The FDA's Sept 6 warning letter to Epipen manufacturer Meridian (a division of Pfizer) condemns the company for knowingly shipping out defective products that led to the death of the customers who paid hyper-inflated prices for the devices, which Meridian manufactured for notorious pharma profiteers Mylan.

The board of directors at Mylan have rewarded former CEO Robert Coury with a $98m bonus as he steps into the executive chairman's role, having overseen a price-gouging scandal over the Epipens used by people prone to life-threatening allergic reactions.

The head of the pharmaceutical company that makes EpiPens raised the price of the life-saving device by over 400%. She was rewarded with a 671% raise.

The City of Santa Monica is being asked to return the land to a family from whom it was eminent domain-ed under pretense.

The land where the Vice Roy Hotel currently stands, on the corner of Ocean Ave and Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica, California, was once the property of a man named Silas White. — Read the rest

Surprise billing — when your urgent or emergency medical care results in massive bills that your insurer won't cover — are a life-destroying phenomenon for an increasing number of Americans, who not only can't shop around for an emergency room from the back of an ambulance, but who also have no way to learn in advance whether their visit will generate five- or even six-figure bills.

Pretomanid, developed by the non-profit TB Alliance, offers a new, safer and more effective treatment for tuberculosis. The non-profit is organized to improve access and affordability of life-saving treatments, but has currently only allowed one drug manufacturer to produce pretomanid. Doctors without Borders fears high prices will limit availability. — Read the rest

The EpiPen is a widely used medical device that delivers emergency medication to prevent someone with a severe allergic reaction from going into anaphylactic shock. There's a shortage of EpiPens across the United States. Parents of kids with serious allergies are worried about sending their kids back to school without one.

When last we met the Four Thieves Vinegar collective — a group of anarchist scientists who combine free/open chemistry with open source hardware in response to shkrelic gouging by pharma companies — they were announcing the epipencil, a $30 DIY alternative to the Epipen, Mylan's poster-child for price-gouging and profiteering on human misery.

Hospital chain Intermountain Healthcare is leading a industry consortium representing 450 hospitals in total in an initiative to manufacture their own generic drugs, either directly or through subcontractors.

Didn't it seem strange that Mylan, the pharmaceutical company that makes the EpiPen, enjoyed a stock price rally when the news came out in October that it was going to have to give the US government $465 million for overcharging Medicare? — Read the rest

Timothy Snyder is the Housum Professor of History at Yale University and author of Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning. He wrote a 20-point guide to defending democracy under a Trump presidency.

5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.

The price of Epipens — purchased annually by people with severe allergies and stocked in the first-aid cabinets of schools, businesses, and ambulances — more than quintupled in a decade, thanks to the tactics of Mylan CEO Heather Bresch (daughter of Senator Joe Manchin [D-WV]), who took home a 671% raise for her work, which raised this lifesaving technology's pricetag beyond the reach of many people, who turned to low-cost DIY alternatives.

Mylan, the company with a monopoly on FDA-improved epinephrine auto-injectors ("epipens") has quintupled the price of their life-saving technology since 2004, to $600/unit (and they have the be thrown out and replaced every year); for this, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch (daughter of US senator Joe Manchin, who secured her initial job interview through political connections while he was Governor of West Virginia, moving her laterally from her gig as an aerobics instructor) received a 671% raise , bringing her compensation up to $18,931,068.

Epipens — self-injection sticks carried by people with deadly allergies, which have to be replaced twice a year — were developed by NASA at taxpayer expense, were patented by a government scientist who receives no royalties, require no marketing, and have gone from as little as $60 each to up to $606 in a few short years (during which time the company has switched to selling them exclusively in two-packs).

Good news for people with life-threatening allergies who need to carry around EpiPen injectors. A new auto-injector is coming that is smaller and has a longer shelf life. It's called Abiliject.

Unconventional titles that focus on consent, care, and collaboration offer a softer future—even if the spanking is very, very hard.

Pfizer's patent on pregabalin — an anti-epilepsy med — expires this year, but there's another patent on using the public domain drug to treat neuropathic pain; in a shocking letter to UK doctors, the pharma giant warns of dire consequences should medical professionals dare to prescribe the generic for the patented use.

"In My Language" is a youtube video in which a non-verbal person with autism "speaks in her own language" — a combination of sounds and visual cues and gestures — and then explains what this all means by means of a text-to-speech program. — Read the rest

When government resources did not come to their aid soon enough, some stranded US citizens in Lebanon managed to get out on their own at considerable risk:

Shayna Silverstein and her friends jumped into expensive taxis and sped from Beirut to Damascus, preferring to dodge bombs and bribe border officials rather than wait for the U.S.

Our Parisian friends at Fluctuat.net and AEIOU are the creators of Gnomz, "a community that enables web users to create customized online comic strips quickly and free-of-charge." You can design your own characters or use Gnomz inspired by public figures and pop culture celebrities. — Read the rest