Health

CNN- Nearly 1.2 million people in the US have died from Covid-19 during the past four years, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While mass outbreaks and hospitalizations appear to be over, there were still at least 500 people who died of Covid-19 per week as of the week ending March 2. In January of this year, more than 2,000 Americans died of Covid-19 each week.

Dirt Digest -Tensions are mounting between the Biden Administration, which wants to implement legislation passed in 2022 allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, and the pharmaceutical industry, which would like to nullify the law and maintain the highly profitable status quo.Big Pharma has little support from the American public, which pays much more for its meds than residents of other countries. The industry is ultimately counting on being rescued by the business-friendly majority on the Supreme Court.Being able to dictate prices to Medicare is not the only way drugmakers fleece government agencies and the public. In Violation Tracker we document more than 150 major cases of drug price cheating by large producers.Some of these cases are old-fashioned price-fixing, in which supposedly competing producers conspire to set prices. Last year, for example, criminal charges were brought against Teva Pharmaceuticals and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals for scheming to fix prices of several generic drugs. Teva paid a $225 million criminal penalty and Glenmark paid $30 million. The companies were also ordered to divest their operations relating to the cholesterol drug pravastatin.