Sam Roe, Ray Long and Karisa King, Pharmacies miss half of dangerous drug combinations. Part 3 of “Dangerous Doses.” Chicago Tribune, 15 December 2016. “The [Chicago] Tribune reporter walked into an Evanston [Illinois] CVS pharmacy carrying two prescriptions: one for a common antibiotic, the other for a popular anti-cholesterol drug. Taken alone, these two drugs, clarithromycin and simvastatin, are relatively safe. But taken together they can cause a severe breakdown in muscle tissue and lead to kidney failure and death. When the reporter tried to fill the prescriptions, the pharmacist should have warned him of the dangers. But that’s not what happened. The two medications were packaged, labeled and sold within minutes, without a word of caution. In the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, the Tribune tested 255 pharmacies to see how often stores would dispense dangerous drug pairs without warning patients. Fifty-two percent of the pharmacies sold the medications without mentioning the potential interaction, striking evidence of an industrywide failure that places millions of consumers at risk.”
Archives for December 2016
The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.
Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane, The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S. The New York Times, 13 December 2016. “An examination by The Times of the Russian [cyberespionage and information-warfare] operation — based on interviews with dozens of players targeted in the attack, intelligence officials who investigated it and Obama administration officials who deliberated over the best response — reveals a series of missed signals, slow responses and a continuing underestimation of the seriousness of the cyberattack.”
Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste
Craig Whitlock and Bob Woodward, Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste. The Washington Post, 5 December 2016. “The Pentagon has buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste in its business operations amid fears Congress would use the findings as an excuse to slash the defense budget, according to interviews and confidential memos obtained by The Washington Post. Pentagon leaders had requested the study to help make their enormous back-office bureaucracy more efficient and reinvest any savings in combat power. But after the project documented far more wasteful spending than expected, senior defense officials moved swiftly to kill it by discrediting and suppressing the results.”
For Blacks Facing Parole in New York State, Signs of a Broken System
Michael Winerip, Michael Schwirtz and Robert Gebeloff, For Blacks Facing Parole in New York State, Signs of a Broken System. Part 2. The New York Times, 4 December 2016. “An analysis by The New York Times of thousands of parole decisions from the past several years found that fewer than one in six black or Hispanic men was released at his first hearing, compared with one in four white men. It is a disparity that is particularly striking not for the most violent criminals, like rapists and murderers, but for small-time offenders who commit property crimes like stealing a television from a house or shoplifting from Duane Reade — precisely the people many states are now working to keep out of prison in the first place.”
Update: Michael Schwirtz, Michael Winerip and Robert Gebeloff, Governor Cuomo Orders Investigation of Racial Bias in N.Y. State Prisons. The New York Times, 5 December 2016. “Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced on Monday that he was ordering an investigation into racial bias in the state prison system after an investigation by The New York Times found that black inmates were punished at significantly higher rates than whites, sent to solitary confinement more often and held there longer. “I am directing the state inspector general to investigate the allegations of racial disparities in discipline in state prisons and to recommend appropriate reforms for immediate implementation,” Governor Cuomo said in a statement issued on Monday, calling the report “disturbing.””
The Scourge of Racial Bias in New York State’s Prisons
Michael Schwirtz, Michael Winerip and Robert Gebeloff, The Scourge of Racial Bias in New York State’s Prisons. Part 1. The New York Times, 3 December 2016. “The racism can be felt from the moment black inmates enter New York’s upstate prisons. They describe being called porch monkeys, spear chuckers and worse. There are cases of guards ripping out dreadlocks. One inmate, John Richard, reported that he was jumped at Clinton Correctional Facility by a guard who threatened to “serve up some black mashed potatoes with tomato sauce.””
Update: Michael Schwirtz, Michael Winerip and Robert Gebeloff, Governor Cuomo Orders Investigation of Racial Bias in N.Y. State Prisons. The New York Times, 5 December 2016. “Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced on Monday that he was ordering an investigation into racial bias in the state prison system after an investigation by The New York Times found that black inmates were punished at significantly higher rates than whites, sent to solitary confinement more often and held there longer. “I am directing the state inspector general to investigate the allegations of racial disparities in discipline in state prisons and to recommend appropriate reforms for immediate implementation,” Governor Cuomo said in a statement issued on Monday, calling the report “disturbing.””