Tag: agrees

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Health

Physician agrees with Biden that Fb is ‘killing folks’ with Covid misinformation

Not prudent to deploy vaccine boosters at this point: Ex-FDA director

Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, founding director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at Boston University, told CNBC that from a medical standpoint, she agrees with President Joe Biden’s claim that platforms like Facebook are killing people by putting misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines in theirs Allow services.

“I think social media plays a huge role in spreading misinformation that leads people not to take the vaccine, which is killing them,” said Bhadelia. “It’s the honest truth. Covid is a vaccine-preventable disease at the moment.”

Bhadelia cited results from the Kaiser Family Fund poll, which found that 54% of Americans either believe or cannot tell whether a common Covid vaccine myth is fact or fiction.

The US is struggling with a drop in vaccination rates and an increase in infections. All 50 states have reported spikes in Covid cases over the past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The US has an average of more than 26,000 new cases a day, and that’s the highest number in two months, according to Johns Hopkins.

Bhadelia told CNBC The News with Shepard Smith that she believes social media companies can do a lot more to stop the spread of disinformation.

“You have to invest a lot more resources and improve your balance to clear that information faster, invest more resources in changing your matrix, because right now what is on top of your page is not right, but what it is is popular, “said Bhadelia, a medical worker for NBC News.

She also suggested that social media companies should partner with public health officials more to get the right information out to the people.

Facebook spoke out against the White House claims.

“We will not be distracted by allegations that are not supported by the facts,” said a spokesman. “The fact is, more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, more than any other place on the internet. More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook helps save lives. Point.”

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Health

Juul Settles N.C. Vaping Case, Agrees to Pay $40 Million

Juul Settles N.C. Vaping Case, Agrees to Pay $40 Million

Mr. Tobias said he was not surprised that Juul did not admit to wrongdoing.

“That almost always happens in these kinds of settlements — that’s a standard clause,” he said.

Juul has not begun other serious settlement talks, however, because none of the other 2,600 lawsuits against the company have been scheduled to begin during 2021. The company is waiting for the F.D.A. ruling before deciding how to move forward. If the F.D.A. will permit Juul’s products to stay on the market to help adult smokers quit, executives believe their negotiating stance will be strengthened.

But settling with numerous plaintiffs would be expensive. Juul has seen sales plummet during the past year, analysts say. The company is private so does not disclose its financial data.

Marc Scheineson, a lawyer with Alston & Bird, whose practice includes small tobacco companies, called the $40 million in the North Carolina settlement “a relatively small sum to pay to avoid mounting legal fees and the plaintiff pile-on syndrome.”

He also noted that most of the steps Juul agreed to take in the consent degree, such as not advertising near schools and behind-the-counter sales, are actions that it has already taken in an effort to gain public favor. Mr. Scheineson also said that electronic nicotine delivery products, such as Juul, “still have an important public health use by adults as a proven effective tool to quit smoking more harmful cigarettes.”

Juul faces other legal threats, too. The Federal Trade Commission is suing Juul, along with the big tobacco company Altria and related parties, seeking to unwind the 2018 deal that gave Altria 35 percent of Juul. Altria, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, paid $12.8 billion for that stake, but it has since written down the value of the investment to $1.5 billion.

The commission says that the two companies entered into a series of agreements, including Altria’s investment, that eliminated competition in violation of federal antitrust laws. The F.T.C. also claims that Altria and Juul started as competitors in the e-cigarette market, but that as Juul became more popular, Altria dealt with the threat by taking its own Mark Ten e-cigarette off the market in exchange for a share of Juul’s profits. Both Altria and Juul have denied the charges.

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Politics

GM Tells White Home It Agrees to Tighter Emissions Guidelines

GM Tells White House It Agrees to Tighter Emissions Rules

General Motors on Wednesday told the Biden administration that it would agree to tighter federal fuel economy and tailpipe pollution rules, along the lines of what California has already agreed to with five other auto companies.

The move is a step by the nation’s largest automaker away from its position during the Trump administration, when G.M.’s chief executive officer, Mary Barra, asked President Donald J. Trump to relax Obama-era auto pollution rules.

President Biden is seeking to reinstate those restrictions as part of his efforts to cut climate-warming pollution, and he hopes to propose new draft auto pollution rules as soon as next month.

Ms. Barra stopped short of endorsing Mr. Biden’s desire to fully reimpose or strengthen the Obama-era auto pollution standards, which to date stand as the strongest policy ever imposed by the federal government to fight climate change. And she also asked the administration to augment the federal rules with provisions that would give incentives to auto companies that are investing in electric vehicles, although she did not specify what those incentives should be.

Just weeks after Mr. Biden’s election, Ms. Barra dropped her company’s support of the Trump administration’s efforts to nullify California’s rules on tailpipe emissions. And days after the new president’s inauguration, she announced that after 2035 her company would sell only vehicles that have zero emissions, a target in line with Mr. Biden’s pledge to cut the United States’ emissions 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.

This week, in a letter to Michael Regan, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Ms. Barra wrote, “G.M. supports the emissions reduction goals of California through model year ’26,” adding, “the auto industry is embarking upon a profound transition as we do our part to achieve the country’s climate commitments.”

The Obama-era climate rules, which G.M. sought to loosen, required automakers to build vehicles by 2025 that achieve an average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon. The rules would have eliminated about six billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution over the lifetime of the vehicles. Mr. Trump rolled back Mr. Obama’s standards from 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 to 40 miles per gallon and revoked California’s legal authority to set its own state-level standard.

California reached a separate deal with Honda, Ford, Volkswagen, BMW and Volvo under which they would be required to increase their average fuel economy to about 51 miles per gallon by 2026.

Ms. Barra said that her company would now support those standards at the federal level — alongside a program to give some form of credit or incentive to electric vehicle manufacturers like her own company.

Negotiations on the new auto pollution standards are ongoing alongside White House talks to reach a deal on infrastructure legislation, which Mr. Biden hopes will include generous spending on tax credits for electric vehicle manufacturers and consumers, as well as direct government investments in 500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations.

Nick Conger, an E.P.A. spokesman, said in an email that Mr. Regan had spoken this week with leaders from auto manufacturers and that the “conversations have been constructive as the agency moves forward on actions to address emissions from cars and light-duty trucks.”

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Health

Dr. Scott Gottlieb agrees with new CDC masks steerage

Dr. Scott Gottlieb agrees with new CDC mask guidance

The CDC’s updated face mask instructions are likely to induce vaccine-reluctant Americans to get a Covid shot, said Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Friday.

“This will be a pretty strong incentive for many people who may have been on the fence to get vaccinated to get vaccinated,” the former commissioner for the US Food and Drug Administration told Squawk Box.

In most indoor and outdoor areas, fully vaccinated people are currently not required to wear face covering or maintain a social distance of 6 feet from other people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. Masks still need to be worn in businesses that need them, according to the CDC, as well as on airplanes and public transportation.

Still, the health department’s laid-back demeanor is a major development in America’s efforts to fight the coronavirus. According to CDC data, 36% of the US population has been fully vaccinated against Covid. Approximately 47% of Americans have received at least one dose of Covid vaccine.

The pace of new vaccinations has slowed in recent weeks, causing government officials to look for ways to encourage more Americans to sign up for a Covid shot. This includes efforts to build trust in the vaccine, expand availability to hard-to-reach communities, and create incentives. In Ohio, for example, Governor Mike DeWine unveiled a plan that would give five state residents $ 1 million through a lottery. The recipient must be vaccinated to qualify for the prize.

According to Gottlieb, who headed the FDA in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019, the loose guidance from the CDC alone could be enough to boost vaccinations. Today he is a board member of the vaccine manufacturer Pfizer.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of people getting vaccinated increases because now there is more value to vaccination. You can walk around in a mask in an honest way,” he said.

Gottlieb acknowledged the concerns of some public health experts who believe that unvaccinated people will use the new CDC guidelines as cover to forego a mask in businesses. However, he said, “I think people who are going to do this would have done it anyway.”

In general, Gottlieb said the CDC’s mask decision is now correct, as the country has seen a continued decline in new coronavirus infections and a significant portion of the population has been vaccinated to protect against serious illness and death.

He specifically pointed out the high vaccination rates among older Americans who are at increased risk of dying from Covid. Almost 72% of America 65+ is fully vaccinated.

“I think the worst thing you can say about the measures taken by the CDC is,” Well, maybe you could have waited another week, “said Gottlieb.” At some point we have to move past coronavirus and live normally again “he added.” We are at this point right now. We’re about to take off masks and return to normal activities. “

Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, told CNBC on Thursday that the new mask line was “really great news” for people who are fully vaccinated. However, Jha said he believes states should keep their inner mask mandates for another month. This would allow people who received their first Covid shot on April 19 – the day all U.S. citizens aged 18 and older were eligible – to get a full vaccination, he said.

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC employee and a member of the boards of directors of Pfizer, genetic testing startup Tempus, healthcare technology company Aetion, and Illumina biotech. He is also co-chair of the Healthy Sail Panel for Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean.

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Business

Scientist who helped develop Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine agrees third shot is required as immunity wanes

Scientist who helped develop Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine agrees third shot is needed as immunity wanes

BioNTech’s chief medical officer told CNBC on Wednesday that people will likely need a third shot of its two-dose Covid-19 vaccine to lower immunity to the virus. This is in line with previous comments from Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.

Dr. Ozlem Tureci, co-founder and CMO of BioNTech, who developed a Covid vaccine together with Pfizer, also assumes that people need to be vaccinated against the coronavirus every year, for example against seasonal flu. That’s because scientists expect vaccine-induced immunity to the virus to decline over time.

“We see evidence of this in the induced, but also natural, immune response against SARS-COV-2,” she said during an interview with Kelly Evans of CNBC in “The Exchange”. “We see this decrease in immune responses also in people who have just been infected and therefore [it’s] also expected with the vaccines. “

Tureci’s comments come after Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in an interview broadcast on April 15 that people will likely need a booster shot or third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of being fully vaccinated. He also said that there is a possibility that people will have to take extra shots every year.

Pfizer said earlier this month that its Covid-19 vaccine was more than 91% effective against the virus and more than 95% effective against serious illness up to six months after the second dose. Moderna’s vaccine, which uses technology similar to Pfizer, has also been shown to remain highly effective after six months.

The researchers say they still don’t know how long protection against the virus will last after six months of full vaccination, although public health officials and health experts believe that protection will wear off after some time.

Should Americans need booster vaccinations, the US government would likely need to reach agreements with drug manufacturers to provide additional doses and make plans to distribute vaccines.

On Friday Andy Slavitt, senior advisor to President Joe Biden’s Covid Response Team, said the Biden administration was preparing for the potential need for Covid-19 vaccine booster shots. He said the government was considering the need to secure additional doses.

“I can assure you that as we plan, if the President orders the purchase of additional vaccines, as he has, and if we focus on all of the production expansion opportunities that we are talking about, we have a great many such scenarios in mind have. “he said.

Last week, David Kessler, chief science officer for the Biden government at Covid, said Americans should expect to receive booster vaccinations to protect against coronavirus variants. He told US lawmakers that currently approved vaccines offer high levels of protection, but that new variants may “question” the effectiveness of the shots.

“We don’t know everything right now,” he told the House Select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis.

“We are investigating the durability of the antibody response,” he said. “It seems strong, but that’s wearing off a bit, and no doubt the variants are challenging … they make these vaccines work harder. So I think for planning purposes, planning purposes only, we should expect us to may have to. ” Boost. “

Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, told CNBC last week that the company hopes to have a booster shot for its two-dose vaccine in the fall.

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World News

Israel Secretly Agrees to Fund Vaccines for Syria as A part of Prisoner Swap

Israel Secretly Agrees to Fund Vaccines for Syria as Part of Prisoner Swap

JERUSALEM – When a young Israeli woman was released from custody in Syria this week after being arrested for illegally entering Syria, the official story was that she benefited from a simple prisoner swap. In return for her freedom, the Israeli government announced that she had been exchanged for two Syrian shepherds captured by the Israelis.

But if this deal between two hostile states that have never shared diplomatic relations sounded too quick and easy, it was. In fact, Israel had secretly agreed to a far more controversial ransom: the funding of an unknown number of coronavirus vaccines for Syria, according to an official familiar with the content of the negotiations.

Under the deal, Israel will pay Russia, which it brokered, to send Russia-made Sputnik-V vaccines to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime of Syria, the official said. Israel has administered at least one vaccine to nearly half of its 9.2 million population, while Syria – now entering its eleventh year of civil war – has not yet started introducing the vaccine.

The Israeli government declined to comment on the vaccination aspect of the deal, while a state-controlled Syrian news agency, the Syrian Arab News Agency, denied that vaccines were part of the deal. When asked about the vaccines in a television interview on Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu escaped the question and said only that no Israeli vaccines would be sent to Syria.

“We brought the woman with us, I’m glad,” said Mr. Netanyahu. He thanked Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and said: “I will not add more.”

The agreement is a rare moment of unsettled cooperation between two states that have waged multiple wars and still contest the sovereignty of a stretch of land, the Golan Heights, which Israel conquered from Syria in 1967.

It also highlights how vaccines are increasingly a feature of international diplomacy. And it reflects enormous and growing inequality between rich states like Israel, which have made significant strides with coronavirus vaccines and may soon return to some sort of normalcy – and poor ones like Syria, which haven’t.

Among the Palestinians, news reports about the Israel-Syria agreement have increased frustration at the low number of vaccines Israel is providing to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Israel has only delivered a few thousand vaccines to the roughly 2.8 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and last week the Israeli government briefly delayed the delivery of a first batch of vaccines to Gaza, where nearly two million people live.

Israel claims that the Oslo Accords release it from its responsibility to provide Palestinian health care. But human rights activists and Palestinians cite the fourth Geneva Convention, which obliges an occupying power to coordinate with local authorities to maintain public health in an occupied area.

Israeli officials have said they must vaccinate their own people before turning to the Palestinians. But the Syria deal sends a different message, said Khaled Elgindy, a researcher and former advisor to the Palestinian leadership.

Updated

Apr. 20, 2021, 9:30 a.m. ET

“Israel stands ready to provide vaccines to Syrians outside of their borders, but at the same time is not making them available to an enormous occupied population for which they are legally responsible,” Elgindy said. “That seems to be a message that they are deliberately trying to evade their legal responsibility for the well-being of this occupied population.”

Among the Israelis, the prisoner swap has raised concerns about how a civilian was able to cross the heavily police and strained border with Syria, undiscovered by the Israeli authorities.

The 23-year-old woman traveled to Syria near Mount Hermon on February 2 without being detected by Israeli or Syrian forces. Your name cannot currently be published by court order.

Israel learned she was missing until her friends told the police that she was missing. She only entered Syrian custody after a Syrian civilian who approached her realized she was Israeli and called the police.

Israel then asked Russia – a Syrian ally with a strong military presence in the country – to help mediate its release. Russia and Israel have coordinated in similar episodes in the past. In 2016, Russia helped broker the return of an Israeli tank that was seized by Syrian forces in Lebanon in 1982. In 2019, Moscow facilitated the return of the body of an Israeli soldier, Zachary Baumel, who was killed in the same clash.

The woman grew up in an ultra-Orthodox family in a settlement in the West Bank and is said to have tried in the past to illegally enter Israel’s Arab neighbors – once in Jordan and once in Gaza. On both occasions she was arrested, brought back, questioned and warned by Israeli forces.

Israeli negotiators tried to act quickly to avoid a recurrence of the crisis that followed the disappearance of Avera Mengistu in the Gaza Strip, a man with a history of mental illness who marched into the strip in 2014 and has since been detained by militant Hamas becomes a group that frequently increases the price of his release.

Mr. Netanyahu spoke directly to Mr. Putin twice, while Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat communicated with his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev.

The Syrians initially requested the release of two Syrian residents of the Golan Heights imprisoned in Israel, but that agreement collapsed after it became clear that the two did not want to return to Syria.

Israel then offered to release the two shepherds, and at some point in negotiations the possibility of vaccines was raised.

The Israeli cabinet approved the terms of the deal on Tuesday, the day the 23-year-old was flown to Moscow. After further negotiations between Israeli and Russian officials, she was returned to Israel on Thursday.

In Moscow, officials had not offered confirmation of such an agreement by late Saturday, and the Russian news media only covered Israeli publications.

But the Russian government has been using its vaccine skillfully for months in diplomacy from Latin America to the Middle East. On Thursday, Putin’s special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, suggested in an interview with the Tass news agency that Russia would deliver its Sputnik-V vaccine to Syria.

Patrick Kingsley reported from Jerusalem, Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv and Andrew E. Kramer from Moscow. Hwaida Saad reported from Beirut and Carol Sutherland from Moshav Ben Ami, Israel.

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World News

Iran Agrees to Free South Korean Ship’s Crew

Iran Agrees to Free South Korean Ship’s Crew

SEOUL, South Korea – Iran has agreed to rescue the 19-strong crew from a confiscated ship flying the South Korean flag, both countries announced on Tuesday. This appeared to be the first significant gesture by the Iranians, which de-escalated the problem since the ship was seized a month ago.

The Iranian move may also have been intended to send an indirect signal to the Biden administration, suggesting that it should avoid further deterioration in relations with Iran after it deteriorated sharply under former President Donald J. Trump to have.

In return for releasing the occupation, the South Korean government said it had pledged swift action to address Iran’s complaints about its inability to access $ 7 billion in Iranian funds due to US sanctions reimposed by Mr Trump were frozen to fix.

It was not immediately apparent from the announcement when the crew members would be released. Iran said the ship and its captain would remain in custody pending an investigation into the reasons for the ship’s seizure, cited by Iranians as violating the Maritime Pollution Act.

The ship, the Hankuk Chemi, loaded with 7,200 tons of chemicals, was taken into custody by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on January 4 while on patrol in the Persian Gulf. South Korea strongly protested the seizure and the shipowner called Iran’s allegations absurd.

It soon became clear that Iran had at least partially taken into custody of the ship in an attempt to pressure South Korea, a strong American ally, over the sanctions ordered by Mr Trump after breaking on the nuclear deal between Iran and the major world powers 2015 had waived. These sanctions included blocking Iran’s access to Iranian oil revenues in the billions that were deposited with foreign banks.

Iran began disregarding its nuclear deal obligations in response to Mr Trump’s actions and threatened further steps that may include blocking international nuclear inspectors from visiting nuclear sites.

While President Biden has said he wants to rejoin the nuclear deal if Iran resumes compliance, Iran has said the United States should drop sanctions first. Neither side has publicly shown an immediate readiness to find a diplomatic solution.

Iran’s approval of the liberation of the South Korean ship’s crew, which Saeed Khatibzadeh, a State Department spokesman, described as a humanitarian gesture, however, appeared to offer a degree of flexibility on sanction-related issues.

“This could be a signal to show a willingness to resume discussions or at least ease tension and perhaps open the door to South Korea to release seized Iranian assets,” said Farhad Alavi, partner at Akrivis Law Group. a Washington-based company specializing in sanctions law.

“Likewise, I wouldn’t be surprised if President Biden were to lift or suspend less sensitive or perhaps more political sanctions from the Trump era in the coming weeks or months – something more symbolic than essential,” said Alavi.

There was no immediate comment from the Biden administration on the news about the South Korean crew members.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the decision to free the crew members was taken during a telephone conversation on Tuesday between Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi and his South Korean counterpart Choi Jong-kun.

The crew consists of four South Koreans, and the other members are Burmese, Vietnamese and Indonesians, the statement said.

Mr. Choi welcomed the Iranian decision and called on the Iranian government to release the captain and ship as well.

During his telephone conversation with Mr. Araghchi, Mr. Choi promised “swift” action to deal with Iran’s complaints about the $ 7 billion confiscated.

Mr. Choi also told Mr. Araghchi that South Korea would consult American officials in Washington on the matter, the department said.

Choe Sang-hun reported from Seoul and Farnaz Fassihi from New York. Rick Gladstone reported from Eastham, Mass.

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Health

British Airways agrees to require unfavorable coronavirus exams earlier than New York flights, Cuomo says

British Airways agrees to require negative coronavirus tests before New York flights, Cuomo says

British Airways Boeing 747-400, nicknamed the Queen of the Skies airliner, on final landing gear landing at New York’s JFK John F. Kennedy International Airport, USA on January 23, 2020.

Nicolas Economou | NurPhoto | Getty Images

British Airways will require travelers to test negative for coronavirus before boarding flights to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday as officials grappled with a highly contagious new strain of Covid -19 grapple that is spreading the UK

Cuomo said at a press conference that he had also asked Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic to adhere to the same requirements.

“We know what the governor said and will work with his office to understand the exact details New York State is looking for regarding flights out of the UK,” said a Delta spokesman. Virgin and British Airways did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

More than two dozen countries have blocked flights or access to people from the UK due to the new strain of the virus.

U.S. and overseas airlines have already suspended much of their international service due to Covid-19 and travel restrictions. For example, since March the US has banned most foreigners in the European Union or the UK from entering.

There are 122 flights between the UK and the US this week, up from 752 last year, according to flight data provider OAG.