“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”
— William Wilberforce
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced criminal charges against Zishan Alvia, owner of Laboratory Elite, a SARS-CoV-2 virus testing laboratory in Chicago accused of a scheme in which Alvia obtained $83 million by fraudulently billing the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Uninsured Program for reimbursement for SARS-CoV-2 tests.1 HRSA’s Uninsured Program […]
New guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) state that obese children should be evaluated and treated “early and aggressively” with medications or weight loss surgeries.1 This is the first guidance from the AAP in 15 years on childhood obesity, which affects more than 14.4 million children in the U.S. and has tripled in […]
The United States is the most medicated country in the world, with 70 percent of Americans using at least one prescription drug daily. The U.S. also has the highest rates of obesity, heart disease, childhood illness, and autoimmune disease, yet it often touts its health care and medical research as the best in the world.1 The […]
Nearly two years after the introduction of COVID-19 biologics around the world, the pharmaceutical industry is facing a waning demand for these products. Scott Rosenstein, a New York-based health care adviser to Eurasia Group said: Supply is exceeding demand in much of the world, even with many countries rolling out booster shots. Once the perception set […]
On May 26, 2022, U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) officials held a press briefing and announced there had been nine cases of monkeypox identified in seven U.S. states and that two licensed smallpox vaccines were in the national stockpile and ready to be distributed.1 The CDC’s director said, “The U.S. has the resources we […]
As COVID-19 vaccine sales continue to soar, Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel’s total personal financial compensation increased by 41 percent in 2021, reaching $18.2 million. The company’s total revenue rose 2,200 percent in 2021, jumping from $803 million to $18.5 billion.1 2 Moderna partnered with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), headed […]
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who recently announced that a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose will be necessary for everyone who has already gotten three doses, was awarded $24.3 million in personal financial compensation in 2021. In addition to his $1.69 million salary, which increased by 15 percent, Bourla took home a cash incentive of $8 million, […]
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General has issued a warning to the public about fraudulent schemes and scams related to COVID-19 services and testing that involve telemarketing calls, text messages, social media platforms, and door-to-door visits.1 At the outset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, there was a proliferation of fraudulent […]
Pfizer, Inc. has withdrawn its emergency use authorization (EUA) application for its experimental BNT162b2 (also known as “Comirnaty”) messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 biologic (developed in collaboration with Germany’s BioNTech) in India.1 Pfizer was the first pharmaceutical company to apply for an EUA to distribute a COVID biologic in India in 2021. However, India’s regulatory agency […]
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials have urged widespread testing for the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is associated with COVID-19 disease. The two types of coronavirus tests used for diagnosis are laboratory tests and rapid tests, which can either be an antigen test or a Nucleic Acid Amplification Test […]