There have been no deaths reported from the virus in China for more than three weeks.

The claims have been made as the WikiLeaks founder's legal team seeks his release from a London prison.

Weighing in at more than four times the sun’s bulk yet emitting no detectable light, an invisible object is almost certainly a black hole, researchers reported Wednesday in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Most strikingly, it sits just 1,000 light years from our solar system, closer than any other known black hole.

I hope you are staying healthy and are managing to navigate your work-at-home mandates.

Last week, I tapped the collective insights of the Drug Channels’ audience. Nearly 700 readers shared their perspectives and projections for how the coronavirus pandemic could ultimately affect behavior, policy, and industry structure. Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond.

I will share the results over three articles this week:

• Today, in Part 1, I will review the responses relating to patient behavior, pharmacies, and wholesalers. 
• In Part 2 (tomorrow), I’ll focus on expectations for pharmaceutical manufacturers and third-party payment. 
• In Part 3 (Thursday), I’ll examine how the coronavirus may affect the public perception of the industry’s participants.

P.S. A special shout out to the respondent who hoped that the coronavirus would not impact the quality of Drug Channels memes. Never fear, dear readers: Drug Channels will remain the internet’s top destination for pharmaceutical-related humor!
Read more »

At just 1,000 light-years away, an object in a nearby star system could be our nearest known black hole—but not everyone is convinced

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

The owner and operator of HME Solutions Inc., dba Lifecare Medical (Lifecare Medical), a licensed pharmaceutical wholesale company in Miami, pleaded guilty today to defrauding the Medicare program in connection with a $5.3 million HIV-infusion fraud scheme.

Golden Eye Seafood LLC and owner, Robert Lumpkins of St. Mary’s County, Md., pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to and violating the Lacey Act, by falsely recording the amount and weight of striped bass, also known as rockfish, that were harvested by local fisherman and checked-in through Golden Eye from 2003 to 2007

Robert Lumpkins, owner of Golden Eye Seafood LLC, of St. Mary’s County, Md., was sentenced to 18 months in prison and the company was sentenced today to 3 years probation by U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte after a two day sentencing hearing in the District of Maryland.

Following a five-week trial, a fish wholesaler and two of its employees were found guilty with purchasing illegally harvested striped bass, known locally as rockfish, from the Potomac River in Virginia and Maryland from 1995 through 2007.

Ocean Pro Ltd. dba Profish, one of the District of Columbia’s largest seafood wholesalers, as well as its vice-president and its fish buyer, were sentenced on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., for their roles in a more than decade-long conspiracy to illegally harvest striped bass from the Potomac River.

Karen L. Blyth and David H.M. Phelps pleaded guilty today in federal court in Mobile, Ala., to 13 felony offenses for their roles in purchasing and selling farm raised Asian catfish and Lake Victoria perch falsely labeled as grouper; selling foreign farm-raised shrimp falsely labeled as U.S. wild caught shrimp, selling shrimp that falsely claimed to be larger, more expensive shrimp than they actually were; and for buying fish they knew had been illegally imported into the United States

Mohammad Jafar Nikbakht, aka Freydoon Nikbakht, pleaded guilty to tax evasion before U.S. District Court Judge John A. Houston in San Diego.

Karen L. Blyth and David H. M. Phelps were sentenced yesterday in federal court in Mobile, Ala., to 33 months and 24 months in prison, respectively. The pair was also fined $5,000 each, and barred for three years from working in the seafood industry or owning any seafood related business.

A 15-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Camden, N.J., was unsealed today following the arrest of six individuals from New Jersey and Maryland, and the seizure or restraint of 10 oyster fishing boats in New Jersey, announced Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, and Paul J. Fishman, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.

After a seven week trial in federal court in Camden, N.J., multiple defendants were convicted on various felony counts of creating false records, trafficking in illegally possessed oysters, obstructing the Food and Drug Administration’s regulation of public health and safety, and conspiring to commit those crimes.

The former owners of a durable medical equipment (DME) wholesale company located in Ontario, Calif., were arrested late yesterday at Los Angeles International Airport in connection with a DME fraud scheme that resulted in the submission of over $16.6 million in false claims to Medicare and are expected to appear this afternoon in Los Angeles federal court.

Mohammad Jafar Nikbakht, aka Freydoon Nikbakht, was sentenced Friday to 15 months in prison for evading his individual income taxes.

Two former owners of a Los Angeles-area medical equipment wholesale supply company pleaded guilty today to conspiring with their customers to defraud Medicare.

French beauty supplement firm D+ For Care has launched a mouth spray to aid sleep and has a flurry of holistic wellbeing innovation primed for 2020 â the year nutricosmetics could really take off, its founder says.

Wholesalers have “almost completely run out” of the personal protective equipment supplied by Public Health England for distribution to community pharmacies during the COVID-19 pandemic, the wholesaler trade body has warned.

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Mar 31, 2020

This report will address four questions in the Pacific NATO debate. First, is there a historical precedent for a Pacific NATO? This report does find a precedent in the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), though it was largely unsuccessful due to its lack of regional adoption, weak mutual defense provisions, and ultimately became tainted by the Vietnam War.

Second, would such an alliance be necessary given the plethora of existing multilateral partnerships in the region? While there is a broad multilateral landscape in the Indo-Pacific, there is currently no agreement that combines both the wide reach and deep obligations of a hypothetical Pacific NATO. However, the Quad and RIMPAC do bring together many of the key Indo-Pacific powers and serve as an important foundation for U.S.-oriented multilateral regional security.

Third, how could such an alliance be structured? This report examines three options: expanding NATO’s mandate beyond Europe, building on its Enhanced Opportunity Partner (EOP) program, and creating a new alliance system. It also uses the case of Montenegro’s NATO accession to generate a broad set of criteria for future membership.

And fourth, how would Indo-Pacific nations, including China, respond to such an alliance? This would be exceedingly difficult. China has significant economic leverage over even our closest allies, like Australia and Japan.

Intractable internal disputes abound, particularly between South Korea and Japan and four nations—Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam—with competing claims in the South China Sea. Two of the United States’ most important partners in the region, India and Singapore, have a longstanding aversion to exactly this type of alliance system. And for newer partners, like Malaysia and Indonesia, the value proposition is even less clear. The Chinese are likely to respond to any attempts at a multilateral military alliance in its backyard with a whole-of-government effort to stop it. If that alliance includes Taiwan, it could result in even more aggressive action.

I am constantly amazed at the level of political discourse in the US. So a debate about health care degenerates into scares about "death panels" and boycotts of Whole Foods because their CEO is against it. It is all a bit much, and a complete mystery

Kicking off New York Fashion Week, hessnatur and Whole Foods Market Tribeca are hosting an invite-only launch party September 9, for the "World in

Fashion icon and hessnatur Creative Director Miguel Adrover at Whole Foods Market. Credit Emma Grady Hessnatur kicked off New York Fashion Week Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at Whole Foods Market Tribeca with the launch of their "World in your hand"

Say what you like about Whole Foods' founder's views on health care, but there's no doubt that the company has its corporate head screwed on straight when it comes to renewable energy. Whole Foods has announced is has just completed its 2009 purchase

I went to Whole Foods in Oakland on Saturday, like I do most weekends, but I missed the dance/theater/protest against the grocery chain's co-founder and CEO John Mackey, he of the now infamous quote: "A careful reading of both the Declaration of

Treehugger has been closely following the saga of Whole Foods CEO and co-founder John Mackey since he published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal saying, among other things, that "A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the

On Christmas Eve, John Mackey announced that he is stepping down as Chairman of the Board of Whole Foods.

Back when Whole Foods CEO John Mackey weighed in on-slash-stuck his personal foot in his professional mouth about healthcare, I stayed out of the debate. I assumed, wrongly in hindsight, that most people already knew that

Yesterday, TreeHugger rounded up a few green charities that are helping the recovery effort in Haiti after Tuesday's earthquake. MoJo's human rights reporter Mac McClelland has a few more suggestions for how to help one of the poorest and least

Guest blogger Cara

An initiative to stop selling red-rated seafood by 2013 had been launched a year early and will go into effect on Earth Day 2012.

For the first time ever Greenpeace has given a US seafood retailer (in fact two of them) a green rating. There are some notable laggards though.

In addition to straws, the market is further reducing plastic use across all of its stores in the US, the UK, and Canada.

Talk about a lose-lose situation: On one hand, not taking any action to repair the hole would allow harmful UV radiation to percolate through; on the other hand, helping to accelerate its recovery could strengthen global warming by

Left: Ozone in Earth's stratosphere at an altitude of approximately 12 miles (20 kilometers) in mid-March 2011, near the peak of the 2011 Arctic ozone loss. Right: chlorine monoxide - the primary agent of chemical ozone destruction in the cold polar

Ben Richmond at Motherboard highlights a climate change success story.

New NASA study offers first direct proof that the ozone hole is recovering thanks to the Montreal Protocol treaty and the international ban on CFCs.

From amaranth to teff, the wild world of healthy whole grains need not be bland and boring.

Bye bye, lake. Where it's going, nobody knows for sure.

To cap off a week of black hole fever, the cosmic object has now been named by a language professor in Hawaii.

The rating system is attacked in 2012 for its 2002 standard and the timing couldn't be worse.

A new study looks at how AVs are part of a much bigger picture of how we get around.

Jean-Philippe Pargade designs a school where the green roof IS the building, defining its whole look and feel

Don't give up; Collective and individual actions can change the world.

We don't hear about the ozone layer as much as we used to anymore, but that doesn't mean that the problem has been solved.

Proving once again that mankind can reverse the effects of our mistakes if we just take firm and fast action