[ad_1]
To the Editor:
Re “Ozempic Could Threaten the Federal Budget,” by Brian Deese, Jonathan Gruber and Ryan Cummings (Opinion visitor essay, March 7):
Your essay concerning the fiscal affect of the brand new weight-loss medication powerfully spotlights the truth that they may probably value greater than $1 trillion per yr. Whereas this monetary risk ought to end in extra sturdy authorities negotiation of drug costs, it also needs to encourage policymakers to deal with a root reason for the weight problems epidemic: the catastrophic proliferation of ultra-processed meals which might be low-cost, handy and addictive.
A current report within the B.M.J., a peer-reviewed medical journal, reaffirmed the outcomes of in depth research that confirmed that publicity to ultra-processed meals resulted in greater dangers of diabetes, together with psychological problems and mortality.
If a miracle lung most cancers drug had emerged a long time in the past, it could have been tragic if we had targeted solely on the price of the drug and deserted efforts to curtail smoking. We’d like specific front-of-package labeling for ultra-processed meals, promoting and advertising regulation, efficient public schooling efforts and focused tax insurance policies that require the trade to pay for the well being penalties — the identical methods we used to fight tobacco’s adversarial well being results.
James W. Lytle
Jamaica Plain, Mass.
To the Editor:
The writers of the visitor essay contend that new weight-loss medication often called GLP-1 agonists merely aren’t value paying for at their “unusually excessive” U.S. worth.
It’s a doubtful declare. Positive, modern medicines will be costly at first, significantly within the U.S., which is answerable for funding an outsized share of drug growth. However the long-term financial advantages of offering entry to pharmaceutical breakthroughs sometimes offset the upfront prices.
Take into account Covid-19. Whereas the U.S. authorities spent an estimated $30 billion on Covid vaccines, America’s profitable vaccination program averted an estimated $1.15 trillion in medical prices, in accordance with an evaluation from the Commonwealth Fund.
Tackling weight problems might save much more. A research from the Milken Institute estimated that the entire annual value of continual illness as a consequence of weight problems and obese is $1.72 trillion. Even when we assume that the authors’ $1 trillion-plus predicted value of the medication is appropriate (a price that can by no means be seen due to brand-to-brand competitors and model patent expiration), extensive entry to weight-loss medication might nonetheless result in a staggering $720 billion in internet financial savings yearly.
Wolfgang Klietmann
Plymouth, Mass.
The author is a former medical pathologist and medical microbiologist at Harvard Medical College.
Trump’s Comment About American Jews and Israel
To the Editor:
Re “Trump Says Jews Who Support Democrats ‘Hate Israel’ and ‘Their Religion’” (nytimes.com, March 18):
Donald Trump has repeatedly accused American Jews who vote Democratic of being anti-Israel, conflating the Israeli state with their Jewish identification. He prices them with disloyalty — to not the US, however to the nation the place they actually belong.
Now, predictably, he’s partaking in much more incendiary rhetoric, saying they hate their faith and wish Israel to be destroyed, and claiming that Jewish politicians like Senator Chuck Schumer are merely fishing for votes amongst Arab Individuals and others sympathetic to the Palestinians. Two weeks in the past, when requested what his answer to the battle in Gaza could be, he mentioned Israel ought to “finish the problem.”
To everybody who has marched in opposition to the conflict, torn down a “kidnapped” poster, or voted uncommitted in a Democratic main: Take heed to this man’s phrases and ask your self if he intends to elevate a finger to assist the Palestinians in any method.
Howard Korder
Santa Fe, N.M.
To the Editor:
The definition of chutzpah: a non-Jew telling a Jew the right way to be Jewish. In accordance with Donald Trump, somebody who votes Democratic rejects their Judaism and Israel’s existence. Clearly he handed chutzpah a very long time in the past.
Chris Prince
New York
Gunshots on the Subway: What Are We Alleged to Do?
To the Editor:
Re “Shouts, a Fight, Then a Gun Goes Off in a Crowded Subway Car” (entrance web page, March 18):
I’m a every day subway commuter, and I’m fed up not realizing the right way to reply, as a civilian, to subway aggression. For all of the speak from politicians about public security on the subway, nobody that I’m conscious of is providing steering about what we civilians are speculated to do when somebody begins appearing out, past ignoring them or hoping the cops present up.
Generally, ignoring them is just not an choice, and what’s extra, I’ve no real interest in ceding our public areas to bullies.
You’re additionally by no means going to have sufficient cops to babysit each prepare automotive within the system. However there are thousands and thousands of eyes watching all of the unhealthy conduct that goes down each day, if solely we knew the right way to deal with it.
The town ought to take an curiosity in coaching common residents who don’t need to be helpless bystanders at finest, and victims at worst.
Ronen Schatsky
Brooklyn
To the Editor:
After the current chaotic capturing on a crowded subway prepare in Brooklyn, I’ll really feel protected once more solely when a police officer is assigned to each automotive on each prepare, and when the system adopts the identical screening protocols as at our airports, the place, ready to board, I really feel fairly certain no person round me is carrying a lethal weapon. I can not say the identical for the subway in New York.
As these options are unlikely to be applied, the one different factor I can consider is to repeal the Second Modification to the U.S. Structure.
Tim Burke
Middletown, N.J.
Heroic Abortion Suppliers
To the Editor:
Re “Abortion Clinic Persists Despite Wyoming’s Ban” (entrance web page, March 11):
It’s each well timed and needed that an article profiling the admirable work of Julie Burkhart ought to seem the week of Abortion Provider Appreciation Day (March 10).
Ms. Burkhart is among the many heroic abortion suppliers who’ve carried on the exhausting work of Dr. George Tiller and the opposite fearless docs who sacrificed their lives to guard a lady’s proper to manage her personal life.
These docs and clinic employees work below fixed stress and regular opposition, usually proper exterior their doorways. They’ve informed me tales of sufferers who protest in entrance of their clinics, then come within the again door for abortions, solely to go proper again out to protest some extra.
May these suppliers have picked a better medical apply? You guess. They deserve our heartfelt thanks not simply on someday, however daily.
Ellen Candy
New York
The author is a former vice chairman of Physicians for Reproductive Well being.
FAFSA Chaos
To the Editor:
Re “Plan to Simplify Aid for College Made It Worse” (entrance web page, March 14):
Revamping the Free Utility for Federal Scholar Assist (FAFSA) program, introduced with nice fanfare, appeared like an incredible thought, significantly because it was supposed to facilitate the coed support software course of for decrease earnings college students.
However the Division of Schooling’s wholesale and disgraceful failure of execution is simply one other unhappy reminder of the knowledge of Milton Friedman’s recommendation about authorities applications: “One of many nice errors is to evaluate insurance policies and applications by their intentions fairly than their outcomes.”
Kenneth A. Margolis
Chappaqua, N.Y.
[ad_2]
Source link