Big Pharma in Congress

Pharmaceutical companies are injecting Congress with millions of dollars in lobbying. For example, Truvada increased its lobby spending by 117 percent in the third quarter of 2019 in comparison to the same time last year. AbbVie increased its spending by 200 percent and Sanofi, a company that produces insulin, increased its spending by 105 percent, according to Jesse Hellmann for The Hill.

Given that there is bipartisan support and bills being drafted in Congress, pharmaceutical industries feel that their profits will decrease if these bills pass. One of the bills was introduced by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, which would allow the government to negotiate prescription drug prices through Medicare. In response to this proposal by the Speaker, besides increased lobby spending, industries claim that "government price-setting would kill drug innovation." Despite this infusion of money into Congress by lobbyists, I think there is political will to reign in drug companies, since polls show that affordable healthcare and accessibility of medicine are becoming increasingly salient issues.

   
Link: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/466980-drug-companies-spend-millions-on-lobbying-as-congress-tries-to-reign-in

Floating Dairy Farms

Rotterdam, Netherlands is home to 32 cows that live on a floating farm. The concept of a floating farm began in 2012 by Minke van Wingerden and her partner Peter after Hurricane Sandy hit. The pair were in New York at the time and after two days they saw that all the fresh food on store shelves were gone. The Dutch businesswoman thought to herself "why not produce fresh healthy food on the water close to the city?" (Sterling, csmonitor.com) 

The dairy farm is almost completely self-sustainable. The cows rest on the upper levels, or go to the feeding station to eat hay, grass clippings, and beer byproducts. Also there is a small plot of land that the cows can roam around on. In addition, on the lower decks there is a visitor center, store, milk and manure processing facilities. The roof collects rain water and floating beside the farm are solar panels. Lastly, the farm is decked out with the latest farming technology, including manure-scooping robots and self-cleaning stations. The goal of Wingerden and her partner is to be environmentally friendly and innovative and I think they are quickly on their way to accomplishing their goal with this farm.

  

https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2019/1001/Urban-Floating-Farm-creates-local-dairy-for-cities

TripAdvisor: A Defender of Whales and Dolphins

On October 2, 2019, TripAdvisor has announced a major step in its animal welfare policy that launched in 2016. TripAdvisor will no longer sell tickets to any attraction that breeds captive whales and/or dolphins, also known as cetaceans. The aim of this animal welfare policy is to put pressure on attractions like SeaWorld and Loro Parque to develop seaside-sanctuary environments, which is defined as "a body of water, sech as a bay or cove, that houses cetaceans in as close to a natural environment as possible while providing protection and oversight from qualified husbandry and veterinary staff." (Wilson, theguardian.com) Also, the implementation of TripAdvisor's policy will encourage no-breeding policies, no performance shows, and prohibit all forms of human to animal physical interactions on the part of the attractions.

In crafting this policy conservationists, zoologists, and marine biologists were consulted by TripAdvisor. They feel that this policy will successfully promote true sanctuaries and is animal welfare driven, as opposed to profit driven.     

Link to the Article   

Google's Remedy for Dublin's Housing Crisis

Google is coming to Dublin, Ireland. Jennifer O'Connell, a reporter for The Irish Times, writes that Google will build a 1,000 unit apartment that would be available to private individuals to rent or buy. This apartment building is meant to alleviate the issues that are arising from the Dublin housing crisis, similar to what the Bay Area is experiencing. However, the intended use of the apartments assumes that the units "would go to Googlers already here- it seems more likely they would be used to lure new recruits to [Ireland's] creaking-at-the-seams capital."(O'Connell, irishtimes.com)

Also, O'Connell reports that Dublin is becoming increasingly unaffordable. She worries that the Government is passing it's responsibility to resolve the homeless crisis in Dublin off to a multinational corporation, like Google who is beholden to shareholders. Instead, she suggests that Google help the housing crisis by creating a remote workforce, but believes that Google and other Silicon Valley businesses would never implement this because "it would mean letting the workforce have a life outside the gilded cage."


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