August, 03 2021, 02:01pm EDT
Biden Global Vaccination Response Needs Far Greater Ambition
U.S. Should Launch $25 Billion Manufacturing Program, Share Vaccine Recipes With the World
WASHINGTON
The White House announced today that it has shipped more than 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to other countries. Axios has also reported that the White House plans a global COVID response summit during the U.N. General Assembly in September. President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak about U.S. and global vaccination efforts this afternoon. Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Access to Medicines program, issued the following statement:
"Every dose helps. Yet 100 million doses amount to only one one-hundredth of the current global need.
"It is critically important that a global COVID summit be more than just PR. Biden has an opportunity to help launch an urgent global vaccine manufacturing, delivery and knowledge sharing program that can end the pandemic. Millions of people have lost their lives waiting for such desperately needed action.
"To do this, the U.S. government and countries worldwide must:
- Invest $25 billion to make eight billion vaccine doses in one year;
- Share knowledge and vaccine recipes to bring regional production hubs online;
- Waive intellectual property rules and call on Moderna and Pfizer to share vaccine recipes; and
- Immediately reallocate excess doses to COVAX.
"The president has said that the U.S. will serve as a vaccine arsenal for the world. Ten thousand people die each day waiting for ambitious action to match this vision."
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Report Shows How Recycling Is Largely a 'Toxic Lie' Pushed by Plastics Industry
"These corporations and their partners continue to sell the public a comforting lie to hide the hard truth: that we simply have to stop producing so much plastic," said one campaigner.
Dec 03, 2025
A report published Wednesday by Greenpeace exposes the plastics industry as "merchants of myth" still peddling the false promise of recycling as a solution to the global pollution crisis, even as the vast bulk of commonly produced plastics remain unrecyclable.
"After decades of meager investments accompanied by misleading claims and a very well-funded industry public relations campaign aimed at persuading people that recycling can make plastic use sustainable, plastic recycling remains a failed enterprise that is economically and technically unviable and environmentally unjustifiable," the report begins.
"The latest US government data indicates that just 5% of US plastic waste is recycled annually, down from a high of 9.5% in 2014," the publication continues. "Meanwhile, the amount of single-use plastics produced every year continues to grow, driving the generation of ever greater amounts of plastic waste and pollution."
Among the report's findings:
- Only a fifth of the 8.8 million tons of the most commonly produced types of plastics—found in items like bottles, jugs, food containers, and caps—are actually recyclable;
- Major brands like Coca-Cola, Unilever, and Nestlé have been quietly retracting sustainability commitments while continuing to rely on single-use plastic packaging; and
- The US plastic industry is undermining meaningful plastic regulation by making false claims about the recyclability of their products to avoid bans and reduce public backlash.
"Recycling is a toxic lie pushed by the plastics industry that is now being propped up by a pro-plastic narrative emanating from the White House," Greenpeace USA oceans campaign director John Hocevar said in a statement. "These corporations and their partners continue to sell the public a comforting lie to hide the hard truth: that we simply have to stop producing so much plastic."
"Instead of investing in real solutions, they’ve poured billions into public relations campaigns that keep us hooked on single-use plastic while our communities, oceans, and bodies pay the price," he added.
Greenpeace is among the many climate and environmental groups supporting a global plastics treaty, an accord that remains elusive after six rounds of talks due to opposition from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and other nations that produce the petroleum products from which almost all plastics are made.
Honed from decades of funding and promoting dubious research aimed at casting doubts about the climate crisis caused by its products, the petrochemical industry has sent a small army of lobbyists to influence global treaty negotiations.
In addition to environmental and climate harms, plastics—whose chemicals often leach into the food and water people eat and drink—are linked to a wide range of health risks, including infertility, developmental issues, metabolic disorders, and certain cancers.
Plastics also break down into tiny particles found almost everywhere on Earth—including in human bodies—called microplastics, which cause ailments such as inflammation, immune dysfunction, and possibly cardiovascular disease and gut biome imbalance.
A study published earlier this year in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated that plastics are responsible for more than $1.5 trillion in health-related economic losses worldwide annually—impacts that disproportionately affect low-income and at-risk populations.
As Jo Banner, executive director of the Descendants Project—a Louisiana advocacy group dedicated to fighting environmental racism in frontline communities—said in response to the new Greenpeace report, "It’s the same story everywhere: poor, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities turned into sacrifice zones so oil companies and big brands can keep making money."
"They call it development—but it’s exploitation, plain and simple," Banner added. "There’s nothing acceptable about poisoning our air, water, and food to sell more throwaway plastic. Our communities are not sacrifice zones, and we are not disposable people.”
Writing for Time this week, Judith Enck, a former regional administrator at the US Environmental Protection Agency and current president of the environmental justice group Beyond Plastics, said that "throwing your plastic bottles in the recycling bin may make you feel good about yourself, or ease your guilt about your climate impact. But recycling plastic will not address the plastic pollution crisis—and it is time we stop pretending as such."
"So what can we do?" Enck continued. "First, companies need to stop producing so much plastic and shift to reusable and refillable systems. If reducing packaging or using reusable packaging is not possible, companies should at least shift to paper, cardboard, glass, or metal."
"Companies are not going to do this on their own, which is why policymakers—the officials we elected to protect us—need to require them to do so," she added.
Although lawmakers in the 119th US Congress have introduced a handful of bills aimed at tackling plastic pollution, such proposals are all but sure to fail given Republican control of both the House of Representatives and Senate and the Trump administration's pro-petroleum policies.
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Platner 20 Points Ahead of Mills in Maine Senate Race as Critics Spotlight Her Anti-Worker Veto Record
The new poll, said the progressive candidate, “lays clear what our theory is, which is that we are not going to defeat Susan Collins running the same exact kind of playbook that we’ve run in the past."
Dec 03, 2025
It's been more than a month since a media firestorm over old Reddit posts and a tattoo thrust US Senate candidate Graham Platner into the national spotlight, just as Maine Gov. Janet Mills was entering the Democratic primary race in hopes of challenging Republican Sen. Susan Collins—a controversy that did not appear at the time to make a dent in political newcomer Platner's chances in the election.
On Wednesday, the latest polling showed that the progressive combat veteran and oyster farmer has maintained the lead that was reported in a number of surveys just after the national media descended on the New England state to report on his past online comments and a tattoo that some said resembled a Nazi symbol, which he subsequently had covered up.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), which endorsed Platner on Wednesday, commissioned the new poll, which showed him polling at 58% compared to Mills' 38%.
Nancy Zdunkewicz, a pollster with Z to A Polling, which conducted the survey on behalf of the PCCC, said the poll represented "really impressive early consolidation" for Platner, with the primary election still six months away.
“Platner isn’t just leading in the Democratic primary. He’s leading by a lot, 20 points—58% are supporting him,” Zdunkewicz told Zeteo. “Only 38% are supporting Mills. There are very few undecided voters or weak supporters for Mills to win over at this point in the race."
Platner has consistently spoken to packed rooms across Maine since launching his campaign in August, promoting a platform that is unapologetically focused on delivering affordability and a better quality of life for Mainers.
He supports expanding the popular Medicare program to all Americans; drew raucous applause at an early rally by declaring, “Our taxpayer dollars can build schools and hospitals in America, not bombs to destroy them in Gaza"; and has spoken in support of breaking up tech giants and a federal war crimes investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over his deadly boat strikes in the Caribbean.
Mills entered the race after Democratic leaders including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) urged her to. She garnered national attention earlier this year for standing up to President Donald Trump when he threatened federal funding for Maine over the state's policy of allowing students to play on school athletic teams that correspond with their gender.
But the PCCC survey found that when respondents learned details about each candidate, negative critiques of Mills were more damaging to her than Platner's old Reddit posts and tattoo.
Zdunkewicz disclosed Platner's recent controversy to the voters she surveyed, as well as his statements about how his views have shifted in recent years, and found that 21% of voters were more likely to back him after learning about his background. Thirty-nine percent said they were less likely to support him.
The pollster also talked to respondents about the fact that establishment Democrats pushed Mills, who is 77, to enter the race, and about a number of bills she has vetoed as governor, including a tax on the wealthy, a bill to set up a tracking system for rape kits, two bills to reduce prescription drug costs, and several bills promoting workers' rights.
Only 14% of Mainers said they were more likely to vote for Mills after learning those details, while 50% said they were less likely to support her.
At The Lever, Luke Goldstein on Wednesday reported that Mills' vetoes have left many with the "perception that she’s mostly concerned with business interests," as former Democratic Maine state lawmaker Andy O'Brien said. Corporate interests gave more than $200,000 to Mills' two gubernatorial campaigns.
Earlier this year, Mills struck down a labor-backed bill to allow farm workers to discuss their pay with one another without fear of retaliation. Last year, she blocked a bill to set a minimum wage for farm laborers, opposing a provision that would have allowed workers to sue their employers.
She also vetoed a bill banning noncompete agreements and one that would have banned anti-union tactics by corporations.
"In previous years," Goldstein reported, "she blocked efforts to stop employers from punishing employees who took state-guaranteed paid time off, killed a permitting reform bill to streamline offshore wind developments because it included a provision mandating union jobs, and vetoed a modest labor bill that would have required the state government to merely study the issue of paper mill workers being forced to work overtime without adequate compensation."
Speaking to PCCC supporters on Wednesday, Platner suggested the new polling shows that many Mainers agree with the central argument of his campaign: "We need to build power again for working people, both in Maine and nationally.”
The survey, he said, “lays clear what our theory is, which is that we are not going to defeat Susan Collins running the same exact kind of playbook that we’ve run in the past—which is an establishment politician supported by the power structures, supported by Washington, DC, coming up to Maine and trying to run a kind of standard race... We are really trying to build a grassroots movement up here."
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'Truth Is Not a Fireable Offense': Former EPA Staffers File Legal Challenge Over Terminations by Trump
“Federal employees have the right to speak out on matters of public concern in their personal capacities, even when they do so in dissent,” said one of the lawyers representing the fired workers.
Dec 03, 2025
Six former employees of the US Environmental Protection Agency filed a First Amendment challenge in court on Wednesday to their firing earlier this year for criticizing the Trump administration's environmental policies.
The employees were among 160 who were fired shortly after signing a "declaration of dissent" in June against EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, whom they said was “recklessly undermining” the agency’s mission and “ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters.”
In their claim before the US Merit Systems Protection Board, which adjudicates appeals from fired federal workers, the six employees argued that they were illegally fired for exercising their First Amendment right to free speech and that those firings were carried out in retaliation for their political affiliation.
The fired workers also argued that they arbitrarily received harsher treatment than many other employees who signed the letter, who were suspended without pay for two weeks.
According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), one of the groups defending the employees, many of them had lengthy, distinguished careers of federal service.
One of them, John Darling, was a senior research biologist who spent over two decades helping the EPA curb the damage to endangered aquatic species.
Another, Tom Luben, is an expert in environmental epidemiology who worked at the EPA for over 18 years investigating how air pollution can cause pregnancy complications, and had received 14 National Honor Awards for his contributions over the years.
A third, Missy Haniewicz, served for a decade and was working on hazardous waste cleanup projects at more than 20 sites across Utah at the time she was fired.
PEER provided an example of one of the termination notices the fired employees received. Both the names of the employee and the official who sent the notice were redacted, along with other identifying information.
The termination notice states that the individual was fired for "conduct unbecoming of a federal employee." Although the document notes the employee's "[years] of federal service, most recent distinguished performance rating, awards, and... lack of disciplinary history," it says all of that was outweighed by the “serious nature of your misconduct.”
"The agency is not required to tolerate actions from its employees that undermine the agency’s decisions, interfere with the agency’s operations and mission, and the efficient fulfillment of the agency’s responsibilities to the public," the notice adds. "As an EPA employee, you are required to maintain proper discipline and refrain from conduct that can adversely affect morale in the workplace, foster disharmony, and ultimately impede the efficiency of the agency."
The legal team defending the employee and their colleagues argues that this is untrue. They argue that these employees' terminations violate the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which says employees are "protected against arbitrary action, personal favoritism, or coercion for partisan political purposes." It also protects whistleblowers who publicize information they reasonably believe to be a violation of law, abuse of authority, or danger to public health and safety.
“Federal employees have the right to speak out on matters of public concern in their personal capacities, even when they do so in dissent,” says Joanna Citron Day, general counsel for PEER. “EPA is not only undermining the First Amendment’s free speech protections by trying to silence its own workforce, it is also placing US citizens in peril by removing experienced employees who are tasked with carrying out EPA’s critical mission.”
The second Trump administration has laid off approximately 300,000 federal civil servants over the past year, with some of them being carried out in apparent retaliation for dissent.
On Tuesday—after being briefly reinstated—14 employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were placed back on administrative leave for signing an open letter of dissent in August, warning that cuts to the agency were putting it at risk of similar failures to those after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
And weeks after over a thousand anonymous Department of Health and Human Services employees called for the resignation of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in September, accusing him of "placing the health of all Americans at risk," more than a thousand employees across the department were culled in what was dubbed a "Friday Night Massacre."
Eden Brown Gaines, whose law firm is also defending the employees, said, “If America is to remain on the course of democracy and honor the principles of its Constitution, we must allow its judicial system to restore employment for those unjustly fired and our collective faith in our country."
"Truth is not a fireable offense," PEER said in a statement.
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