In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
In response to outrage from patients and lawmakers, Marathon Pharmaceuticals has delayed the launch of an $89,000 drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
The company had announced the annual list price for Emflaza, which is a steroid, after the Food and Drug Administration approved the drug Thursday.
Emflaza is approved as an orphan drug, which means it is intended to treat a rare disease. Duchenne is an inherited disorder that causes muscles to become weak. There is no cure for the condition, which mainly affects boys, but some drugs, including Emflaza, are used to lessen symptoms.
For years, many American patients have imported deflazacort, the generic version of Emflaza, for about $1,200 a year. But because the medicine wasn't approved in the U.S., the cost of the medicine wasn't typically covered by insurers.
That contrast in price between became a flash point Monday as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., sent a letter to Marathon on Monday morning demanding answers about the $89,000 price for a drug that isn't new. It has been used routinely by Duchenne patients in the U.S. since at least 2005.
"We believe Marathon is abusing our nation's 'orphan drug' program, which grants companies seven years of market exclusivity to encourage research into new treatments for rare diseases — not to provide companies like Marathon with lucrative market exclusivity rights for drugs that have been available for decades," Sanders and Cummings wrote.
Marathon said FDA approval would help more patients get the drug.
"Our goal in commercializing Emflaza all along has been to make it available to that broader set of patients who prior to FDA approval have not had access to the therapy," said a statement attributed to Marathon CEO Jeffrey Aronin that was read Monday to a meeting of parents, patients and advocates in Washington, D.C. "We are pausing our launch, which has not yet taken place. We have not sold any new product and will pause that process."
But patients and their families cried foul.
"What you're doing is robbing my insurance company," said Dana Edwards, a mother from New Jersey whose 12-year-old has taken deflazacort, the generic version of the drug, since he was 5.
Pat Furlong, the president and founder of Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, which sponsored the Monday conference, read the statement to an outraged crowd in a conference room at the Mayflower Hotel.
"Since last week's approval, they've heard from all of us," he said. Furlong told the audience that complaints from patients helped to prompt Marathon's action.
The company, Furlong read, will continue to offer patients an expanded access program, which allows about 800 patients to receive the drug from the company. More can join that program free, and patients can continue importing the drug from Canada or "wherever they are getting it," the statement said.
Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.
American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.
The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.
On a happy note: remember how in North Carolina, Republicans in the legislature were attempting to strip away the power of the governor to appoint two of the three people in the election board for each county so that they could continue stripping away voting rights prevent voter fraud?
U.S. President Donald Trump made it clear he expects Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine and reduce violence in Ukraine, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Tuesday.
"President Trump has made it very clear that he expects the Russian government to de-escalate violence in the Ukraine and return Crimea," Spicer said at a daily news briefing. "At the same time, he fully expects to and wants to get along with Russia."
I've worked for Goldman Sachs cleaning up their mortgages bullshit. They need to be regulated and watched like hawks. No one in that industry's opinion on regulations matters. Not for at least another 10 years.
President Trump’s ouster of national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, and the circumstances leading up to it, have quickly become a major crisis for the fledgling administration, forcing the White House on the defensive and precipitating the first significant breach in relations between Trump and an increasingly restive Republican Congress.
Even as the White House described Trump’s “immediate, decisive” action in demanding Flynn’s resignation late Monday as the end of an unfortunate episode, senior GOP lawmakers were buckling under growing pressure to investigate it.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that it was “highly likely” that the events leading to Flynn’s departure would be added to a broader probe into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election. Intercepts showed that Flynn discussed U.S. sanctions in a phone call with the Russian ambassador — a conversation topic that Flynn first denied and then later said he could not recall.
McConnell’s comments followed White House revelations that Trump was aware “for weeks” that Flynn had misled Vice President Pence and others about the content of his late-December talks with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
White House counsel Donald F. McGahn told Trump in a briefing late last month that Flynn, despite his claims to the contrary, had discussed U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration in late December, press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday. That briefing, he said, came “immediately” after Sally Q. Yates, then the acting attorney general, informed McGahn on Jan. 26 about discrepancies between intercepts of Kislyak’s phone calls and public statements by Pence and others that there had been no discussion of sanctions.
Trump brought in senior strategist Stephen K. Bannon and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to join the discussion with McGahn, according to two officials familiar with the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
McGahn then conferred with Yates again the following day, Jan. 27, to try to glean more information, these two officials said. Within the White House, the matter was viewed skeptically, and Trump, Bannon, Priebus and McGahn for several days remained among the few people briefed, they said.
Over the next two weeks, the officials said, Flynn was asked multiple times about what exactly he had said. He brushed aside the suggestion that he had spoken about sanctions with the ambassador — denials that kept him afloat within the White House even as he was being actively evaluated, they said.
It was not until a Washington Post report last Thursday, in which Flynn was quoted as saying that he had no “recollection” of discussing sanctions but couldn’t be sure that he hadn’t, that the downward slide culminating in Monday’s forced resignation began, several administration officials said.
“We’ve been reviewing and evaluating this issue with respect to General Flynn on a daily basis for a few weeks, trying to ascertain the truth,” Spicer said at the daily White House press briefing. He emphasized that an internal White House inquiry had concluded that nothing Flynn discussed with the Russian was illegal but that he had “broken trust” with Trump by not telling the truth about the talks.
Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.
American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.
The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.
Why Comey didn't leak what? All of this was basically known at the time. I first read about this towards the end of the summer, or maybe in October at the latest. It was part of the Buzzfeed stuff, and various intelligence agencies have been investigating it all for months.
I've worked for Goldman Sachs cleaning up their mortgages bullshit. They need to be regulated and watched like hawks. No one in that industry's opinion on regulations matters. Not for at least another 10 years.
I'm conflicted. I want to agree with your opinion regarding regulations on Goldman Sachs, but you worked for Goldman Sachs, and thus your opinion does not matter...
this latest bit came after trump team said they never met with russian intelligence during the campaign season. it was a gotcha moment, because lying carries its own weight.
the earlier reports only talked about investigations, so confirmed contacts is indeed something new.
On February 15 2017 11:24 Doodsmack wrote: LOL why didn't you leak this Comey??
Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.
American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.
The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.
Why Comey didn't leak what? All of this was basically known at the time. I first read about this towards the end of the summer, or maybe in October at the latest. It was part of the Buzzfeed stuff, and various intelligence agencies have been investigating it all for months.
I've worked for Goldman Sachs cleaning up their mortgages bullshit. They need to be regulated and watched like hawks. No one in that industry's opinion on regulations matters. Not for at least another 10 years.
I'm conflicted. I want to agree with your opinion regarding regulations on Goldman Sachs, but you worked for Goldman Sachs, and thus your opinion does not matter...
Damn, invalided by my own ideals.
They were one of many clients and we cleaned up their title issues on behalf of their title insurance provider. The number of assignments of mortgage I saw that were sign and notarized on different dates was amazing. One time it took three separate departments across 3 states to pay a single $500 utility lien. One to approve to the lien to be paid, one to receive their payment information and a third one to cut the check. They used three separate systems. And when you talk to these people, they don't think the system in insane or weird. They are pod people who think that three separate offices for one $500 lien is the best thing since sliced bread.
I don't have to deal with them any more because they don't operate in my state and work through servicers. Which is not better.
Our press sec Jack Spicer has been a bit too spicy lately. I wonder what his lifespan in the Trump admin is, considering that no one seems to last very long in there.
On February 15 2017 12:31 oneofthem wrote: hey hey, you are breaking some ethical rules here buddy
All of that is public information. Assignments are recorded on the registry, which now checks the dates of assignments. And those offices are open facing and named exactly what they do. You can still call them. The reason that lien existed was because the utility company got tired of calling three separate offices to get paid.
All of those things are just efforts to avoid having a large branch in each state to handle these issues.
Russia had contact with both the Trump campaign team and the Clinton campaign team. One was more responsive than the other, but they claim it is fairly common and "routine".
Russia said that it talked with the teams of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during the U.S. presidential election as part of routine outreach during a campaign.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the Russian embassy in the U.S. held talks with the Trump camp that “were on a sufficient, responsible level.” Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Trump, said in an e-mail that she was “not aware” of any meetings by campaign representatives with Russian diplomats.
Ryabkov said the talks were “part of routine everyday work.” There was also “sporadic” contact with the Clinton team, though it was “not always productive,” he said. Calls to members of Clinton’s former campaign team for comment weren’t immediately returned.
Is it really news, or is this "Russia contacted Trump during the elections & is being investigated" just pointless scaremongering? I seem to recall Clinton being investigated for various things too.
On February 15 2017 11:24 Doodsmack wrote: LOL why didn't you leak this Comey??
Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.
American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.
The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.
Why Comey didn't leak what? All of this was basically known at the time. I first read about this towards the end of the summer, or maybe in October at the latest. It was part of the Buzzfeed stuff, and various intelligence agencies have been investigating it all for months.
I've worked for Goldman Sachs cleaning up their mortgages bullshit. They need to be regulated and watched like hawks. No one in that industry's opinion on regulations matters. Not for at least another 10 years.
I'm conflicted. I want to agree with your opinion regarding regulations on Goldman Sachs, but you worked for Goldman Sachs, and thus your opinion does not matter...
This is new information, because it's about Russian intelligence contacts.
I have come to the conclusion that the only part of this administration that isn't a complete joke right now is Pence and some of the cabinet members. This whole Russia thing has left a bad taste in my mouth and has made me embarassed for this country. It's the deceit and lack of transparency, just like with Clinton, that is bothersome. In light of these recent developments, Trump's stance on Russia is even more suspicious. Also Spicer is just a meme at this point, no credibility whatsoever.
On February 15 2017 12:36 a_flayer wrote: Russia had contact with both the Trump campaign team and the Clinton campaign team. One was more responsive than the other, but they claim it is fairly common and "routine".
Russia said that it talked with the teams of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during the U.S. presidential election as part of routine outreach during a campaign.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the Russian embassy in the U.S. held talks with the Trump camp that “were on a sufficient, responsible level.” Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Trump, said in an e-mail that she was “not aware” of any meetings by campaign representatives with Russian diplomats.
Ryabkov said the talks were “part of routine everyday work.” There was also “sporadic” contact with the Clinton team, though it was “not always productive,” he said. Calls to members of Clinton’s former campaign team for comment weren’t immediately returned.
Is it really news, or this "Russia contacted Trump during the elections & is being investigated" is just pointless scaremongering? I seem to recall Clinton being investigated for various things too.
this is standard obfuscation. you are missing the 'intelligence officer' part.
EPT
