2021

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I would like to wish every reader a happier and calmer 2021!

Meanwhile I am having to note what I think is a dubious start.  I refer to the fact, firstly, that the UK has officially left the EU (groan for the future of the grandchildren! The disaster has finally come to pass!).

Secondly, some lobby or other is calling for President-Elect Biden to appoint more people of Asian ancestry.  Please! What we need is to stop the constant chatter about race and concentrate on brain, know- how, intelligence and experience.  Biden has so far done a good job at assembling a good group of advisors  and executives that seems  to qualify.  Well done!

Personally, I am fed up with these special interest lobbies.  Please offer us a quiet period of good governance!  I want some good news and, as mentioned yesterday,  giant helping of peace of mind!

 

Messing up the vaccinations

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Tasked with getting anti-virus needles into arms, our leaders have proved totally unable to organise the proverbial drinking session in a brewery. Twenty million people are supposed to have had covid jabs by now. The actual figure is only 2.6 million.

This is a national emergency, just as a major war would be. The national government should have been working with the states on the details of vaccination, offering money and experienced planners where necessary – in other words, an overall, detailed plan. Instead the Federal government has walked away – “none of our business – we sent you the stuff; it’s now up to you to get the vaccinations done”. But the states are not set up to do this and don’t have people, the experience or the money. The national government, supported by the Senate, has thus shown shocking irresponsibility as the death toll has inexorably risen day by day.

While this isn’t surprising, a suggestion was made last night on CNN that either the World Health Organisation or UNICEF, who are experts on vaccination all over the world, should be invited to come to the US in force and show us how to organize this desperately needed vaccine campaign. UNICEF digging the US out of a hole? Good gracious! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

There will surely be another pandemic in the future, and let us hope the lessons of this one are learned and internalized.

US Pharma’s financialised business model

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“Price gouging in the US pharmaceutical drug industry goes back more than three decades.

“In 1985 US Representative Henry Waxman, chair of the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, accused the pharmaceutical industry of “gouging the American public” with “outrageous” price increases, driven by “greed on a massive scale.”

“Even in the wake of the many Congressional inquiries that have taken place since the 1980s, including one inspired by the extortionate prices that Gilead Sciences has placed on its Hepatitis-C drugs Sovaldi since 2013 and Harvoni since 2014, the US government has not regulated drug prices. UK Prescription Price Regulation Scheme data for 1996 through 2010 show that, while drug prices in other advanced nations were close to the UK’s regulated prices, those in the United States were between 74 percent and 181 percent higher. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has produced abundant evidence that US drug prices are by far the highest in the world.

“The US pharmaceutical industry’s invariable response to demands for price regulation has been that it will kill innovation. US drug companies claim that they need higher prices than those that prevail elsewhere so that the extra profits can be used to augment R&D spending. The result, they contend, is more drug innovation that benefits the United States, and indeed the whole world.

“It is a compelling argument, until one looks at how major US pharmaceutical companies actually use the profits that high drug prices generate. In the name of “maximizing shareholder value” (MSV), pharmaceutical companies allocate the profits generated from high drug prices to massive repurchases, or buybacks, of their own corporate stock for the sole purpose of giving manipulative boosts to their stock prices. Incentivizing these buybacks is stock-based compensation that rewards senior executives for stock-price “performance.”

“Like no other sector, the pharmaceutical industry puts a spotlight on how the political economy of science is a matter of life and death. In this paper, we invoke “the theory of innovative enterprise” to explain how and why high drug prices restrict access to medicines and undermine medical innovation. An innovative enterprise seeks to develop a high-quality product that it can sell to the largest possible market at the most affordable price. In sharp contrast, the MSV-obsessed companies that dominate the US drug industry have become monopolies that restrict output and raise price. These companies need to be regulated.” (https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/research-papers/us-pharmas-financialized-business-model).

My comment: I once worked for a (British) pharmaceutical company. For all that it was regulated the profit margins of the products I was involved with were massive. The company was, and still is, rich enough to develop new drugs and show a handsome profit. There is no case whatsoever for not regulated an American industry on which so many of us depend, one way or another.

Main points in the Brexit agreement

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This may be of academic interest to many readers, but, for those interested, the following is a quick guide (The full agreement is more than 1,200 pages long; here are some of the key points, a bit long, but what do you expect?)

Trade
There will be no extra tariffs or limits on the amount that can be traded (quotas) between the UK and the EU from 1 January. However, there will be extra checks at borders, such as safety checks and customs declarations.

For services, including finance – very important to the UK economy – the situation is still slightly unclear. Services will lose their automatic right of access but the UK said the agreement “locks in market access across substantially all sectors”.

Professional qualifications
There will no longer be automatic recognition of professional qualifications such as doctors, nurses and architects.7

Travel
UK nationals will need a visa for stays of longer than 90 days in the EU in a 180-day period, and there will be extra border checks for UK travellers.
EU pet passports will no longer be valid.

Health
British travellers will still be able to access emergency healthcare in the European Union. European Health Insurance Cards, (EHIC) cards will remain valid until they expire. According to the UK government, they will then have to be replaced by a UK Global Health Insurance Card.

Phones
The UK and the EU will co-operate on “fair and transparent rates for international mobile roaming” but there is nothing stopping British travellers being charged for using their phone in the EU, and vice versa.

Fishing
The UK becomes an independent coastal state and can decide on access to its waters and fishing grounds. But EU boats will be able to fish in UK waters for some years to come at least. 25% of the value of their current catch will now become available for UK fishing boats, but there will be a transition period of five-and-a-half years where that is phased in.
After the transition period, the UK and EU will regularly negotiate access to each other’s waters.

European Court of Justice
The UK will no longer be bound by judgements made by the European Court of Justice, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

Security
The UK will no longer have automatic access to key databases, but should be able to gain access upon request. The UK will not be a member of Europol – the EU’s law enforcement agency – but it will have a presence at its headquarters. This will be similar to the arrangement the US currently has.

Study
The UK will no longer participate in the Erasmus exchange programme – an EU scheme that helps students study in other countries, and in its place will be a new scheme named after the mathematician Alan Turing. Students at universities in Northern Ireland will continue to participate in Erasmus, as part of an arrangement with the Irish government.

My comment: Doesn’t seem quite as bad as feared.

A poem

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The Cormorant – a poem

I stand here many hours a day,
Preening, cleaning, blooming, grooming,
On the stanchion by the jetty.
This is my plinth, my vantage point – –
I guard it jealously. No passing seagull – –
Life’s competitor, nuisance, curse – –
Alights for long, believe me.
I stand here watching.

The eagle is famous for his sight.
But little happens there below my perch
Above the clear Gulf waters, that evades my eye – –
Neither the young crab scuttling in the falling tide,
Nor the shrimp, black grouper, mutton snapper,
Nor the school of some obscure and dull sub-species.
It matters not if they are large or small.
From my well-sited pedestal I spot them all.

You’ll see me motionless, beak tucked in feathers,
Apparently asleep, balancing against the wind,
Oblivious to rain, even to infrequent hurricanes.
Or standing there, alert, attentive,
Holding my wings as in a silent prayer or yoga stretch,
Making my body limber, tractile, flexible.
This is my preparation. Limbs alert. Pulse upraised.
Speed is of the essence.

Then, like a bullet, I am gone,
Straight as an arrow, headed for my prey.
Eyes shut, wings in, a light “plop”,
Barely a ripple on the glassy sea,
And I am below the surface,
The ultimate amphibian: walking, swimming, flying,
It is all the same to me.
Got it! Gulp! and Gone!

I return to the surface and rise into the air
Towards my eyrie, unconcerned, replete.
All in a day’s work, a fact of Nature,
A moment in time, a snack, my third today.
Humans stroll by and spare me not a glance.
They lie there briefly at the jetty’s end
In a hammock slung between two posts.
Curious. Is this the only rest they give themselves all day?

What do I think about as I do my daily cormorant thing?
Well, weather foremost, other types of bird;
That young, sleek cormorant nestling on the roost close by;
Sea temperature and time of day;
Movements of shoals, the proximity of dolphins, tuna, shark;
Passing humans, forever making noise;
Boats, tides, the moon and local currents;
The evening rising of sea creatures great and small.

Study a thesaurus and you will find
The word “cormorant ” listed under gluttony, desire.
A shocking calumny this. I strenuously protest.
This is exhausting work – – flying, diving, swimming.
The ibis pecks around all day; the seagull simply flies.
We cormorants expend great energy and need more fuel,
Yet only graze the oceans round about,
Taking only what we need for comfort and survival.
Hah! Humans! They talk about greed?

For birds of meagre brain these matters keep us fidgety,
Even stressed at times.
Which is why you will see me, frustrated,
Leap into the air, fluttered and flustered,
Grumbling about the world and our environment,
Anxious about declining numbers, fewer fish,
Human litter, plastic junk and oil-anointed seas.
The life of a cormorant! What’s to become of us?

( Robert Hanrott, November 2008)