Nobody involved with fight needed medical treatment.

— Park Hill Schools (@ParkHillSchools) September 2, 2017

There were rumors of a stabbing, but both police and the district said there was no confirmation of a stabbing, and no victim was found. There were no reported arrests either.

In the letter on Tuesday, Dr. Jeanette Cowherd, superintendent, said she wanted to explain more and asked the public to help identify those involved by showing them video they may have captured of the fighting:

Dear Park Hill Families,

After we called Friday’s football game to keep everyone safe, we sent out a fast communication. I would like to take a moment this afternoon to give you a little more information.

It is disappointing that the unacceptable actions of a few students tarnished our community’s experience at what should have been a positive event. The overwhelming majority of the students and parents at the Park Hill High School vs. Park Hill South High School game, including the players, handled themselves beautifully and we are very proud of their behavior.

Unfortunately, not everyone met our behavior expectations. I would like to be able to describe for you exactly what happened among the group of students who kept meeting to fight around our stadium, but the Family Educational Right to Privacy Act (FERPA) and the ongoing investigation prevent me from sharing that information.

I can tell you that the rumors of a weapon involved in the fight were not true. And I can tell you that we are working with local law enforcement to investigate this fight and determine next steps to ensure something like this does not happen again.

Keeping our schools and our school activities safe is the most important thing we do, because our students need a safe, caring environment.

You can help us with this work if you have seen any videos of Friday’s fight. Please send those videos to Dr. Josh Colvin, our director of student services, at [email protected].

Thank you for your support of our students and our schools.

Sincerely, Dr. Jeanette Cowherd Superintendent

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports http://fox4kc.com/2017/09/05/park-hill-school-district-superintendent-asks-for-videos-of-fight-that-forced-football-game-cancellation/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2017/09/05/park-hill-school-district-superintendent-asks-for-videos-of-fight-that-forced-football-game-cancellation/

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sunshineweb · 7 years

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Information Blocking Under Attack: The Challenges Facing EHR Developers and Vendors

By DAVID KIBBE, MD

In March 2017 Milbank Quarterly, researchers Julia Adler-Milstein and Eric Pfeifer found that information blocking — which they define as a set of practices in which “providers or vendors knowingly and unreasonably interfere with the exchange or use of electronic health information in ways that harm policy goals” – occurs frequently, and is motivated by revenue gain and market-share protection.

Among the practices most often cited were deployment of products with limited interoperability (49%) and high fees for health information exchange unrelated to [actual] cost (47%). Of note: This is the first empirical research identifying and quantifying the specific information blocking practices reported by a group of information exchange experts.

The authors concluded “Information blocking appears to be real and fairly widespread. Policymakers have some existing levers that can be used to curb information blocking and help information flow to where it is needed to improve patient care. However, because information blocking is largely legal today, a strong response will involve new legislation and associated enforcement actions.”

The legal situation regarding the controversial subject of information blocking may have already changed dramatically. Two important events occurred since this research was undertaken. First, the strongly bipartisan-backed 21st Century Cures Act was signed into law by President Obama late last year. The health information technology (HIT) provisions of the law now make it illegal for a vendor or provider to engage in information blocking. Second, the new law provides the nation with a new and comprehensive statutory definition of information blocking:

A practice, except as required by law or allowed by the HHS secretary pursuant to rulemaking, that:

–Is likely to interfere with, prevent or materially discourage access, exchange or use of electronic health information.

–If conducted by an HIT developer, exchange or network, such entity knows or should know that such practice is likely to interfere with, prevent or materially discourage the access, exchange or use of electronic health information.

–If conducted by a health care provider, such provider knows that such practice is unreasonable and is likely to interfere with, prevent or materially discourage access, exchange or use of electronic health information.

(Emphasis added)

The law further directs that information blocking may include the following:

– Practices that restrict authorized access, exchange or use of such information for treatment and other permitted purposes under such applicable law, including transitions between certified HIT systems.

– Implementing HIT in nonstandard ways that are likely to substantially increase the complexity or burden of accessing, exchanging or using electronic health information.

– Implementing HIT in ways that are likely to restrict access, exchange or use of electronic health information with respect to exporting complete information sets or in transitioning between HIT systems.

– Lead to fraud, waste or abuse, or impede innovations and advancements in health information access, exchange and use, including care delivery enabled by HIT.

In case there is any doubt about the gravity placed on this issue by the authors of the law, consider that Cures requires the Secretary of HHS establish a process for collecting complaints of information blocking and investigating them, and designates the Inspector General as the party responsible for carrying out the investigations. It assigns a penalty of up to $1 million per information blocking episode and funds program operations with the proceeds from such fines and penalties after a $10 million start-up allocation is made.

The law also makes it mandatory for EHR and other HIT vendors seeking federal certification of their products to attest they are not engaging in any form of information blocking as described in the law, and that false attestation may be cause for removal of certification status. Certification is virtually a requirement of doing business as an HIT developer or vendor in health care, since many federal Medicare and Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals are tied to the use of products certified by the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT (ONC), and known as certified EHR technology (CEHRT).

No one knows for certain whether these provisions will trigger a large number of complaints from providers, patients and other interested parties who have been frustrated by problems encountered when they have tried to move, share, or exchange data and health information between organizations and across the boundaries of HIT systems. But the widespread practices described in the Milbank Quarterly research do not augur well for EHR technology vendors and developers being able to avoid at least some negative attention.

At the very least, it is likely that the new Cures information blocking provisions will pose challenges to vendors and developers for the next couple of years. The law’s language is remarkably broad and, in my opinion, purposely comprehensive. For example, EHR vendors cannot use lack of knowledge about their conduct as an excuse if it is found that they should know about the information blocking effects of that conduct. They can be found in violation of the law for restricting access to, exchange of, or use of health information.This means software vendors and their customers will need to carefully monitor and audit information flows for data, both at rest and in storage, to assure potential authorized users don’t suffer restrictions. Monitoring these flows and processes will increase awareness and knowledge of any potential restrictions, thus obligating them to remove them. The law sets a very low bar by stipulating that merely making it “likely” that restricting information occurs is information blocking, but also creates new (and high) expectations for what must be exchanged when it references “exporting complete information sets” as the object of such restrictions.

The law’s list of practices considered information blocking includes “Implementing HIT in nonstandard ways that are likely to substantially increase the complexity or burden of accessing, exchanging or using electronic health information.”

I find this last provision to be a particularly worrisome challenge for vendors to attempt to avoid, and to defend against should they be accused of such behavior. The issue here will revolve around what are considered “standard and nonstandard ways” of implementing HIT, and what constitutes a “substantial increase in complexity or burden” of accessing, exchanging or using electronic health information. And, of course, who gets to decide these matters is equally important. If, in the process of investigating complaints of a vendor implementing HIT in nonstandard ways that cause a “substantial increase in the complexity of health information exchange”, will the Inspector General make it the burden of the vendor to prove that it has used standardized ways? Or that there are no standards for the implementation in question? Or that the standards ought not to apply in a particular case? And in what situations? Will those standards be those of a local community, or those that are state-wide or national?

I fear that the “next patch” is likely to be difficult for many EHR vendors. Additional challenges include these considerations:

They do not have the new MU revenue coming in as they did for the past five years. With 80+% adoption of EHRs, there is little new business to be had, limited to a small amount of rip and replacement going on. Vendors will be looking for new sources of revenue and profit, but there have been complaints that their products and service contracts are already over-priced. Every health care provider organization in the country is looking for ways to stabilize or reduce the ongoing costs of ownership of their health IT software and services, while at the same time improving security. Value-based care and risk taking contracts, along with repeal of coverage under the replacement for Obamacare, may only increase the economic pressure.

New certification criteria under the law require EHR developers and vendors to work harder on interoperability and to demonstrate usability in the field to maintain certification. As we all know, real world testing of software can reveal a lot of warts. Contractual agreements recently imposed by EHR vendors that prohibit users from sharing screen shots and features sets are prohibited under the law’s HIT provisions. New certification criteria under the law requires EHR developers and vendors to attest that they do not engage in any form of information blocking, as defined in the law, and levels penalties for both information blocking and false attestation. This new definition of information blocking is deep and wide.

New measures for interoperability are one of the responsibilities of the new HIT Advisory Committee being formed to work with Secretary Price and National Coordinator Rucker at HHS/ONC, as is the establishment of a Trust Framework and Agreement. These activities will likely put new pressures on vendors to make their products more network-able and more able to share data with authorized providers and patients/consumers. In a statement released by ONC on May 23, 2017, quoted from Politico’s Morning eHealth May 24, the agency indicated their interest in information blocking thus: “In FY 2018, ONC will continue to address and discourage information blocking by aggressively implementing ONC Certification Program rules, creating and promoting channels for reporting information blocking, and enforcing information blocking provisions required by the Cures Act.”

Working with physicians, hospitals, and with interoperability standards groups like DirectTrust, will be in the best interest of EHR developers and vendors as they seek to avoid problems of information blocking, real or imagined. There are legitimate reasons for restricting access to health care information in electronic formats, including security measures and identity assurances needed to protect the privacy of that information. The vendors need to articulate these carefully and with the interest of their customers and their customers’ patients – not their own profits – clearly in mind. Physicians and clinicians will tend to put the interests of patients and consumers of health care services first. They must also—as does DirectTrust and other like-minded communities—do what is reasonable to better knit together the fabric of the entire health care system so that care is better and costs are lower. That is our duty under the new laws. Quite simply, we cannot make good progress toward meeting these goals without the collaboration of the major EHR vendors, their customers, and the public.

Information Blocking Under Attack: The Challenges Facing EHR Developers and Vendors published first on your-t1-blog-url

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sherristockman · 7 years

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WebMD Implicated in Cancer Coverup Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Kathleen M. Zelman, MPH, RD, LD, has been the director of nutrition for WebMD, one of the most visited health sites on the web, for 13 years.1 Listed in her extensive biography are ties to United Healthcare insurance company, for which she serves as a nutrition expert, as well as contributing editor to Food & Nutrition Magazine. She's also received a high honor from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics — the 2016 Lenna Frances Cooper Memorial Lecture Award — among many other accomplishments. But what is not mentioned, however, is that Zelman also participates in Monsanto's Leaders Engaged in Advancing Dialogue (LEAD) Initiative. The participants — 15 "communication leaders in the food and nutrition space" — receive funding from Monsanto and "communicate with consumers who have questions about food and agriculture, especially how food is grown." They also "engage with the food and nutrition community through various outreach initiatives."2 WebMD's Little-Known Ties to Monsanto The fact that WebMD's nutrition director is being paid by Monsanto (the company won't say how much) to talk about the benefits of Monsanto products is concerning, especially since the general belief is that WebMD is a trustworthy source of "independent and objective" health information. It's become quite clear, however, that WebMD is a shill, using its influence to promote corporate-backed health strategies and products. In 2016, for instance, WebMD featured Monsanto-sponsored ads saying, "It's time for a bigger discussion about food," with links to Monsanto's biased take on soil, water and honeybee issues, with no other contributors to the discussion in sight. In other words, Monsanto pays WebMD to display advertisements and advertorials on its behalf, furthering their agenda. Advertorials are essential ads that appear to be actual journalism, which can easily be misunderstood as "real," science-backed content. If WebMD is carrying Monsanto's message, even if it's clear that Monsanto crafted it, then many will simply assume that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) must be safe. Beyond assumptions, WebMD is also peppered with pro-GMO articles,3 so it's no secret where their loyalty lies. Monsanto Pays Registered Dieticians to Spread Their Agenda Influencing federal agencies and utilizing registered dieticians to spread their agenda is Monsanto's modus operandi. Zelman is but one registered dietician who belongs to Monsanto's LEAD Initiative. Mary Lee Chin, MS, RDN is another. In March 2017, media outlet Mic released snippets of Chin's emails, which were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, and shared examples of her social media posts, which do not disclose that she's a paid consultant for Monsanto.4 In a 2014 email to Jon Entine, founder of the Genetic Literacy Project, a GMO- and pesticide-friendly blog that sponsors a biotech conference known as the Biotech Literacy Project, Chin said she hoped the LEAD group would be invited to the 2015 conference. According to Mic:5 "In the emails, Chin wrote that the LEAD group has 'tremendous outreach capabilities.' She noted that during a three-day meeting, the LEAD Network 'generated 2.6 million hits on social media' … Chin attended the Biotech Literacy Project in 2014 and noted she 'put the experience to good use' because she was 'debating in media' to oppose GMO labeling in Colorado. In her email, Chin suggests social media is a valuable way to shape public opinion." Her social media accounts, however, though often filled with the topic of GMOs, do not make it clear that she's being paid by Monsanto. "Nowhere on her Twitter bio does she mention she works for the corporation," according to Mic, and "anything written by a Monsanto spokesperson that Chin posts seems to merit a #sponsored, but anything generally relating to GMOs does not."6 In a rebuttal to the accusation that she's not publically disclosing her ties to Monsanto, Chin wrote on the Genetic Literacy Project website:7 "I was drawn to Ag seed companies and Monsanto not only due to the very robust science, and the capacity of genetically engineered crops to contribute to a more secure food supply, but also growing higher quality of foods through biofortified crops." Did Monsanto Conspire With the EPA Over Glyphosate's Cancer Link? In 2015, glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, was determined to be a "probable carcinogen" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is the research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), rather than taking immediate steps to protect Americans from this probable cancer-causing agent, decided to reassess its position on the chemical and, after doing so, released a paper in October 2015 stating that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.8 In April 2016, the EPA posted the report online, briefly, before pulling it and claiming it was not yet final and posted by mistake. The paper was signed by Jess Rowland (among other EPA officials), who at the time was the EPA's deputy division director of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and chair of the Cancer Assessment Review Committee (CARC). This is notable because Monsanto is currently embroiled in a number of lawsuits, including litigation from more than 50 people who claim exposure to Roundup caused them to develop non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). Monsanto has used the EPA's supposedly-not-final report in court hearings to suggest glyphosate is safe, but the plaintiffs' attorneys asked for documents detailing Monsanto's interactions with Rowland to be released. In March 2017, a judge unsealed the documents, which revealed two disturbing collusions. EPA Implicated in Monsanto Glyphosate-Cancer Coverup Email correspondence showed Rowland helped stop a glyphosate investigation by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, on Monsanto's behalf. In an email, Monsanto regulatory affairs manager Dan Jenkins recounts a conversation he'd had with Rowland, in which Rowland said, "If I can kill this I should get a medal,"9 referring to the ATSDR investigation, which did not end up occurring. Jenkins also noted that Rowland was planning to retire in a few months and "could be useful as we move forward with ongoing glyphosate defense."10 And it gets even worse. According to The New York Times:11 "Court records show that Monsanto was tipped off to the determination by a deputy division director at the EPA, Jess Rowland, months beforehand. That led the company to prepare a public relations assault on the finding well in advance of its publication." The court records also show that in making the decision that glyphosate does not cause cancer, the EPA used two studies that had been ghostwritten by Monsanto's toxicology manager but were published using names of academic researchers.12 Bloomberg reported:13,14 " … Monsanto's toxicology manager and his boss, Bill Heydens, were ghost writers for two of the reports, including one from 2000, that Rowland's committee relied on in part to reach its conclusion that glyphosate shouldn't be classified as carcinogenic. … Among the documents unsealed was a February 2015 internal email exchange at the company about how to contain costs for a research paper … The names of outside scientists could be listed on the publication, 'but we would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just edit & sign their names so to speak,' according to the email, which goes on to say that's how Monsanto handled the 2000 study." Nearly 150 New Cancer Cases Filed Against Monsanto In March 2017, a Los Angeles, California-based law firm, Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, filed three bundled cases against Monsanto on behalf of 136 plaintiffs who allege exposure to Roundup herbicide caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.15 Co-counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said: "We're bringing the lawsuit to address the injuries that have been caused by Roundup and glyphosate to mainly farmers and farm workers, but we also think that consumers and home gardeners have also been affected."16 While more than 700 cases have been filed against Monsanto related to Roundup health risks, Kennedy said he expects this to increase to 3,000 cases in the months to come.17 The lawsuits use the recent revelations between Monsanto and the EPA to support their case. According to the law firm's website: "The lawsuits allege that Monsanto championed falsified data and attacked legitimate studies that revealed the dangers of Roundup in order to prove that Roundup was safe, while also leading a prolonged campaign of misinformation to convince government agencies, farmers, and the general population that Roundup wasn't dangerous." California to List Glyphosate as a Chemical Known to Cause Cancer Meanwhile, while the federal EPA is allowing glyphosate usage to continue unchecked, California's Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) announced in 2015 that they intended to list glyphosate as a chemical known to cause cancer under Proposition 65, which requires consumer products with potential cancer-causing ingredients to bear warning labels. Monsanto then filed formal comments with OEHHA saying the plan to list glyphosate as a carcinogen should be withdrawn. When they didn't give in, Monsanto took it a step further and filed a lawsuit against OEHHA in January 2016 to stop the glyphosate/cancer classification. OEHHA filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, and a Fresno, California superior court judge ruled on their behalf in February 2017, which means California will be able to add a cancer warning to Roundup and other glyphosate-containing weed killers, including Ortho Groundclear, KleenUp, Aquamaster, Sharpshooter, StartUp,Touchdown, Total Traxion, Vector and Vantage Plus Max II and others. "Democracy is alive and well in California where judges are willing to stand up for science, even against the most powerful corporate polluters," Kennedy said. "This decision gives Californians the right to protect themselves and their families from chemical trespass."18 Test Your Personal Glyphosate Levels If you'd like to know your personal glyphosate levels, you can now find out, while also participating in a worldwide study on environmental glyphosate exposures. The Health Research Institute (HRI) in Iowa developed the glyphosate urine test kit, which will allow you to determine your own exposure to this toxic herbicide. Ordering this kit automatically allows you to participate in the study and help HRI better understand the extent of glyphosate exposure and contamination. In a few weeks, you will receive your results, along with information on how your results compare with others and what to do to help reduce your exposure. We are providing these kits to you at no profit in order for you to participate in this environmental study. In the meantime, eating organic as much as possible and investing in a good water filtration system for your home are among the best ways to lower your exposure to glyphosate and other pesticides. In the case of glyphosate, it's also wise to avoid crops like wheat and oats, which may be sprayed with glyphosate for drying purposes prior to harvest. As for the collusion between Monsanto and EPA, and the company's ties to WebMD, the lack of independence among regulators and promoters and distributors of health information has become of tremendous concern. Due to a dramatic rise in scientific fraud and rampant conflict of interest, it's more important than ever to be able to gain access to the full set of data on research studies and identify potential conflicts of interest, as well as seek opinions from experts you know and trust, before making or taking a health recommendation.

#VitalityPath

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