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Health

Dr. Ounceshas ties to hydroxychloroquine corporations as he backs Covid therapy

Dr. Oz has ties to hydroxychloroquine companies as he backs Covid treatment

Republican Senate candidate from Pennsylvania, Dr. Mehmet Oz, has financial ties to at least two pharmaceutical companies that supply hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug he circulated as a possible treatment for Covid-19.

Oz, a physician and veteran television host who is up against Democrat John Fetterman in the race for the Pennsylvania Senate seat, owns with his wife at least $615,000 in Thermo Fisher Scientific stock, according to its financial disclosure. Thermo Fisher Scientific’s website lists hydroxychloroquine sulfate as one of the available products. It’s unclear when Oz and his wife bought the stock or if they owned it, as Oz promoted hydroxychloroquine as a Covid treatment early in the pandemic.

Oz and his wife also own between $15,001 and $50,000 in McKesson Corporation stock, according to the disclosure. According to the FDA, the company labels and sells hydroxychloroquine sulfate. It’s also unclear when they bought McKesson stock.

Hydroxychloroquine sulfate is the anti-malarial drug commonly known as hydroxychloroquine, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Doctors across the country, helped in part by support from former President Donald Trump and conservative media figures, have been offering the drug to patients as a Covid treatment, despite its questionable effectiveness against the virus.

Oz’s financial ties to a manufacturer and distributor of the drug, and his promotion of it as a potential Covid treatment, raise questions about what he would benefit from its wider use during the pandemic. If he wins the Senate election, he could also face conflicts of interest as Congress grapples with a still-evolving coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement responding to CNBC questions about Oz’s ties with companies that manufacture or distribute hydroxychloroquine, including when he and his wife bought shares in Thermo Fisher Scientific, Oz campaign spokeswoman Brittany Yanick, does not affect the financial interests of the candidate.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, Dr. Mehmet Oz with healthcare professionals worldwide who are considering hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as viable treatment options for critically ill COVID patients. He offered to fund the clinical trial at Columbia University,” she said.

The FDA has approved hydroxychloroquine to fight malaria but warned that it “has not been shown to be safe or effective for treating or preventing COVID-19.”

Oz took bold steps early in the pandemic to promote its use as a treatment. He urged Trump administration officials in 2020 to support a study he wanted to fund at Columbia University Medical Center on the effect of hydroxychloroquine on Covid-19 patients, according to emails obtained by the select subcommittee of the House of Representatives on the coronavirus crisis have been received and published.

Oz also has ties to a third company, which it says has divested hydroxychloroquine from its US portfolio.

Sanofi, which is headquartered in France and previously manufactured hydroxychloroquine, supported Oz’s nonprofit HealthCorps for years, according to the group’s annual disclosure reports. Between 2009 and 2018, Sanofi was listed as either a sponsor or donor in kind to the Oz-funded group, which owns aims to help teenagers with their health and well-being. In 2013, Sanofi is listed as one of the group’s “School Sponsors”. HealthCorps’ website states that a school sponsor must donate $100,000 to qualify.

Sanofi announced in April 2020 that it would donate 100 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to 50 countries around the world as studies evaluated the drug’s effectiveness in treating Covid-19.

A spokesman for Sanofi told CNBC that the company was not involved in Oz’s comments about Covid-19 or hydroxychloroquine. He explained that Sanofi divested hydroxychloroquine from its US portfolio in 2013 and was investigating the drug’s use as a potential way to fight the virus early in the Covid pandemic. After it was deemed ineffective against Covid-19, the company’s work on it was suspended.

The spokesperson also explained that the company’s last financial contribution to HealthCorps was in 2011. The company representative later corrected himself in a follow-up email to CNBC after the publication of this story, saying that 2013 was actually the last year that Sanofi made a financial donation to HealthCorps.

Oz’s ties to companies that would benefit from wider use of hydroxychloroquine could pose problems for the Republican if he wins the Senate seat. Kedric Payne, an ethics attorney at the Campaign Legal Center, told CNBC in an email that Oz could choose to walk away from the companies if he defeated Fetterman in November.

“He could have a rude awakening if elected because ethics rules could bar him from the job. Senators cannot use their positions to promote goods or services that benefit them financially,” Payne said. “Oz could voluntarily divest the shares if elected or stop promoting anything tied to his shares.”

A spokesman for Thermo Fisher Scientific declined to comment. A McKesson representative did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.

Since launching his campaign late last year, Oz has downplayed warnings from the FDA and other experts against the use of hydroxychloroquine as a Covid treatment. He suggested political animus against Trump endorsing the drug as a treatment and Oz in the Senate election, motivating criticism of the drug as a way to combat Covid.

“Well let me say this real quick, I really don’t know if it works or not, we haven’t been able to prove to this day if it works [hydroxychloroquine] works or not, which is a shame because we should have known by now whether a cheap 70-year-old drug used by a billion people works or not,” Oz said at a campaign event earlier this year. “But we don’t know. t which is a problem in itself. However, I mentioned it and then President Trump mentioned it in a press conference and suddenly the whole world hated hydroxychloroquine without testing it, without knowing it.”

Before launching his campaign, Oz championed hydroxychloroquine more explicitly. During an interview with Fox News in March 2020 at the height of the pandemic, Oz said that “hydroxychloroquine has a role” in fighting the virus. An on-screen graphic while Oz was being interviewed called the anti-malarial drug “promising” as a treatment option for Covid-19.

Oz also sought White House help to get the hydroxychloroquine trial going, which he wanted to fund at Columbia, where he was once vice chairman of the department of surgery. He has since said the study never got off the ground.

The Pennsylvania nominee’s communications with White House officials were released last month by the House’s select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis. In an email dated March 2020 Deborah Birx, former Trump White House coronavirus response coordinator, told Oz he would recruit patients and pay for the hydroxychloroquine trial himself.

Also in March 2020, Oz Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner emailed that “we must make the completion of this study a national priority and insist on immediate enrollment,” according to correspondence obtained by the House Committee and has published. Kushner replied to Oz the same day, “What do you recommend to speed it up?”

The New York Post reports that Oz spent $8,800 on hydroxychloroquine tablets for the study at the time and offered to spend $250,000.

Oz, during his campaign for the Pennsylvania Senate seat, accused then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo of stopping the study after effectively banning the anti-malarial drug as a Covid treatment.

Oz’s financial ties could pose a bigger problem for him if he wins the Pennsylvania race, one of a few contests to decide which party will control the Senate next year. A Real Clear Politics poll average shows Fetterman leading Oz by almost 7 percentage points.

Share ownership in Congress will come under increased scrutiny. Some lawmakers in Congress have proposed a ban on individual stock deals that would require lawmakers to invest assets in a blind trust or to divest them outright.

Business Insider has identified at least 71 lawmakers who have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act. The law aims to prevent members of Congress from trading stocks using inside information gained from their work as legislators.

By and large, however, members of Congress had little impact on lucrative stock deals.

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World News

Most Chinese language firms might delist from US, says TCW Group

Most Chinese companies could delist from US, says TCW Group

Chinese companies listed on Wall Street are likely to be cut off from US capital markets for the next three years as tensions between Beijing and Washington persist, a global asset management company says.

“I think the game is essentially over for many Chinese companies listed in US markets,” David Loevinger, managing director of emerging markets research at TCW Group, told CNBC on Wednesday. “This is a problem that has been hanging out there for 20 years – we couldn’t solve it.”

As of September 30, 2021, TCW Group had assets of $ 265.8 billion under management, according to the company’s website.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission this month finalized rules to implement a law that would allow the US market regulator to prohibit US-listed foreign companies from trading if their auditors fail to comply with requests for information from US regulators.

The law was passed in 2020 after Chinese regulators repeatedly denied requests from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to review audits of Chinese companies that are listed and do business in the United States.

Given the current mistrust between the US and Chinese governments and the fact that bilateral relations are not going to improve anytime soon, there is no way we will resolve this in the next few years, Loevinger said.

“So the reality is that by 2024, most Chinese companies that are listed on US stock exchanges will no longer be listed in the United States. Most will return to Hong Kong or Shanghai, “he told CNBC to” Street Signs Asia. “

Less than six months after going public, Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi announced that it would begin delisting from the New York Stock Exchange and instead make plans for a Hong Kong listing.

When a company delists from a stock exchange like the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange, it loses access to a broad pool of buyers, sellers, and brokers.

I just don’t think China’s government will give US regulators full access to internal audit documents for Chinese companies.

Chinese regulators have reportedly been dissatisfied with Didi’s decision to be listed in the US without addressing outstanding cybersecurity concerns. Regulators reportedly asked company executives to come up with a plan to delist from the United States amid concerns about the data leak.

In addition to Didi, many of the leading Chinese internet companies listed in the US have already double-listed Hong Kong. Some high profile names include e-commerce giant Alibaba, its rival JD.com, search engine giant Baidu, game company NetEase, and social media giant Weibo.

“We have already reached the turning point,” said Loevinger, pointing to Didi’s delisting announcement. “I just don’t think China’s government will give US regulators unrestricted access to internal audit documents for Chinese companies.”

“And if US regulators can’t get access to these documents, they can’t protect US markets from fraud,” he added.

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Politics

Insurance coverage corporations heed Biden name to assist victims cowl extra prices

Insurance companies heed Biden call to help victims cover more costs

U.S. President Joe Biden arrives on Jan.

Carlos Barria | Reuters

WASHINGTON – Two of the best-known US insurance companies have responded to President Joe Biden’s request to cover additional living expenses for Louisiana policyholders who evacuated their homes prior to Hurricane Ida but were not under certain mandatory evacuation orders.

Allstate and USAA have agreed to pay additional living expenses for policyholders in the state who have evacuated their homes, a White House official told CNBC.

More companies are expected to follow suit, said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the ongoing effort.

Typically, insurance only covers the additional cost of living for policyholders evacuating their homes before major storms, not those who leave their homes voluntarily.

Biden first addressed the issue on Thursday in a White House speech about the storm.

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“Right now we are hearing reports that some insurance companies may refuse to cover additional living expenses unless the homeowner has been on a mandatory evacuation,” Biden said.

Homeowners in the path of the storm, he said, “left their homes because they felt they were fleeing or risking death. Nothing about that is voluntary.”

Biden then appealed to home insurers: “Do the right thing. Pay your policyholders what you owe them and cover the cost of temporary housing amid the disaster. Help the needy. “

On Friday, Biden visited Louisiana, where he said his government was “putting as much pressure as possible” on insurance companies.

State Insurance Commissioner James Donelon issued a bulletin Friday to all insurers in the state saying they should “refrain from using the language in their insurance policies that requires mandatory evacuation to trigger civil coverage”.

Donelon also directed insurers to let his office know whether or not they would comply, and increased the stakes on companies if they choose to refuse coverage.

After the story was published, a USAA spokesman told CNBC, “Some USAA homeowner policies offer limited coverage for evacuation costs when damage is covered. Members can provide receipts for reimbursement. “

The episode is a rare example of a US president effectively shaming large corporations for changing a fundamental piece of the way they do business – how insurance companies assess eligibility for coverage.

The origins of political change can be traced back to Cedric Richmond, a former Louisiana congressman who is a senior official in the Biden White House.

In the days following the storm, Richmond learned from homeowners that their insurance policies would not cover temporary housing costs unless their homes were subject to mandatory evacuation orders.

Ida hit land in most of southeast Louisiana last Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane. However, the evacuation orders were very different from community to community.

Some coastal communities, such as Grand Isle, made mandatory evacuations for all residents. Others, however, issued evacuation orders that were only compulsory for people in low-lying areas and voluntary in areas that are better isolated from floods.

In New Orleans, Mayor LaToya Cantrell issued a mandatory evacuation order for people living outside the city’s levee system, but a voluntary one for those protected by the levees.

“We are not asking for a mandatory evacuation because time is just not on our side,” Cantrell said on the Friday before the storm. “We don’t want people on the street and therefore in greater danger due to lack of time.”

During his visit, Biden encouraged anyone affected by Ida to contact the Federal Emergency Management Agency and see what kind of help they might be eligible for, and promised to keep the federal resources there until they settle have fully recovered.

“We will be there for you,” he said.

The home insurance industry’s leading trading group said its members are aware of Ida’s suffering and would like to help.

“Ida has devastated communities along the Gulf Coast and along the east coast. Insurers recognize the tragedy and fear faced by many American families, individuals and businesses as wildfires and storms rage amid uncertainty over the pandemic, “said David Sampson, president and CEO of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, said in one Statement to CNBC.

“Insured who have suffered a claim should call their insurer as soon as possible to initiate the claim process. Call your insurer if you have been evacuated voluntarily or compulsorily to discuss your coverage. Policies can vary by company and state, ”he said.

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Health

Firms rising extra cautious about delta variant, earnings calls present

Companies growing more cautious about delta variant, earnings calls show

A sign describes entry restrictions at a JLL office in the Aon Center in Chicago, Illinois, USA on Thursday, June 24, 2020.

Christopher Dilts | Bloomberg | Getty Images

When the reporting season started in earnest in mid-July, few companies asked questions or mentioned the Covid Delta variant.

That changed as new Covid-19 cases increased and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed their stance on masks for vaccinated people, according to a CNBC analysis of transcripts of calls.

Between July 13 and Thursday, 142 S&P 500 companies out of 410 that reported quarterly earnings mentioned the Delta variant by name or answered a question about it in their earnings calls. Only 15% of those mentions came before July 27 – the same day the CDC said fully vaccinated people should wear masks in areas with high indoor transmission rates. New Covid cases also rose steadily as the highly contagious Delta variant became the dominant strain of the virus in the USA

The US reports a seven-day average of more than 109,000 new cases as of August 5, nearly 28% more than a week ago, according to Johns Hopkins University.

For the most part, executives said their companies did not see any significant business impact with the rise in new cases.

Becton, Dickinson & Co., a medical device company, was one of the few to report changes in consumer behavior and told analysts that fewer elective surgeries have been performed in some US states in recent weeks due to the variant. For the week ending August 1, 72% of beds in intensive care units in the United States were occupied, according to Johns Hopkins data.

But some companies with a more global footprint say it’s a different story outside of the US.

“An uneven recovery from the pandemic and an increasing delta variant in many countries around the world have once again shown us that the road to recovery will be a winding road,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook at the company’s conference call on April 27th. July.

Booking Holdings, the parent company of Kayak and OpenTable, said bookings were down 22% in July compared to 2019, a bigger decrease than the 13% decrease in June.

“In Europe, we noticed reductions in overnight stays in several of our most important countries, including Germany, France and Italy, in July,” said Booking CFO David Goulden on Wednesday at the company’s conference call.

Other companies reported supply chain disruptions as Covid cases accelerated in Asia and Europe. For example, rail operator Norfolk Southern said the Delta variant is affecting its suppliers in Southeast Asia.

“We have a couple of factories that source parts from Southeast Asia and due to manufacturing issues there, they had to bring forward scheduled production shutdowns later this year,” said chief marketing officer Alan Shaw on the company’s conference call on July 28th. “And that has now had an impact on our production and our volumes.”

The Delta variant has also led some companies to issue more conservative projections, although most companies said they don’t expect any further lockdowns in the US.

Abiomed, a medical device maker, told analysts on its conference call Thursday that the lower end of its full-year revenue forecast sees “some persistent unevenness” from the variant, even though the company raised its outlook.

Beyond Meat, which is not part of the S&P 500, said restaurant operators are more conservative with their food orders due to the uncertainty created by the Delta variant, as well as work-related challenges.

“For us, the main feature of the third quarter, and our forecast is simply a lack of visibility,” said CEO Ethan Brown on Thursday.

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Health

Work flexibility ‘right here to remain’ in post-Covid world, says director at three Fortune 500 firms

Work flexibility ‘here to stay’ in post-Covid world, says director at three Fortune 500 companies

Companies are monitoring the spread of the delta Covid variant as they adapt return-to-office plans and prioritize giving flexibility to employees, a board member at three Fortune 500 companies told CNBC on Friday.

“I believe there’s going to continue to be hybrid offerings. … Flexibility is here to stay, especially if you want to be competitive for talent,” said Shellye Archambeau, a director at Verizon, Nordstrom and Roper Technologies. She’s also a former CEO of MetricStream, which makes governance, risk management and compliance software.

Archambeau said that business’ reopening concerns are being driven by the highly transmissible delta variant, first discovered in India. It’s now the dominant strain of Covid in the United States and causing cases and deaths to increase again, particularly across largely unvaccinated communities.

“Companies are watching the data very carefully,” Archambeau said. “What I’m seeing is they’re trying to remain flexible, creating the optionality for employees to come back to work but still watching the numbers and how the rates are going.”

Archambeau’s remarks come as major companies try to figure out how to safely return to the office.

Few companies are mandating employees to be fully vaccinated before returning to the office, Archambeau said. Instead, she said companies are strongly encouraging and trying to make it easier for employees to get vaccinated, even making it voluntary to return to the office and encouraging mask-wearing and physical distancing protocols for unvaccinated workers.

According to a survey conducted in April by Arizona State University with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, more than 60% of companies in the U.S. will require proof of vaccination from their employees while 44% will require all employees to get vaccinated and 31% will encourage vaccinations.

Archambeau, a strategic advisor to the president of ASU, said that peer pressure will soon begin to play a bigger role in pushing employees to get vaccinated.

More employees may also return to the office when children get vaccinated, allowing them to continually go to school, participate in in-person activities and rely on child-care services.

“I think as time goes through, companies are absolutely strongly encouraging employees to be vaccinated,” Archambeau said. “The way in which they’ll be able to work, the kinds of roles they’ll be able to play, I think, in time will be affected by whether they’re vaccinated or not. … People will want to be vaccinated in order to actually do well within the company.”

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Politics

U.S. warns firms concerning the dangers of doing enterprise in Hong Kong as China clamps down on rights

U.S. warns companies about the risks of doing business in Hong Kong as China clamps down on rights

The national flags of the USA and China fly in front of a building.

The Eng Koon | AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON – The Biden government on Friday warned companies with offices in Hong Kong of far-reaching financial and regulatory risks as China continues to restrict political and economic freedoms in the area.

The nine-page Hong Kong Business Advisory – jointly published by the Departments of State, Finance, Trade and Homeland Security – warns that US firms in Hong Kong are exposed to a number of risks posed by China’s national security law.

The report states that “companies are exposed to risks in connection with electronic surveillance without an arrest warrant and the disclosure of data to authorities as well as“ restricted access to information ”.

“Beijing has damaged Hong Kong’s reputation for accountable, transparent governance and respect for individual freedoms and has broken its promise to keep Hong Kong’s high levels of autonomy unchanged for 50 years,” Foreign Minister Antony Blinken wrote in a statement.

“In light of Beijing’s decisions last year that stifled the democratic aspirations of the Hong Kong people, we are taking action. Today we are sending a clear message that the United States is resolutely on the side of the Hong Kong people, ”added the country’s top diplomat.

The Biden government also imposed US sanctions on seven Chinese officials for violating Hong Kong’s autonomy.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this week, the Biden government issued a warning to companies with investment ties to China’s Xinjiang Province, citing growing evidence of genocide and other human rights abuses in the country’s northwestern region.

Washington has openly criticized Beijing’s comprehensive national security law, passed in June 2020, aimed at restricting Hong Kong’s autonomy and banning critical literature about the Chinese Communist Party.

The then Foreign Secretary Mike Pompeo described the measure as an “Orwellian move” and an attack “on the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong”.

Former President Donald Trump soon signed a law imposing sanctions on China in response to its interference with Hong Kong’s autonomy. He also signed an executive order ending the preferential treatment that Hong Kong has long enjoyed.

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“Hong Kong is now being treated like mainland China,” Trump said during a July 2020 speech from the White House rose garden.

“No special privileges, no special economic treatment and no export of sensitive technologies,” said Trump. “Also, as you know, we are imposing massive tariffs and have imposed very high tariffs on China.”

China’s State Department fired back, saying Beijing would impose retaliatory sanctions on US people and businesses.

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Health

Surgeon Normal Assails Tech Corporations Over Misinformation on Covid-19

Surgeon General Assails Tech Companies Over Misinformation on Covid-19

President Biden’s surgeon general used his first formal piece of advice to the United States on Thursday to deliver a broadside against tech and social media companies that he accused of not doing enough to spread dangerous health misinformation – in particular about Covid-19 – stop.

The officer, Dr. Vivek Murthy declared such misinformation to be “an urgent threat to public health”. His announcement came just days after his office representatives met with Twitter officials, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Surgeons in general have traditionally used advice – brief statements designed to draw Americans’ attention to a public health problem and make recommendations for its resolution – to talk about health topics such as tobacco use, opioid addiction, suicide prevention, and breastfeeding.

But dr. Murthy’s Counselor, a 22-page report with footnotes, had a more political context. Fox News presenters like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, along with their guests, are among those who have raised doubts about Covid-19 vaccines, which studies show are very effective in preventing death and hospitalization from the disease.

Dr. Murthy formulated his criticism of technology companies in a broader statement about the dangers of inaccurate and inaccurate health information, including misinformation about coronavirus vaccinations. He urged all Americans to endeavor to share correct information and said the United States needs “a societal approach” to address the problem.

But at a press conference on Thursday, Dr. Murthy appealed to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, making it clear that technology and social media companies are his primary target, saying they have a unique responsibility to be more aggressive against misinformation and citing Facebook by name.

“Modern technology companies have allowed misinformation to poison our information environment without being held accountable to their users,” said Dr. Murthy.

“We expect more from our tech companies,” he added. “We ask them to work with greater transparency and accountability. We ask you to monitor misinformation more closely. “

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube said Thursday that they have taken steps to crack down on misleading health information in line with their coronavirus misinformation guidelines. All three said they had introduced features to direct users to authoritative health sources on their platforms.

“We are permanently banning pages, groups and accounts that repeatedly violate our Covid misinformation rules, and that includes more than a dozen pages, groups and accounts from some of the people referred to in the press conference today,” said Dani Lever, a spokeswoman for Facebook.

Updated

July 15, 2021, 7:14 p.m. ET

YouTube said in a statement that it welcomes many aspects of the surgeon general’s report. Twitter said it agreed with Dr. Murthy’s approach and welcomed his partnership.

Calling tech and media companies out is a tricky business, and the White House has raised the question of whether it would try to regulate companies like Facebook that have become platforms for health disinformation. Asked about this at her briefing on Wednesday, Ms. Psaki was non-binding.

“Of course, decisions to regulate or hold a platform accountable would certainly be a political decision,” she said. “But in the meantime we will continue to shout disinformation and indicate where this information is going.”

Hours after Dr. Murthy announced in a press release by the Rockefeller Foundation that it would allocate $ 13.5 million in new funding to step up coronavirus response efforts in the United States, Africa, India and Latin America, and in particular “health.” To fight grievances ”. – and disinformation. “

The Digital Public Library of America also said it will work with the surgeon general by bringing together librarians, scholars, journalists and citizen leaders to discuss the role libraries can play in combating misinformation.

Misinformation about social distancing, mask use, treatments, and vaccines was rampant during the pandemic. The report is a sign that the Biden government is more determined to face this in the face of a sharp drop in the number of new vaccinations. Less than 50 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and many top health experts have urged the president to do more to reach people who haven’t been vaccinated.

While nationwide cases and hospital admissions remain relatively low, more local hotspots are emerging and national trends are moving in the wrong direction, fueled by the spread of the more contagious delta variant. Vaccines are effective against the variant. Counties that voted for Mr Biden had higher vaccination rates on average than those that voted for former President Donald J. Trump. Conservatives are far more likely to reject vaccinations than Democrats.

The General Surgeon’s report is eagerly apolitical and does not identify any specific providers of misinformation. But some Republican leaders, worried the virus is spreading rapidly in conservative parts of the country, are beginning to promote vaccination and speak out against media and elected officials who cast doubts about vaccines.

Health misinformation is not a new phenomenon – and is not limited to the news media. In the 1990s, the report said that “a poorly designed study” – later withdrawn – falsely claimed that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine caused autism. “Even after the withdrawal, the claim gained momentum and contributed to lower vaccination rates over the next 20 years,” the report said.

It cites evidence of the spread of misinformation, including a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that found in late May that 67 percent of unvaccinated adults had heard at least one Covid-19 vaccine myth and either believed it to be true or unsafe. An analysis of millions of social media posts in Science Magazine found that hoaxes are 70 percent more likely to be shared than true stories.

Another recent study showed that even brief exposure to misinformation reduces the likelihood that people will want a vaccine, the surgeon general said.

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World News

Crackdown on Didi and firms prefer it may value China as a lot as $45 trillion by 2030

Crackdown on Didi and companies like it could cost China as much as $45 trillion by 2030

A navigation map on the app of Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi is seen on a mobile phone in front of the app logo displayed in this illustration picture taken July 1, 2021.

Florence Lo | Reuters

This was a clarifying week for global investors — or for anyone concerned about authoritarian capitalism — of just how much the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would be willing to pay to ensure its dominance.

The answer, according to a rough calculation from a new partnership formed by the Rhodium Group and the Atlantic Council, is as much as $45 trillion in new capital flows into and out of China by 2030, if the party were willing to pursue serious reform. It’s an immeasurable loss of economic dynamism.

Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards

Graph courtesy of the Rhodium Group and Atlantic Council GeoEconomics Center’s China Pathfinder Project

What is clear is that Chinese President Xi Jinping, during this month’s celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the CCP, has sent an unmistakable message at home and abroad of who is in charge.

Chinese domestic companies, particularly of the tech and data-rich variety, will be more likely to shun Western capital markets and adhere to party preferences. Foreign investors, only too happy to accept risk for the long-proven upside of Chinese stocks, now must factor in a growing risk premium as Xi tightens the screws.

“Wall Street must now acknowledge that the risk of investing in these companies can’t be known, much less disclosed,” writes Josh Rogin in the Washington Post. “Therefore, U.S. investors shouldn’t be trusting their futures to China Inc.”

The story that triggered this week’s stir was the $4.4 billion U.S. initial public offering (IPO) of the world’s largest ride-hailing and food delivery service, Didi. The ripples could be long-lasting and far-reaching for the lucrative relations between China and Wall Street. Dealogic shows that Chinese companies have raised $26 billion from new U.S. listings in 2020 and 2021.

Until this week, the greatest concern for investors was that new US accounting rules would stymie that flow. It is now more likely to be Chinese regulators themselves who plug the spigot.

The facts are that Didi Global began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on June 30, auspiciously one day ahead of the CCP centennial celebration.

One early hint of trouble was that the company played down the blockbuster listing. Not only did company officials resist the usual routine of ringing the opening bell. They went further by instructing their employees not to call attention to the event on social networks.

Still, Didi’s shares rose 16% on the second day of trading, setting the company’s market value at nearly $80 billion.     

But by July 2, Chinese regulators put Didi under cybersecurity review, banned it from accepting new users, and then, in the next days, went even further by instructing app stores to stop offering Didi’s app.

Credit all of that to a mixture of increasingly authoritarian politics, regulatory concerns over data privacy and U.S. markets, and the continual expanding of fronts in the U.S.-Chinese contest.

The cost to investors by Friday was a drop to only 67% of the stock’s original value. If that’s as far as the downside goes and if the regulatory retaliation against Didi stops where it is, this week could still be dubbed a win by Didi executives.

The more serious matter is the wider chilling effect, coming in the context of a series of stalled or reversed Chinese economic and marketization reforms.

The latest came on Thursday, when The Wall Street Journal reported that the Cyberspace Administration of China, which reports to Xi, would police all overseas market listings.

On that same day, Chinese medical data firm LinkDoc became the first Chinese company to ditch its IPO after the Didi news. Expect more Chinese companies to shelve planned listings and for many others to remove them from consideration.

For all the billions of lost investment capital this could bring over the short term, the larger cost is one that could be measured in trillions of dollars of endangered potential as Xi consistently backs away from the market liberalizations he once appeared to champion.

The story could not be more clearly written than through the accompanying chart from Rhodium and the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. From 2000 to 2018, China’s economic growth shook the world as it expanded its share of the global gross domestic product (GDP) from 4% to 16%. China enjoyed similar growth in goods exports and imports.

Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards

Graph courtesy of the Rhodium Group and Atlantic Council GeoEconomics Center’s China Pathfinder Project

At the same time, however, China’s inward portfolio investment grew from near zero to just 2% of the global total while its outward portfolio investment grew from near zero to only 1%. This is not just unachieved potential from the past — it is now also the deeply endangered potential for the future that could equal the estimate $45 trillion through 2030.

In a must-read analysis of the Chinese economy in Foreign Affairs, Atlantic Council nonresident senior fellow Daniel Rosen, who is also a Rhodium Group founding partner, argues that China under Xi has repeatedly attempted to reform the Chinese economy, only to pull back. The accompanying chart provides a useful overview of what has become habit.

Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards

Graph courtesy of the Rhodium Group and Atlantic Council GeoEconomics Center’s China Pathfinder Project

“The consequences of that failure are clear,” Rosen writes. Since Xi took control, total debt has risen to at least 276% of GDP from 225%. It now takes 10 yuan of new credit, up from six, to create one yuan of growth. GDP growth fell to 6% in the year ahead of the pandemic from 9.6%.

Writes Rosen: “At some point, China’s leaders must confront this tradeoff: [S]ustainable economic efficiency and political omnipotence do not go hand in hand.”

Conventional wisdom has it that the West was naïve to think that China’s economic growth and modernization, which the West so enthusiastically supported, would eventually bring with it political liberalization. Now the conventional wisdom is that China has shown it can be brutally authoritarian and economically dynamic simultaneously.

What’s probably more true is that Xi may soon face the contradictions between his simultaneous desire for economic dynamism and increased authoritarian control. History shows he cannot have both, but for the moment, Xi appears willing to risk the dynamism in favor of the control.

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Entertainment

Various Dance Corporations Get a Raise From a New Associate: MacKenzie Scott

Diverse Dance Companies Get a Lift From a New Partner: MacKenzie Scott

When the pandemic hit, forcing Dance Theater of Harlem to cancel performances and suspend classes, the company, like many arts organizations, was devastated. It had no safety net: with only very modest financial reserves, it was able to make it through with help from the federal Paycheck Protection Program and the Ford Foundation.

Then, this month, the company unexpectedly got the biggest gift in its 52-year history: a $10 million donation from the philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.

The gift, coming at a moment of such institutional peril, was nothing short of “transformative,” said Anna Glass, Dance Theater’s executive director. It will allow the company to say “We have a future,” Glass said. “We know we can exist 50 years from now.”

Dance Theater of Harlem was one of 286 “historically underfunded and overlooked” organizations around the country that were included in the latest $2.74 billion in donations from Scott, a novelist and the former wife of Jeff Bezos, and her husband, Dan Jewett. This round included arts organizations, and in New York City that meant aid for groups including El Museo del Barrio, the Studio Museum in Harlem and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

But this round of gifts promises to have an especially large impact on New York dance, with generous aid to some of the city’s most diverse companies. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater got $20 million, which it plans to use to commission new work, perform Ailey’s dances in new productions, train teachers and offer scholarships to its school. Ballet Hispánico received $10 million, the largest gift in its history. And Urban Bush Women received $3 million.

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar — the founder and chief visioning partner of Urban Bush Women — said receiving the $3 million felt a bit like floating on her back in the ocean: She could relax into the waves, supported beyond the breakers. “You lay on your back, and you just float fairly easily, you have that support,” she said. “So because you have that support, you can relax into it a little bit more, and go into deeper thinking, deeper planning.”

Now she will be free to float, and to plan her next move.

“You do brilliant work on two cents of prayer and spit,” Zollar said. “And there’s a certain creativity that comes out of that, of what you have to do, but there’s also a price that is paid.”

She said she hoped to maintain the creativity that comes out of necessity, but to make it sustainable, so dancers don’t burn out. Sustainability, she said, means more than money. It’s also about investing in people — dancers, administrators, artists, educators and the community at large.

Like several other arts executives, Eduardo Vilaro, the artistic director and chief executive officer of Ballet Hispánico, said the Scott donation would help his organization move toward financial stability — and that, in turn, would help it take more risks in its art.

“This gift is the largest single gift the organization has ever received in its 50-year history, which is quite a remarkable thing to say for an organization of color that’s been doing such service in lifting the narratives of communities of color,” Vilaro said. “It cements our mission and legacy for years to come, because it’s going to ensure the health and future of our organization.”

The single donation amounts to what Ballet Hispánico typically aims to raise in five years. Now the company, like the others receiving funds, is in planning mode, consulting with its board about how best to use it.

But Vilaro said he thought at least some would go to bolstering the company’s endowment fund, and some would go toward scholarships for Latino students.

In the philanthropic world, gifts often come with strings attached: money that is earmarked for specific uses or specific programs. That wasn’t the case this time around.

“There are no hoops to go through,” Vilaro said. “There’s this kind of trust. And organizations of color have dealt — people of color have dealt with trust issues for so long, so this is kind of like, ‘We see you, we know what you’re doing. We trust that you know what to do with this.’”

In a Medium post titled “Seeding by Ceding,” Scott wrote about “amplifying gifts by yielding control.” After a rigorous process of research and analysis, she trusted each team to best know how to put the money to good use.

“These are people who have spent years successfully advancing humanitarian aims, often without knowing whether there will be any money in their bank accounts in two months,” she wrote in the post. “What do we think they might do with more cash on hand than they expected? Buy needed supplies. Find new creative ways to help. Hire a few extra team members they know they can pay for the next five years. Buy chairs for them. Stop having to work every weekend. Get some sleep.”

Officials at Dance Theater of Harlem saw Scott’s approach to philanthropy as radical.

“We live in a space, called ballet, that historically had been exclusionary,” Glass said. “And so we do identify as an institution of color. We do identify with our community, Harlem. And I think the statement that MacKenzie Scott is making is that institutions like ours have historically been under-resourced.”

Studies have shown that nonprofit groups led by Black and Latino directors get less philanthropic funding on average than their peers with white leaders.

For Dance Theater of Harlem — which was created in 1969 by Arthur Mitchell, the first Black principal dancer with New York City Ballet, and Karel Shook, partly in response to the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — the Scott gift will help the organization achieve financial stability. (Keeping it going has been a struggle at times: in 2004 the company was forced to go on an eight-year hiatus because of its debts, but it mounted a comeback.)

“Dance Theater of Harlem is a 52-year-old organization,” Glass said, “and I think for the first time in this organization’s 52-year history, I think we actually see a pathway forward, to longevity and to stability.”

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Politics

Biden prohibits U.S. funding in 59 Chinese language firms

Biden prohibits U.S. investment in 59 Chinese companies

United States President Joe Biden speaks during a commemoration ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre at the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 1, 2021.

Almond Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

President Joe Biden on Thursday expanded restrictions on American investments in certain Chinese companies with alleged links to the country’s military and surveillance efforts, adding more companies to a growing blacklist.

In an executive order, Biden banned US investors for fear of ties to the Chinese government’s geopolitical ambitions, thereby continuing some parts of former President Donald Trump’s tough stance in talks with Beijing.

“This EO enables the United States to specifically and enrichingly prohibit US investments in Chinese companies that undermine the security or democratic values ​​of the United States and our allies,” a White House press release said.

The move will prevent US dollars from supporting the “Chinese defense sector” while expanding the US government’s ability to counter the threat posed by Chinese surveillance technology firms that – both inside and outside of China – monitor religious or ethnic minorities contribute to or otherwise facilitate repression and serious human rights violations, “added the government.

The 59 excluded companies include Aero Engine Corp. of China, Aerosun Corp., Fujian Torch Electron Technology and Huawei Technologies.

The bans go into effect on August 2 at 00:01 a.m. ET.

CNBC policy

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The move is one of the strongest yet against its leading U.S. rival, and yet another sign that the Biden administration could adopt or advance many of the Trump administration’s tactics to stay competitive with China.

Biden and his economic advisors also need to decide what to do with a range of tariffs and whether to increase sanctions against Chinese officials involved in the mass incarceration of mainly Muslim ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region.

A representative from the Chinese State Department challenged the move by the Biden administration, telling press officials that the Trump administration’s original order was carried out “in complete disregard for the facts.”

“The US should respect the rule of law and the market, correct its mistakes and stop actions that undermine the global financial market order and the legitimate rights and interests of investors,” said spokesman Wang Wenbin to reporters in Beijing.

The previous order of the Trump administration created a list of 48 companies.