HEALTH DESK:
- What goes away with President Biden’s declaration of the end of the Covid emergency on May 11th?
- Waivers will end for school lunches for 30 million kids whose families made just over the maximum allowed.
- 27 million people will lose their health insurance, one third of them children.
- 32 states plan to cut food stamps in March.
- Do you think this is welfare and handouts?
- Half of Pfizer’s $100.3 billion dollars in revenue in 2022 came from covid 19 vaccines and Paxlovid, the medication to cure covid infections.
- It cost Pfizer $4 to produce each vaccine with taxpayer supported research. It plans to sell vaccines for $103 per shot once the state of emergency is over, since it expects its revenues to decline to $13.5 billion from vaccines and $8 billion for Paxlovid in 2023.
- What else will change with the end of the emergency?
- Medical debt will rise. Before covid medical debt was already the single greatest cause of personal bankruptcy. It decreased 18% due to stimulus checks and expanded health coverage during the pandemic.
- Why did life expectancy in America decline for the first time ever during the pandemic?
- First reason: Covid has taken over 1 million and 100,000 Americans thus far, over 80% of them older than 60 years of age.
- The second reason: The opiate epidemic claimed 103,000 Americans last year, the majority of them young.
- Between 2019 and 2021 fentanyl overdose deaths doubled in the U.S. They grew by a factor of four times in children alone.
- What do Vaccines and fentanyl have in common?
- They are both pharmaceuticals. One saves lives and the other takes them. One combats a virus from nature causing a worldwide epidemic. The other is a manmade epidemic. Both pharmaceuticals are highly profitable for those who market them. That is the point, regardless of the end results.
- Fentanyl is a man-made synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than morphine.
- Combining the growing despair and stress in our society, particularly among our youth, with the lack of affordable care and drug addiction treatment, it is no wonder we are in the middle of an opiate crisis. It’s clearly a case of profits over people, not the way it should be.
- We have to change that. Change starts first with awareness of the problem. Now we must do something about it and soon. No more needless deaths!
El Tribuno del Pueblo brings you articles written by individuals or organizations, along with our own reporting. Bylined articles reflect the views of the authors. Unsigned articles reflect the views of the editorial board. Please credit the source when sharing: tribunodelpueblo.org. Our editorial staff is made up of volunteers and interns with a small stipend. We are a reader-supported publication. Please donate at http://tribunodelpueblo.org to keep bringing you the voices of the movement, pro-labor and pro-migrant, because no human being is illegal.
