- CMA’s appalling stalling can’t prevent courtroom disaster, reinforces ‘closed for business’ narrative — Justice Marcus Smith moves forward swiftly and is unconvinced of agency’s market definition FOSS Patents
- Microsoft Appeal Against UK Block of Activision Blizzard Deal to Start July 24 – News VGChartz
- Microsoft pledges to be ‘determined’ and ‘creative’ to get ATVI merger clearance TweakTown
- Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard gamble faces regulatory battle FOX 5 Washington DC
- Microsoft Activison merger “unconditionally cleared” WePC – PC Tech & PC Gaming News
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Tag Archives: Agencys
Bears/Panthers trade, Ekeler requests out of LA, offensive linemen galore & more takeaways from free agency’s first 48 hours – Yahoo Sports
- Bears/Panthers trade, Ekeler requests out of LA, offensive linemen galore & more takeaways from free agency’s first 48 hours Yahoo Sports
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- NFL Mock Draft 2023: Raiders select top-10 QB despite Jimmy Garoppolo signing; Panthers take Bryce Young No. 1 CBS Sports
- Dave Wannstedt on trading No. 1 pick to Panthers: This is perfect for Bears | NBC Sports Chicago NBC Sports Chicago
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CDC wants to change ‘antiquated’ rules that hamper agency’s ability to fight Covid, polio and other diseases
CNN
—
This summer, when the shocking news emerged that there was a case of polio in New York, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention immediately turned to Shoshana Bernstein.
The agency urgently needed to increase polio vaccination rates in Rockland County, New York. And while Bernstein is neither a doctor nor a public health official, she is exactly what the CDC was looking for: a local vaccine educator who’s part of the Orthodox Jewish community, one of several groups that has a low vaccination rate.
Over the next few months, Bernstein spent hours and hours in meetings with CDC officials, including agency Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and then more time preparing presentations on education campaign ideas.
She wasn’t paid a penny for her time.
“If I won the lottery, I’d do this for free because I have a passion for public health,” Bernstein said. “But I can’t. I had to put other projects on hold to do pro bono work for the CDC. I have a family with bills to pay. I had to tell them, ‘I can’t keep doing this if you don’t pay me.’ ”
It’s an old problem for the CDC: Despite having a multibillion-dollar budget, the agency doesn’t have authority from Congress to hire consultants in a timely way when an urgent situation arises.
Walensky plans to appeal to Congress to allow for flexibility to do this kind of hiring in a crisis, similar to the authority vested in some other federal agencies.
“I want to be very clear that [we] are not asking for a blank-slate ability to release resources. What we’re saying is, in certain situations, we need to be nimble and act urgently in culturally sensitive ways that we don’t currently have the capacity to do,” Walensky said.
She told CNN that the agency’s “inability to move quickly and nimbly when necessary” has been “frustrating.”
“We don’t have the ability in even urgent or emergent times to say ‘we need to move quickly here,’ ” Walensky said. “We need to provide resources to people who can actually do the work [to] quickly get that message out.”
Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC director from 2009 to 2017, said he feels Walensky’s pain. He experienced the same inflexibility during the Ebola outbreak in 2014.
“If we want CDC to get better at fighting diseases, we need to stop tying their hands behind their back,” he said. “This is the kind of torment of working within the government system.”
Their names are Duvi and Rochel, and they could be the key to stopping polio in its tracks in the US.
Over the years, some members of the Orthodox Jewish community have fallen prey to well-orchestrated campaigns of vaccine lies. To counter that, Bernstein is working on several projects, including an animated video with brother and sister Duvi and Rochel and a vaccine hero named Super V.
The characters sprinkle their conversations with Yiddish expressions. Duvi wears a yarmulke, or head covering, and Rochel wears a long-sleeved dress, clothing typical for their community. Singing to the tune of a popular Jewish song, Duvi gives thanks to “Hashem” – or God – for vaccines.
The project is funded by the New Jersey Department of Health, and Bernstein proposed to the CDC that versions of the cartoon could be made for other communities. She also told the CDC about a publication she wrote called “Tzim Gezint” – “To Your Health” – which helped increase awareness of the measles vaccine during an outbreak of the virus in 2018.
Walensky said the CDC liked Bernstein’s ideas but couldn’t pay her.
“Shoshana is somebody who is known to CDC for her work in this exact same community several years ago with measles and her extraordinary work in being able to successfully reach this community,” Walensky said. “One of the things that’s frustrating from my perspective [is] that we don’t have the capacity to be able to finance her or to be able to provide her resources.”
This financial inflexibility was also apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the CDC wanted to develop culturally specific vaccine education programs for communities with low vaccination rates.
A senior CDC official called it an “antiquated” system that “has not evolved over time.” The official spoke on the on the condition of anonymity so she could speak freely on the matter.
The CDC is preparing a presentation to urge Congress it to fix this, Walensky said.
She said she hopes to “move the needle” by using “real-time examples of how public health has been hurt because of our inability to take action” during the pandemic.
One main argument to Congress will be that other federal agencies have the authority to contract with outsiders during emergency situations, according to the anonymous CDC senior official.
Spokespeople for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) tell CNN that their agencies can make certain types of contractual arrangements with outside organizations.
The CDC will be asking Congress for flexibility for several kinds of financial arrangements, Walensky said.
For example, during the Ebola outbreak in 2014, the agency tried to encourage people in West Africa to remain at Ebola treatment units, but it proved difficult, the anonymous senior official said.
“You want to be able to [arrange for food] for these families and these children so that they can stay in the confines of the [treatment units] and don’t wander off when they just need a meal,” the official said.
“The lack of flexibility to be able to help on the ground is just so difficult. … It’s heart-wrenching.”
CDC staffers in West Africa faced financial inflexibility for even the simplest of things, such as printing out Ebola educational materials, the anonymous official added.
“I think people would be surprised to know how hard it is to get anything done,” she said.
Ed Hunter believes it.
Hunter retired from the CDC in 2015 after 40 years at the agency. His last position was legislative director in the agency’s Washington office.
He said every CDC director he worked with experienced “the same story: that there’s such limits to what you can do [given] the specificity of the appropriations that come from the Congress and the timelines and the complexity of the federal procurement system.”
“This is something that has been a front and center issue at the CDC for years and a real challenge to solve,” he said.
Walensky said she hopes things will turn out differently this time.
“We’re not asking for money. We’re asking for capacity. We’re asking for authorities to be able to do our job,” she said. “[But] I don’t know if I will be more successful than my predecessors.”
Xbox Calls PlayStation Too Big to Fail Following UK Agency’s Criticism of Activision Blizzard Deal
Xbox has developed a novel tactic for defending its Activision Blizzard acquisition, which continues to wind its way through various regulatory bodies around the world: self-deprecation.
In response to claims by concerns raised by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority [CMA], Microsoft released a lengthy statement to GamesIndustry.biz calling the criticism is “unsupported” and pointing to PlayStation’s leading place in the market as a reason why.
“The suggestion that the incumbent market leader, with clear and enduring market power, could be foreclosed by the third largest provider as a result of losing access to one title is not credible,” Microsoft said in a statement.
While Microsoft didn’t share figures, the company says that if every Call of Duty player on PlayStation’s consoles switched to Xbox, “the PlayStation gamer base remaining would be significantly larger than Xbox.”
“In short, Sony is not vulnerable to a hypothetical foreclosure strategy, and the Referral Decision incorrectly relies on self-serving statements by Sony which significantly exaggerate the importance of Call of Duty to it and neglect to account for Sony’s clear ability to competitively respond,” Microsoft’s statement said. “While Sony may not welcome increased competition, it has the ability to adapt and compete. Gamers will ultimately benefit from this increased competition and choice.”
As far as the CMA’s concerns about the streaming market, Microsoft says it has “no advantage,” and says Xbox feels it has a “number of significant disadvantages” in comparison to other competitors because of the relatively limited platform support for Xbox Cloud Gaming. The company also says that adoption of video game streaming is relatively low, and that undermining the market in any way would only have long term damaging effects to its own products.
Microsoft isn’t happy with the UK’s CMA regulator over its Activision Blizzard acquisition comments. It describes the regulator’s concerns as “misplaced” and that it “adopts Sony’s complaints without considering the potential harm to consumers” 👀 🧵 1/3 pic.twitter.com/nIWuVqyvSW
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) October 12, 2022
“Xbox, as a platform which is in last place in console, seventh place in PC and nowhere in mobile game distribution globally, has no incentive to do this – instead its incentive is to encourage the widespread adoption of cloud gaming technologies by as many providers as possible to encourage the major shift in consumer behaviour required for cloud gaming to succeed,” the statement read.
As noted by The Verge’s Tom Warren, Xbox also claimed that Sony “has chosen to block Game Pass from PlayStation” while protecting its own first-party games.
Throughout its response, Xbox emphasizes Sony’s strength in the market while positioning itself as a weaker competitor. It’s all part of a major attempt to influence global opinion on the acquisition, which will add World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and other major franchises to a stable that already includes the likes of Halo, Fallout, and Skyrim, even going so far as to open a website touting the benefits of the acquisition.
Sony, for its part, has slammed the buyout as having “major negative implications for gamers” while praising the CMA.
‘Xbox could harm the competitiveness of its rivals’
Xbox was responding to the CMA’s initial report, the full text of which was published today. The CMA says it fears Microsoft absorbing a third-party company as expansive as Activision Blizzard will be damaging to the PlayStation brand. Alongside the possibility of making Activision Blizzard games like Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox and Windows platforms, the CMA points out having those games exclusively on Microsoft services like Xbox Cloud Gaming could have similar implications for video game streaming platform competitors like Amazon, and Nvidia.
“The CMA is concerned that having full control over this powerful catalogue, especially in light of Microsoft’s already strong position in gaming consoles, operating systems, and cloud infrastructure, could result in Microsoft harming consumers by impairing Sony’s – Microsoft’s closest gaming rival – ability to compete as well as that of other existing rivals and potential new entrants who could otherwise bring healthy competition through innovative multi-game subscriptions and cloud gaming services,” the authority wrote in its report.
As of this writing, Activision Blizzard games have not been made exclusive to Xbox platforms and services, and Microsoft has said it plans to bring Call of Duty to PlayStation. But the CMA says this may change as Microsoft continues to invest in and grow these businesses in the future.
“The CMA recognises that ABK’s newest games are not currently available on any subscription service on the day of release but considers that this may change as subscription services continue to grow. After the Merger, Microsoft would gain control of this important input and could use it to harm the competitiveness of its rivals,” the CMA wrote.
The CMA’s investigation will continue into January, when it will release its second phase of findings. The final report will be complete by March 1 of next year.
Kenneth Shepard is a writer covering games, entertainment, and queerness all around the internet. Find him on Twitter at @shepardcdr, and listen to his biweekly video game retrospective podcast Normandy FM, which is currently covering Cyberpunk 2077.
Former CIA employee convicted for carrying out largest data leak in agency’s history
Joshua Schulte — who was accused of handing over reams of classified data to WikiLeaks in 2016 — was convicted of illegally gathering and transmitting national defense information and obstructing a criminal investigation and grand jury proceeding, among other charges.
He had worked as a computer engineer within the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence, and created cyber tools that could grab data undetected from computers. Schulte defended himself at trial. An earlier trial ended in a hung jury in 2020.
Schulte had access to “some of the country’s most valuable intelligence-gathering cyber tools used to battle terrorist organizations and other malign influences around the globe,” US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement on Wednesday.
“When Schulte began to harbor resentment toward the CIA, he covertly collected those tools and provided them to WikiLeaks, making some of our most critical intelligence tools known to the public — and therefore, our adversaries,” Williams said.
Schulte’s issues at the CIA began in the summer of 2015 when he began to feud with management and a co-worker, ultimately filing a restraining order against the co-worker in state court, court records show. Schulte and the co-worker were both transferred as a result of the feud.
Investigators alleged that Schulte became enraged when CIA officials wanted to hire a contractor to build a cyber tool similar to one he was building, prosecutors said.
A year later, investigators said Schulte stole cyber tools and source code and transferred them to WikiLeaks, according to court records. He then went on to try to cover his tracks, erasing any and all traces of him accessing the computer system, prosecutors said.
Schulte quit the CIA in November 2016. But in March 2017, WikiLeaks published the first installment of its Vault 7 leaks, which originated from two programs that Schulte had access to, court records show.
WikiLeaks put out a news release to go with the information, saying that the data had been provided anonymously by a source who wanted to raise policy questions, specifically about whether the CIA had overstepped its hacking capabilities and exceeded its authority.
Schulte, who also allegedly lied to CIA and FBI investigators to cover his tracks, was arrested in August 2017 on child pornography charges. He was indicted on the charges related to the data breach months later.
“Schulte was aware that the collateral damage of his retribution could pose an extraordinary threat to this nation if made public, rendering them essentially useless, having a devastating effect on our intelligence community by providing critical intelligence to those who wish to do us harm,” Williams added Wednesday.
“Today, Schulte has been convicted for one of the most brazen and damaging acts of espionage in American history.”
CNN’s Paul LeBlanc contributed to this report.
C.D.C. Study Raises Questions About Agency’s Isolation Guidelines
More than half of people who took a rapid antigen test five to nine days after first testing positive for the coronavirus or after developing Covid-19 symptoms tested positive on the antigen test, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The finding raises more concerns about the agency’s revised isolation guidelines, which say that many people with Covid can end their isolation periods after five days, without a negative coronavirus test.
A C.D.C. scientist who was an author of the study said that he did not believe the agency’s isolation guidelines needed to change. But the results suggest that many people with the virus may still be infectious during this period, scientists said.
The study “demonstrates what a lot of people have suspected: that five days is insufficient for a substantial number of people,” Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, said in an email. “The bottom line,” she added, “is that this absolutely should lead to a change in isolation guidance.”
The research was conducted after Omicron became the dominant variant in the United States and as cases were surging nationwide. Cases have since fallen precipitously, reducing the risk of infection and the number of Americans who are in isolation.
The C.D.C. shortened the isolation period to five days from 10 in December as the Omicron variant spread. Many public health experts criticized the move, noting that people might still be infectious after five days and that allowing them to end isolation without testing might help the new variant spread faster.
Dr. Ian Plumb, a medical epidemiologist at the C.D.C. and an author of the new study, said that he believed the study “basically supported” the agency’s current isolation guidance, which asks people to continue taking precautions — including wearing masks and refraining from travel — until 10 full days have passed.
“I honestly don’t think that it means that the current guidance needs to” change, he said.
Instead, he said, the study supports the idea that antigen tests can be successfully integrated into isolation guidelines.
“I think the biggest takeaway is that it’s possible to incorporate antigen tests into the guidance for isolation because they provide additional information about someone’s risk of being potentially infectious,” he said.
The new study was based on people whose coronavirus infections were reported to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation, which provides health care for rural communities in southwestern Alaska, from Jan. 1 to Feb. 9.
In early January, Yukon-Kuskokwim issued new isolation guidelines. It recommends that people isolate for 10 full days after testing positive for or developing symptoms of the virus. However, people who had no symptoms or resolving symptoms, and had not had fevers for at least 24 hours, on Days 5 through 9 of their isolation periods were eligible for free Abbott BinaxNOW rapid antigen tests, administered by Yukon-Kuskokwim staff members. If they tested negative, they could end their isolation periods early.
Among the 729 people who took antigen tests on Days 5 through 9 of their isolation periods, 54.3 percent of them tested positive. The proportion of people who tested positive declined over time: 67.5 percent tested positive on Day 5 of their isolation periods, compared with 38.6 percent on Day 9.
People who had symptomatic infections were more likely to test positive on Days 5 through 9 than those who had been asymptomatic, the researchers found. People who had received a primary vaccine series — two doses of an mRNA vaccine or a single dose of Johnson & Johnson’s shot — or had been previously infected by the virus were less likely to receive positive antigen results during this time frame than those who had not been vaccinated or previously infected.
“Ultimately, I don’t think this is surprising based off the data we’re seeing and the general concern from the infectious disease community on shortening isolation in the face of a novel variant,” said Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist at George Mason University. “But I do think it’s important we continue to assess this, as antigen tests aren’t a perfect proxy for infectiousness and ability to transmit the virus.”
The findings are consistent with several other recent studies, which have not yet been published in scientific journals or reviewed by outside experts. In one, researchers found that more than 40 percent of vaccinated health care workers tested positive on rapid antigen tests on Days 5 through 10 of their illnesses.
In two other studies, researchers found that a substantial proportion of people with suspected and confirmed Omicron infections still had high viral loads more than five days after first testing positive for the virus.
Dr Makary: CDC guidance on Chickenpox vaccine exposes agency’s contradictory COVID messaging
Dr. Marty Makary on Tuesday accused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of “cherry-picking” data and manipulating public health guidance surrounding vaccines and natural immunity to support a political narrative.
Makary, a professor of surgery and health policy at the Johns Hopkins University and Fox News medical contributor, joined the “Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show” to discuss the clinical impact of natural immunity as it compares to the vaccine.
DR MAKARY, I HAVE MEDICAL CONCERNS WITH BIDEN’S NEW VACCINE MANDATE
Travis noted that the CDC’s guidance on COVID-19 is inconsistent with their vaccine recommendations for other contagious viruses. The current guidance for the Chickenpox, for example, does not encourage those who have contracted it to vaccinate themselves against the virus.
“CDC recommends two doses of chickenpox vaccine for children, adolescents, and adults who have never had chickenpox,” the official website reads.
“So why doesn’t CDC say the same thing about those of us who already had COVID?” Travis asked.
Makary called the conflicting guidance “absolutely illogical,” and accused the agency of “ignoring natural immunity.
“It doesn’t make sense with what they’re putting out on Chickenpox,” he said. “It’s like they have adopted the immune system to the Democrat Party for one virus, but not for another virus.”
“They cherry-pick the data to support whatever they’ve already decided,” he continued. “They salami slice it, something we call fishing in statistical techniques. That is when you look for a tiny sliver of data that supports what you already believe.”
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy was asked during a Fox News Q&A session earlier this month whether parents should deliberately expose their children to COVID-19 “to give them a natural immunity, like we do with the Chickenpox in our home.”
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Murthy said that while it is a “reasonable question to ask,” he encourages parents to vaccinate their children as there can be “other complications” that arise from contracting the virus.
“The significant thing is for us to weigh risks and benefits here,” he said. “When we do that, we see that getting vaccinated is actually a much lower risk and higher benefit proposition than allowing our kids to get COVID and run the risk of having complications.”
Patriots, 49ers Among N.F.L. Free Agency’s Biggest Spenders
A good chunk of the $164.9 million the 49ers spent in free agency went to adding two of the best blockers in football to protect quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo against the N.F.C. West’s aggressive pass rushers, Rams Aaron Donald and Arizona Cardinals’ J.J. Watt. An upright quarterback tends to have a positive effect on a team’s offense.
Jacksonville Jaguars
By trading expensive players such as Jalen Ramey and Yannick Ngakoue in recent seasons, the Jacksonville Jaguars entered free agency with a bevy of available cap space. They have offered $144 million in total value for contracts. They focused primarily on defense, after finishing 1-15 with the league’s second-worst defense, signing cornerback Shaquill Griffin to a three-year, $40-millon contract, safety Rayshawn Jenkins to a four-year, $35-million deal and defensive end Roy Robertson-Harris to three years and $23.4 million.
Offensively, the Jaguars’ rebuild starts with the draft, where the team will mostly likely use the No. 1 overall pick to select Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence. First-time N.F.L. head coach Urban Meyer, who team owner Shahid Khan said will have roster control, is using free agency to plug holes before the new face of the franchise arrives. But Meyer has already voiced his displeasure with some aspects of running an N.F.L. team, calling the league’s legal tampering period “awful.”
Cincinnati Bengals
A strong free agency market for defensive talent led the woeful Bengals (4-11 in the 2020 season) to prioritize that side of the ball with $122.75 million in free agent contracts. The team also signed Vikings tackle Riley Reiff to a one year, $7.5-million deal, the first step in fixing a weak offensive line charged with protecting Joe Burrow, who tied for ninth-most sacked quarterback in the league last season.
Tennessee Titans
Derrick Henry’s legs can only carry the Titans so far. Despite a season where the running back again led the league in rushing yards, Tennessee was bounced from the playoffs in the wild-card round. This off-season, general manager Jon Robinson bolstered the pass rush by adding former Steelers outside linebacker Bud Dupree on a five-year, $82.5-million contract. Dupree had eight sacks for the Steelers in the 2020 season. The Titans are paying him to help contain opposing quarterbacks with the potential to burn them on the ground as the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson did in key moments of that playoff loss to Baltimore.
Jets
First-year head coach Robert Saleh’s defensive background showed in free agency when the Jets signed defensive end Carl Lawson to a three-year, $45-million deal. It’s the largest the Jets finalized in free agency thus far, contributing to the $110.25 million in total contracts.
Pairing Lawson, whose speed helped him to 5.5 sacks last season with the Bengals, on the edge should complement the power of third-year defensive lineman Quinnen Williams. The Jets hold the No. 2 overall pick in the draft, and are a rumored landing spot for Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson. Their roster could still see major additions.