#novartis

Hier soir, alors que je terminais de travailler sur mes analyses, mes pensées s’attardèrent sur mon ami Alex, que je n’avais pas revu depuis un moment. Lorsque je voyais ce que je faisais et ce dans quoi il était engagé, je me demandais si ce n’était pas lui, au final, qui serait dans le sens de l’Histoire. Après tout, les monnaies fiduciaires perdaient de leur valeur et les cryptomonnaies, au contraire, avaient le vent en poupe. UBS menaçait de déplacer son siège aux États-Unis si les autorités fédérales s’entêtaient à lui exiger un renforcement de son capital. Mais, le problème: était-ce aux citoyens de supporter les risques que la banque faisait porter sur la population en cas de mauvaise gestion?

De plus, Roche et Novartis, à la suite de l’entrée en vigueur des droits de douane américaine de 39%, avaient annoncé le déplacement de leur production au pays de l’Oncle Sam.

Finalement, face à la politique néo-mercantiliste de Trump et aux incertitudes que cette politique faisait peser sur l’économie mondiale, le franc suisse s’était trop apprécié, ce qui impactait les industries exportatrices et accélérait l’érosion de la classe moyenne.

Dans tous les cas, les analyses d’Alex me semblaient pertinentes…

This week’s newsletter from AthensLive is out:

* Novartis scandal: An utterly failed mafia-style cover-up * “They shot him in the head” “Yes, but what was he doing blocking the library construction?” * They are capable of getting us into war even with Barbados

- are the main headlines to be found inside this highly informative weekly must-read from and about Greece.

An official FBI document included in the Novartis scandal file in Greece was reported as falsified in its Greek translation, to omit the names of two officials who were stated as bribed by the company. The student shot directly in the face with a stun grenade by a policeman has been, after all, very seriously injured. The Education Minister, instead of condemning the incident, justified lethal police violence against an unarmed civilian. Greek foreign policy seems in tatters. Iran seized two Greek-flagged tankers, following Greece’s seizure of an Iranian one at a US request. Tension escalated as Iran threatened to seize more Greek tankers. At the same time, Greek citizens are informed of crucial foreign policy decisions by foreign officials.

Add to these headlines and main features a lot more overview and details about a variety of aspects of Greece during the week - together with an abundance of links to further reading and to more knowledge about Greece today.

By reading the newsletter - and even better by subscribing or becoming a supporting member - you will also find a lot of links to other sources and to events and developments that you will not otherwise come across. And even if some of them are in Greek only, by using a Translator in your browser, it will be easy to read no matter how familiar you are with the Greek language.

It cannot be recommended strongly enough to read and share this week’s updates on the events and developments in Greece here:

https://us13.campaign-archive.com/?u=d4f2da07ebb5f5e4d14ad8e2d&id=9a0a6aba12 For anyone with a wish or need to follow and to gain an insight into recent events in Greece and to read and support independent and investigative journalism in English, the weekly newsletter from AthensLive should be a core element in the reading flow.

If you want the best overview of the events and developments in Greece right now, this is the place to go. Not the mainstream Greek news, but independent journalism with sharp analysis and links to interesting and important topics from a variety of sources.

Become a member and get the newsletter in your inbox every week here:

Spinal Muscular Atrophy, or SMA, is an often fatal degenerative disease that impacts babies and children by causing them to lose their strength and control in their skeletal muscles (the ones used for moving). Children lose the ability to breathe, to swallow, etc, despite their brains being unaffected. They will mentally mature at a normal rate, despite their body slowly collapses around them.

 It comes in several forms, but children with the most common form, type one, usually die in early childhood due to respiratory failure. People with type 0, the rarest and most severe form usually do not live past 6 months. Those with type 3 have an average lifespan into the twenties and thirties, and those with type four usually have normal-length lives, though not necessarily easy ones.  SMA affects approximately 1 per 8,000 to 10,000 people worldwide. 

This is all caused by a single gene- SMN1 (though it’s suspected severity may be impacted by another gene, SMN2).

There is, as yet, no cure.

However, there is an incredibly effective treatment that only has to be taken once and can save the lives of millions of babies all around the world.

This treatment is called Zolgensma, and it costs 2.15 million dollars.

A company known as Novartis bought the company that created Zolgensma and is selling it as the world’s most expensive drug… because they can. Novartis argues that since it’s a one-time treatment, it’s overall more cost-effective than many cumulative treatments. It was considering having the price go as high as 5 million, but they decided not to, because they’re just such nice people. 

This does not change the fact that most people cannot pay 2.1 million for a treatment, no matter how much they’d love to. And Novartis knows this. And while they could very easily recoup the price they paid to buy the drug (8.7 billion) if they lowered the cost a bit, they refuse to do that, because they’re assholes and quite frankly, they have no reason to.

But, you know, putting a price on human life and all isn’t good for business. Especially when that price is the most expensive single-dose treatment ever.

So they set up a lottery.

Babies with the condition are put into a lottery and of all the children, 100 a year are given the life-saving medication they need. 

Let’s repeat that, shall we?

Novartis knew that their 2.1M USD therapy for the largest killer of children under two was too expensive, so instead of making the price lower, they set up a lottery so that families can fight and suffer in the hopes that their child will be one of the 100 babies who gets to live.

And there’s still only limited data on how safe it actually is, having been approved in the US by the FDA after trials in only 68 children. 

This article doesn’t give us a “smoking gun,” but a couple of adages are popping up in my head. One, follow the money. Two, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. There has got to be some story behind trump’s obsession with hydroxychloroquine.

Excerpt from this story from Truthout:

President Donald Trump, for a number of weeks, has persistently pushed an antimalarial drug he claims could help patients suffering from the ill effects of coronavirus, even though there’s no scientific evidence backing its use for that purpose.

The drug in question, hydroxychloroquine, has been touted by some doctors overseas as being successful in treating symptoms and COVID-19 itself, but other studies have shown minimal evidence of its effectiveness. Trump’s own expert immunologist on his coronavirus task force has noted, those anecdotal findings lack scientific backing, and more research is needed.

“The data are really just at best suggestive,” Anthony Fauci said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday. “There have been cases that show there may be an effect … and there are others to show there’s no effect…. So I think in terms of science, I don’t think we could definitively … say it works.”

That didn’t stop Trump, however, hours after Fauci’s appearance on the program, from continuing to sing the drug’s praises during a press conference on Sunday.

“What do I know? I’m not a doctor,” Trump said. “But I have common sense. The FDA feels good about it; as you know, they approved it.”

The Food and Drug Administration has approved hydroxychloroquine for use by those suffering from malaria, as well as for some lupus patients. But the FDA has not confirmed that the drug is effective for use against coronavirus.

While no direct financial ties have been found linking Trump to the drug, some indirect ones are surfacing.