vaccine – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Senators Klobuchar And Lujan Release Ridiculous, Blatantly Unconstitutional Bill To Make Facebook Liable For Health Misinformation

from the stop-this-nonsense dept

On Wednesday, Senator Amy Klobuchar promised to introduce a bill that would somehow hold Facebook liable for medical misinformation. As we wrote in the post about her claims, that doesn’t explain how there would be any legitimate underlying cause of action, because nearly all such medical misinformation is still protected by the 1st Amendment.

Yesterday Klobuchar, along with Senator Ben Ray Lujan, introduced their bill: the Health Misinformation Act of 2021. To say it’s unconstitutional would be giving it too much credit. To say that it wouldn’t even remotely do anything useful would be to state the obvious. To say that it’s a grandstanding piece of absolute nonsense would be about the best thing I could think of. It’s garbage in so many ways.

The actual functioning of the bill would be to add an exception to Section 230’s protections, saying that they no longer apply — if it’s in the midst of a health crisis — for medical misinformation. It would add the following “EXCEPTION” to Section 230:

A provider of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of health misinformation that is created or developed through the interactive computer service during a covered period if the provider promotes that health misinformation through an algorithm used by the provider (or similar software functionality), except that this subparagraph shall not apply if that promotion occurs through a neutral mechanism, such as through the use of chronological functionality

And, this law would only be in effect during a public health emergency, as declared by the Secretary of Health & Human Services. The law would also require the Secretary of Health & Human Services to “issue guidance regarding what constitutes health misinformation.” That last bit should make you grimace, because that’s a hugely problematic thing for the 1st Amendment. Having the government define what is and what is not “health misinformation” cannot possibly pass 1st Amendment scrutiny by a court.

It’s also incredibly dumb. First of all, in a “public health emergency” like we’re currently going through, what is and what is not “health misinformation” is not always clear, and involves constantly changing information. Remember, we went through this with the whole “wearing masks” thing at the very beginning of the pandemic. Then, you had the WHO and CDC advise against wearing masks. Under this bill, you could have had the HHS boss claim that anyone promoting mask wearing was engaging in health misinformation… and somehow try to make Facebook liable for it. Would that have been a good idea?

Even worse: imagine what kind of information might be declared “health misinformation” by disingenuous grandstanders? Pro-choice information? Information about transgender health?

But, going back a step: what would this law actually do, even if it weren’t so blatantly unconstitutional? The answer is absolutely fucking nothing. Because, as we pointed out on Wednesday, you still need an underlying cause of action and there is none here. Okay, so now Facebook is magically “liable” for health misinformation? But as soon as anyone sues, Facebook says “that content is protected speech, so there’s no cause of action here” and the court dismisses the case. Whether we like it or not, nearly all misinformation is still protected under the 1st Amendment. And, for the reasons discussed earlier, that’s probably a good thing — because otherwise, you’ll have the government declaring things you agree with as misinformation, and that leads to very dangerous places.

This entire bill is not just grandstanding nonsense, but a waste of time. Yes, we should be looking for ways to better educate the public about the actual efficacy of (massively successful) COVID-19 vaccines. And, yes we need to figure out better ways to reach those who are skeptical about vaccines or hesitant to get the vaccine. But this bill does none of that. It just throws a bunch of garbage out so that Klobuchar can stand before the TV cameras and pretend to do something. It’s the worst kind of political grandstanding.

And, while we’re talking about how ridiculous this is, let’s just throw in a giant “oh shut the fuck up” to Facebook as well for putting out a total garbage statement in response:

“We have long supported common industry standards and section 230 reform. We believe clarification on the difficult and urgent questions about health related misinformation would be helpful and look forward to working with Congress and the industry as we consider options for reform.”

What a bunch of garbage. Facebook knows that this bill is a mess of nonsense, and that the 1st Amendment would stop it from having any impact. Rather than putting out a compliant, suck up statement, why can’t Facebook speak up about what it’s actually doing to try to deal with health misinformation on the site? That would be interesting and that has mostly been absent from this discussion beyond whatever uninformed nonsense is being stated by people outside the company about what they think Facebook is doing (which is either “nothing” according to many ignorant folks, or “censoring conservatives!” according to another bunch of equally ignorant folks). If Facebook came out and actually explained what it really is doing that would be helpful. But, of course, Facebook is trying to play the politics of all of this, rather than doing the right thing.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, amy klobuchar, ben ray lujan, cause of action, content moderation, covid-19, health misinformation, liability, misinformation, section 230, vaccine
Companies: facebook

Why Is US Government Giving A Pharma Giant Exclusive Rights To A Zika Vaccine Whose Development Was Paid For By The US Public?

from the please-tell-me-again-why-making-drugs-unaffordable-will-save-lives dept

Here on Techdirt we’ve written much about the way Western pharma companies fight for their “right” to charge unaffordable prices for medicines in emerging and developing economies. In particular, they routinely take governments and local generic suppliers to court in an attempt to shore up highly-profitable monopolies on life-saving drugs. But to be fair, it’s not only poorer people who are dying as a result of Big Pharma’s desire to maximize profits: Western drug companies are equally happy to charge even higher prices in richer countries — notably in the US. That’s old news. But there is a pharmaceutical saga unfolding that manages to combine all the worst aspects of this kind of behavior, and to throw in a few new ones.

It concerns something really exciting and important: a vaccine that shows great promise against the devastating Zika virus, which can cause microcephaly, blindness, deafness, and calcification of the brain in children whose mothers were infected during their pregnancy. If effective, such a vaccine could be a tremendous boon not just for developing countries, but for Western ones too, since the Zika virus has already begun to spread in the US, and Europe. The vaccine was developed at the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research, and the Department of the Army funded its development. Great news, you might think: the US public paid for it, so it’s only right that it should have low-cost access to it. Moreover, as an act of compassion — and to burnish its international image — the US could allow other countries to produce it cheaply too. But an article in The Nation reports that the US Army has other ideas:

the Army is planning to grant exclusive rights to this potentially groundbreaking medicine — along with as much as $173 million in funding from the Department of Health and Human Services — to the French pharmaceutical corporation Sanofi Pasteur. Sanofi manufactures a number of vaccines, but it’s also faced repeated allegations of overcharges and fraud. Should the vaccine prove effective, Sanofi would be free to charge whatever it wants for it in the United States. Ultimately, the vaccine could end up being unaffordable for those most vulnerable to Zika, and for cash-strapped states.

The Knowledge Ecology Institute (KEI), led by Jamie Love, made a reasonable suggestion to ensure that those most at need would have access to the drug at a reasonable price. KEI asked that, if Sanofi does get an exclusive deal, it should be obliged to make the vaccine available at an affordable price. The Army said it lacked the ability to enforce price controls, but it would ask those nice people at Sanofi to commit to affordable pricing on a voluntary basis. According to The Nation, those nice people at Sanofi refused. Speaking of nice people at Sanofi, the article notes the following:

Sanofi’s record also includes a number of controversies related to its pricing practices, from a 190millionfinetosettlechargesthatitdefraudedMedicareandothergovernmentprograms,toa190 million fine to settle charges that it defrauded Medicare and other government programs, to a 190millionfinetosettlechargesthatitdefraudedMedicareandothergovernmentprograms,toa109 million fine to settle charges that it illegally provided product kickbacks to doctors. In 2014, a whistle-blower alleged the company engaged in another kickback scheme and the destruction of legal evidence. KEI maintains a comprehensive list of Sanofi’s fraud fines, including the latest: a $19.9 million settlement, reached this April, for overcharging the Department of Veterans? Affairs.

When there is an entire Web page dedicated to listing Sanofi’s problems going back to 2009, you really have to wonder why the US Army is so keen to give the company a monopoly on this promising new treatment. The usual argument for the sky-high prices of drugs is that firms must be rewarded for taking on the financial risk of drug development, otherwise they won’t proceed, and the world would be the poorer. Except, of course, in this case that risk was entirely borne by the US public, which paid for the early stage development of the vaccine with their taxes. So Sanofi risked nothing, but now looks likely to reap the benefits by being allowed to price the vaccine out of the reach of the people who most need it. You might think there ought to be a law against this kind of behavior. It turns out that there is:

KEI’s Jamie Love pointed out that under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, it is already illegal to grant exclusive rights to a federally owned invention unless the license holder agrees to make it available at reasonable pricing. But that provision has rarely, if ever, been enforced.

Now would be a really great time to start enforcing that law.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: army, patents, public funding, vaccine, walter reed army institute, zika
Companies: sanofi

Here's A Serious Alternative To Big Pharma: Cuba

from the doing-more-with-less dept

Techdirt often points out that the current system of funding the creation of life-saving drugs is broken. But the obvious question is: what can you put in its place? The answer includes things like prizes, but also, it seems, Cuba:

> Cuba has for several years had a promising therapeutic vaccine against lung cancer. The 55-year trade embargo led by the US made sure that Cuba was mostly where it stayed.

Leaving aside the fact that politics probably got in the way of saving lives (again), the more interesting issue is how Cuba managed to come up with a lung cancer vaccine. Here’s the explanation from the Wired article quoted above:

> Though the country is justly famous for cigars, rum, and baseball, it also has some of the best and most inventive biotech and medical research in the world. That’s especially notable for a country where the average worker earns $20 a month. Cuba spends a fraction of the money the US does on healthcare per individual; yet the average Cuban has a life expectancy on par with the average American. “They?ve had to do more with less,” says [Roswell Park Cancer Institute’s CEO] Johnson, “so they?ve had to be even more innovative with how they approach things. For over 40 years, they have had a preeminent immunology community.”

The cancer vaccine is not the only important drug Cuba has managed to develop with its limited resources. According to Wired, Cuban scientists have come up with their own vaccines for meningitis B and hepatitis B, and monoclonal antibodies for kidney transplants. That suggests the success of the “do more with less” approach isn’t just a one-off, but can be applied consistently to deliver results.

That’s important, and not just for people who desperately need new drugs. Big pharma is one of the main industries pushing pseudo-trade agreements like TPP and TTIP. Some of the worst elements in those are driven by that industry’s desire to obtain longer patent protection and delay the entry of generics, with the justification that Big Pharma “needs” these extended monopolies to pay for costly research into novel drugs. Alternative approaches like Cuba’s, which require far lower investments, offer the hope not just of doing “more with less”, but also of calling the pharmaceutical giants’ bluff that only they can come up with life-saving new treatments.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: constraints, cuba, drugs, embargo, innovation, lung cancer, patents, pharmaceuticals, vaccine

DailyDirt: Tis The Season To Catch The Flu

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

December is a time to celebrate the holidays with family and friends, but it’s also when flu season starts ramping up. Several states have already reported an increase in flu activity, and it appears that the predominant strain of flu found in patients who have been hospitalized so far is H1N1 — the “Swine Flu” that caused a global pandemic in 2009 but is now a human seasonal flu virus. Here are a few links about the flu season, pandemics, and vaccines.

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: flu, flu season, health, pandemic, vaccine, virus

DailyDirt: Fighting The Next Pandemic

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The last flu season was pretty rough, but there’s a new H7N9 strain that has no vaccine (yet!) and is starting to infect and kill people (instead of sticking to birds). We’re just about coming to the tenth anniversary of SARS, and we’re still creating over 100 million flu vaccines every year using egg embryos — a process that takes months, time that we might not have if a really serious flu strain spreads quickly across the globe. Here are a few projects that are making vaccines more quickly.

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: bananas, flu, flu season, flublok, gmo, h7n9, robots, sars, tobacco, vaccine
Companies: darpa

DailyDirt: The Flu Season Is Here…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

This year’s flu season seems to be unusually miserable and widespread. One of the flu strains getting passed around this year hasn’t been seen for a few years, so people’s immune system resistance to it may be weak. If you haven’t caught the bug yet, here are just a few links that could help you avoid it — or just tell you more about what the flu actually is.

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: flu, flu season, health, humidity, khan academy, sickness, vaccine, virus
Companies: cdc

DailyDirt: Playing With Biological Fire?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There was a time when, if something was viral, it was almost certainly a bad thing. (Now, being viral could mean you’re going to be the next Justin Bieber.) With current biotech research, the end of common diseases could be at hand or we could be launching ourselves into the next era of viciously untreatable illnesses that we’ve had a hand in creating. Hopefully, we’re not going to be living out a bad sci-fi movie plot anytime soon. Here are just a few potential precursors to the apocalypse, though.

As always, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: biology, flu, flu season, mosquito, vaccine, viral