December, 01 2011, 02:49pm EDT
On World AIDS Day, Sanders Demands Affordable Meds
On World Aids Day, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called on Congress to pass his legislation to dramatically lower the price of prescription drugs used to treat the disease.
WASHINGTON
On World Aids Day, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called on Congress to pass his legislation to dramatically lower the price of prescription drugs used to treat the disease.
Sanders cited the example of ATRIPLA, a three-drug regime that costs less than $200 to make but is sold in the United States for $24,000 a year. "If a treatment that is literally a matter of life and death for a person living with HIV/AIDS can be produced for a mere fraction of the average retail price, we must do everything possible to get people the medicine they need at a price they can afford," Sanders said.
Sanders recently introduced legislation to spur development of and enhance access to new HIV/AIDS medicines by rewarding innovation directly in order to get prices down as soon as innovative AIDS drugs hit the market.
By allowing patients to purchase generic versions of HIV/AIDS medicines, the bill would lower prices dramatically. In place of revenues from high prices for prescription medicine, the innovator of the product would be awarded substantial monetary reward from a special prize fund. The legislation would eliminate the monopoly barriers that keep drug prices sky-high and allow those living with HIV and those suffering from AIDS to access the most effective treatments right away.
Patents would no longer be used to block generic competition. Instead, they would be used as a claim on significant prize funds for real innovation. The Prize Fund for HIV/AIDS would replace monopoly control of the HIV/AIDS treatment marketplace with a rationally administered prize fund of more than $3 billion that would be awarded based on the therapeutic advantages of new treatments. The cost of this fund would be easily offset by the savings to consumers, private insurers and government insurance programs, which now spend $9.1 billion on HIV/AIDS medicines every year.
More than 1 million people in the United States are living with HIV. Each year, another 56,000 Americans are infected with HIV and 18,000 more people die from AIDS in the U.S. Although medicines can slow or even halt the advance of HIV, many Americans diagnosed as HIV positive are not taking the medicine they need because they can't afford to buy the prescriptions.
Moreover, funding shortfalls for federal- and state-subsidized AIDS drug-assistance programs, however, have caused waiting lists to grow. A list that was whittled down to 361 people a year ago grew to 6,595 people in 12 states as of last month. Many more are simply being thrown off the waiting lists due to stiffer eligibility requirements.
"Let's be clear, the big winners under the current system have been the pharmaceutical companies. The current challenge is to make access to treatment sustainable for more than a million persons in the U.S. and tens of millions of people in developing countries. The prize fund approach will not only do that but will also stimulate innovation," Sanders said.
To read the bill, click here.
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Romney Admits Push to Ban TikTok Is Aimed at Censoring News Out of Gaza
A conversation between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Republican senator offered an "incredible historical document" showing how the U.S. views its role in the Middle East.
May 06, 2024
A discussion between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Sen. Mitt Romney over the weekend included what one critic called an "incredible mask-off moment," with the two officials speaking openly about the U.S. government's long-term attempts to provide public relations work for Israel in defense of its policies in the occupied Palestinian territories—and its push to ban TikTok in order to shut down Americans' access to unfiltered news about the Israeli assault on Gaza.
At the Sedona Forum in Sedona, Arizona on Friday, the Utah Republican asked Blinken at the McCain Institute event's keynote conversation why Israel's "PR been so awful" as it's bombarded Gaza since October in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, killing at least 34,735 Palestinians—the majority women and children—and pushing parts of the enclave into a famine that is expected to spread due to Israel's blockade.
"The world is screaming about Israel, why aren't they screaming about Hamas?" asked Romney. "'Accept a cease-fire, bring home the hostages.' Instead it's the other way around, I mean, typically the Israelis are good at PR. What's happened here? How have they, and we, been so ineffective at communicating the realities there?"
Blinken replied that Americans, two-thirds of whom want the Biden administration to push for a permanent cease-fire and 57% of whom disapprove of President Joe Biden's approach to the war, are "on an intravenous feed of information with new impulses, inputs every millisecond."
"And of course the way this has played out on social media has dominated the narrative," said the secretary of state. "We can't discount that, but I think it also has a very, very challenging effect on the narrative."
Romney suggested that banning TikTok would quiet the growing outrage over Israeli atrocities in the United States.
"Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down, potentially, TikTok or other entities of that nature," said Romney. "If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts."
The interview took place amid a growing anti-war movement on college campuses across the U.S. and around the world, with American police forces responding aggressively to protests at which students have demanded higher education institutions divest from companies that contract with Israel and that the U.S. stop funding the Israel Defense Forces.
Right-wing lawmakers and commentators have suggested students have been indoctrinated by content shared on social media platforms including TikTok and Instagram, and wouldn't be protesting otherwise.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who co-sponsored a recent bill to ban TikTok—included in a foreign aid package that Biden signed late last month—said last week that "there has been a coordinated effort off these college campuses, and that you have outside paid agitators and activists."
"It also highlights exactly why we included the TikTok bill in the foreign supplemental aid package because you're seeing how these kids are being manipulated by certain groups or entities or countries to foment hate on their behalf and really create a hostile environment here in the U.S.," said Lawler.
Social media has provided the public with an unvarnished look at the scale of Israel's attack, with users learning the stories of Gaza residents including six-year-old Hind Rajab, 10-year-old Yazan Kafarneh, and victims who have been found in mass graves and seeing the destruction of hospitals, universities, and other civilian infrastructure.
U.S. college students, however, are far from the only people who have expressed strong opposition to Israel's slaughter of Palestinian civilians and large-scale destruction of Gaza as it claims to be targeting Hamas.
Human rights groups across the globe have demanded an end to the Biden administration's support for Israel's military and called on the U.S. president to use his leverage to end the war. Josep Borrell, the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, in February lambasted Biden and other Western leaders for claiming concern about the safety of Palestinians while continuing to arm Israel, and leaders in Spain and Ireland have led calls for an arms embargo on the country. The United Nations' top expert on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories said in March that there are "reasonable grounds" to conclude Israel has committed genocidal acts, two months after the International Court of Justice made a similar statement in an interim ruling.
Romney and Blinken didn't mention in their talk whether they believe social media and bad "PR" have pushed international leaders and experts to make similar demands to those of college students.
The conversation, saidIntercept journalist Ryan Grim, was an "incredible historical document" showing how the U.S. government views its role in the Middle East—as a government that should "mediate" between Israel and the public to keep people from having "a direct look at what's happening."
"Romney's comments betray a general bipartisan disinterest in engaging Israel's conduct in Gaza on its own terms, preferring instead to complain about protesters, interrogate university presidents, and, apparently, muse about social media's role in boosting pro-Palestinian activism," wrote Ben Metzner at The New Republic. "As Israel moves closer to a catastrophic invasion of Rafah, having already banned Al Jazeera in the country, Romney and Blinken would be wise to consider whether TikTok is the real problem."
Enterpreneur James Rosen-Birch added that "Mitt Romney flat-out asking Antony Blinken, in public, why the United States is not doing a better job manufacturing consent, is wild."
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'This Is a Crime Against Humanity': 600,000 Children in Line of Fire as IDF Moves on Rafah
"We had already run out of words to describe how catastrophic the situation is in Rafah—but this next chapter will take it to indescribable new levels," said Save the Children International's CEO.
May 06, 2024
Humanitarian organizations and United Nations officials are warning that the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children—nearly all of whom are sick, injured, or malnourished—are in grave danger as Israeli forces on Monday moved to forcibly evacuate the overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah ahead of an expected ground invasion.
An estimated 600,000 children are believed to be sheltering in Rafah in terrible conditions and under the near-constant threat of Israeli airstrikes, which rocked the city and killed dozens of people—including at least eight kids—hours before the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued its evacuation directives.
"They're being told to move, quote unquote, to a 'humanitarian zone.' That's a unilaterally declared humanitarian zone," James Elder, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said in a BBC appearance Monday. "That's not a humanitarian zone where humanitarians have been able to provide the services they need to. I've been talking to colleagues and friends in Rafah this morning, and they're terrified."
"Nowhere is safe," said Elder. "But as unbearable as this is, it's happening and it's going to be horrific."
"Its going to be horrific"
James Elder from UNICEF on Israel ordering people in Rafah to move.
When will our journalists start calling this what it is? pic.twitter.com/hYMQWyQss2
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 6, 2024
Threatening "extreme force" in the area, the Israeli military on Monday ordered roughly 100,000 people in the eastern part of Rafah to move west to Al-Mawasi, a town on Gaza's southern coast. Humanitarian groups said Al-Mawasi doesn't have anywhere near sufficient infrastructure to house displaced people from Rafah and stressed that nowhere in Gaza is safe as long as Israel continues its bombing campaign.
Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International, said in response to the IDF's directives that "for weeks we have been warning there is no feasible evacuation plan to lawfully displace and protect civilians."
"For weeks, we have been warning of the devastating consequences this will have for children and our ability to assist them in an already straight-jacketed response. For weeks, we have been calling for preventive action," Ashing continued. "Instead, the international community has looked away. They cannot look away now."
"The announced incursion will not only risk the lives of over 600,000 children but will at best disrupt and at worst cause the collapse of the humanitarian aid response currently struggling to keep Gaza’s population alive," she added. "Forcibly displacing people from Rafah while further disrupting the aid response will likely seal the fate of many children. We had already run out of words to describe how catastrophic the situation is in Rafah—but this next chapter will take it to indescribable new levels."
"History will judge all of those who are complicit in what is being done to Palestinians in Gaza. It must end now."
Roughly 1.4 million people, many of them already displaced multiple times since October, are currently sheltering in Rafah, which Israel's military has been threatening to invade for months amid faltering cease-fire talks with Hamas.
Reutersreported that in the wake of the IDF's evacuation order, "some loaded children and possessions onto donkey carts, some packed into cars, others simply walked" in the hopes of escaping Israel's ground assault.
"People have nowhere to go, no area is safe. All that remains in Gaza is death," Mohammed Al-Najjar, a 23-year-old man with family in Rafah, told the news agency. "I wish I could erase these last seven months from my memory. So many of our dreams and hopes have faded."
According to UNICEF, around 65,000 children in Rafah have a preexisting disability—including seeing, hearing, and walking difficulties—and nearly 80,000 are infants. Roughly 8,000 children under the age of two in Rafah are acutely malnourished.
"The 'evacuation' of Rafah is illegal," said Heidi Matthews, an assistant professor of law at the Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. "There are no 'humanitarian' or 'safe zones.' Civilians are being forcibly displaced to areas totally unsuitable to human habitation. This is a crime against humanity."
The Biden administration, which has supported Israel's war on Gaza from the start, has expressed opposition to a Rafah ground invasion absent a credible plan to keep civilians out of harm's way. On Monday, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said that "we continue to believe that a hostage deal is the best way to preserve the lives of the hostages, and avoid an invasion of Rafah, where more than a million people are sheltering."
The spokesperson said U.S. President Joe Biden plans to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at some unspecified point on Monday.
Mike Merryman-Lotze, just peace global policy director at the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), said in a statement Monday that "the Biden administration has spoken against the invasion of Rafah but continues to send billions of dollars in weapons to Israel for its genocidal campaign."
"Any invasion will only bring countless more deaths and exacerbate the risk of famine that is already high because Israel continues to block most humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. President Biden and all elected officials must act now to stop this invasion, demand a permanent and complete cease-fire, and end all arms transfers to Israel."
CNNreported Sunday that the Biden administration decided to pause a shipment of U.S.-made ammunition to Israel, but an unnamed official told the outlet that the hold was "not connected to a potential Israeli operation in Rafah and doesn't affect other shipments moving forward."
Medical Aid for Palestinians, an advocacy group based in the United Kingdom,
said Monday that "the international community knows that this invasion will be a catastrophe."
"The killing of civilians will accelerate and much more of Gaza's remaining infrastructure will be destroyed," the group said. "History will judge all of those who are complicit in what is being done to Palestinians in Gaza. It must end now."
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'Unlawful and Catastrophic': IDF Begins Forced Evacuation of Rafah
The head of one humanitarian group called the Israeli military's directives "a serious violation of international law."
May 06, 2024
Israel's army on Monday ordered roughly 100,000 people living in eastern Rafah to evacuate ahead of an imminent military assault on the area, terrifying families who have been forcibly displaced to the southern Gaza city in recent months and intensifying warnings of a bloodbath.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) dropped leaflets over Rafah ordering some of its 1.4 million residents to move to a strip along Gaza's coast, a signal that a long-feared ground assault on the overcrowded city is set to begin in the face of vocal opposition from the international community and humanitarian organizations.
The U.S., Israel's top arms supplier, has said it would oppose a Rafah assault without a credible plan to evacuate civilians from the city. Humanitarian groups and analysts have said such a plan is impossible because there is no genuinely safe place for Gazans to go. Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked so-called "safe zones" and designated routes Palestinians have used to flee in compliance with past IDF orders.
"Israel's military offensive in Rafah could lead to the deadliest phase of this conflict, inflicting horrific suffering on approximately 1.4 million displaced civilians in the area," said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. "The relocation orders issued by Israel today to thousands of Gazans, directing them to move to Al-Mawasi, are beyond alarming. The area is already overstretched and devoid of vital services. It lacks the capacity to house the number of people currently seeking refuge in Rafah, with no assurances of safety, proper accommodation, or return once hostilities end for those forced to relocate."
"The absence of these fundamental guarantees of safety and return, as required by international humanitarian law, qualifies Israel's relocation directives as forcible transfer, amounting to a serious violation of international law," Egeland said. "Any Israeli military operation in Rafah—which has become the largest cluster of displacement camps in the world—will cause potential mass atrocities."
"If large-scale military operations start, not only will children be at risk from the violence, but also from chaos and panic, and at a time where their physical and mental states are already weakened."
Israel
reportedly notified the U.S. of the evacuation orders overnight, and CIA Director William Burns is set to arrive in Israel on Monday to discuss the operation in Rafah, a city along Gaza's border with Egypt that has become a critical point of entry for humanitarian aid. The new evacuation orders, expected to be just the first round of directives, include Rafah's largest medical facility.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the main relief agency in Gaza, said in response to the IDF's orders that it would not leave Rafah.
"An Israeli offensive in Rafah would mean more civilian suffering and deaths. The consequences would be devastating for 1.4 million people," the organization wrote in a social media post. "UNRWA is not evacuating: The agency will maintain a presence in Rafah as long as possible and will continue providing lifesaving aid to people."
BREAKING: #Israel drops leaflets over #Rafah southern #Gaza, ordering inhabitants of eastern Rafah to immediately move to Al Mawasi (a desolate strip along the Gaza coast), cautioning them from moving to north Gaza or towards its southern and eastern perimeter fence. pic.twitter.com/tBum9ULewF
— Itay Epshtain (@EpshtainItay) May 6, 2024
The far-right Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been threatening a ground invasion of Rafah for months, characterizing the city as Hamas' last major stronghold. Avichay Adraee, an IDF lieutenant colonel, said Monday that the Israeli military would use "extreme force" in the evacuation areas and warned that "anyone who is close to terrorist organizations puts his life and the life of his family at risk."
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), around 600,000 children are currently sheltering in the city, including many who have been displaced multiple times since Israel's assault began in October following a Hamas-led attack.
"More than 200 days of war have taken an unimaginable toll on the lives of children," Catherine Russell, UNICEF's executive director, said Monday. "Rafah is now a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza. If large-scale military operations start, not only will children be at risk from the violence, but also from chaos and panic, and at a time where their physical and mental states are already weakened.”
Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, called the IDF's evacuation push in Rafah "unlawful and catastrophic."
"There's nowhere safe to go in Gaza," Shakir added. "The international community should act to prevent further atrocities."
The IDF began issuing its evacuation orders in Rafah a day after the Netanyahu government voted to shut downAl Jazeera's operations in the country, a brazen attack on press freedom.
"The fact that Israel banned
Al Jazeera hours before beginning its assault on Rafah is not a coincidence," said author and Middle East analyst Assal Rad. "After everything we’ve seen in the last seven months, imagine what they'll do when they think no one is watching."
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