Boy, 13, dead after TikTok ‘Benadryl Challenge’

 An Ohio teen tragically perished after overdosing on over-the-counter medication while attempting a viral TikTok stunt.

The 13-year-old victim, Jacob Stevens, had been partaking in the “Benadryl Challenge,” a dangerous pursuit in which participants take 12 to 14 of the antihistamines — six times the recommended dose — in order to induce hallucinations.

The potentially deadly stunt started blowing up in 2020 as teens uploaded their attempts on TikTok in order to gain social media clout.

Jacob’s father, Justin, told ABC 6 that his son was at home last weekend with friends when he overdosed.

Footage taken by his pals showed the Columbus resident downing the pills, after which his body reportedly started to seize up.

“It was too much for his body,” the teen’s devastated father said.

Jacob was subsequently rushed to the hospital and put on a ventilator.

Despite medics’ best efforts, the boy perished six days later on what his father described as the “worst day of his life.”

Justin described hearing the devastating news that his son wouldn’t wake up.

“No brain scan, there was nothing there,” the bereaved dad said. “They said we could keep him on the vent, that he could lay there — but he will never open his eyes, he’ll never breathe, smile, walk or talk.”

Jacob Stevens, 13, spent six days on the ventilator before dying.

Facebook/Justin Stevens

The boy’s grandmother, Dianna Stevens, fought through tears to tell their local TV news outlet: “I’m going to do anything I can to make sure another child doesn’t go through it.”

Meanwhile, Jacob is remembered by his family as a well-mannered, funny, loving kid.

“It didn’t matter how bad of a day I was having, no one could make me smile, Jacob could make me smile,” an emotional Justin recalled.

In light of his son’s tragic death, the devastated Ohioan is also warning parents about the dangers of teens using social media unsupervised.

“Keep an eye at what they’re doing on that phone,” he said. “Talk to them about the situation. I want everyone to know about my son.”

Jacob Stevens in happier times. “Keep an eye at what they’re doing on that phone,” his dad warns other parents. “Talk to them about the situation. I want everyone to know about my son.”

Facebook/Justin Stevens
In addition, Justin is imploring lawmakers to put age restrictions on over-the-counter pharmaceuticals like Benadryl — a campaign he describes as his “life goal.”

He wants TikTok to impose similar safeguards, including requiring users to provide an ID before creating an account.

Unfortunately, Jacob isn’t the first victim of the Benadryl Challenge.

In August 2020, a 15-year-old girl fatally overdosed on the allergy drug during another ill-fated attempt at the stunt.

Following the spate of deaths, manufacturer Johnson & Johnson issued a public advisory regarding the challenge, warning: “The Benadryl TikTok trend is extremely concerning, dangerous and should be stopped immediately.”

The Food and Drug administration also put out a public service announcement.

“Taking higher than recommended doses of the common over-the-counter (OTC) allergy medicine diphenhydramine (Benadryl) can lead to serious heart problems, seizures, coma or even death,” the agency wrote.

“We are aware of news reports of teenagers ending up in emergency rooms or dying after participating in the ‘Benadryl Challenge’ encouraged in videos posted on the social media application TikTok.”

They added, “Health care professionals should be aware that the ‘Benadryl Challenge’ is occurring among teens and alert their caregivers about it.”

Ticktock — time could be running out for the teens of TikTok

The juggernaut viral video platform announced major changes for under-18 users in March, with a one-hour daily screen time limit set to be introduced in the coming weeks in an effort to curb endless scrolling that some argue is turning youths into “boring beasts.”

The goal is to rein in the way teens interact with the increasingly popular — and controversial — app.

The new restrictions came two days after the White House ordered government agencies to rid their devices of the Chinese-owned TikTok app within 30 days in an effort to prevent China’s communist government from spying on US citizens.

“We believe digital experiences should bring joy and play a positive role in how people express themselves, discover ideas, and connect,” said Cormac Keenan, TikTok’s head of trust and safety, in a statement. “We’re improving our screen time tool with more custom options, introducing new default settings for teen accounts, and expanding Family Pairing with more parental controls.”

The new 60-minute time limit will be automatically applied to every user under 18 years of age, who will be asked to enter a passcode to continue scrolling after an hour.

For users under 13, the limit will also be set to 60 minutes — but a parent or guardian will need to set or enter an existing passcode to enable 30 minutes of additional watch time.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/17/13-year-old-dead-after-attempting-tiktoks-benadryl-challenge/

Pro-Russian propagandist ID’d as US Navy vet who helped spread Pentagon intelligence leak

 A former US Navy noncommissioned officer has been identified as a pro-Russian propagandist who allegedly played a key role in spreading intelligence documents uploaded online by suspected leaker Jack Teixeira.

Sarah Bils, 37, a veteran who served at Whidbey Island in Washington state, was outed as “Donbass Devushka,” which translates to Donbas Girl, an online personality behind a vast network of pro-Kremlin blogs, podcasts and fundraising accounts.

While Bils touted herself online as a Ukraine-born woman backing Russia’s invasion and spreading misinformation against Kyiv, she was actually born in New Jersey and now lives in Oak Harbor, Washington, the pro-Ukraine North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO) reported.

NAFO revealed her true identity after comparing footage from Bils’ Donbass Devushka broadcasts with a June 2020 interview she had using her real identity with the Aquarium Co-op Podcast, where she voiced her expertise and love for tropical fish.

During the interview, NAFO found Bils had the same voice as her pro-Russian persona, as well as home decor similar to that in Donbass Devushka’s postings.

NAFO also found that Bils’ birthday matched Donbass Devushka’s online solicitations for birthday donations from her followers.

Bils told the Wall Street Journal that she is just an administrator for the Donbass Devushka persona, but noted that there were about 14 others “all over the world” who run her vast network.

The Telegram account linked to the persona had posted four of the allegedly leaked documents from the Department of Defense on April 5 that resulted in Teixeira’s arrest last week.

Bils claimed the documents were posted by another administrator.

Sarah Bils was outed as Donbass Devushka, an online personality behind a vast network of pro-Kremlin blogs, podcasts and fundraising accounts.

YouTube/Donbass Devushka

“I obviously know the gravity of top-secret classified materials. We didn’t leak them,” she said.

Teixeira, 21, a Massachusetts Air National Guard member, was accused of being behind the leak that allegedly revealed sensitive information about the war in Ukraine — and detailed US intelligence gathering on allies like Israel and South Korea.

According to public records, Bils joined the US Navy in November 2009, serving at the Whidbey Island facility, where she rose to the rank of E-7 chief aviation electronics technician, which would have given her access to sensitive information.

Bils was discharged from the military late last year with a lower rank, according to military records. The reason for the honorable discharge and rank change has not been publicly revealed.

Bils is a Navy veteran who served at Whidbey Island in Washington.

Facebook/Fleet Readiness Center Northwest

It came following an investigation over a high-speed crash in September 2021 when she rear-ended a 55-year-old driver, according to a police report.

Bils told WSJ that she left the Navy after suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.

Pekka Kallioniemi, a member of NAFO and a fellow at the University of Tampere in Finland, touted his group’s effort in exposing Donbass Devushka, warning of the network’s influence in the war.

“They were definitely one of the fastest-growing English-language, pro-Russian communities,” Kallioniemi said.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/17/pro-russian-propagandist-idd-as-us-navy-vet-who-helped-pentagon-intelligence-leak/

BlackRock to Kick off Sales of Failed Banks’ Securities for FDIC

 BlackRock Inc. will begin selling failed banks’ securities Tuesday, launching a months-long process to help the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. offload $114 billion of assets it picked up from Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. 

BlackRock’s Financial Markets Advisory unit will launch mortgage-backed security pool sales Tuesday morning and continue the process later in the week, according to emails about the sales sent to investors seen by Bloomberg. 

The government hired BlackRock to sell the collapsed banks’ securities earlier in April, highlighting the firm’s role as an adviser to regulators in times of financial peril.

BlackRock and the FDIC declined to comment.

While the securities sales “seem like a lot out of the gate,” it’s likely to be an orderly process, said Skyler Weinand, founder and chief investment officer at Regan Capital, which manages fixed-income investments for institutions. 

“I don’t think that either BlackRock or the FDIC wants to rock the boat in terms of price stability — and everyone has skin in the game to get best execution,” he added.

The world’s largest asset manager expects to ramp up trading of the mortgage tools to four days a week — planning to sell $1.5 billion to $2 billion per week depending on liquidity and trading conditions, the message said. 

It also plans to hold auctions of other securitized pools of assets including residential mortgage-backed securities that aren’t backed by government agencies, as well as collateralized mortgage obligations, according to a separate note seen by Bloomberg

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/blackrock-to-kick-off-sales-of-failed-banks-securities-for-fdic-1.1908770

After tumult, Amarin names new interim CEO and board member

 After Amarin’s former CEO Karim Mikhail recently resigned from the company, the drugmaker has tapped company veteran Aaron Berg to steer the ship—for now.

On an interim basis, Berg is moving up from his position as executive vice president and president of Amarin's U.S. business, a post he’s held since August 2021. Before that, he served as the company's chief commercial officer for five years.

Berg started at Amarin in 2012 as VP of marketing and managed markets after holding positions at Kos Pharmaceuticals, Essentialis and GSK, among other companies.

The appointment is effective immediately, as is the board membership of Amarin's new independent director Oliver O’Connor. O’Connor currently heads the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association.

The board is “working quickly” to identify a permanent CEO, board chairman Odysseas Kostas, M.D., said in a company statement. “We are excited to have Aaron step up to lead Amarin at this important time.”

Late last month, Mikhail resigned after the company's bitter fight with activist investor group Sarissa Capital, which culminated in Sarissa gaining company control after the resignation of seven board members. The public spat began when Sarissa became Amarin’s top shareholder and fought for board representation.

The company has been struggling since its sole commercial product, fish-oil-derived heart pill Vascepa, lost U.S. patent protection and came under siege from generic competitors. Amarin went all the way to the Supreme Court in an unsuccessful bid to defend its drug. 

As Vascepa sales tanked last summer, the drugmaker turned to restructuring. Amarin ended 2022 with full year sales of $366 million, a 37% decrease from 2021.

https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/after-former-ceo-split-amarin-declares-new-interim-ceo-us-business-president-aaaron-berg

Why is the FTC blocking free market health care solutions?

 Healthcare is getting more and more expensive. While it is easy to dismiss this as a byproduct of the inflationary pressures that have faced the economy more broadly over the last few years, the fact is that increased healthcare costs predate, and have been rising even faster, than what has affected the marketplace more broadly.

There are several reasons why this is the case: A growing and aging population, emerging health risks and rapid advances in pharmaceutical technologies all contribute. But the biggest skunk at the party is the federal government. Nearly half of the entire American population — about 160 million – are Medicare or Medicaid insured. As the 900-pound gorilla with a monopoly on the market, Washington dictates reimbursement rates to providers virtually irrespective of the actual cost of care.

For example, in 2020, the government’s reimbursement to hospitals for Medicare and Medicaid patients was over $100 billion less than the actual costs of the health care services delivered — a whopping 32.5 percent increase over the underpayment total for 2019. Providers are then forced to raise charges for care to other patients in order to recapture just portions of that underpayment — aka cost shifting, which everyone admits is patently unfair.

Health care providers, especially smaller and rural hospitals, increasingly find themselves facing difficult choices in order to just keep their doors open. Many of these hospitals are forced to cut back services just to survive, and even then most of them are constantly on the precipice of closure. In fact, nearly 30 percent of rural hospitals are currently at risk of closing.

Many other rural hospitals have succumbed. Between 2004 and 2019, 150 rural hospitals in America shut their doors, and in 2020 alone, 19 rural hospitals closed. These are grim statistics that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and cost-shifting will only worsen.

Among the tools available to keep at-risk and rural hospitals afloat and allow them to provide a high level of service in the face of such challenges is the ability to merge either with other facilities of a similar size or larger urban-based hospitals. This allows improvements in patient access to quality and advanced care, such as emergency and specialist services, by granting these facilities increased access to the resources of a larger health system. The data also clearly shows that such mergers actually reduce costs for both the patients and the providers by keeping care close to home while also improving the quality of care.

A 2021 study by Charles River Associates, for instance, showed that hospital consolidations led to significant improvements in a number of key metrics including readmission and mortality rates. Another study done that same year by Maryland’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and IBM Watson Health showed a decrease in mortality rates at consolidated hospitals, from 9.4 percent pre-merger to 5.0 percent post-merger.

These improvements are due to a number of factors, including improved access to resources that allow for new state-of-the-art diagnostic, testing and treatment technologies. The Healthcare Financial Management Association tells us that mergers offer underperforming hospitals an alternative to closure by increasing access to capital and providing an opportunity for investment into technological upgrades.

In spite of all of this, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continues to act as an impediment to beneficial hospital mergers. Recently cultivated institutional biases against consolidation in general and highly inaccurate myths about hospital systems are underpinning this attitude. Anti-trust laws, which the FTC is attempting to apply to hospitals, were designed to ensure fair and open competitive markets — not to eliminate entire segments of an industry. These laws were intended to help keep consumer prices reasonable and market-based by preventing monopolization.

But the FTC’s crusade against any and all mergers, including those in the health care sector, is not based on objective empirical analysis of health care markets and will therefore have the opposite effect. By effectively forcing smaller and rural hospitals to close, specialty and emergency care will be concentrated in a few large urban hospitals, driving up costs for everyone — especially patients in rural and economically disadvantaged communities.

Free market competition benefits all and is the key to keeping prices in line. Certainly, the health care system could use a little more of that. But blind hostility to necessary mergers within the hospital community by an overzealous federal agency is not conducive to better access and affordability of care. Instead, it is another example of a government bureaucracy becoming too bloated to see the realities in the world it is regulating or to recognize the consequences of its actions. 

Reasonable consolidation is one of the few remaining lifelines for many rural hospitals and the communities they serve, and the FTC should not be standing in their way.

Bob Beauprez represented Colorado’s 7th District in the United States Congress from 2003-2007, where he served on the Committee on Ways and Means and currently operates a bison ranch in northern Colorado.

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/3952403-why-is-the-ftc-blocking-free-market-health-care-solutions/

Blackburn, Cotton say won’t go along with plan to replace Feinstein on Judiciary panel

 Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said she would not support a move by Senate Democrats to temporarily replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on the Senate Judiciary Committee, arguing such a move would help Democrats “pack the court with activist judges.”

“I will not go along with Chuck Schumer’s plan to replace Senator Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee and pack the court with activist judges,” Blackburn said on Twitter on Monday. “Joe Biden wants the Senate to rubber stamp his unqualified and controversial judges to radically transform America.”

Feinstein, 89, has been away from the Senate while recovering at home from a shingles diagnosis. A pair of House Democrats called for her to resign from the chamber last week. 

With Feinstein away from the Senate, Democrats have been unable to push judicial nominations through the Judiciary Committee for a full floor vote to be confirmed. Feinstein has rejected calls for her to resign but said she supported Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) appointing a temporary replacement for her on the Judiciary panel.

The move to temporarily replace Feinstein would require Republican support, with 60 votes needed in the full chamber to confirm the replacement. When Feinstein called for the replacement, it was unclear whether GOP lawmakers would be supportive of a move that could help Democrats confirm more judges.

Along with Blackburn, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) also signaled that he would not be supportive of the move to replace Feinstein on the panel.

“Republicans should not assist Democrats in confirming Joe Biden’s most radical nominees to the courts,” Cotton said on Twitter over the weekend.

Confirming federal judges has been a priority for the Biden administration and Senate Democrats since the party won a slight majority in the 2022 midterms. President Biden has outpaced nearly all of his predecessors in confirming judges.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3954648-blackburn-says-she-wont-go-along-with-plan-to-replace-feinstein-on-judiciary-panel/

Schumer will move to replace Feinstein on Judiciary panel this week

 Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says he will move a resolution this week to temporarily replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on the Judiciary Committee to keep President Biden’s judicial nominees moving to the floor.  

Schumer said he hopes Republicans will support the resolution to fill Feinstein’s seat on the committee while the 89-year-old California senator recovers from a bout of shingles.  

“I’d like to do it sometime this week,” he said.  

Schumer said he spoke with Feinstein a couple of days ago and told reporters that she expects to be back at the Capitol “soon” but didn’t set any definitive date of return.  

“I spoke to Sen. Feinstein just a few days ago. She believes she will return soon. She’s very hopeful of that and so am I,” he said at a Monday press conference. “We think the Republicans should allow a temporary replacement until she returns.” 

Schumer said he would have to talk with members of his caucus to figure out who would be a good choice to fill in for Feinstein during her absence. She was diagnosed with shingles, a painful rash caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox, in February.  

“We should have a temporary replacement until she [returns] and we hope Republicans will join us in that,” Schumer said when asked whether he’s confident at least nine Republicans would vote for a resolution to replace Feinstein on the Judiciary panel.  

“It’s the only right and fair thing to do. That’s the correct thing to do and we hope they will do it,” he added. 

Schumer said he plans to discuss the issue with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is back in the Capitol Monday after a five-week absence because of a concussion he suffered last month.  

Democrats need to muster 60 votes to fill Feinstein’s seat on the committee because at least one Republican, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), has already said she will block any request for unanimous consent to seat another Democrat on the panel.  

“I will not go along with Chuck Schumer’s plan to replace Sen. Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee and pack the court with activist judges,” Blackburn announced in a tweet Monday.  

The Judiciary Committee is deadlocked 10-10 because of Feinstein’s absence, which gives Republicans leverage to block Biden’s more controversial nominees. 

With full attendance, Democrats would control an 11-10 majority on the committee.  

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3955085-schumer-will-move-to-replace-feinstein-on-judiciary-panel-this-week/