James

Primarily antitrust tweets. Opinions are entirely my own.

[Mark Meador @MeadorFTC]

Thanks, Obama.

[Energy and Commerce Committee @HouseCommerce]

.@RepHarshbarger asks if vertical integration of PBMs is hindering market diversity and competition. The answer? Yes.

Reining in PBMs will not only increase competition in the market but will also deliver lower prices and more convenience for patients.

[Matt Stoller @matthewstoller]

A really ugly betrayal of the Make America Healthy Again movement, Trump official reverses plans to ban 'forever chemicals' from drinking water.

[barbarism critic @barbarismcrit]

Really good piece you should read and bookmark because it has a ton of indisputable data that shows that yes, the working class is worse off now than they were in 2019.

[James @jimb345]

See also: the Robinson-Patman Act

[James @jimb345]

It’s because there are groups who can’t just repeal the FTC, so they make it as feckless and ineffective as they can. That’s the play.

[Lee Hepner @LeeHepner]

One of @AFergusonFTC’s first actions as Lina Khan’s replacement was revoking a public inquiry into surveillance pricing. Genuinely curious why he would do so. This issue is only going to become more prevalent.

[Vinay Prasad MD MPH @VPrasadMDMPH]

Let's talk for a minute about what the last FDA commissioner accomplished
He said misinformation was the leading cause of death, and it's cardiovascular disease, which you would think he would know, because he's a cardiologist.
He authorized the use of half a dozen boosters without running a single randomized trial powered for clinical outcomes, but on his way out said we should consider doing that. Why didn't you do it when you had the chance?
He approved a dozen cancer drugs that don't improve overall survival
In one case, sotorasib, the confirmatory trial was negative, so FDA had a duty withdraw the product, but it did not, it allows a second confirmatory trial. Thing about statistics is if you keep getting to try when you fail, but stop when you win, you inflate the p-value to basically 1.0.
The FDA commissioner recommended antivirals for covid saying they reduced the risk of long covid. This is a claim that specifically not granted by FDA.
The FDA did nothing to reduce the unnecessary animal studies that are done for drug products. These harm thousands of animals, but provide little guarantee of human outcomes.
The FDA took nearly no action on toxins in our food until the penultimate hour when they removed red dye number 3 because they knew RFK was going to do it
The FDA did not make it easier to approve generic drugs, that was done under Trump
The FDA did nothing to speed gene therapy, other than talk about how they will use uncontrolled endpoints. But we want to speed effective gene therapy, not ineffective gene therapy. The FDA had no solution for that.
The FDA took no action to stop the number of staff who go to work for the pharmaceutical industry immediately after departing. This revolving door is the core rot of the system.
It's really important to remember that most people who hold these positions are just doing it for themselves. They have no broader philosophy of regulatory science. They have no understanding of when randomized trials are needed and when they can be omitted. They are just doing this to add to their CV so that when they leave they can go to work and and consult for these companies.
Every cycle there's so much handwringing about who the nominee is. But the worst nominee is someone with no record of saying anything of substance in their entire career. Which is nearly every Biden nominee. They go on to do nothing of value, nothing to improve the American healthcare system, nothing to slow the rise of drug price, nothing too speed efficiency, literally nothing of value. Then they go off to collect a paycheck. The worst nominee is someone who you can't fact check because they never said anything of substance. I'm happy to do a post like this for every single post in healthcare in the last administration. As far as I can tell, they accomplished literally nothing of value. The FDA commissioner was particularly poor because he bungled some things beyond not improving.

[Jarod Facundo @dorajfacundo]

A Republican Congressman from North Carolina is calling for UnitedHealth to be broken up, specifically citing the conflicts of interest inherent to a vertically integrated health care company.

[James @jimb345]

After four years as a bright spot of government, the FTC quickly reverts to a clown show🤡

[Wendy Davis @wendyndavis]

.@BedoyaFTC notes that new @FTC chair Andrew Ferguson has quietly removed five requests for public comment from consideration -- including one that sought comment on “surveillance pricing.”

https://t.co/e7dXS8PmOW

[Paul Blest @pblest]

Two days on the job and he’s already talked about DEI more than Lina Khan did in three and a half years

[Matt Stoller @matthewstoller]

This is a very powerful statement that Trump wants to take on big tech.

[James @jimb345]

How dare some question the *good* monopolists

[James @jimb345]

Yeah, I’m done with them

[NewsWire @NewsWire_US]

Harris campaign aides: Internal polling never had her ahead of Trump — HuffPost

[Luther Lowe @lutherlowe]

Biden could also reappoint Lina Khan and Schumer could confirm her in the lame duck, which would preserve a dem majority on the FTC for a couple of years.

[Jeet Heer @HeerJeet]

Biden's economic populism was concentrated in first year of presidency after which he shifted to foreign policy (his true passion). Many voters wondered why there was always money for Ukraine & Israel when USA continued to hurt. Harris shifted away from populism & as NY reports had economic policy & message shaped by Wall Street donors headed by her Uber exec. brother-in-law.

[James @jimb345]

The current democratic coalition is barely workable. Something new needs to be built.

The differences can’t be papered over. Biden certainly tried and look how it went. At least with the GOP, the Trump side won and everyone knows who is in the driver’s seat now.

[Hal Singer @halsinger]

Here’s Ezra Klein blaming the D wipeout on its failure to shift back to the center after the midterms. Nope. Biden failed to police inflation based on advice of neoliberal advisors. And Harris’s price gouging plan—an admission of Biden’s failure—was also blasted by neoliberals.

[Akela Lacy @akela_lacy]

As a senior Dem aide told me yesterday: People don’t trust us. We say things like Black Lives Matter and defund the police then we fund the police. We say ceasefire in Gaza and then we send weapons to Israel. People hate institutions. We are the institution

[Edward-Isaac Dovere @IsaacDovere]

NEW from me - as Dems start to squint toward the future, a focus group:

Asked to pick between the two, the woman said she’d “probably go with ‘crazy,’” anguish clearly in her voice.
“Because ‘crazy’ doesn’t look down on me,” she said. “‘Preachy’ does.”
https://t.co/E5ZC1i41oM

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

.@mcuban is wrong. Lina Khan is the best FTC Chair in modern history.

By taking on corporate greed & illegal monopolies, Lina is doing an exceptional job preventing large corporations from ripping-off consumers & exploiting workers.

Thanks @linakhanFTC for what you are doing.