Month: January 2024

In late December 2019, eight pages of genetic code were sent to computers at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.Unbeknown to American officials at the time, the genetic map that had landed on their doorstep contained critical clues about the virus that would soon touch off a pandemic.The genetic code, submitted by Chinese scientists to a vast public repository of sequencing data run by the U.S. government, described a mysterious new virus that had infected a 65-year-old man weeks earlier in Wuhan. At the time the code was sent, Chinese officials had not yet warned of the unexplained…

Florida’s plan to save money by importing medications from Canada, authorized this month by the Food and Drug Administration, has renewed attention on the cost of prescription drugs in the United States.Research has consistently found that drug prices in America are significantly higher than those in other wealthy countries. In 2018, they were nearly double those in France and Britain, even when accounting for the discounts that can substantially reduce how much American health plans and employers pay.“The U.S. market is the bank for pharmaceutical companies,” said Ameet Sarpatwari, an expert in pharmaceutical policy at Harvard Medical School. “There’s a…