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For Immediate Release
September, 22 2021, 02:57pm EDT
Contact:
Mike Stankiewicz, mstankiewicz@citizen.org
Biden's COVID Summit Will Not Meet This Moment
Today, President Joe Biden is convening a virtual COVID-19 summit with world leaders, where he is expected to announce that the U.S. will purchase 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to donate to low- and middle-income countries. Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Access to Medicines program, issued the following statement:
WASHINGTON
Today, President Joe Biden is convening a virtual COVID-19 summit with world leaders, where he is expected to announce that the U.S. will purchase 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to donate to low- and middle-income countries. Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Access to Medicines program, issued the following statement:
"This summit deserves to be, needs to be, a debate of historic dimensions. Wealthy nations are using up the world's vaccine supply, and developing nations are suffering and losing thousands of people every day. It is a fight over access to medicine and the basic right of countries to equip their own pandemic defense.
"But it won't be that kind of debate, and that is deeply disappointing. The summit plan is for a long afternoon of videos, many of them recorded in advance. The hosts are unlikely to be significantly challenged by developing country governments and people at risk of losing their families. This means, as important as the summit is to corral further commitments, it will not produce the transformative response needed to end the pandemic.
"Ending the pandemic is a choice. Leaders at today's summit have yet to make that choice. The White House still has not mobilized all its resources to expand vaccine manufacturing and protect millions more lives that may be lost. Purchasing doses for donation sometime next year is helpful, but it does not meaningfully expand the global supply, and it is not justice.
"The U.S. government has the recipe for the world's most effective COVID-19 vaccine, NIH-Moderna, and can share this knowledge to help make billions more doses in the year ahead. The World Health Organization has established an mRNA manufacturing hub in South Africa and will need far more ambitious support than wealthy countries have offered so far. The U.S. must work with South Africa and other nations among the 100-plus supporters to conclude negotiations in the next weeks of a temporary intellectual property waiver at the World Trade Organization.
"The alternative is to accept enduring pandemic dystopia, in which developing country health agencies are forced to compete for the purchase of scarce and less effective vaccines, with attendant breakthrough infections, death, variants and a longer pandemic for everyone, everywhere."
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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'Civilized People Do Not Starve Children to Death': Sanders Rips Israel's Gaza Aid Blockade
"What we are seeing now is a slow, brutal process of mass starvation and death by the denial of basic necessities," the senator said, calling for an end to U.S. complicity in the humanitarian disaster.
May 08, 2025
"Today marks 68 days and counting since ANY humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza. For more than nine weeks, Israel has blocked all supplies: no food, no water, no medicine, and no fuel."
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) not only highlighted those conditions in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday but also called out the fact that the worsening humanitarian crisis "gets very little discussion here in the nation's capital or in the halls of Congress," even though Israel has spent the past 19 months destroying Gaza with armed and diplomatic support from the United States.
"Hundreds of truckloads of lifesaving supplies are waiting to enter Gaza, sitting just across the border, but are denied entry by Israeli authorities," Sanders pointed out, echoing the U.S. nonprofit World Central Kitchen, which said Wednesday that it "no longer has the supplies to cook meals or bake bread," but "our trucks—loaded with food and supplies—are waiting in Egypt, Jordan, and Israel, ready to enter Gaza."
The senator took aim at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Palestinian territory, and key members of his administration.
"There is no ambiguity here: Netanyahu's extremist government talks openly about using humanitarian aid as a weapon," Sanders declared. "Defense Minister Israel Katz said, 'Israel's policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers.'"
"The time is long overdue for us to end our support for Netanyahu's destruction of the Palestinian people."
Noting that Israel's actions run afoul of U.S. and international law, Sanders said: "Starving children to death as a weapon of war is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, the Foreign Assistance Act, and basic human decency. Civilized people do not starve children to death. What is going on in Gaza is a war crime, committed openly and in broad daylight, and continuing every single day."
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the Israeli assault on Gaza has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians. According to local officials, at least 57 Palestinians have died from malnutrition and a lack of adequate medical care. Many more are struggling to find food and water, particularly since Israel ramped up its blockade on March 2.
"With Israel having cut off all aid, what we are seeing now is a slow, brutal process of mass starvation and death by the denial of basic necessities. This is methodical, it is intentional, it is the stated policy of the Netanyahu government," said Sanders. "Without fuel, there is no ability to pump fresh water, leaving people increasingly desperate, unable to find clean water to drink, or wash with, or cook properly. Disease is once again spreading in Gaza."
Families in Gaza "are now surviving on scarce canned goods," and "the starvation hits children hardest," the senator continued. "With no infant formula, and with malnourished mothers unable to breastfeed, many infants are also at severe risk of death."
"What is going on in Gaza today is a manmade nightmare," one that "will be a permanent stain on the world's collective conscience," he said. "History will never forget that we allowed this to happen and, for us here in the United States, that we, in fact, enabled this ongoing atrocity."
Sanders has moved to block some U.S. weapons sales under both the Biden and second Trump administrations, but his efforts have not garnered enough support in Congress to succeed. Still, people across the United States and around the world have condemned the Israeli assault on Gaza as genocide—and Israel faces a case on the subject at the International Court of Justice.
The senator spotlighted Israel's latest plan for Gaza, Operation Gideon's Chariots, which involves "conquering" and indefinitely occupying the territory, and ethnically cleansing the region of its Palestinian inhabitants, who would be force into the south.
"This would be a terrible tragedy, no matter where in the world it was happening or why it was happening—whatever the causes of it might be. But what makes this tragedy so much worse for us in America is that it is our government, the United States government, that is absolutely complicit in creating and sustaining this humanitarian disaster," he said.
"It didn't just happen," Sanders emphasized. "Last year alone, the United States provided $18 billion in military aid to Israel. This year, the Trump administration has approved $12 billion more in bombs and weapons."
For months, U.S. President Donald Trump "has offered blanket support for Netanyahu," the senator said. "More than that, he has repeatedly said that the United States will actually take over Gaza after the war, that the Palestinian people will be driven—forcibly expelled—from their homeland, and the United States will redevelop it into what Trump calls 'the Riviera of the Middle East,' a playground for billionaires."
Citing unnamed sources, Reutersreported Wednesday that "the United States and Israel have discussed the possibility of Washington leading a temporary post-war administration of Gaza," sparking global criticism and comparisons to the U.S. misadventures in Iraq in the early 2000s.
US, Israel discuss possible US-led administration for Gaza Yes, cause the American occupation in Iraq famously went really well www.reuters.com/world/middle...
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— Nick Cunningham (@nickcunningham.bsky.social) May 7, 2025 at 11:55 AM
"This war has killed or injured more than 170,000 people in Gaza. It has cost American taxpayers well over $20 billion in the last year. And right now, as we speak, thousands of children are starving to death," Sanders detailed. "And the U.S. president is actively encouraging the ethnic cleansing of over 2 million people."
"Given that reality, one might think that there would be a vigorous discussion right here in the Senate: Do we really want to spend billions of taxpayer dollars starving children in Gaza?" the senator bellowed. "You tell me why spending billions of dollars to support Netanyahu's war and starving children in Gaza is a good idea. I'd love to hear it."
Sanders then made the case that the U.S. Senate isn't having that debate "because we have a corrupt campaign finance system" that allows organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to set the agenda in Washington, D.C. He pointed to AIPAC and its super political action committee spending over $100 million in the latest election cycle.
"And the fact is that, if you are a member of Congress and you vote against Netanyahu's war in Gaza, AIPAC is there to punish you with millions of dollars in advertisements to see that you're defeated," he said. "Sadly, I must confess, that this political corruption works. Many of my colleagues will privately express their horror at Netanyahu's war crimes, but will do or say very little publicly about it."
"The time is long overdue for us to end our support for Netanyahu's destruction of the Palestinian people. We must not put another nickel into Netanyahu's war machine," he concluded. "We must demand an immediate cease-fire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of the hostages, and the rebuilding of Gaza—not for billionaires to enjoy their Riviera there, but rebuilding Gaza for the Palestinian people."
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'Assault on Children': UNRWA Condemns Israeli Raids on East Jerusalem Schools
"Now, nearly 800 girls and boys—some as young as 6 years old—are left in shock and trauma."
May 08, 2025
Israeli occupation forces enforced a ban on the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees on Thursday by storming three schools in East Jerusalem, terrorizing children and staff as they shuttered the facilities and drawing condemnation from human rights defenders.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, heavily armed Israeli security forces raided the schools in the Shu'fat refugee camp in illegally occupied East Jerusalem, detaining one UNRWA employee and forcing around 550 children out of their classrooms as the invaders closed the facilities.
"As a result, UNRWA was forced to evacuate all children across the six schools it runs in East Jerusalem," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said. "Now, nearly 800 girls and boys—some as young as 6 years old—are left in shock and trauma."
"Storming schools and forcing them shut is a blatant disregard of international law," Lazzarini added. "These schools are inviolable premises of the United Nations. By enforcing closure orders issued last month, the Israeli authorities are denying Palestinian children their basic right to learn. UNRWA schools must continue to be open to safeguard an entire generation of children."
The International Court of Justice—which is also weighing a genocide case against Israel over the U.S.-backed Gaza onslaught—is considering whether the Israeli government's ban on UNRWA violates international law.
Hundreds of UNRWA staffers and their relatives have been killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since October 2023. Israel has bombed many UNRWA schools-turned-shelters in Gaza, including a Tuesday "double-tap" airstrike on school in the al-Bureij refugee camp that killed at least 30 of the more than 2,000 people sheltering there.
UNRWA officials also accuse Israeli forces of torturing kidnapped agency workers in a bid to elicit false confessions that they took part in the October 7, 2023 attack. UNRWA and much of the international community have condemned such allegations as baseless.
In the West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem, Israeli forces launched Operation Iron Wall in January. Israel says the invasion is targeting resistance fighters largely based in West Bank refugee camps. However, tens of thousands of people have been forcibly displaced by the offensive, which has killed numerous civilians.
According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 900 Palestinians including nearly 200 children have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since October 2023. Attacks by Israeli settler-colonists, sometimes aided by Israeli troops, have also killed, wounded, displaced, and terrorized West Bank residents as Israel's far-right government forges ahead with plans to steal more land from Palestinians, ethnically cleanse them, and open the door to further Israeli colonization.
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Scale of Musk's DOGE Conflicts of Interest 'Should Alarm Every American'
"The wealthiest man in the world is working to dismantle the very same federal departments and agencies tasked with overseeing and placing checks on his businesses," says Public Citizen in a new analysis.
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Elon Musk, the world's richest person and de facto head of the Trump administration's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, "has had a direct business interest in over 70% of the agencies and departments targeted by DOGE since its inception," according to an analysis published Thursday by a leading U.S. consumer advocacy group.
The Public Citizen report, titled Duplicitous Oligarchy Grifting Endlessly, "maps out the entities DOGE has targeted and identifies which ones carry a known conflict of interest for Elon Musk's business entanglements" as the executive office leads the Trump administration's purge of federal agencies.
"The wealthiest man in the world is working to dismantle the very same federal departments and agencies tasked with overseeing and placing checks on his businesses," the report states. "He also now is adjacent to and could potentially access sensitive and potentially proprietary information from his biggest competitors in the various industries that have made him wealthy. He also has personal business interests that could shape what his DOGE project considers ripe for cuts."
Elon Musk's DOGE has spent the last several months dismantling the departments & agencies that regulate HIS businesses. Our report found that Musk has a direct business interest in over 70% of the agencies & departments DOGE targeted. The conflicts of interest are endless.
— Public Citizen (@publiccitizen.bsky.social) May 8, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Elizabeth Beavers, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch, said in a statement that "it should alarm every American that the wealthiest man in the world has spent the last several months dismantling the same departments and agencies tasked with regulating his businesses."
"Musk's role as the most powerful person in government makes it highly unlikely that any regulator will crack down on his corporations and surely will make agency leaders look more favorably at Musk companies as potential government contractors," Beavers added.
The report considers Musk—who has signaled he will leave DOGE—to have a conflict of interest with a federal agency when one of his companies has received contracts or grants from the department, has an interest in its proprietary data, and is subject to its regulation or enforcement regime.
Public Citizen's analysis highlights interests with federal agencies including:
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Musk wants to abolish, would be in charge of regulating a proposed payments processing partnership between Visa and Musk's social media platform X;
- Department of Justice, which is investigating electric automaker Tesla and possibly Musk as its CEO;
- Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates Musk's SpaceX;
- Food and Drug Administration, where some of the more than 1,000 fired staffers were reviewing Musk's Nueralink brain implants;
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which has awarded SpaceX approximately $15 billion in contracts;
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which regulates Teslas, was hit with a 10% workforce reduction since President Donald Trump took office;
- Securities and Exchange Commission, which has ongoing enforcement actions against Musk, including fines as high as $150 million for failing to file disclosure forms regarding shares of Twitter, which he bought in 2022; and
- United States Agency for International Development, which was investigating whether Russia had improperly gained access to Musk's Starlink satellite internet system.
Musk—whose companies have tens of billions of dollars worth of government contracts—also has conflicts of interest with the departments of Defense, Agriculture, and Energy. SpaceX, for example, holds Pentagon contracts worth around $8 billion, including nearly $6 billion for the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 2 program.
Critics have laughed off the White House's assertion that Musk would self-police his conflicts of interest by recusing himself when DOGE and his business interests overlap.
"The report's findings make clear that this approach is deeply and incurably flawed—and that urgent action by Congress is required to safeguard the government from Musk's self-dealing and grift," Public Citizen said.
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