June, 06 2023, 12:50pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Darcey Rakestraw, darcey@2050strategies.com
Omar Baddar, obaddar@citizen.org
Merck Lawsuit a Desperate Attempt to Beat Back Popular Legislation to Lower Drug Prices
Today Merck reportedly sued the federal government over the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that allows Medicare to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies on drug prices. In response, Public Citizen President Robert Weissman issued the following statement:
“Merck is claiming the U.S. constitution requires the U.S. government and people to be suckers. That’s not true.”
“There’s no Sucker Clause in the 1st Amendment, 5th Amendment, or anywhere else in the Constitution.”
“This lawsuit is a desperate attempt by the industry to beat back popular legislation that would curtail Big Pharma’s ability to price gouge Medicare and secure monopoly profits. Full stop.”
“While Big Pharma’s litigation gambit plays out, it is critical that the federal government continue its preparation for price negotiations. Delay in the commencement of long overdue negotiations will result in billions of dollars in excess costs for taxpayers and consumers.”
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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Climate Change Fueling 'Most Widespread and Damaging' Droughts in History: UN Report
"This is not a dry spell," said the co-author of a new U.N. report. "This is a slow-moving global catastrophe."
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Climate change is driving "some of the most widespread and damaging drought events in recorded history," according to a report published Wednesday on global drought hotspots.
Over the past two years, droughts have fueled increased food insecurity, dehydration, and disease that have heightened poverty and political instability in several regions of the world, according to research by the U.S. National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
"This is not a dry spell," says Dr. Mark Svoboda, report co-author and NDMC Director. "This is a slow-moving global catastrophe, the worst I've ever seen. This report underscores the need for systematic monitoring of how drought affects lives, livelihoods, and the health of the ecosystems that we all depend on."
The report examined conditions in some of the globe's most drought-prone regions. They found that the economic disruption caused by droughts today is twice as high as in 2000.
In Eastern and Southern Africa, which have been blighted with dangerously low levels of rainfall, more than 90 million people face acute hunger.
Somalia has been hit particularly hard, with 4.4 million, more than a quarter of the population, facing "crisis level" food insecurity in early 2025. Zambia, meanwhile, faced one of the world's worst energy crises last year when the Zambezi River dried up, causing its hydroelectric dams to run critically low.
Other drought-plagued regions have seen wide ranges of ecological and economic disruptions.
In Spain, low levels of rainfall in 2023 devastated olive crops, causing olive oil prices to double. In the Amazon Basin, low water levels caused a mass death of fish and endangered dolphins. The Panama Canal became so depleted that trade vessels were forced to re-route, causing multi-week shipping delays. And in Morocco, Eid celebrations had to be cancelled due to a shortage of sheep.
Recent studies of drought have found that they are increasingly caused not by lack of rainfall, but by aggressive heat, which speeds up evaporation. The areas hit the hardest over the past two years were ones already suffering from the most severe temperature increases. It was also exacerbated by a particularly severe El Niño weather cycle in 2023-24.
"This was a perfect storm," says report co-author Dr. Kelly Helm Smith, NDMC Assistant Director and drought impacts researcher. "El Niño added fuel to the fire of climate change, compounding the effects for many vulnerable societies and ecosystems past their limits."
Though the effects of droughts are often felt most acutely in areas already suffering from poverty and instability, the researchers predict that as they get worse, the effects will be felt worldwide.
In 2024, then the hottest year on record, 48 of the 50 U.S. states faced drought conditions, the highest proportion ever seen. Drought in the U.S. has coincided with a dramatic increase in wildfire frequency and severity over the past 50 years.
"Ripple effects can turn regional droughts into global economic shocks," Smith said. "No country is immune when critical water-dependent systems start to collapse."
The researchers advocated for investments in global drought prevention, but also for broader measures to address the existing inequalities that make droughts more severe.
"Drought has a disproportionate effect on those with few resources," Smith said. "We can act now to reduce the effects of future droughts by working to ensure that everyone has access to food, water, education, health care and economic opportunity."
The researchers also emphasized the urgency of coordinated action to confront the climate crisis.
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Jul 03, 2025
An analysis released Thursday estimates that the Republican legislation on the brink of final passage in Congress would deliver over $1 trillion in combined tax breaks to the richest 1% of Americans over the next decade—an amount roughly equal to the bill's unprecedented cuts to Medicaid.
The new analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), which utilizes data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation and other sources, finds that the "tiny sliver of affluent families" in the top 1% of the U.S. income distribution will "receive tax cuts totaling $1.02 trillion over the next decade."
The centerpiece of Trump's megabill is a trillion-dollar tax cut to the wealthy, paid for by increasing the national debt and cutting public services. pic.twitter.com/ISr2XuIdJQ
— ITEP (@iteptweets) July 3, 2025
ITEP has previously shown that the Republican bill's tax cuts—largely extensions of expiring provisions of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law—would be highly skewed to the wealthy, with the small percentage of households at the very top receiving significantly more in total tax breaks than middle- and lower-income Americans.
"Sixty-nine percent of the net tax cuts would go to the richest fifth of Americans in 2026, only 11% would go to the middle fifth of Americans, and less than 1% would go to the poorest fifth," the group found. "The $107 billion in net tax cuts going to the richest 1% next year would exceed the amount going to the entire bottom 60% of taxpayers."
ITEP's new analysis was released as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wrapped up a record-breaking, eight-hour-plus speech against the GOP legislation, which delayed a final vote on the measure. Republicans are expected to pass the unpopular bill on Thursday.
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"Israel has continued to restrict the entry of aid and impose its suffocating cruel blockade," said Amnesty International's secretary general.
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Human rights organization Amnesty International has released a horrifying new report alleging that the Israeli government is still deliberately allowing civilians in Gaza to starve as a "weapon of war."
In its report released on Thursday, Amnesty cites "heartbreaking testimonies gathered from medical staff, parents of children hospitalized for malnutrition, and displaced Palestinians struggling to survive" to document "acute levels of starvation and desperation in Gaza."
The report pins the primary blame for this situation on Israel's insistence on running what Amnesty describes as a "militarized" system for delivering humanitarian aid via the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that has resulted in hundreds of Palestinians being killed and thousands more being injured by Israeli forces who have opened fire on civilians seeking food in multiple instances.
Amnesty charges that the Israeli government has barred the United Nations and other international humanitarian assistance organizations from operating inside Gaza and has transformed the process of receiving aid into a "booby trap" for civilians who risk getting shot while standing in line for food. Compounding the problem, writes Amnesty, is that Israel is delivering a level of aid that is "way below the humanitarian needs of a population that has been experiencing almost daily bombings for the last 20 months."
This slow trickle of aid is despite the fact that hundreds of trucks containing aid are stationed near the Egyptian border with Gaza but are barred from entering the territory, writes Amnesty.
"As the occupying power, Israel has a legal obligation to ensure Palestinians in Gaza have access to food, medicine and other supplies essential for their survival," said Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International. "Instead, it has brazenly defied binding orders issued by the International Court of Justice in January, March and May 2024, to allow the unimpeded flow of aid to Gaza. Israel has continued to restrict the entry of aid and impose its suffocating cruel blockade and even a full siege lasting nearly eighty days."
Amnesty released its report hours after the Associated Press reported that two American contractors who are helping to distribute aid in Gaza are alleging that Israeli forces have been deploying "live ammunition and stun grenades" on unarmed civilians seeking food. In one instance, a contractor alleged he saw members of Israeli forces firing bullets in "all directions—in the air, into the ground, and at times toward the Palestinians."
"There are innocent people being hurt," said one contractor, who wished to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation for revealing information on their employer's internal operations. "Badly. Needlessly."
The Israeli Foreign Ministry defended its aid program to Gaza in a post on the social media platform X and baselessly accused Amnesty of being in league with the terrorist organization Hamas.
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