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These events are symptoms of the deeper malaise in America’s dysfunctional health-care system. The country spends about $4.3trn a year on keeping citizens in good nick. That is equivalent to 17% of gdp, twice as much as the average in other rich economies. And yet American adults live shorter lives and American infants die more often than in similarly affluent places. Pharmaceutical firms and hospitals attract much of the public ire for the inflated costs. Much less attention is paid to a small number of middlemen who extract far bigger rents from the system’s complexity.

Over the past decade these firms have quietly increased their presence in America’s vast health-care industry. They do not make drugs and have not, until recently, treated patients. They are the intermediaries—insurers, pharmacies, drug distributors and pharmacy-benefit managers (pbms)—sitting between patients and their treatments. In 2022 the combined revenue of the nine biggest middlemen—call them big health—equated to around 45% of America’s health-care bill, up from 25% in 2013. Big health accounts for eight of the top 25 companies by revenue in the s&p 500 index of America’s leading stocks, compared with four for big tech and none for big pharma.

Hey Alexa, only conservatives love to be lied to. All the rest of us dislike being lied to, and we think that the people who love to be lied to are the dumbest of the dumb. And an AI that lies is a useless piece of garbage.

So that explains how Convicted Sex Offender Treason Trump got elected.

It doesn't happen with real Medicare. Only with Medicare Disadvantage plans.

If the community is on kbin that the kbin mod removes the spam. If the community is on lemmy instance than mod on lemmy instance removes spam.

Isn't that how it works? The mod on the community instances removes the spam and then it gets removed on all sites right?

Likewise, mods on lemmy and kbin might lock comments on a post that’s getting toxic, but that lock doesn’t carry over to kbin, and they can’t do anything about it.

Wouldn't a lock on a thread on that community's site prevent any new comments from coming back to that site over the fediverse?

I too dropped all my subscriptions to beehaw groups way back when I realized they are problematic.

but it seems to be a nightmare to moderate across platforms and instances,

Nobody needs to moderate across platforms and instances. Just moderate your own community, on your own site. Power is decentralized by design.

Just put pseudoephedrine back over the counter again. Christ.

Absolutely. Pseudoephedrine is the real cold medicine. People were saying from the start that phenylephrine didn't work. I almost never used it.

It is impossible for a company to have a "total monopoly over the internet" because the internet has a decentralized design.

It is pretty easy to change your default web browser, compared to changing your operating system [Microsoft], your social network of friends [Facebook], or your auction site [Ebay]. Microsoft, Facebook, Ebay, etc all have a far greater lock on their markets because a single person cannot make a switch without degrading their experience.

An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration agreed unanimously on Tuesday that a common decongestant ingredient used in many over-the-counter cold medicines is ineffective.

The panel’s vote tees up a likely decision by the agency on whether to essentially ban the ingredient, phenylephrine, which would result in pulling products containing it from store shelves.

If the F.D.A. ordered their removal, a trade group warned that numerous popular products — including Tylenol, Mucinex and Benadryl cold and flu remedies — might become unavailable as companies race to reformulate them.

On Monday and Tuesday, the panel reviewed several existing studies and largely agreed that the research settled the question that the ingredient was useless and no better than a placebo.

Several advisers noted that patients taking the drug were merely delaying their journey to a useful remedy.

“I think we clearly have better options in the over-the-counter space to help our patients, and the studies do not support that this is an effective drug,” said Maria Coyle, the chairwoman of the panel and an associate professor of pharmacy at Ohio State University.

Why It Matters: These Are Popular Staples of the Medicine Cabinet.Every cold and flu season, millions of Americans reach for these products, some over decades. The decongestant is in at least 250 products that were worth nearly $1.8 billion in sales last year, according to an agency presentation. Among the products: Sudafed Sinus Congestion, Tylenol Cold & Flu Severe, NyQuil Severe Cold & Flu, Theraflu Severe Cold Relief, Mucinex Sinus Max and others.

The ingredient has long been considered safe and effective under an old, outdated agency standard, and the F.D.A. still says that it is safe.

Many remedies that do include phenylephrine also contain other, more effective medicines as well.

And medications that are considered effective for sinus and nasal congestion do still include nasal sprays with phenylephrine, like Afrin, or oral pseudoephedrine, such as Sudafed, or nasal steroids, such as Flonase.

Many popular cold and flu products that don’t specifically target congestion do not include the ingredient.

And it is still widely considered effective when it is used in surgery and to dilate the eyes. It is destroyed in the gut, though, scientists have concluded.

If the agency decides the decongestant should be eliminated from products, it could significantly disrupt the market for the makers of cold medicines if they do not have enough time to replace it in popular items.

What’s more: It could possibly renew widespread use of an alternative, pseudoephedrine, which was placed behind store counters or in locked cabinets because it was often used in illicit meth labs.

Dr. Hendeles, now an emeritus professor, said in an interview on Tuesday that he had been evaluating the ingredient since 1993.

“The bottom line is quality research has told the true story about phenylephrine,” he said.

The F.D.A. has formally now concluded that phenylephrine, when taken orally, is “not effective as a nasal decongestant.”

For consumers, the potential benefits of ending use of the ingredient, the agency suggested, would include avoiding unnecessary costs or delays in care by “taking a drug that has no benefit.”

This is not actual real news. It's bullshit from a billionaire bought and controlled far right "news" site designed to get more gigantic tax cuts for billionaire elites. Loser Trump's mindless rambling shows way more signs of dementia than either Moscow Mitch or Dark Brandon.

Why do Libertarians hate freedom?

Defunding the FBI is just pure hate and spite. It's not part of a plan.

What a strangely small mind behind the post.

Denny's can always use another waitress.

Why do republicans hate America?

I couldn 't stop laughing at how small your mind is.