Buried deep (Page A-21) within the dead tree edition of the New York Times today is a scandal far more deserving of outrage than the latest Ukraine-gate drama:
A critical drug that serves as the backbone of treatment for most childhood cancers, including leukemias, lymphomas and brain tumors, has become increasingly scarce, and doctors are warning that they may soon be forced to consider rationing doses.
Persistent shortages of certain drugs and medical supplies have plagued the United States for years, but physicians say the loss of this medication, vincristine, is uniquely problematic, as there is no appropriate substitute.
Could there, I wondered, have been recent blight of the periwinkle plant (Vinca), whose toxic alkaloids are used for the drug's manufacture?
No. The only blight in play is on the moral compass of Big Pharma, whose ultimate aim is not to cure diseases, but to bloat their stock prices, enrich their investors and reward their CEOs, both with outrageous salaries and golden parachutes when they retire.
Of course, the Times puts it a bit more delicately than that, only noting that Trump's Food and Drug Administration tersely announced that Teva, the drug's manufacturer, had made a "business decision" last July to stop manufacturing vincristine. The only remaining manufacturer is Pfizer, which is experiencing some vague "manufacturing troubles" of its own and can't keep up with demand.
There are shortages not only of vincristine, but also of about 200 other drugs, including standard antibiotics and injectable vaccines, including the one for rabies. The generic vincristine is the gold standard of treatment for pediatric cancers, including for lymphoblastomic leukemia (which currently has an 85 percent cure rate) along with lymphomas and brain and kidney tumors.
The oncologists interviewed for the Times article describe themselves as terrified at the looming "nightmare situation" of rationing medication, reducing dosages, or even facing a "Sophie's Choice" of which children will be treated and which children will simply be allowed to die.
This situation is not new. In a 2013 survey run by the New England Journal of Medicine, 83 percent of oncologists reported they had been unable to prescribe their first-choice chemotherapy drugs because of shortages, and either had to prescribe less effective alternatives or delay treatment.
What the Times doesn't report about Teva, the Israel-based multinational generic drug company that so abruptly stopped manufacturing Vincristine, is that it is also one of the six major firms now facing billions of dollars in liabilities because of its very lucrative and possibly criminal involvement in the manufacture of opioids for worldwide distribution.
Although Teva refused to comment to the Times about so heartlessly leaving kids with cancer in the lurch, you wouldn't know from its glossy glitzy website that it even had a problem. It brags to potential investors that its idea of helping patients is practically unique among other providers of life-saving medicines. (Because it stresses the money-saving over the life-saving aspects?) While it also correctly points to having left its "unique footprint" on world markets, what it modestly omits is that this footprint is literally crushing the life and the hope out of thousands of young cancer patients and their families:
As the world’s leading provider of generic pharmaceuticals, Teva’s medicines help patients and consumers in a way that few other companies can.
Teva produces 120 billion tablets and capsules a year in 70 pharmaceutical and API facilities around the world. Teva has a leadership position (top 3) in 25 markets globally. The scale and breadth of our generics portfolio has an unprecedented impact on global healthcare. Teva’s exceptional integration of generics and specialty R&D enables us to generate a robust pipeline of high-value medicines, with an emphasis on complex and branded generics. Our R&D capabilities have expanded beyond tablets, capsules, liquids, ointments and creams to a broad range of effective dosage forms and delivery systems.Teva has a unique understanding of - and footprint in - world markets, where our generic medicines are tailored to the needs of local patients, physicians and consumers. We also have an unparalleled ability to partner in commercializing generic products. Building on a remarkable track record of achievement, Teva continues to pursue a rich future in generics as we focus on patient needs, improving compliance, convenience, efficacy and safety, and providing affordable generic products to patients and society worldwide.
Since this is America, and American-style neoliberal capitalism has sickened the entire planet while a few plutocrats and corporations have gotten filthy rich, we can look for Master of the Universe Jeff Bezos to now swoop in like a vulture and make a killing off the backs of sick people, including sick and dying children. As Investopedia reported last month:
The worst-case scenario for drug companies may not be the cost of lawsuits. In August, Morgan Stanley analysts argued that the opioid settlements could present an opportunity for e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc to steamroll its way into the market as it's done in other areas. "If distributors face increased regulation as a byproduct of any settlement, the cost of doing business would go up, making it easier for a fourth competitor such as Amazon to enter the marketplace, " wrote analyst Ricky Goldwasser.
So I hope that when the Democratic candidates are asked to dish on one another's scandals at tonight's "debate," Bernie Sanders will pipe up and again point to the real scandal of how our greedy, for-profit, market-based health care delivery systems are literally killing the same people who they merely pretend to help.
We have a choice: Medicare For All, or the prospect of having Alexa administer your child's chemo at the sweltering Amazon Fulfillment Center nearest you.
There's the Cult of Trump, which used to be known as the Republican Party.
There's the "resistance" Gentry Party, which still insists upon calling itself the Democratic Party, despite its having little to do with ordinary people.
And then there's the Empire of Amazon, whose ruler Jeff Bezos is coming ever closer to his goal of conquering and controlling not only the corrupt US duopoly but the whole planet and even outer space. It's no wonder that Wannabe World Dictator Donald Trump can't stand him. Not only is Bezos the richest man in the world, he's rubbing it in by horning in on Trump's old stomping ground, the outer borough of Queens, New York.
While Trump got rich from his father's enterprise of bilking poor tenants in his rundown buildings (when he wasn't refusing to rent to them because of their skin color), Bezos aims to constructively evict them with the placement of one of his "secondary" headquarters in Long Island City. Not only will the residents be expelled sooner rather than later, they'll also be parted from their dwindling funds sooner rather than later, via the estimated $3 billion in public subsidies which the Gentry Party elders have promised him. This includes a pricey new helipad. Because if there is one thing our modern-day oligarchs need, it's the ability to stay above the fray and make a fast getaway in case the dispossessed rabble gets too irate. That, too, will happen sooner rather than later.
Trump is probably kicking himself with bilious envy. It was his monstrous tax giveaway to the obscenely rich, after all, which designated the already-gentrifying Queens neighborhood an "opportunity zone" for investors to set up shop and either enslave or expel the existing denizens as the whim grabs them.
This assault by Bezos is so Trumpily egregious, in fact, that the more progressive upstarts in the Gentry Party are making a stink about it. It certainly doesn't help the Gentries that New York State is now entirely ruled by the Democratic Party and therefore, liberal pols will no longer have the nasty old Republicans to blame if and when Bezos gets his way.
But at least they'll put on a show of resistance to prove to their constituents that they care, even as they feebly explain that "nobody could ever have predicted" that Amazon had any designs on the Empire State. Just because the Gentries stealthily had offered Bezos incentives in the billions of dollars to please, please, please pick them as the big winners doesn't make the corruption a completely done deal, at least not quite yet.
As CNBC reports:
Local Democrats, with a few high-profile exceptions, swiftly criticized Amazon. They raised concerns about cost of living increases, a potential lack of benefit to local community members and state tax incentives going to a large corporation rather than residents. The response sets up a political clash for Amazon — a company that has had no shortage of battles with officials as it extends its reach across the country and globe.
Democratic Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who will represent parts of Queens and the Bronx starting in January, said early Tuesday that her future constituents raised concerns about the Amazon offices. In a series of tweets, she called it "extremely concerning" that Amazon would get tax breaks "when our subway is crumbling and our communities need MORE investment, not less."
And that, of course, is why the constituents will pay for a helipad for the world's richest oligarch. He doesn't ride the subways.
Ocasio-Cortez rather tepidly added in a tweet that "we need to focus on good healthcare, living wages, affordable rent" and that "corporations that offer none of those thing should be met w/skepticism" while insisting she is not trying to "pick a fight."
That's a little too kind. The Queens residents of one of the country's largest public housing projects aren't doubtful or skeptical. They're frightened, they're broke, and they're outraged.
The hearty partiers of the Gentry, meanwhile, point to the derelict conditions of the housing in question, in probable anticipation of the sad need for them to eventually just tear it all down to make room for all that sacrosanct progress in the name of progress. Therefore, the main improvements which the government plans to make are not mold amelioration, or guaranteeing heat and hot water to the tenants.
It's installing millions of dollars' worth of new surveillance cameras and security lighting.
The Gentries are refusing to divulge the totality of the Trump-like corrupt wheeling and dealing that has gone into the Bezos bribery scheme. It's none of the public's damned business how they conduct their shady business. But I wouldn't be surprised if one of the incentives was awarding Bezos the no-bid contract to spy on the poor via all that Amazonian surveillance technology as they await their eviction orders from the Panopticon. The oligarchs always try to squeeze every last dime from the indigent before disposing of them, whether the destination be a private prison or the streets... or the morgue.
The lips of the Gentries, most notably those of Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill "Tale of Two Cities" de Blasio, remain stubbornly pursed as regards the power of the purse.
Or, as the New York Times more squeamishly puts it: "It is still unknown what financial incentives city and state officials may have offered Amazon or what, if any concessions, they have extracted from the company to help the neighborhood."
The idea that corporations and billionaires are ever extracted from is really kind of quaint. But getting the Times to admit this would be like pulling teeth. This is the same establishment mouthpiece that just hosted a Luxury Conference for transnational oligarchs. The Times and its advertisers and corporate partners are so resistant to Trumpian kitsch, which has given such a bad tasteless name to unbridled hedonism, that they had to jet all the way to Hong Kong to bitch and moan among themselves.
The theme of this year's confab was, appropriately enough, The New Luxury World (Dis) Order:
This November, Vanessa Friedman and The New York Times brought together top C.E.O.s, policy makers, entrepreneurs, celebrities and thought leaders at the annual International Luxury Conference in Hong Kong.
In these tumultuous times of rapid political and economic change, unpredictability is constant and competitive forces necessitate taking bold chances. Luxury’s decision makers are facing challenges that continue to transform their industry — from constant technological evolution to a dramatic shift in the retail world, to what’s next for China, India and the West to the pervasive demand for transparency and moral equity.
Through provocative interviews with powerful and influential figures, Friedman and her colleagues explored how luxury companies can win in a world where the only constant is change, and the biggest risk is taking no risk at all.
Thomas Frank already wrote a great book about these awful people. Published in 2012, it's called Pity the Billionaire. And needless to say, the Times gave it a rotten review. If you scathingly and hilariously criticize pathocratic rich people, it simply proves that you are a jealous grouch, wrote the reviewer. And then if you dare criticize the great Barack Obama, who so nobly "gave us health care" and "tough new financial protections for consumers" it makes you even more of an ungrateful envious wretch. Rise of the American Oligarchy? No such-a thing!
And then along came Trump. Along came Bezos. But nobody could ever have predicted....
We will not go gentrified into that good night.
