Mar. 29, 2024 ❧ Ozempic price gouging, Bible salesman Trump, and RFK Jr.'s slimy VP pick
Plus: SEGA wins a union contract, new data on where antisemitism is *actually* coming from, the Netherlands ban LibGen, and sloths' surprising swimming speed
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STORIES THAT SHOULD BE BIGGER
OZEMPIC PRICES ARE A SCAM
According to a recent study by researchers at Yale, King’s College of London, and Doctors without Borders, people in the United States are paying way too much for Ozempic. Currently, the U.S. list price for a month’s supply of the popular drug is $935.77—but according to the new study, the cost to manufacture it is dramatically lower than that. In fact, the scientists found that a month’s worth of Ozempic (scientifically known as semaglutide) can be made for anything from 89 cents to $4.73, including taxes and a profit margin. The profit Novo Nordisk currently makes from selling it, meanwhile, is exorbitant. Whether paid out-of-pocket or by insurance companies, the vast majority of that $935.77 asking price appears to be pure corporate greed.
This is a bigger problem than it might seem. Although Ozempic has become famous as an appetite-suppressing weight loss drug, it’s also a vital medicine for people with diabetes—meaning that when it’s overpriced, people who don’t have a spare $935.77 a month may be forced to go without. And as Josh Nathan-Kazis reports for Barron’s, the drug’s exorbitant cost could “break the healthcare system” in the United States. In recent months, Novo Nordisk has spent millions of dollars lobbying the federal government to expand Medicare’s coverage of weight loss drugs like Ozempic, and they’ve had some success, convincing Representative Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) to introduce the “Treat and Reduce Obesity Act of 2023.” If Medicare has to cover Ozempic (and similar Novo Nordisk drugs like Wegovy) for weight loss as well as diabetes, and the prices remain at their current high level, it could add billions of dollars in cost to an already-strained federal program, pushing it to the breaking point.
Fortunately, there is an alternative. As Senator Bernie Sanders points out in one of his trademark angry press releases, it’s only the United States that’s being asked to pay these outrageous prices for Ozempic, “while the same exact product can be purchased for just $155 a month in Canada and just $59 in Germany.” This means there’s room for negotiation—and thanks to recent moves by the Biden administration, Medicare’s power to negotiate drug prices is now greater than it’s ever been. Beyond that, there’s evidence that pharmaceutical companies can be pressured into lowering their prices by a strong enough public campaign. This has even happened with diabetes medication specifically, as Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly both slashed the price of their insulin products in the last year or so—a move that only came after a sustained effort from both members of Congress and activist groups. (Like Ozempic, insulin costs very little to produce, but is price-gouged beyond belief in the U.S. market.)
Sanders is currently trying to meet with Novo Nordisk’s CEO and turn up the heat on Ozempic, but the grassroots needs to get involved again too. The idea that these companies can just demand whatever dollar amount they want is absurd, and it’s time we stopped putting up with it.
NEW SURVEY REAFFIRMS THAT ANTISEMITISM IS A BIGGER PROBLEM ON THE RIGHT
A new study from Tufts political science researcher Eitan Hersh has called into question the idea that antisemitism is rampant among left-wing students—a narrative that has been parroted throughout American media and by state and federal lawmakers as students have protested Israel’s brutal war in Gaza.
Despite claims by the likes of Anti-Defamation League leader Jonathan Greenblatt that “the Radical Left” is “the photo inverse of the Extreme Right” when it comes to prejudice against Jews, actual survey data has never backed this up. A 2021 study from Hersh, summarized by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency found that:
Less than 5% of very liberal young adults believe Jews have too much power, versus approximately 35% of very conservative young adults. Similarly, around 9% of very liberal young adults said Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the U.S., as opposed to about 36% of very conservative young adults. In general, the more conservative one was, the more likely they were to hold an anti-Semitic belief.
Another 2022 survey from the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (which is actually primarily funded by a Republican donor despite the name), found that people on the left were significantly more likely to view antisemitism as a big problem.
Hersh revisited the subject after October 7 and, in a study published last month by the Jim Joseph Foundation, found that “The evidence from college students after October 7th is quite consistent with previous research.” Left-wing students are more likely to avoid being friends with someone due to pro-Israel beliefs, but the opposite is true when discussing Jews as a whole.
Conservative respondents were nearly twice as likely to say that they would “avoid Jews because of their views on Israel,” with those identifying as “alt-right” having by far the highest level of agreement with that statement.
Even more striking was that nearly 20 percent of conservative or very conservative students said they agreed that “All Israeli citizens should be considered legitimate targets of Hamas,” while less than five percent of liberals and leftists agreed.
As Arno Rosenfeld, who covered Hersh’s polls in The Forward, wrote on Twitter, the latter chart specifically “upends basically everything we've been told about campus politics since Oct. 7.”
To be clear, this does not mean that antisemitism is nonexistent in left-wing circles. There are absolutely people who have attempted to co-opt pro-Palestinian language and use the actions of the Israeli government to demonize Jews as a whole—people like this cannot be allowed to hijack the movement.
And though most pro-Palestinian sentiment is not driven by antisemitism, Hersh’s study also shows that Jewish students still report feeling ostracized and more fearful of revealing their identities since October 7 (Though many Jewish students have also been at the forefront of pro-Palestinian demonstrations as well). While this data reinforces that supporters of Palestinian rights are not motivated by antisemitism, we should also take it as an opportunity to reflect on how to communicate more effectively to ensure that Jewish students feel respected and included.
CROOKS vs. SICKOS (or, “What’s going on with our politicians?”)
❧ Donald Trump is selling Bibles now, and says he wants to “Make America Pray Again.” In the long history of strange Trump-themed products, this might be the most tasteless. In a video posted to Truth Social on the 26th, Trump announced that he’s now selling a “God Bless the USA Bible” to his supporters, which includes the Constitution and the lyrics to Lee Greenwood’s 1984 song “God Bless the USA” along with, you know, the Bible itself. “All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many,” Trump said—a statement that casually disrespects every observer of a non-Christian faith in the United States, or of no religion at all.
The idea that Trump has “many” Bibles is questionable, since he once said his favorite verse was “an eye for an eye” —but he’s been making nods to evangelical Christianity for a while, saying that “we must defend God in the public square” and “no one will be touching the cross of Christ under the [second] Trump administration.” (The idea that God would need Donald Trump to defend him doesn’t seem to strike his supporters as absurd.) And the price tag for an official “God Bless the USA Bible?” $60. (Or, excuse us, $59.99. Plus shipping and handling. Operators are standing by.)
You needn’t be religious to find this repulsive. It’s enough that a lot of people in the United States are, and that Trump—a man who’s built his entire life on treachery, obscenity, theft, and deceit—is manipulating their sincere belief for his own gain. On another level, it’s just embarrassing that a former head of state is running tacky, low-rent hustles like this. As we said during the “golden Trump sneakers” incident a few weeks ago, you’d never catch Xi Jinping doing this kind of thing.
❧ Speaking of treachery, Joe Lieberman is dead. In the pages of the New York Times, the former Senator is being eulogized as “a national voice of morality” and “an independent who wore no labels easily.” As usual with the Times, that’s not the whole story. Today, Lieberman is chiefly notable for two things. First, he was a tireless warmonger who spread lies about WMDs in Iraq, refused to apologize for it 18 years later, and kept beating the drum to attack Iran too.
And second, he was the guy who almost single-handedly killed the public option in U.S. healthcare. The Times notes only that he “cast the 60th and deciding vote under Senate rules to pass Mr. Obama’s Affordable Care Act in 2010,” which is true. But that leaves out the terrible condition Lieberman demanded first: that the ACA should not include a government-run alternative to for-profit healthcare in any way, shape, or form. Obama and his allies capitulated, and as the Debt Collective aptly put it, “Joe Lieberman's legacy will live on as your medical debt.” Today, we should mourn all the people who would still be here, if not for his actions.
❧ Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has picked his running mate. Sadly, he deprived us of the hilarity of choosing Aaron Rodgers or Jesse Ventura and instead went with Nicole Shanahan, an attorney and tech entrepreneur. “Who is she? Why is she here?” asked Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty, paraphrasing arguably the last third-party running mate of any significance, Admiral James Stockdale. Tumulty writes that RFK choosing Shanahan was mostly about injecting some money into his cash-strapped campaign:
She is worth a fortune as the ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who ranks as the 10th richest person in the world on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Their 2023 divorce settlement is confidential, but the Wall Street Journal reported that she was seeking more than $1 billion.
Now that Shanahan is on the ticket with Kennedy, campaign finance law allows her to pour unlimited amounts of money into his campaign — something he badly needs. His campaign treasury is running low, with just over $5 million cash on hand reported in its latest federal filing, and qualifying for a spot on state ballots across the country is an expensive proposition. Candidates must have the resources to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures.
Shanahan has never run for public office, but she has been an active political donor. In the past, she has donated to Democratic politicians, including Hillary Clinton in 2016, Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden in 2020, and her representative, Ro Khanna of California. She has also a major donor to environmental causes and an anti-incarceration ballot measure in California. But as you’d expect for RFK, Jr.’s running mate, she’s not without crank cred: she has also made anti-vaccine statements and denounced in-vitro fertilization (a recent bug-bear for the Christian right) as “one of the biggest lies that’s being told about women’s health today.”
But there may be another reason for RFK’s choice: Slime. Shanahan is not just known in the tech world, but served as the “Global Joy Officer” at the Sloomoo Institute, a tourist attraction based in Manhattan, which Forbes describes as “a sensory-filled slime playground for children and adults” and “a cornucopia for the senses.” (A basic ticket to the Institute costs $48 per person, but at least you get to take home your own 8 oz. vial of slime — “an $18 value!”) How did Shanahan get a prestigious position at one of the most hallowed establishments in slime research? Forbes also reports that Shanahan invested $2.5 million in the company. “As an angel investor, it’s one of my larger check sizes,” she said.
While some are puzzled by RFK’s decision to appoint a relative no-name rather than a celebrity who could give his long-shot campaign some buzz, we can’t overlook that he is now in the pole position to receive the backing of the powerful Slime Lobby, which has long been a make-or-break endorsement.
AROUND THE STATES
❧ Workers at SEGA have won a historic union contract. It’s the first time people working at a major video games company in North America have successfully made that step, and according to Bloomberg it’s “a move that may accelerate a burgeoning labor movement” in the entire industry. Like the roughly 600 workers at Activision who voted to unionize earlier this month (but haven’t yet secured a contract,) the SEGA staff are represented by the Communications Workers of America. There are around 150 of them in various roles at the company, including editing, marketing, and quality control, and they’ve won modest raises in the new contract: 4 percent this year, followed by 3 percent in 2025 and another 2.5 percent in 2026. Beyond the pay itself, they’ve gained a laundry list of important workplace protections, including safeguards against arbitrary firings and layoffs, a loosened non-compete policy that allows them to pursue other creative projects, advance warning of any use of AI, and “codified benefits” including bonuses, healthcare, and retirement. It’s an impressive power-up, and an example for workers at every other games company to organize and demand better from their employers.
For more on unionizing a workplace, check out this helpful Sonic the Hedgehog video from TikTok user “The Swoletariat”:
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⚜ LONG READ: A new media panic has arisen over “squatting” by undocumented immigrants. It began after a TikTok influencer went viral for a video explaining how migrants could take up residence in other people’s homes without their permission. Since then, Fox News and other outlets, from the Daily Mail to CBS’s Inside Edition to the Joe Rogan Podcast have began to describe squatting as an epidemic. But is this really true? As Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria report for Popular Information:
According to experts, [data on squatting] does not exist. "Squatting is an extremely rare issue, and there is zero evidence in our data or in any other publications that we know of that the eviction crisis is driven by the presence of non-native renters," Juan Pablo Garnham, researcher and communications manager at the Eviction Lab, told Popular Information.
One reason that squatting is rare is that, almost everywhere, it is extremely difficult to establish a valid property claim by occupying someone else's home. In 16 states, a squatter would have to openly and notoriously occupy a home for 20 years or more. In most other states, it takes 10 or more years for a squatter to establish adverse possession, or a legal property right. Absent this kind of extended stay, a squatter is simply a tresspasser.
One notable exception to this dynamic is New York City, where a squatter is considered a tenant after 30 days. (For the rest of New York state, squatters do not obtain rights for 10 years.) This doesn't mean the squatter can stay in the home indefinitely, only that a landlord would need to go through an eviction process, rather than simply call the police to arrest the squatter for trespassing. That process can take months. This was a decision made by New York City, as some landlords abandoned less desirable properties, to help keep people off the streets. But there is no evidence that squatting is a bigger problem in New York City now than in the past.
But the current media frenzy about squatting is distracting attention from America's actual housing crisis:
The right’s “squatters” outrage also ignores the asymmetrical power between landlords and tenants. The ACLU reports that 81% of landlords are represented in eviction court proceedings, compared to 3% of renters. Studies show that “between 51 percent and 75 percent of tenants without legal representation lost their case in court.”
In many cases, landlords are able to exploit tenants without filing any paperwork at all. In an interview, Marie Claire Tran Leung, a senior staff attorney with the National Housing Law Project, explained that landlords can often pressure tenants to leave merely by threatening to initiate eviction proceedings — even if the eviction is not legally justified. Tenants frequently feel like their only option is to leave because a record of an eviction could make it virtually impossible to find another place to live. In other cases, landlords force legal tenants to leave by making their homes uninhabitable.
Wednesday was Manatee Appreciation Day!
In observance of the holiday, here’s the latest from the official Current Affairs MANATEE NEWS WIRE:
In Florida, a bed and breakfast has been listed for $3.3 million on Zillow that features a pond full of manatees in the backyard! The seaside Crystal Blue Lagoon features a freshwater spring that’s kept at a balmy 72 degrees year-round. During the cold months between November and March, sea cows from nearby waterways flock there for warmth creating a spectacle that puts your neighbor’s koi pond to shame. Though most of the manatees don’t require a lot of care, as they flock to warmer waters naturally, the hotel’s seller says that it has become a nice refuge for wildlife rehabilitators to release injured and orphaned manatees, especially as warm water refuges become increasingly scarce.
We hope you’ll donate to Current Affairs so we might someday have the ability to set up our offices here!
But if you don’t feel like doing that, you should absolutely donate to Save the Manatee to protect this endangered species.
AROUND THE WORLD
❧ In the United Kingdom, 108 Members of Parliament have just signed a letter urging the Conservative government to stop selling weapons to Israel. This move comes on the heels of Canada’s recent decision to suspend arms exports, which seems to have galvanized MPs in Britain to act themselves. Organized by Zarah Sultana, the Member for Coventry South, the letter says that “'business as usual' for UK arms exports to Israel is totally unacceptable,” and cites examples of recent war crimes that likely involved F-16 fighter jets made with British parts. Importantly, Sultana is one of the youngest Members of Parliament at just 30 years old, a reflection of younger generations’ increasing disillusionment with Israel and its barbaric treatment of Palestinians. She’s joined by notable signatories like Jess Philips, Dianne Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn, most from Labour and the Scottish National Party—but also by 27 members of the House of Lords, including Baroness Nosheena Mobarik, a member of the Conservative Party. When you start to lose the Lords, that’s when you know your war is really indefensible.
❧ A court in the Netherlands has issued an order to block some of the internet’s most popular ebook sharing websites. If you happen to read Dutch, a full press release on the “blokkering” is available here, but there’s also a good English-language summary at the website TorrentFreak. Essentially, a Dutch entertainment industry group called BREIN has filed a lawsuit against the websites Library Genesis and Anna’s Archive, both of which are “shadow libraries” that distribute free copies of ebooks to anyone who wants them. Industry groups like BREIN typically describe these as “piracy” websites, and four major publishers have previously sued Library Genesis in the United States, arguing that it caused “serious financial and creative harm” by “devaluing the textbook market.” However, “shadow libraries” are best understood as exactly that: libraries, which allow the shared knowledge of humanity to be genuinely shared and not chained behind paywalls. The “textbook market” the companies want to defend—which routinely charges hundreds of dollars for a single ebook—is the exact opposite. It’s simply an illegitimate price-gouging and rent-seeking operation, and a major obstacle to human education and progress. However, the courts in Rotterdam haven’t yet realized that. On the 21st, they ruled in BREIN’s favor, causing Library Genesis and Anna’s Archive to be “blokkered” for everyone in the Netherlands. At least, in theory that’s what’s happened. In practice, sites like Library Genesis create new “mirror” URLs on a frequent basis, and ban-evading technology like VPNs and the Tor browser are easy to use, making actually forbidding any website almost impossible. Meanwhile, all the media attention to the court case will have created a Streisand Effect, making more Dutch people aware of these websites than ever before. Great job, BREIN!
PAST AFFAIRS
In “Book Publishers Are Trying to Destroy Public E-Book Access in Order to Increase Profits,” Stephen Prager breaks down a similar case when the Internet Archive was sued for providing free e-books:
The suit against the Internet Archive highlights the fundamental antagonism that publishing companies have toward libraries. Libraries are in fact radical institutions because they create collective ownership and challenge the idea that we have to pay for everything—which explains why many publishing companies openly describe libraries as threats to their bottom line.[...] Instead of competing in the market by improving their product and reducing their prices, the publishing profiteers fight like cowards, using the legal system to destroy a valuable public service to protect their own profits.
⚜ LONG READ: As the US seeks to confront China’s influence and strengthen its strategic position in Western Africa, President Biden is trying to woo one of the continent’s most notorious dictators, Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang. In The Intercept, Nick Turse writes:
U.S. commandos have shown a special interest in strengthening ties with one of the most corrupt, abusive, and repressive regimes on the planet. The delivery of aid by Special Operations forces to the coastal African nation of Equatorial Guinea last month followed pilgrimages to the country’s pariah president by top U.S. officials.
The move came amid shifting West African geopolitics. A Pentagon report last year mentioned Equatorial Guinea as the potential site of a future Chinese military base. At the same time, U.S. relations with longtime allies in Central and West Africa have frayed, often in the aftermath of coups d’état by American-trained military officers.
The aid to Equatorial Guinea appears to be the latest facet of a U.S. charm offensive to woo the country’s president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, a tyrant now in his sixth decade in power, as the U.S. has lost influence in the African Sahel …
“This seems to run counter to every value that the Biden administration publicly espouses when it comes to democracy, human rights, and anticorruption,” said Cameron Hudson, a former Africa analyst at the CIA, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The administration is doing everything it can to maintain a military foothold on the continent. And if we don’t already have a foothold, to create one. So establishing or deepening relationships with particularly odious regimes like Equatorial Guinea are not off the table.” ...
Equatorial Guinea has been plagued by oppression, corruption, and poverty for decades. After seizing power in a military coup in 1979, Obiang and his family have ruled it as their personal fiefdom. Despite significant oil wealth, the country suffers widespread poverty due to rampant embezzlement.
SLOTH FACT OF THE WEEK
Despite their notorious torpor in the trees, Sloths are actually much faster swimmers. They are able to doggy-paddle 44 feet per minute, which is three times faster than they normally move.
Though that doesn’t mean they are always rushing. Even in the water, they are still sloths. And they sleep anywhere from 15 to 20 hours every day because their glacially slow metabolism doesn’t allow them the energy to do much else. But they don’t always rest in the trees. They often drop from mangroves and into the water below just to relax and float. They can even afford to take a quick rest while floating down the lazy river because they can hold their breath for more than 40 minutes.
Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. Fact-checking by Justin Ward. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.
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