Tag Archives: law

by Ken Melvin Are capitalism and democracy compatible?  Both Capitalism and Democracy are complicated, complex concepts with varying interpretations. Beginning with a working definition of democracy: Democracy — A government formed of representatives popularly elected by the enfranchised citizenry of the governed entity. Webster’s : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a...

However, the furor over the mistreatment of Dr. Lin did largely manage to skip over the question of how TeamHealth [owned by Blackstone] is even legally in the position to effectively provide hospital services when they are not licensed to do so. Several groups protested Dr. Lin’s ouster and one, the American Academy of Emergency Medicine, focused squarely on this issue. Similar to insurance companies approving and denying care prescribed by physicians. Screwing with provision is one thing...

Meanwhile while we are pre-occupied with corvid-19 comes this news from  Rolling Stone: The Trump Department of Justice has asked Congress to craft legislation allowing chief judges to indefinitely hold people without trial and suspend other constitutionally-protected rights during coronavirus and other emergencies, according to a report by Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan. … The DOJ has requested Congress allow any chief judge of a district court to pause...

Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine are being tested as components of multi-drug cancer chemotherapy. I have noticed that when I tweet this, people conclude that I am insane. However this is not a tiny literature. Repurposing Drugs in Oncology (ReDO)—chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as anti-cancer agents is a long review article and meta analysis. It cites seven peer reviewed article which report the results of clinical trials and dozens of ongoing...

Patient privacy prevents precise calculation of the fraction of Covid 19 patients in the USA being treated with Hydroxychloroquine or Chloroquine. However, Hospitals are purchasing hugely increased amounts Christopher Rowland reports. Data gathered in the first 17 days of March by Premier Inc., a large group purchasing organization for 4,000 U.S. hospitals, showed a 300 percent week-over-week increase in orders of chloroquine and a 70 percent...

I will never forgive Donald Trump for saying something exceedingly controversial with which I agree. I hate to say this but I agree with Trump and disagree with Fauci on hydroxychloroquine and Remdesivir. Update: But don’t mix the Hydroxychloroquine with Azithromycin“Azithromycin: (Major) Avoid coadministration of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.” Thanks Ted Lieu I will discuss hydroxychloroquine here because there is no legal issue. It can be...

This is, in fact, another post on Coronavirus, but it will take me a while to get to the point. To put the conclusion here, I think that it is important to get the FDA out of the way (by executive order if necessary). The Food and Drug Act, as currently interpreted, requires the assumption that people should (generally) not be treated with pharmaceuticals which haven’t been proven to be safe and effective. The rule is first do no harm, second do no harm....

This is a copy and paste of Dahlia and Mark’s excellent critique of what is happening at SCOTUS and the Federal Court System under Justice Chief Justice John Roberts’ tutelage, McConnell loading the courts with patronage, and Trump’s whatever. I have seen some condemn the verbiage of Senator Schumer calling out Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch as threatening and yet at the same time ignoring the courts’ partisan behavior which will have an impact for years...

When I was commenting at Slate’s  Moneybox and Best of the Fray sites at least a decade or so ago, Dahlia Lithwick had taken over Jurisprudence. She always gave a sound and fair analysis of court decisions, the impacts of those decisions, and the resulting politics coming out of them. Fast forward   .  .  .  I was reading Schumer’s “reap the whirlwind” comments wondering why he would make such and then wondering why Chief Justice Roberts had not winced...

It is possible that a known pharmaceutical called remdesivir inhibits the reproduction of the Covid-19 coronavirus. It inhibits (some) RNA dependendent RNA Polymerases — the type of enzyme the virus uses to replicated its genome and express its genes. It is known that it is a potent inhibitor of the RNA dependendent RNA Polymerases used by the MERS coronavirus update: here is a good site for Covid-19 data. So what will be done with remdesivir ? What...