YCLOAK

The “end of coal” is in sight, according to Britain — the host of the COP26 climate summit — after dozens of countries pledged to stop using coal and end the financing of fossil fuels. But as Henry Ridgwell reports from the Glasgow summit, weaning economies off coal won’t be easy — even for Britain itself.

Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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Congressional Democrats this week proposed an addition to U.S. President Joe Biden’s climate and social spending legislation that would allow Medicare, the federal government’s health care program for older Americans, to negotiate with drugmakers over the cost of certain prescription medications.

U.S. consumers pay higher prices for prescription medications than almost any of their peers in the developed world, a fact that generations of politicians and advocates have struggled in vain to change. If passed, the proposal working its way through Congress would make a dent, though a relatively small one, in that long-standing problem.

The plan being discussed would give Medicare officials the ability to negotiate pricing on a sliver of the thousands of prescription medications on the market in the United States, beginning with about 10 drugs and capped at 20. Liberal members of Congress at first had hoped to grant Medicare authority to negotiate the prices of up to 250 costly drugs every year.

Though small, the number of drugs that would be covered by the proposal represents a disproportionate amount of the annual “spend” on drugs by Medicare patients.

A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation released this year determined that the 10 top-selling drugs covered under Medicare Part D accounted for 16% of net total spending in 2019. The top 50 drugs — representing just 8.5% of all drugs covered under the program — accounted for 80% of spending.

The top 10 drugs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation include “three cancer medications, four diabetes medications, two anticoagulants and one rheumatoid arthritis treatment.”

Confusing system 

Unlike many countries outside the U.S., where the government is able to negotiate drug prices and bring down the cost for a single national health care system, the landscape in the U.S. is highly fragmented. Most Americans with health insurance are covered by policies issued by for-profit companies in the private sector.

Americans 65 years and older are eligible for Medicare, which takes the place of a private insurer, but with some critical differences. For many years, Medicare did not offer prescription drug coverage, forcing Medicare patients to pay for medications out of pocket or seek third-party insurance coverage for their medications.

In 2003, Congress created Medicare Part D, under which private insurers offered medication coverage that met minimum requirements established by the federal government. While that program reduced costs for many seniors, cost-sharing provisions and design flaws mean that many recipients continue to face financially crippling bills for medication. A key reason is that each insurance provider must negotiate prices with drug companies individually, rather than using the bargaining power of the entire Medicare population to insist on lower costs.

‘Subsidizing R&D for the world’ 

For years, advocates for change have pointed out that drug companies set prices in the U.S. far above those in other countries in which they sell the same drugs. A study by the Rand Corporation this year comparing the U.S. with 32 other countries found that drugs cost on average 256% more in the U.S.

“American consumers are subsidizing the R&D for the world,” said Lovisa Gustafsson, vice president of the Controlling Health Care Costs program at the Commonwealth Fund, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

Compounding the problem is that Americans also shoulder a much greater share of the cost for their prescription medications.

“Patients in the U.S. face far higher cost-sharing than in a lot of other countries. So, just because they have insurance doesn’t mean that patients can actually afford the drugs that they need currently,” Gustafsson said. “There’s survey after survey showing that 20% to 25% of Americans can’t afford the drugs they’re prescribed by their physician, or split pills, or don’t get the prescription filled, because they just can’t afford it. And that’s even when they have insurance.”

Putting a lid on costs

An important element of the proposal before Congress is that it would place an annual cap of $2,000 on the co-payments that Medicare patients can be charged for their medications.

The prospect of a cap on out-of-pocket costs was well-received by many calling for reforms, such as AARP, a large advocacy group for older Americans.

“There’s no greater issue affecting the pocketbooks of seniors on Medicare than the ever-increasing costs of prescription drugs,” AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins said in a statement. “For decades, seniors have been at the mercy of Big Pharma. Allowing Medicare to finally negotiate drug prices is a big win for seniors. Preventing prices from rising faster than inflation and adding a hard out-of-pocket cap to Part D will provide real relief for seniors with the highest drug costs.”

Drug firms unhappy

PhRMA, a powerful trade group representing the pharmaceuticals industry, reacted unhappily to news of the proposal.

“If passed, it will upend the same innovative ecosystem that brought us lifesaving vaccines and therapies to combat COVID-19,” PhRMA President and CEO Stephen J. Ubl said in a statement. “Under the guise of ‘negotiation,’ it gives the government the power to dictate how much a medicine is worth and leaves many patients facing a future with less access to medicines and fewer new treatments.”

“While we’re pleased to see changes to Medicare that cap what seniors pay out of pocket for prescription drugs, the proposal lets insurers and middlemen like pharmacy benefit managers off the hook when it comes to lowering costs for patients at the pharmacy counter,” Ubl continued. “It threatens innovation and makes a broken health care system even worse.”

Industry claims exaggerated?

Numerous supporters of allowing the government to negotiate on drug prices claim that the industry’s insistence that it will stymie innovation is exaggerated.

One piece of evidence they point to is a study released by the Congressional Budget Office in August. The CBO created a model in which pharmaceutical companies were faced with the following scenario: A policy is put in place that reduces the return on their most profitable drugs by 15% to 25%.

The agency estimated that the impact would be a reduction of the number of new drugs coming onto the market by only one-half of 1% over the first 10 years of the new policy. That would increase to as much as an 8% reduction in the first three decades of the program.
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An Earth-flight giant contributes to NASA’s upcoming moon missions. Plus, words from the next crew to visit the International Space Station and grim news from NASA about the future of food on Earth. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space.
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Britain could revive domestic production of super strong magnets used in electric vehicles and wind turbines with government support, to cut its reliance on China and achieve vital cuts in carbon emissions, two sources with direct knowledge said. 

A government-funded feasibility study is due to be published on Friday, laying out the steps Britain must take to restart output of rare earth permanent magnets, the sources said. 

A magnet factory would help Britain, hosting the COP26 U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, meet its goal of banning petrol and diesel cars by 2030 and slashing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. 

British production of the magnets vanished in the 1990s when the industry found it could not compete with China. But with the huge growth in demand, the government is keen to secure enough supply. 

Last month, the government set out plans to achieve its net zero strategy, which includes spending $1.15 billion to support the roll out of electric vehicles (EVs) and their supply chains. 

The study outlines how a plant could be built by 2024 and eventually produce enough of the powerful magnets to supply 1 million EVs a year, the sources who have read the report said. 

“We’re looking to turn the tide of shipping all this kind of manufacturing to the Far East and resurrect U.K. manufacturing excellence,” one of the sources said. 

The government’s Department for Business declined to comment on details regarding a possible magnet factory because the report has not been released. 

“The government continues to work with investors through our Automotive Transformation Fund (ATF) to progress plans to build a globally competitive electric vehicle supply chain in the U.K.,” a spokesperson said in an email. 

EV ramp up 

British rare earth company Less Common Metals put together the feasibility study and is considering seeking partners to jointly build the factory, the sources said. 

LCM is one of the only companies outside of China that transforms rare earth raw materials into the special compounds needed to produce permanent magnets. 

Automakers will need the magnets as they ramp up EV output in Britain. Ford said last month it would invest up to $310 million in an English plant to produce around 250,000 EV power units a year from mid-2024. 

Rare earth magnets made of neodymium are used in 90% of EV motors because they are widely seen as the most efficient way to power them. 

Electric cars with these magnets require less battery power than those with ordinary magnets, so vehicles can travel longer distances before recharging. 

A race by automakers to ramp up EVs and countries to switch to wind energy is due to boost demand for permanent magnets in Europe as much as tenfold by 2050, according to the European Union. 

The sources said government support would be vital so Britain could compete with China, which produces 90% of supply. 

The strategy mirrors similar efforts by the EU and the United States to create domestic industries of raw materials, rare earth processing and permanent magnets. 

 
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Regularly cursed at and sometimes physically assaulted by patients, nurses in the U.S. have had enough. As VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports, the pandemic is accelerating a longstanding problem of violence against frontline health care workers. A warning: some images in this report may be disturbing.
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The World Health Organization’s regional director for Europe said Thursday the continent is now the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, accounting for 59 percent of all cases globally.

At a virtual news briefing from Copenhagen, Hans Kluge said the current pace of transmission across the region’s 53 countries is of grave concern. He said new cases are approaching record levels, with the delta variant of the coronavirus driving the surge.

Kluge said his agency’s latest data shows hospitalizations in the region more than doubled in one week.

He noted officials are seeing increasing trends across all age groups, but that the rapid increase in the older population is of the most concern. He said this is translating into more people having severe cases and dying, with 75 percent of the deaths among persons aged 65 or older.

Kluge said one reliable projection indicates that at the current pace, Europe could see another half a million COVID-19 deaths by the first of February. COVID-19 is caused by the coronavirus.

He also cited uneven vaccination rates and the relaxation of public health and social measures throughout the region as the cause of the surge.

While a billion doses of vaccine have been distributed, in Europe, only 47 percent of the total population are fully vaccinated. He says in eight nations, at least 70 percent of the people have been inoculated fully. Kluge notes the rate remains below 10 percent in two other countries.

Kluge encouraged nations with low vaccination rates to increase coverage, particularly among priority groups such as the elderly. He urged nations with high vaccination rates and ample supply to share with less fortunate nations.

He also said that vaccines are most effective when used with other preventive measures, such as social distancing and mask-wearing. Kluge said if the region achieved universal mask use, 188,000 lives could be saved between now and February.

The WHO region chief said, “We must change our tactics, from reacting to surges” of COVID-19 to “preventing them from happening in the first place.” 

 
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A New Zealand research project is looking at ways to produce hydrogen in Antarctica to reduce carbon emissions.  

A four-month New Zealand project is investigating whether hydrogen could be generated, used and stored at Scott Base, its Antarctic research facility, to reduce its reliance on carbon-based fuels.  Those fuels are currently used for transportation, cooking and heating.  A special grade fuel is shipped in on ice-breakers.  

Surplus power from wind turbines at Scott Base could be used to generate green hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cells that produce electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen atoms.  

The hydrogen initiative is a collaboration between Antarctica, New Zealand, a government scientific body, and the University of Canterbury in Christchurch.  The project started in August and will finish this month. 

The project faces some obstacles, including geographic isolation and extreme weather. Antarctica is the coldest, windiest and driest continent. In 1983, a temperature of minus 89.2 degrees was recorded. 

Brendon Miller, a consultant chemical engineer, says it is an ambitious plan.  

“We would like to demonstrate that we can use hydrogen effectively as an energy source to replace fossil fuels. It is a very challenging environment to do it in Antarctica. But, actually, there are some things going for it because the alternates like batteries are quite awkward to use for long-term storage particularly at very cold temperatures,” Miller said.  

New Zealand’s work in Antarctica focuses in large part on global warming.    Experts have said the world’s southernmost continent was very sensitive to rising temperatures, and it also influenced the global climate system.  Earlier this year, the New Zealand government said it would spend  $200 million to guarantee the future of its scientific hub at Scott Base. 

Scientific projects in Antarctica are highly collaborative, bringing together researchers from around the world.    
Twenty-nine countries, including Australia, China and the United States, operate bases in Antarctica. 
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No in-person school. Isolation from friends. Lost rites of passage like graduation ceremonies. The COVID-19 pandemic upended the lives of many children in the United States.

“A lot of children’s joy comes from being with friends or from play, and from social interaction. When you ask kids, ‘What’s making you happy?’ 90% of the time, it’s being around friends or doing things with friends,” says Elena Mikalsen, head of the Psychology Section at the Children’s Hospital of San Antonio in Texas. “That was kind of taken away during the pandemic. … For the longest time, all kids had was the academics and no joy.” 

A recent report finds that the uncertainty and disruption caused by COVID-19 has negatively affected the emotional and mental health of about one-third of America’s youth. So much so that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), along with other children’s health organizations, has declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health.

“Elevated symptoms of anxiety, depression or stress,” says Nirmita Panchal, a senior policy analyst at the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a nonprofit organization focusing on national health issues. “There’s also been a number of changes in behavior that parents have reported with some children having a poor appetite and difficulty sleeping. For others, it may be fear or irritability and clinginess.”

Panchal co-authored the report, which found that 8% of children between the ages of 3 and 17 currently have anxiety. That number rises to 13% among adolescents ages 12 to 17.

“During the pandemic, children, just like everybody else, have experienced a number of changes and disruptions,” Panchal says. “That includes school closures, possibly financial difficulties at home, isolation, perhaps the loss of loved ones and then difficulty accessing health care. So, all of these factors may be contributing to increased mental health issues among children.” 

Rates of children’s mental health concerns and suicide steadily increased between 2010 and 2020, according to the AAP, which says the pandemic has made the crisis worse with “dramatic increases” in the number of young people visiting hospital emergency rooms for mental health-related concerns, including possible suicide attempts.

Maryland psychologist Mary Karapetian Alvord says uncertainty, as well as losing out on school activities, provoked varying levels of grief in young people.

“Particularly high school students, who really lost out on all of the fun activities, the fun clubs, and also graduations and homecoming, football games and all the social as well as the outlets that they have,” says Alvord, who is also an adjunct associate professor of psychiatry at The George Washington University School of Medicine. “So, those are themes that have dominated this pandemic, I think, grief, loss on all those different levels, and then just constant uncertainty. And we then get a rise in anxiety.”

Alvord says the young people being seen at her practice have a sense that they’re not moving forward, which has led to anger, frustration, sadness and anxiety. 

“It runs the gamut, but kids have lost time,” she says. “They have a sense that they have lost time, and not in terms of only maybe some academic skills, which a lot of the schools are concerned about, but in terms of maturity. How do you mature as a kid? It’s not by being home 24/7.” 

And while children missed being in school with their friends, the idea of returning to in-person classes also triggered some anxiety. 

“Some kids were scared to go back to school because they were afraid of contracting COVID. They were afraid of what school might look like and what that would entail, especially kids that already were more predispositioned to have anxiety or depression,” says psychologist Nekeshia Hammond, former president of the Florida Psychological Association. “It basically made that process a lot more stressful. And not just school but going back into social situations.” 

The pandemic has shaken the sense of safety most children feel. More than 140,000 children in the United States lost a primary and/or secondary caregiver to COVID-19.

“The majority of kids just have this innocence, in a way, that the world is safe. ‘I’m going to be OK. People are here to protect me,’” Hammond says. “And that got stripped away for a lot of kids who don’t feel the world is safe.” 

Children of color have been disproportionately impacted by the losses caused by the pandemic. And not solely because they were more likely to lose a loved one to the virus. 

Mikalsen, who works primarily with minority youth and inner-city youth in Texas, found that many of the children she spoke to were forced to use their smartphones for their schooling because they didn’t have computers at home. Spotty internet connections made it difficult to stay in touch with their schoolwork and to get their assignments. 

 

Some of Mikalsen’s young patients were home alone all day because their parents are essential, front-line workers. 

“A lot of the kids that I was talking to during the pandemic, they were completely alone at home, left to be there by themselves and, ‘Hey, if you can get connected to school, that’d be great, but if you don’t, no big deal,’” Mikalsen says. “So many kids that I talked to, they just slept all day and had nobody to talk to. Things like that can really cause a lot of depression and anxiety.” 

And then there was the societal upheaval caused by the police murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man in Minneapolis. Video of police officer Derek Chauvin pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck while Floyd struggled to breathe went viral, sparking nationwide protests against police brutality.

“All of that affects kids of color in a different way, on top of a global pandemic, on top of, ‘You can’t go to school, and you lost a loved one.’ It was basically more compounded,” Hammond says. “There were so many different stressors all at one time, which made it extremely difficult as far as coping, and as far as mental health.”

The AAP is calling for more federal funding for mental health screenings and treatment for all children from infancy through adolescence, with an emphasis on making certain kids from less privileged homes get the services they need.

“We don’t want to wait until it’s unmanageable. We want to have scaffolding and services in place to catch kids when they’re having that much trouble,” Alvord says. “We’re all tied to one another, and if your family is doing better, then those kids get sent to school and they’re doing better in school. Which helps the whole health of the classroom. Which helps the teachers do better to teach and do what they need to, instead of having to deal with the mental health crisis.”
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Maintaining the unique environment of the Galápagos Islands and protecting the surrounding marine resources is testing Ecuador. China’s industrial fishing fleet threatens the islands, but China is a key trading partner. Jaime Moreno has this report.

Video: Nelson Abril
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Over the past few years, the so-called healing crystals trend has resurfaced in the wellness industry, even though the stones have no scientifically proven health benefits. Karina Bafradzhian has the story.
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The COP26 climate summit is taking place against the backdrop of an ongoing global pandemic. As richer nations begin to reopen, thanks to rapid vaccination programs, most people in developing countries are still waiting for their first dose, despite global pledges to distribute more vaccines.

Analysts say distrust between richer and poorer nations could hamper climate negotiations at the COP26 summit. 

In most high-income countries, more than 70% of the population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. But in low-income countries, the figure is less than 4%, according to figures from the University of Oxford. 

“If this level of vaccine inequity remains in place, 5 million people will die unnecessarily next year,” said Robert Yates, director of the global health program at Chatham House. 

 

At the G-7 summit in June, leaders of the world’s richest nations pledged to share 1 billion vaccine doses with poorer countries — half from the United States. In total, the U.S. has now pledged to share 1.1 billion doses through 2022.

Yet, while many Western nations are offering a third booster shot for fully vaccinated adults, most people in developing nations still await their first dose.

As negotiations on combating climate change continue at the COP26 summit in Glasgow, trust between poorer and richer nations is fragile, Yates said. 

“You can very much see countries, particularly in the South, saying, ‘Well, why should we cooperate with you on this issue which is happening now but is going to get worse — on the situation around climate change — when you’re patently not helping us at sufficient scale on something of a much, much more immediate nature that can threaten millions of people’s lives next year?’”

COP26 organizers offered free vaccines to registered delegates unable to get them in their home countries. However, high travel costs, a lack of hotel rooms and concerns over high COVID-19 infection rates in Britain have kept some participants away. 

Musonda Mumba, director of the Rome Center for Sustainable Development, part of the United Nations Development Program, chose not to attend the summit. She recently spoke to VOA from Nairobi.

“Climate change is not just a climate issue, it’s a climate justice issue. And so, you see an intersection on the COVID side of things and on the climate change side of things, as well, really converging. The issue of trust and empathy and transparency has come up over and over and over again. And I think this will be the test case. This will be a testing moment for the world, this Glasgow COP,” she said.

Scientists say the world is facing two emergencies at once. At the COP26 summit, there is a recognition that countries must work together to tackle the existential threat of climate change. But many of the delegates will return home to countries still gripped by the coronavirus pandemic in urgent need of lifesaving vaccines. 
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The COP26 climate summit is taking place against the backdrop of an ongoing global pandemic. As richer nations begin to reopen thanks to rapid vaccination programs, most people in developing countries are still waiting for their first dose. Henry Ridgwell reports from the summit in Glasgow on whether distrust between richer and poorer nations could hamper climate negotiations. 

Camera: Henry Ridgwell    
Produced by: Kimberlyn Weeks
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Philanthropist Bill Gates says the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will donate $315 million to help small farmers around the world grow crops that will adapt to climate change.

In an interview with VOA from Glasgow where he is attending the U.N. Climate Change Conference, Gates said the money will go to a seed consortium which will help farmers thrive in changing environments.

The interview was edited for brevity and clarity. 

 

Q: Help us visualize the scope of the problem when it comes to climate change. What are we facing and how much should we be concerned?

A: Well, climate change is one of the biggest challenges mankind has ever faced. Year by year, because of these carbon emissions, the climate will be getting hotter and that means, particularly anywhere near the equator, the ability to do outdoor farming or outdoor construction work will become impossible. And so that’ll really destabilize people who live in these tropical zones. And so we have to do two things: we have to stop those emissions, where there’s an ambitious goal to do that by 2050, and then in the meantime we need to help countries adapt to these changing weather conditions, for example, you know, giving them better seeds.  

Q: How are we going to know that COP 26 is a success? 

A: We’ve deeply engaged the private sector. We’ve identified the need for innovation and how we get every sector working together to drive that innovation. And we’re now paying significant effort to adaptation. And so those three things were not there in Paris. I’m not saying that the commitments here are good enough. We need to see over the next five years the same type of increased engagement on the different issues, you know, better policies, more private sector and more innovation, including the innovation that’s focused on the adaptation.

 

Q: What else are you referring to in terms of innovation? 

A: A number of countries are announcing increased resources, including President Biden. We’re announcing $315 million over the next three years for the seed consortium which is called the CG System. That makes the seeds for all the different countries and the big priority for that money will be seeds that can be even more productive despite the challenge of climate change.  

And so overall we expect that an additional billion dollars, including our money, will be committed to that effort. That has the potential to benefit literally hundreds of millions of these smallholder farmers. So probably won’t get the attention it deserves, but probably the biggest move for adaptation using innovation for that will be announced here. 

Q: What are your thoughts on the impact of climate change in underdeveloped countries, especially in a region like Africa?

A: Well, as you say, it’s a great injustice. And in fact, my interest in climate change came from seeing that through our agricultural work in Africa the farmers were often having a more difficult time. And so they’re already facing these difficulties, which will get significantly worse between now and the end of the century. And so I studied the issue of climate change and the Gates Foundation took on this adaptation as a big priority. That wasn’t getting much attention. So I joined together with some others to create the ‘Commission on Adaptation’ and we had …a lot of great participation and did a report that highlighted some of these key investments.  

Q: What do you think all of us can do to contribute to this global solution in fighting climate change?  

A: Well, certainly there are products that have lower emissions…In rich countries, you know, we are starting to have food indications of which kinds of food cause what emissions. And we have more and more electric cars. You know we have the ability to heat your home with what’s called an electric heat pump versus using a hydrocarbon like natural gas to your house. You know I would say that for the individual, political engagement is also important because this is a problem where we have to make near-term investments (and) even some short-term sacrifice to get the long-term benefit of having drastic climate change impacts. And so, educating people that this is very worth doing, particularly getting young people engaged.
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