FedEx gains $500M in healthcare shipping agreements

 FedEx has secured more than $500 million in quality healthcare agreements in fiscal 2024, the company said during a June earnings call.

Quality agreements involve creating "a customized standard operating procedure for critical healthcare shipments," Chief Customer Officer Brie Carere said on the call, which was transcribed by Seeking Alpha. 

In March, FedEx provided the ability to select service options such as temperature requirements of individual packages.

More healthcare customers are using FedEx Surround, a platform that shows real-time shipping visibility and alerts about delays. Surround has brought in more than $1 billion in healthcare-related revenue for the company.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/supply-chain/fedex-gains-500m-in-healthcare-shipping-agreements.html

Fighting COVID-19 with a cancer drug

 An enzyme known as PI3K gamma may be able to reduce organ and tissue damage in patients who have COVID-19 or drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, researchers at the University of California San Diego found.

Cancer researchers have previously used the P13K gamma molecule to kill inflammatory cells in tumor tissue and protect the healthy cells and tissue from further damage. Now, they've studied the approach on lung tissue infected with SARS-CoV-2 and discovered similar, beneficial results, which were published July 3 in Science Translational Medicine.  

The molecule was identified by researchers 12 years ago and in the new research, they discovered the same molecule can be suppressed with a repurposed cancer drug.

PI3K gamma promotes the movement of myeloid cells into the infected tissues to fight back at the source. Specifically for COVID-19, researchers found that the new approach "targets the host, keeping the immune system from overreacting or fibers building up in the lungs," according to the news release. 

"We sequenced COVID-19 patient lung tissue and showed that when patients have COVID-19, a lot of their lung cells are killed and there's a huge increase in myeloid cells," Judith Varner, PhD, lead author of the study and head of the Solid Tumor Therapeutics program at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, said in the release. "We also found the same thing in infected mice," said Dr. Varner. "When we treated with the drug, we showed that eganelisib prevents entry of myeloid cells into tissue, so they can’t do all that damage."

The results were the same for mice infected with MRSA. 

Additional studies are needed to understand if the treatment can potentially be used to reverse damage to cells, according to the release.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/researchers-explore-fighting-covid-19-with-a-cancer-drug.html

How NYU Langone's bariatric surgery chief is thinking about the first GLP-1 generic

 The world of GLP-1s is quickly evolving with new clinical research, insurance coverage decisions, and emerging products on the market.

To dive into these issues, Becker's sat down with Christine Ren Fielding, MD, professor of surgery at NYU School of Medicine, director of the NYU Langone Weight Management Program and chief of the system's division of bariatric surgery.

Question: The GLP-1 market is facing low supply and competition right now, alongside high consumer demand and pricing — what are you seeing and hearing among your patients?

Dr. Christine Ren Fielding: The challenges are very real and very significant because of demand that has always been there. This tremendous demand is merely a reflection of the severity of our country's obesity problems. The supply issues are the same or worse because the demand is there and the indications have been broadened. For example, Mounjaro or Ozempic are really for diabetes but now we're seeing evidence that it'll help with sleep apnea or other comorbidities. You can make the argument that these medications are beneficial for fatty liver disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, infertility, or really any medical problem that is impacted by weight.

Q: In June, we saw the first generic GLP-1 announced. What kind of impact do you think that could have on the market?

CRF: I don't think there's going to be any major impact because it'll just address and help the people who have had no access. Paying $1,000 a month is quite prohibitive for most people. I don't know what the cost of the generic will be, but it will be more approachable. But it's still going to be out of pocket and I'm sure it's not going to be $5. 

Still, it will allow a gigantic population of individuals to have some hope in weight control. Not everyone is a responder to GLP-1s, so if you can purchase something that's cheaper, you can at least try it. If it doesn't work, that box is ticked off and you can try something else. So the generic will help more people that didn't have access in the first place, but I don't think it will replace or decrease the current demand.

Q: Research recently published by BCBS found nearly 60% of patients taking GLP-1s don't reach a meaningful health benefit — what do findings like that suggest to you?

CRF: This is very important because it brings up to two issues. Number one, it's true that there is a threshold of how much weight people will lose. And number two, if they stop using these medications, then their weight will most certainly recur, along with all their health problems. Sustaining people on these medications can oftentimes be difficult because they can't get a certain dosage, which slows down the appropriate treatment. You need access to consistency and the right utilization of these medications in order to gain a benefit. Sometimes there's a better option and medications. If you're a responder to appetite control caused by a GLP-1, then there's another treatment option that will do exactly the same thing: bariatric surgery. That includes Lap-Band, sleeve gastrectomy, and gastric bypass. 

Insurance companies are seeing that they're getting more reliable outcomes and savings in the long run if they pay for someone to have bariatric surgery. Insurers are even putting up barriers for people who want to be covered for GLP-1s and taking down barriers for people who want to have surgery.

Q: We've seen insurers and employers drop coverage of these medications recently. What would your message be to organizations weighing this decision?

CRF: They have put the brakes on very quickly because they've seen the tremendous expense. And if you do the population health math, these medications will bankrupt the healthcare system. The generics are a good thing because it'll help spread out the cost across the system and weed out the people who are not responders.

Still, insurers don't seem to balk at covering diabetes medications such as Metformin. If you can control weight, then you can control a lot of other medical problems that often require many other medications anyway. Paying for one medication to help a patient lose weight often means they're saving money in other ways.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/glp-1s/how-nyu-langones-bariatric-surgery-chief-is-thinking-about-the-first-glp-1-generic.html

Over 60 Foreign Policy Experts Urge NATO Against Advancing Ukraine Membership

 The United States is hosting this year's major annual NATO Summit in Washington DC on July 9,10, and 11. Heads of state, foreign ministers, and diplomats from across Europe will be in attendance, as will of course President Joe Biden. 

A big question that remains is how far the alliance will go in encouraging Ukraine's ambitions to join. Currently the US is pushing the ambiguous language of offering Kiev a "bridge" to NATO while demanding reforms especially in the area of corruption. Zelensky is not happy, given that not even a timeline for membership appears to be on the table.

Still, there are enough hawks among Western leaders to present the possibility of launching Ukraine on an 'irreversible' path to membership, which many observers fear will only eventually trigger WW3 with Russia. 

Days ago, and just around the corner from the summit's start, dozens of foreign policy experts have issued a letter which sounds the alarm on the question of advancing Ukrainian membership. The group is warning that should Kiev ever be admitted, it would trigger NATO's Article 5, and require Western states to enter a nuclear-armed conflict with Russia.

"The closer NATO comes to promising that Ukraine will join the alliance once the war ends, the greater the incentive for Russia to keep fighting the war," the letter, signed by over 60 analysts, reads. "The challenges Russia poses can be managed without bringing Ukraine into NATO."

The letter argues that encouraging NATO membership only plays into Putin's narrative, and in the end ensures "turning Ukraine into the site of a prolonged showdown between the world’s two leading nuclear powers."

At one point the group says that advancing Ukraine's membership presents the risk of the "unraveling of NATO itself". According to a section from the letter [emphasis ZH]:

Some claim that the act of bringing Ukraine into NATO would deter Russia from ever invading Ukraine again. That is wishful thinking. Since Russia began invading Ukraine in 2014, NATO Allies have demonstrated through their actions that they do not believe the stakes of the conflict, while significant, justify the price of war.

If Ukraine were to join NATO, Russia would have reason to doubt the credibility of NATO’s security guarantee — and would gain an opportunity to test and potentially rupture the alliance. The result could be a direct NATO-Russia war or the unraveling of NATO itself.

Below is the letter in full, followed by the list of signatories, which was first reported and posted online by Politico...

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/over-60-foreign-policy-experts-issue-letter-urging-nato-against-advancing-ukraine

'Democrats must now push out Kamala Harris'

 It has been reported that aides and allies of Vice President Kamala Harris are upset that her name is not coming up in conversations about which Democrat might best replace President Joe Biden at the convention in late August, should it come to that. The part that adds insult to injury for the vice president and her close supporters is that these conversations are originating with fellow Democrats or liberal pundits.

Since Biden’s disastrous debate performance against former President Donald J. Trump on June 27, we have consistently seen the names of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and even Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg thrown into the mix. Often absent from many of the lists of those who might replace Biden is his own vice president. Why?

It’s quite easy to understand, once one accepts the premise that many in the liberal mainstream media hate Trump with an unhinged passion and want anyone — anyone — to defeat him in November. Exhibit A in all of this being the New York Times. Time and again, they have rallied to the defense of Biden anytime anyone dared to raise the now obviously legitimate concern that his cognitive decline might render him unsuitable for a second term.

The Times — as recently highlighted in the Wall Street Journal — published a seemingly slanted defense of Biden by blaming concerns about his physical and mental frailties on a “distorted, online version of himself, a product of often misleading videos that play into and reinforce voters’ longstanding concerns about his age and abilities.” In other words, the NYT was pushing the White House “cheap fake” smears … until it wasn’t.  

What a difference one debate — that could not be stage managed by Biden’s White House handlers or liberal media outlets — makes. As if the editorial writers at the New York Times had just touched an electrified third rail with wet hands, they were instantly shocked into contorting their Biden-protecting selves into a call for Biden to drop out of the race.

What? Whiplash, anyone?

It makes perfect sense if you believe the Times and almost every left-of-center media outlet has little or no use for Biden. They were only willing to pretend to stay in his corner so long as he had a chance to fulfill the mission that consumes their minds: defeating Trump at any cost.

Because of Biden’s epic failure at the debate, many liberal news sites and pundits were more than happy to pull back the curtain to reveal that the Democrat’s “Wizard of Oz” was being managed by shadowy aides and needed to be replaced as fast as humanly possible. But — by whom?

Again, while multiple names are being bandied about, many seem to agree as to who should not replace Biden: Kamala Harris. First and foremost, because many believe she is simply and truly a lousy candidate. Back in 2020, her campaign for the Democratic nomination imploded so quickly that she didn’t even make it to the Iowa caucus.

Beyond that, it has been Democrats who have talked of Harris brow-beating staff members into quitting; of Harris dropping the ball of managing the Southern border; of Harris not being up to the demands of the vice presidency, let alone the presidency. Anyone who cares to take a minute to do an internet search will find those stories and more.

Such as late-night shows which regularly prop up Democrats — “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show” being but two — criticizing or lampooning Harris. For instance, soon after the beginning of the war in Ukraine, SNL’s Weekend Update reported: “Many of the members of Congress attending the State of the Union wore blue and yellow to show their support for Ukraine, while Kamala Harris wore all brown to do what she’s done for the last year: Disappear into the background.”

The Daily Show topped that by putting out a devastating video just last month mocking the Harris habit of turning policy statements into indecipherable “word salads” by featuring her “Holistic Thought Advisor.” Again, these are programs and personalities that continually attack Trump while seemingly parroting the lines of the Biden White House. Again … until they turned on a dime against Biden and Harris. 

Every single Republican and conservative I know hopes against hope that Biden and Harris will be the ticket come November. Just as every single Democrat I know hopes it will be anyone but Biden and Harris.  

None of this is complicated but all of it is political — and personal. All a dilemma of the Democrats’ making. They now have but a few weeks to convince Harris that, for the good of the party as well as herself, she must step aside for a more popular standard-bearer at the convention.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall for those conversations.

Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4757224-why-democrats-must-now-push-out-kamala-harris/

Garamendi: ‘slow down’ on calls for Biden to step aside

 Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) has a message for his fellow Democrats about the panic around President Biden’s candidacy: slow down and take a deep breath.

Garamendi joined Fox News Saturday to discuss the ongoing debate over Biden’s ability to take on former President Trump and serve another four years as debate fallout continues.

“I would say hold on here. Let’s not get into a panic. Let’s understand the enormous importance and the important work that Biden has done and what he can do in the days ahead,” he said as a message to House Democrats.

“Slow this down, this feeding frenzy that’s going on by the press and by many of my colleagues,” Garamendi continued. “Slow down, take a deep breath. Let’s take a look at what this president has done and also what he’s managed to do since that debate.”

Garamendi’s comments come as a growing number of House Democrats have called on Biden to step aside and allow someone else to have the opportunity to run.

Reps. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Angie Craig (D-Minn.) and Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) all have publicly called on Biden to step aside.

Doggett, the first to make that call, said he hoped the debate would help the president’s campaign, but that he was left disappointed.

Grijalva said he will still support Biden but thinks it’s time the party chooses someone new. Quigley asked Biden to help the country by preventing “utter catastrophe” by letting someone else run.

Moulton said Thursday that Biden should follow in former President George Washington’s footsteps and step aside for new leaders to take on Trump. Craig said she doesn’t believe Biden can beat Trump and there is “too much at stake.”

Since the debate, Biden and his campaign have been in clean-up mode. They’ve tried to appeal to displeased voters through energetic rallies and an on-camera interview Friday, neither of which have stifled the calls for him to resign.

In the recent interview, Biden admits that the debate was one bad night. Garamendi said, “Each and every one of us has a bad day or bad night.”

“He’s carrying on the task of being president, which is a 24/7 task. He also is doing the campaign,” the California lawmaker said. “Not easy to both of these, but he has. And he has shown since the debate that he is strong on the stage.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4758167-california-lawmaker-fellow-dems-slow-down-calls-bidenstep-aside/mlite/

‘Cyber incident’ stalls Florida marriage, birth and death certificates

 Florida couples don’t need to worry about getting to the church on time because a “potential cyber incident” has put a halt on obtaining vital records.

The Florida Department of Health’s online certification system suffered what it called a “potential cyber incident,” Fox 25 Orlando reported, causing “temporary outages of the Vital Statistics system.”

The system is home to birth, marriage and death certificates.

Terry Wright, owner of Wright & Young Funeral Home, told The Post he has had to revert to “the old way of doing death certificates,” meaning analog.

“It’s slowing down the process.”

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The Florida Health Department suffered what it called a “potential cyber incident” that impacted its certification system.FOX 35

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The “cyber incident” at the Florida Department of Health is slowing down the death certificate process.FOX 35

Still, his Miami funeral home does not have a backlog of bodies, he said, because there is a workaround for burials and entombments before the final death certificate comes in — obtaining a doctor’s consent. That is not the case for cremations, but he said those bodies haven’t gotten overcrowded in a freezer at the crematorium — at least for now.

Some families are left in the lurch though, as they cannot obtain insurance reimbursement, access to annuities and other financial accounts, Wright said.

“Nobody wants to proceed with final rights or finances without a finalized death certificate,” he said.

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Terry Wright of Wright & Young Funeral Home said he has had to revert to “the old way of doing death certificates.”Facebook/Wright & Young Funeral Home, Inc.
Wright said the vital statistics problem started on June 27, and as of Saturday afternoon, the system was still down.

“As is standard practice, the department is coordinating with law enforcement and all relevant stakeholders,” the Health Department told Fox 35.

“Any effected parties will be notified as a comprehensive assessment of the situation is completed.”

https://nypost.com/2024/07/06/us-news/cyber-incident-stalls-florida-marriage-birth-and-death-certificates/