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asthma
'Children Are Dying': Sanders Pushes Pharma Giants to Cap Cost of Inhaler for Kids
"No child in America should be sick or die because their parents cannot afford or access the inhalers they need to breathe," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Aug 13, 2024
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday urged a pair of pharmaceutical corporations to immediately slash the price tag of the generic version of the most commonly prescribed inhaler for children, continuing a pressure campaign that the Vermont Independent and his Democratic colleagues have been waging throughout the year with
remarkable results.
Sanders' latest call was directed at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Prasco Laboratories, which sells the authorized generic of Flovent—an inhaler that GSK
pulled from the U.S. market earlier this year.
In March, after the Sanders-led Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee launched an investigation into the high costs of inhalers, GSK announced it would join other companies in capping out-of-pocket costs for its asthma medications at $35 a month.
But GSK's pledge
did not extend to Flovent's generic, which currently costs patients up to hundreds of dollars per month. Prasco Laboratories sells the generic product under a deal with GSK.
"Unfortunately, the retail price of this inhaler is between $172 and $313, and many insurance companies are refusing to cover it because the net price is more expensive than the brand-name version of Flovent," Sanders noted in a statement Tuesday. "Facing high prices and a lack of insurance coverage, families throughout the country are having a very difficult time purchasing inhalers for their children."
"The result: Pediatricians have observed a major increase in the number of children with asthma who have been admitted to hospitals," Sanders continued. "There are also reports that more children are dying. That is absolutely unacceptable. No child in America should be sick or die because their parents cannot afford or access the inhalers they need to breathe."
Nearly five million children in the U.S. have asthma, according to
data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and an estimated 300 children and young adults in the country die from asthma attacks each year.
CNNreported earlier this year that GSK's decision to pull Flovent off the market in the U.S. put kids in danger of asthma flare-ups and visits to the ER."
Experts and lawmakers have accused GSK of yanking Flovent from the U.S. market to avoid paying significant federal penalties for raising the product's price tag above the rate of inflation.
"Instead of paying Medicaid the rebates it owed in 2024, GSK appears to have used a loophole to preserve its profits from years of exorbitant price increases," Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) wrote in a letter to GSK's chief executive in early May. "GSK replaced both of its brand Flovent inhalers with an identical line of products licensed to a different manufacturer—a company that is conveniently exempt from Medicaid rebates, since it has no existing price history."
"Through your arrangement with Prasco Laboratories," Hassan added, "GSK appears to be circumventing Medicaid rebates to protect decades of profits gained by price gouging patients and public programs."
Sanders said Tuesday that, going forward, the focus of his Senate committee's investigation into inhaler costs and corporate price gouging will be on "the crisis of infants and children with asthma who have been struggling to receive the inhalers they need."
"These companies have a responsibility to make sure that children with asthma in America have access to the inhalers they need," said Sanders. "As the chairman of the HELP Committee, I will continue to do everything I can to make sure that the American people no longer pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs."
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Oakland Ban on Dirty Coal Kills Plan for Massive Export Terminal
Port developers were quietly planning new port facility which would have shipped up to ten million tons of coal out of Oakland each year, increasing national coal exports by 19 percent.
Jun 28, 2016
The City of Oakland, California, took a bold step towards protecting the health of its citizens and the global environment on Monday after city council members voted unanimously to ban the storage and handling of coal and petroleum coke in the city.
The ban, sought by local environmental groups for over a year, is expected to derail plans for a massive export terminal on the city-owned waterfront, the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal (OBOT).
According to the San Francisco chapter of the Sierra Club, the port developers "have been quietly soliciting a partnership with four Utah counties to export up to ten million tons of coal out of Oakland each year. The partnership would make Oakland the largest coal-export facility on the West Coast and increase national coal exports by a whopping 19 percent."
Community members opposed to the planned facility rallied in and outside Monday's overflow hearing. The San Jose Mercury News reports:
Hundreds of people filled the council chambers, spilling into overflow rooms, and offered several hours of commentary frequently punctuated by cheers, applause and outbursts from audience members on both sides of the issue. Following the vote, audience members burst into song, filling the chambers with a chorus singing, "No more coal in Oakland, I'm going to let it shine."
"This is what grassroots organizing looks like," Bruce Nilles, senior campaign director for Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, declared on social media.
The vote came three days after city staff released a long-anticipated report that recommended the ban based on its findings that OBOT "would pose a serious health risk to both workers at the planned terminal and West Oakland residents, who already suffer from high levels of asthma and other respiratory illnesses," the Mercury News reports.
The ordinance, which requires a second vote on July 19th to become finalized, was proposed by Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Councilman Dan Kalb, who argued that such projects pollute the air and pose serious risks to workers and community members. While the new rule specifically pertains to future projects, the council voted unanimously on a resolution to apply the ordinance to OBOT.
The proposed terminal had sparked a fierce local debate, which developers and other project supporters framed as a choice between local jobs and the environment.
Following the vote, councilmember Rebecca Kaplan deemed it "a proud day for democracy."
"I think this vote proves that we understand the importance of protecting the health and safety of our community," Kaplan said. "It also shows that we were able to push back against the lies from the industry that were so deceptive."
"When I heard about the possibility of coal coming through this port, I just had a really bad feeling come over me," said Derrick Muhammad, an International Longshore Workers Union representative. "Oakland families are already worried about asthma and other sickness because of highways and port activities. It's not right to ask them to take on the worry and risk of nine million tons of coal passing through their neighborhoods on trains each year."
"Allowing coal exports through Oakland not only harms the community and the environment but is also inconsistent with the progressive climate goals set by the City of Oakland and the State of California," added Irene Gutierrez, an attorney with Earthjustice.
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Taking Out the Trash Burners
The fight against a dirty incinerator in Baltimore is an inspiration for all of us.
Oct 21, 2015
Having scored one big victory for jobs and the environment, a group of Baltimore activists is trying to take things to the next level. Curtis Bay, their heavily polluted Baltimore neighborhood, had been bracing for a $1 billion garbage incinerator that would have lowered Maryland's already poor air quality.
Energy Answers, the company that won approval six years ago to build this boondoggle, tried to greenwash the burner, falsely claiming that it would generate "clean" power. However, the incinerator would have emitted dangerous levels of mercury, lead, dioxins, and other substances linked to neurological problems, cancer, and asthma—all within a mile of local schools.
That's why a youth-led organization, Free Your Voice, joined with environmental groups in a campaign against the incinerator in favor of real solutions for dignified jobs and authentically green initiatives. Free Your Voice grew out of a human rights group called United Workers, founded in 2002 by homeless day laborers.
Earlier this year, community groups persuaded local school systems, the Baltimore City government, and 19 other key institutions to cancel their plans to purchase electricity from the dirty burner. That dealt a crippling blow to the incinerator. Baltimore will be better off without it.
Burning trash is hazardous to any community's economy, environment, and public health, so I've been joining community groups to fight incinerators my entire adult life -- from this country to South Africa, India, and the Philippines.
Still, the Maryland Department of the Environment hasn't yet declared the project dead -- even though Energy Answers has failed to do anything on the land for more than 18 months, violating its permit's terms. Free Your Voice is now calling upon the environmental agency to cancel the company's permit officially.
While Energy Answers holds the 97-acre site hostage, people from the emboldened Curtis Bay community are coming up with their own solutions. Among the ideas that Free Your Voice and its allies are proposing are a community-owned solar farm and an eco-industrial park that would host recycling, reuse, and composting companies. Recycling is better for the environment than burning trash, and our discarded possessions and it creates 10 to 20 times more jobs per ton of material processed.
Nationally, most of our trash ends up in landfills that leach toxins into the soil and water, or goes into incinerators that release toxic fumes -- often in inner-city neighborhoods. The result is an assault on public health, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and a tremendous waste of materials that could have been reused.
Just imagine what would happen if the Baltimore story were repeated nationwide. According to a Tellus Institute study, the United States could create over a million jobs by 2030 by transforming how we manage our waste.
Instead of destroying resources in incinerators and landfills, we could conserve them through recycling and composting. Many of the industry's jobs could shift from large private corporations to municipal unions. This transformation would aid the environment, public health, equity, and racial justice all in one shot.
When the people of Baltimore got organized, they won the incinerator fight. Now, they're building bridges between movements that too often are pitted against one another, particularly workers and environmentalists. It's an inspiration to other groups to do the same thing across Maryland and the whole country.
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