Johnson & Johnson has sued divisions of Cigna, accusing the health insurer of working with a drug-benefit middleman to drain J&J's financial-assistance funds earmarked for patients taking some of its pricier drugs, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/j-j-accuses-divisions-cigna-204549410.html
A Dutch court on Friday rejected a bid from human rights groups to block weapons exports to Israel and trading with the occupied territories, after finding there were sufficient checks already in place to comply with international law.
The ten organizations told The Hague District Court last month that they thought the Netherlands was in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention, drawn up following World War II, by continuing to sell weapons to Israel more than a year into the conflict.
“The government uses my own tax money, that I pay, to kill my own family. I’ve lost 18 members of my own family,” Ahmed Abofoul, a legal adviser for the pro-Palestinian organization Al-Haq, one of the groups involved in the lawsuit, told the court during a hearing in November.
An Israeli airstrike on Thursday killed at least 25 Palestinians and wounded dozens more, Palestinian medics said. The strike on a multistory residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp was just the latest in a series of Israeli attacks throughout Gaza.
The court ruling said that “it is not up to the interim relief judge to order the state to reconsider government policy. That is primarily a political responsibility.”
Lawyers for the government argued it wasn’t up to a judge to decide foreign policy for the Netherlands.
The activist groups pointed to several emergency orders from another court, the International Court of Justice, as confirming the obligation to stop weapons sales. In January, the top U.N. court said it was plausible Palestinians were being deprived of some rights protected under the Genocide Convention.
The coalition said it will review the court’s ruling and is considering an appeal.
In November, the International Criminal Court, issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defense minister and Hamas’ military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity in connection with the 13-month war in Gaza.
The warrants said there was a reason to believe that Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid and had intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza — charges Israeli officials deny.
Earlier this week, the United Nations said humanitarian aid to north Gaza has largely been blocked for the past 66 days, leaving between 65,000 and 75,000 Palestinians without access to food, water, electricity or health care, according to the world body.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/dutch-court-rejects-lawsuit-rights-160205384.html
Switzerland wants to update its network of ageing nuclear shelters, which are increasingly seen as an asset at a time of greater global uncertainty, notably since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Thanks to a 1963 law, Switzerland is already ahead of neighbours like Germany. Each of its 9 million residents, including foreigners and refugees, is guaranteed a spot in a bunker to protect them from bombs and nuclear radiation.
"In the coming years, the (Swiss) Confederation wants to remove some of the exceptions to the current rules and update some of the older shelters," Louis-Henri Delarageaz, civil protection commander for the Vaud canton, told Reuters.
The government launched consultations in October to ensure Swiss "resilience in the event of armed conflict" and plans a 220 million Swiss franc ($250 million) upgrade of old structures.
"It doesn't mean we're preparing for a conflict – that's not the message – but we have a network of shelters and we need to maintain them and make sure they're functional."
In the village of Bercher in Vaud canton, civil protection officers in orange overalls inspected a bunker beneath an apartment block as part of a mandatory 10-year check-up.
One tried to shove the bunker's door to seal it shut but it would not budge. An air vent wedged between plant pots and a stone ornament was deemed fit, but an escape tunnel full of cobwebs led to a deep manhole with no ladder.
"This shelter is not usable in the current state," concluded team head Gregory Fuhrer. The owner will be given a year to fix the faults or else must pay 800 francs ($900) for each resident's spot in a public shelter, he added.
Switzerland has stayed out of foreign wars since it became neutral in 1815. It was occupied by France in the 18th century and suffered some aerial bombing in World War Two.
Delarageaz said his office had received a surge in calls from worried residents about shelters after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
"All of a sudden... we were indeed extremely sought-after with people wanting to know: where the shelters were, where is my place, is my shelter ready?," he said, adding that requests for a spot from French citizens had to be turned down.
While most Swiss have private shelters, some rely on community bunkers. Next to his office is one of the canton's 350 such shelters, well-maintained with bunk beds and toilets.
Nearby is an underground command centre, an underground hospital with an operating theatre and decontamination showers and a bunker to protect works of art.
"In Switzerland we have foresight," said Delarageaz. "There's a Latin adage that says: 'If you want peace, prepare for war'."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/switzerland-plans-revamp-cold-war-090304567.html
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Neurocrine Biosciences’ drug to treat a type of genetic disorder, the health regulator’s website showed on Friday.
The drug, branded as Crenessity, is to be used together with glucocorticoid, a type of steroid, to control androgen levels in adults and pediatric patients aged 4 years and older with classic congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH).
The drug is expected to be commercially available in about one week, a company spokesperson said.
CAH is a rare genetic disorder affecting the adrenal glands, which produce hormones such as cortisol and androgens.
Patients with the disease do not produce enough cortisol — an essential hormone that regulates stress levels — and produce too many androgens, a testosterone-like hormone.
Crenessity works by reducing excessive production of androgens, resulting in less amount of glucocorticoid treatment needed.
Patients usually require high doses of glucocorticoids, beyond what is required to replace cortisol, because they also help lower excess androgen levels.
https://wmbdradio.com/2024/12/13/us-fda-approves-neurocrine-biosciences-genetic-disorder-drug/
The suspect in the murder of UnitedHealth Group executive Brian Thompson was not a customer of the health insurer, a company spokesperson said on Friday.
Ivy League-educated Luigi Mangione was charged with murder on Dec. 9 for the killing of Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel before a company conference, following a five-day manhunt.
Mangione suffered from chronic back pain that affected his daily life, according to friends and social media posts, though it is unclear whether his personal health played a role in the shooting.
UnitedHealth does not have prior records for either Mangione or his mother, the spokesperson said.
Thompson's murder was met with shock across the industry, as well as an outpouring of anger from Americans struggling with healthcare costs and the complexities of U.S. health insurance. Public officials and healthcare executives have acknowledged the frustrations, but in the last few days have been more vocal in pushing back against social media glorification of an accused killer.
In a New York Times opinion piece on Friday, UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty said he understood public frustrations with the "flawed" U.S. healthcare system, but mourned Thompson's killing and decried the "vitriol that has been directed at our colleagues who have been barraged by threats." Thompson was CEO of the company's large health insurance business.
The New York Times reported that an internal New York City police report analyzing Mangione's writings concluded that he viewed the killing as a justified response to what he believed to be corruption in the healthcare industry.
In some circles, Mangione has been celebrated and more than a thousand donations have poured into an online fundraiser for his legal defense.
"It's representing a widespread anger that is felt by people in the middle class, in the working class and people who are well-to-do who also have trouble with their insurance company," said Pepper Culpepper, a professor of government and public policy at Oxford University.
ABC News and others reported on Friday that a Florida woman was arrested after she allegedly ended a phone call with a representative from her insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield by saying the words "Delay, deny, depose. You people are next."
The words "deny," "defend" and "depose" were carved into shell casings found at the Thompson murder scene, several news outlets reported, evoking the title of a book critical of the insurance industry published in 2010 titled "Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It."
'INTENSELY PERSONAL AND VERY COMPLICATED'
"Health care is both intensely personal and very complicated, and the reasons behind coverage decisions are not well understood," Witty wrote in his first public comments since the murder, noting that the U.S. healthcare system is a patchwork built over decades.
"We share some of the responsibility for that. Together with employers, governments and others who pay for care, we need to improve how we explain what insurance covers and how decisions are made," he wrote.
Health insurance companies have come under sharp public scrutiny since Thompson's Dec. 4 murder, and shares of UnitedHealth alone have fallen nearly 15%.
It isn't clear if the recent events "represent a watershed moment" that could catalyze change in the industry, said Morningstar analyst Julie Utterback. "You can definitely feel the potential for some kind of change in the air."
The healthcare sector has reassessed security measures due to an uptick in violent crime the last 18 months, Reuters reported, with UnitedHealth and rivals CVS Health and Cigna removing photos of their leadership from their websites following the shooting.
Instead of boosting security for executives, insurers should manage public perception of their services, said Culpepper, adding that many Americans believe big health insurers refuse to cover needed care in an effort to bolster revenue.
"This sort of ambient discontent around health insurance in the United States will not go away until it starts to be addressed."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-103007088.html
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Reuters on Friday that the U.S. is looking at further sanctions on "dark fleet" tankers and will not rule out sanctions on Chinese banks as it seeks to reduce Russia's oil revenue and access to foreign supplies to fuel its war in Ukraine.
Yellen said in an interview that the U.S. and its allies also could consider lowering their $60-per-barrel oil price cap on Russian oil, which prohibits Western insurance and maritime services on cargoes above that level.
The Treasury has already sanctioned individual tankers and their owners for operating above the price cap and can do more in this area, Yellen added, suggesting additional measures in the five weeks before she leaves office.
"There are a number of possibilities here. We don't preview sanctions, but we're always looking at oil revenues and if we can find ways to further impair Russian oil revenues, that would, I think, strengthen Ukraine's hand. That remains on our list," Yellen said.
Earlier this week, Yellen said softness in the oil market presents an opportunity for more sanctions. Benchmark Brent crude traded at $74.50 per barrel on Friday, down from $85.57 when the $60 cap was set in December 2022.
President Joe Biden's administration has been racing to shore up support for Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20, given the Republican leader's frequent complaints about the cost of U.S. support for Ukraine.
CHINESE BANK CONCERNS
U.S. Treasury officials continue to have conversations with their Chinese counterparts on efforts to detect financial institution activity that could be aiding transactions related to Russia's war effort. Yellen said these discussions have been aided by efforts to rebuild U.S.-China economic and financial communications over the past two years.
"I absolutely would not rule out the possibility we would sanction an individual bank if we had the necessary level of ... evidence to be able to put sanctions on," she said. "But we also do have a channel where we've been able to discuss specific concerns, and sometimes that could be adequate as well."
She said warnings to larger Chinese banks have been successful, making them "very wary" of sanctions that would cut them off from dollar-based transactions. In an executive order about a year ago, Biden gave Treasury the authority to levy secondary sanctions on financial institutions that facilitate war-related transactions.
As Russia's economy becomes more dominated by military production, it is becoming harder to distinguish between strictly commercial and war-related deals.
"Authorities in China recognize that our use of these sanctions would be a serious threat with very adverse consequences," Yellen said. "They want to trade with Russia, but they do not want their banks sanctioned."
COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
Yellen said the final meeting of the U.S.-China Financial Working Group will take place next week in the northeast Chinese city of Tianjin, but sanctions will not likely be a major feature. Instead, it will focus on financial stability issues, including "tabletop" exercises on how to deal with potential financial crises.
Yellen said it was important for the Trump administration to have open channels of communications with China, adding: "I think you can't just have leader-to-leader meetings. The relationship has to be developed at a senior official staff level, and we've worked constructively on a lot of things."
While the dialogue has not changed China's state-led, export-driven economic model, it has allowed the U.S. to explain actions like application of steep tariffs on electric vehicles.
Asked about a Reuters report this week that Beijing is considering weakening its yuan currency to counteract Trump's tariff plans, Yellen said China in recent years has been doing "the exact opposite," pushing up the yuan's value against the dollar. That assessment was detailed in Treasury's most recent semi-annual currency report, which found no manipulation by major U.S. trading partners.
She declined to comment on Beijing's specific currency plans, but said the U.S. Treasury has tools to react strongly to address currency manipulation. Bessent is expected to oversee the Treasury's next currency report, which is due in April.
"I'm not going to be here, but my guess is that Treasury will continue to push back if it thought that there was currency manipulation," Yellen said.
Peter Navarro, who is Trump's designated White House trade adviser, also told Reuters earlier on Friday that Trump's Treasury Department would not look "fondly" on any attempts by U.S. trading partners to manipulate their currencies.
