Daily Archives: August 1, 2017

Launch Of SILIQ Makes Valeant A Great Short Opportunity – Valeant … – Seeking Alpha

Posted: August 1, 2017 at 5:46 pm

Recently, Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) announced that it had launched its psoriasis drug SILIQ (brodalumab). SILIQ is an injection drug that has been developed to treat patients with psoriasis. The injection drug has shown good prospects in terms of efficacy, but I feel that it won't sell as well as other competitors in the same space. I feel that because of the competitive nature in this space, along with troubling side effects Valeant becomes a good short opportunity.

In my opinion, just evaluating the history of SILIQ alone would make one think twice about the prospects of it selling well in the market. That is because the original developer of the drug was Amgen (AMGN) and AstraZeneca (AZN). Both companies had co-developed the drug. The issue was that as soon as Amgen caught notice of a suicide issue in a clinical trial, it walked away from its partner AstraZeneca. It doesn't seem that AstraZeneca was too enthusiastic to hang onto the drug either. Which is why it had outlicensed the drug to Valeant. In my opinion, knowing this it doesn't bode well for the market opportunity of the drug. Amgen and AstraZeneca are highly respected big pharmaceutical companies. I highly doubt they would ditch this drug if they believed it would be a huge money maker.

The biggest problem is that the psoriasis space is highly crowded. Especially, with Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) just receiving approval for its psoriasis treatment TREMFYA just a few weeks ago. Further information on TREMFYA FDA approval can be read in a Seeking Alpha article I wrote titled, "Johnson & Johnson: Approval Of TREMFYA Is Huge Win For Shareholders". The whole basis of that article is that TREMFYA was expected to be priced a lot lower than most competitors. Of course, not lower than Valeant's drug SILIQ. I will give SILIQ a positive on pricing. For me though, the issue with the drug is not about pricing. I mean in my opinion it had to be priced lower, because it is the only drug with a suicide risk as a black box label warning. If I was a prescribing doctor, I would only prescribe SILIQ as a last resort if all other psoriasis options failed. It would not be my first go to product for psoriasis treatment because of the suicide risk. This is the excerpt from the FDA approval of SILIQ:

"Suicidal ideation and behavior, including completed suicides, have occurred in patients treated with Siliq during clinical trials. Siliq users with a history of suicidality or depression had an increased incidence of suicidal ideation and behavior compared to users without this history. A causal association between treatment with Siliq and increased risk of suicidal ideation and behavior has not been established."

"Because of the observed risk of suicidal ideation and behavior, the labeling for Siliq includes a Boxed Warning and the drug is only available through a restricted program under a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) called the Siliq REMS Program"

The good news, and the only good thing that I can see about Valeant's psoriasis drug is that it will be cheaper than all the other drugs. It will carry a price tag of $3,500. TREMFYA will be priced around $9,684. Eli Lilly (LLY) Taltz is in the range of $14,600. Novartis (NVS) Cosentyx is upwards at about $17,600. While the pricing may be seen as a positive for Valeant, the other competitors shouldn't be so easily dismissed. Johnson & Johnson, despite having priced its psoriasis drug at around $9,684, has stated that it will offer tons of pricing discounts. It even went as far as to say that it could offer a copay card so that eligible patients could pay as little as $5 or less per dose.

Psoriasis is a disease where the body overproduces skin. The skin that is overproduced leads to raised lesions that are red in nature. These red raised lesions are known as plaque and can cause both pain and itching. The market opportunity is huge, because psoriasis is expected to reach up to $12.1 billion by the year 2024. Despite, the large market, SILIQ will have trouble producing sales. I'm not saying that Valeant won't be able to sell the drug at all, but with better safety profiles from other psoriasis drugs it is likely that these other competitors will take a bigger piece of the market.

A big risk would be if Valeant started to sell well in the market, despite the competition. Although, that remains to be seen until the drug is fully launched in the market. I'm still of the opinion that it will be hard to sell SILIQ with so many other better psoriasis treatment options. Especially, ones that don't carry suicide risks. Another risk would be that Valeant could end up selling the drug to another pharmaceutical company for upfront cash. In that situation, that could cause the stock to spike one day and hurt short sellers in the process.

The past history of SILIQ makes it a tough sell on the market. The black box label warning of a suicide risk is more than enough for it to deter doctors from prescribing the drug as a first choice therapy option. Psoriasis treatments, like recently approved TREMFYA, provides a better treatment option for patients with less risks. The space in plaque psoriasis is competitive, and I still am inclined to believe that the black box label warning will be a major obstacle for SILIQ going forward. Another psoriasis treatment option would be Otezla from Celgene (CELG). That is because Celgene offers its treatment of plaque psoriasis in pill form. It is not an injectable, cream, or biologic. For all the reasons listed above I feel that Valeant is a great short opportunity.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Go here to read the rest:
Launch Of SILIQ Makes Valeant A Great Short Opportunity - Valeant ... - Seeking Alpha

Posted in Psoriasis | Comments Off on Launch Of SILIQ Makes Valeant A Great Short Opportunity – Valeant … – Seeking Alpha

Gene Editing Is Revolutionizing Medicine but Causing a Government Ethics Nightmare – Newsweek

Posted: at 5:46 pm

Updated | Late last week, reports emerged that scientists in Oregon had used gene-editing technology, known as CRISPR-Cas9, to edit a human embryo. While research like this is already occurring in China and Great Britain, this is the first time scientists in the U.S. have edited an embryo.

The move raises thequestion of whether regulations are strict enough in the U.S. Both Congress and the National Institutes of Health have explicitly said they would not fund research that uses gene-editing to alter embryos. But laws and guidelines are not keeping pace with this fast-moving and controversial work.

CRISPR is an experimental biomedical technique in which scientists are able to alter DNA, such as change the misspellings of a gene that contributes to mutations. The technology has the potential to reverse and eradicate congenital diseases if it can be used successfully on a developing fetus.

Tech & Science Emails and Alerts - Get the best of Newsweek Tech & Science delivered to your inbox

Here's how CRISPR gene editing works. REUTERS

The news frenzy that followed this announcement was based on a leak from unknown sources. Initial reports emerged from a number of less known sources, including MIT Technology Review, that Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health and Science University used the technology to change the DNA of not just one, but a number of embryos. But the news stories about this research werent based on a published study, which means they dont provide the full picture. No one yet knows what the researchers did or what the results were.

Until now, most of the breakthrough research on CRISPRaside from the discovery itself, which is attributed to multiple research groups in the U.S. has occurred in China. InApril 2015, Chinese scientists reported that theyd edited the genome of human embryos, a world first, in an attempt to eliminate the underlying cause of a rare blood disorder.

Researchers there have also been experimenting with CRISPR technology to treat cancer. Last spring, a team of scientists at Sichuan Universitys West China Hospital used the approach to modify immune cells in a patient with an aggressive form of lung cancer. The researchers altered genes in a bid to empower the cells to combat the malignancy. Another group of Chinese scientists tried changing genes in blood that were then injected into a patient with a rare form of head and neck cancer to suppress tumor growth.

Despite potential of CRISPR to cure fatal diseases, the technology has fast become one of the most significant challenges for bioethicists. Some people view its power as potentially dangerous because it could allow scientists to cherry-pick genetic traits to create so-called designer babies.

Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center and founding director of NYULMC's division of medical ethics thinks the fears are overblown. Gene-editing technology, says Caplan, is nowhere near this sci-fi fantasy.

If you would compare this to a trip to Mars, you're basically launching some satellites, says Caplan. He suggests that much of the media coverage on CRISPR is melodramatic, including last weeks coverage of researchers meddling with an embryo. We haven't shown that you can fix a disease or make someone smarter.

Lack of Guidelines

CRISPR technology isnt ready for clinical use, whether to stop serious genetic diseases or simply make brown eyes blue. But geneticists are working toward these goals, and the scientific community is ill-prepared to regulate this potentially powerful technology.

So far guidelines for using CRISPR are minimal. In 2015, the National Institutes of Health issued a firm statement. Advances in technology have given us an elegant new way of carrying out genome editing, but the strong arguments against engaging in this activity remain, the NIH said in its statement. These include the serious and unquantifiable safety issues, ethical issues presented by altering the germline in a way that affects the next generation without their consent, and a current lack of compelling medical applications justifying the use of CRISPR/Cas9 in embryos.

But although the NIH wont back CRISPR research for embryo editing, that doesnt mean such research is prohibited in the U.S. Private organizations and donors fund researchers. Caplan suspects this is how the team in Oregon managed to carry out their experiment.

In February 2017, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicinetwo leading medical authorities that propose medical and research guidelines for a wide range of research and medical topics issued sweeping recommendations for the use of CRISPR technology. In their joint Human Genome Editing: Science, Ethics, and Governance report, the panel of experts deemed the development of novel treatments and therapies an appropriate use of the technology. The recommendations also approve investigating CRISPR in clinical trials for preventing serious diseases and disabilities and basic laboratory research to further understand the impact of this technology.

The authors of the report caution against human genome editing for purposes other than treatment and prevention of diseases and disabilities. But the line between treatment and enhancement isnt always clear, says Caplan. And policing so-called ethical uses of CRISPR technology will be increasingly difficult because single genes are responsible for a myriad diseases and traits. You don't realize that you're changing DNA in places you don't want to, he says.

A source familiar with the controversial Oregon research reported last week told Newsweek that a major journal will publish a paper on the work by the end of this week. According to The Niche, a blog produced by the Knoepfler Lab at University of California Davis School of Medicine in Sacramento, California, the paper is slated to be published in Nature . Mitalipov did not respond to Newsweek s requests for comment or confirmation.

Caplan hopes that publication of the paper will initiate further discussion about the ethics of experimenting with CRISPR including practical measures such as a registry for scientists conducting studies through private funding. We need to have an international meeting about what are the penalties of doing this, he says. Will you go to jail or get a fine?

This story has been updated to note that the initial report of the CRISPR research in Oregon was based on a leak, but did not necessarily misconstrue the research.

Here is the original post:
Gene Editing Is Revolutionizing Medicine but Causing a Government Ethics Nightmare - Newsweek

Posted in Gene Medicine | Comments Off on Gene Editing Is Revolutionizing Medicine but Causing a Government Ethics Nightmare – Newsweek

Homology Med Bags $83.5M More, Fueling Push For Gene Editing … – Xconomy

Posted: at 5:46 pm

Xconomy Boston

One day after the release of a Nature Medicine paper warning of the potential hazards of testing CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in humans, Homology Medicines, a startup advancing a different genetic surgery technique, has just grabbed a big round of funding to make its own clinical push.

Homology, of Bedford, MA, wrapped up an $83.5 million Series B round this morning. A wide group of investors led by Deerfield Management provided the funding, bringing the companys total amount raised to a whopping $127 million since it was formed last year.

Homology is making the bold claim that its underlying science, technology it calls AMEnDR, is a better version of existing gene editing methods, among them the CRISPR-Cas9 technology that has taken the scientific research world by storm and has led to the formation of three now publicly traded companies, Editas Medicine (NASDAQ: EDIT), Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NTLA), and CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CRSP).

CRISPR gene editing is a two-part biological system that researchers can use to help irreversibly alter DNA. The three companies are involved in a high-stakes race to use the technology to develop human therapeutics, with the first clinical trials expected to begin next year. Yet one of the fears involved in bringing the technology to human trials is the possibility of off-target effectsa genetic surgery error that causes irreparable damage, like cancer. One of the fields pioneers, Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, just co-authored a paper in Nature Medicine urging caution about the rush to move forward. Zhang and colleague David Scott argued that researchers should analyze patients DNA before giving them CRISPR-based drugs, citing the myriad differences between each persons genetic makeup.

Homology isnt using CRISPR, like its publicly traded rivals. Instead, its recreating a natural biological process known as homologous recombination, which cells in humans and other species do to repair DNA damage or, in the case of bacteria, to improve their genetic diversity. In homologous recombination, one chromosome essentially swaps one short DNA sequence for another similar one. Homology aims to engineer a piece of healthy DNA, pack it into a type of adeno-associated virus, or AAVa delivery tool commonly used in gene therapy and gene editing technologiesand infuse it into the body. The virus carrying the DNA locks on to the cell that needs a genetic fix, enters it, and releases its DNA payload. The healthy DNA then swaps places with the faulty gene inside the patients cells. If and when the cells divide, the new cells would carry the fixed gene, not the faulty one. One potential benefit of this approach is there may be less likelihood of an off-target error, like mutations in the target DNA that cause cancer, than with CRISPR.

Thats the hope, but the technology hasnt been tested in humans as of yet. With the new cash, however, Homology is getting a shot to try. In a statement, Homology CEO Arthur Tzianabos said the funding will help Homology bring its first drug candidate toward the clinic, though he didnt specify how long that might take. The company is focusing on rare diseasesno surprise given Tzianabos, chief operating officer Sam Rasty, and chief scientific officer Albert Seymour all worked with one another at rare disease giant Shire (NASDAQ: SHPG). According to its website, the company will develop therapies for inborn errors of metabolism, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis are among its potential targets as well. (Duchenne and cystic fibrosis are early targets of CRISPR-based medicines as well.)

Fidelity Management and Research, Novartis, Rock Springs Capital, HBM Healthcare Investments, Arch Venture Partners, Temasek, 5AM Ventures, Maverick Ventures, Vida Ventures, Vivo Capital, and Alexandria Venture Investments also took part in the funding. Heres more on Homology, and gene editing with CRISPR-Cas9.

Ben Fidler is Xconomy's Deputy Biotechnology Editor. You can e-mail him at bfidler@xconomy.com

Read the original here:
Homology Med Bags $83.5M More, Fueling Push For Gene Editing ... - Xconomy

Posted in Gene Medicine | Comments Off on Homology Med Bags $83.5M More, Fueling Push For Gene Editing … – Xconomy

CRISPR Pioneer Zhang Preaches Extra Caution In Human Gene Editing – Xconomy

Posted: at 5:46 pm

Xconomy Boston

A leading genome-editing researcher is urging extra caution as drug companies race to turn the landmark technology he helped create into human medicine.

In a paper published today in Nature Medicine, Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and colleague David Scott argue that researchers should analyze the DNA of patients before giving them experimental medicines that alter their genes with the breakthrough technology CRISPR. The suggestion, among others in the paper, stems from a deeper look at the wide array of subtle differences in human DNA.

Zhang is a key inventor of CRISPR-Cas9, which describes a two-part biological system that slips into the nucleus of cells and irreversibly alters DNA. One part is an enzyme, natures molecular scissors, which cuts DNA. The second part is a string of ribonucleic acid (RNA) that guides the enzyme to the proper spot. In five years since its invention, CRISPR-Cas9 has become a mainstay of biological research, and researchers including Zhang (pictured above) have moved quickly to improve upon its components. His work is at the center of a long-running patent battle to determine ownership of the technology.

Zhang and Scotts recommendation taps into a long-running debate in the gene-editing field about off-target effectsthe fear of misplaced cuts causing unintended harm. Most recently, the FDA took up a similar issue at a meeting to assess a type of cell therapy, known as CAR-T, for kids with leukemia. The FDA highlighted the risk that the cells, which have certain genes edited to make them better cancer fighters, may cause secondary cancers long after a patients leukemia has been cured. (FDA advisors unanimously endorsed the therapys approval nonetheless.)

Some researchers say there should be near certainty that gene altering techniques wont go awry before testing in humans, caution that stems in part from gene therapy experiments in the U.S. and Europe nearly 20 years ago that killed an American teenager and triggered leukemia in several European boys.

While no medicine is risk-free, other researchers say the tools to gauge risk have improved.

Andy May, senior director of genome engineering at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in San Francisco, calls Zhang and Scotts recommendation for patient prescreening a good discussion point, but the danger is someone will pick up on this and say you cant push forward [with a CRISPR drug] until everyone is sequenced.

Its an extremely conservative path to take, says May, who until recently was the chief scientific officer at Caribou Biosciences, a Berkeley, CA-based firm in charge of turning the discoveries of UC Berkeleys Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues into commercial technology. (May was also a board member of Cambridge, MA-based Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NTLA), which has exclusive license to use Caribous technology in human therapeutics.)

Berkeley is leading the challenge to Zhangs CRISPR patents and last week filed the first details in its appeal of a recent court decision in favor of Zhang and the Broad Institute.

Zhang sees prescreening as a form of companion diagnostic, which drug companies frequently use to identify the right patients for a study. A whole genome sequencewhich costs about $1,000could filter out patients unlikely to benefit from a treatment or at higher risk of unintended consequences, such as cancer. In the long run, it could also encourage developers to create more variations of a treatment to make genome-editing based therapeutics as broadly available as possible, said Zhang.

Its well known that human genetic variation is a hurdle in the quest to treat genetic diseases either by knocking out disease-causing genes or replacing them with healthy versions. But Zhang and Scott use newly available genetic information to deepen that understanding. In one Broad Institute database with genetic information from more than 60,000 people, they find one genetic variation for every eight letters, or nucleotides, in the exomethat is, the sections of DNA that contain instructions to make proteins. (There are 6 billion nucleotides in each of our cells.) The wide menu of differences is, in effect, an open door to misplaced cuts that CRISPRs enzymes might be prone to.

Zhang and others are working on many kinds of enzymes, from variations on the workhorse Cas9, to new ones entirely. He and Scott found that the deep pool of genetic variation makes some forms of the Cas enzyme more likely than others to go awry, depending on the three-nucleotide sequence they lock onto in the targeted DNA.

Zhang and Scott write that CRISPR drug developers should avoid trying to edit DNA strings that are likely to have high variation. In their paper, they examine 12 disease-causing genes. While more common diseases, such as those related to high cholesterol, will contain higher genetic variation because of the broader affected population, every gene, common or not, contains regions of high and low variation. Zhang and Scott say developers can build strategies around the gene regions they are targeting.

For example, going after a more common disease might require a wider variety of product candidates, akin to a plumber bringing an extra-large set of wrenches, with finer gradations between each wrench, to a job site with an unpredictable range of pipe sizes.

CRISPR companies say they are doing just that. We have always made specificity a fundamental part of our program, says Editas Medicine CEO Katrine Bosley. Zhang is a founder of Editas (NASDAQ: EDIT), which has exclusive license to the Broads Next Page

Alex Lash is Xconomy's National Biotech Editor. He is based in San Francisco.

Visit link:
CRISPR Pioneer Zhang Preaches Extra Caution In Human Gene Editing - Xconomy

Posted in Gene Medicine | Comments Off on CRISPR Pioneer Zhang Preaches Extra Caution In Human Gene Editing – Xconomy

In US first, scientists edit genes of human embryos – Indiana Gazette

Posted: at 5:46 pm

For the first time in the United States, scientists have edited the genes of human embryos, a controversial step toward someday helping babies avoid inherited diseases.

The experiment was just an exercise in science the embryos were not allowed to develop for more than a few days and were never intended to be implanted into a womb, according to MIT Technology Review, which first reported the news.

Officials at Oregon Health & Science University confirmed Thursday that the work took place there and said results would be published in a journal soon. It is thought to be the first such work in the U.S.; previous experiments like this have been reported from China. How many embryos were created and edited in the experiments has not been revealed.

The Oregon scientists reportedly used a technique called CRISPR, which allows specific sections of DNA to be altered or replaced. It's like using a molecular scissors to cut and paste DNA, and is much more precise than some types of gene therapy that cannot ensure that desired changes will take place exactly where and as intended. With gene editing, these so-called "germline" changes are permanent and would be passed down to any offspring.

The approach holds great potential to avoid many genetic diseases, but has raised fears of "designer babies" if done for less lofty reasons, such as producing desirable traits.

Last year, Britain said some of its scientists could edit embryo genes to better understand human development.

And earlier this year in the U.S., the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine said in a report that altering the genes of embryos might be OK if done under strict criteria and aimed at preventing serious disease.

"This is the kind of research that the report discussed," University of Wisconsin-Madison bioethicist R. Alta Charo said of the news of Oregon's work. She co-led the National Academies panel but was not commenting on its behalf Thursday.

"This was purely laboratory-based work that is incredibly valuable for helping us understand how one might make these germline changes in a way that is precise and safe. But it's only a first step," she said.

"We still have regulatory barriers in the United States to ever trying this to achieve a pregnancy. The public has plenty of time" to weigh in on whether that should occur, she said. "Any such experiment aimed at a pregnancy would need FDA approval, and the agency is currently not allowed to even consider such a request" because of limits set by Congress.

One prominent genetics expert, Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, Calif., said gene editing of embryos is "an unstoppable, inevitable science, and this is more proof it can be done."

Experiments are in the works now in the U.S. using gene-edited cells to try to treat people with various diseases, but "in order to really have a cure, you want to get this at the embryo stage," he said. "If it isn't done in this country, it will be done elsewhere."

There are other ways that some parents who know they carry a problem gene can avoid passing it to their children, he added. They can create embryos through in vitro fertilization, screen them in the lab and implant only ones free of the defect.

Dr. Robert C. Green, a medical geneticist at Harvard Medical School, said the prospect of editing embryos to avoid disease "is inevitable and exciting," and that "with proper controls in place, it's going to lead to huge advances in human health."

The need for it is clear, he added: "Our research has suggested that there are far more disease-associated mutations in the general public than was previously suspected."

Hank Greely, director of Stanford University's Center for Law and the Biosciences, called CRISPR "the most exciting thing I've seen in biology in the 25 years I've been watching it," with tremendous possibilities to aid human health.

"Everybody should calm down" because this is just one of many steps advancing the science, and there are regulatory safeguards already in place. "We've got time to do it carefully," he said.

Michael Watson, executive director of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, said the college thinks that any work aimed at pregnancy is premature, but the lab work is a necessary first step.

"That's the only way we're going to learn" if it's safe or feasible, he said.

View post:
In US first, scientists edit genes of human embryos - Indiana Gazette

Posted in Gene Medicine | Comments Off on In US first, scientists edit genes of human embryos – Indiana Gazette

Power changes standards, from language to the length of your tie – Los Angeles Times

Posted: at 5:45 pm

A friend of mine who attended the Conservative Political Action Conference this year I skipped it reported to me that the Young Republican men were wearing their ties down past their [crotches].

I cleaned up the quote a bit for the benefit of a family newspaper.

Though Im not sure why I should bother when a White House communications director has helped so many staid institutions expand their horizons. As my National Review colleague Kyle Smith noted, the New York Times has a long history of insisting that vulgarities do not meet the definition of news fit to print. For instance, it is the Times standard practice to render a colloquialism for speaking gross untruths that combines the male of the bovine species with the fully processed product of what it consumes as a barnyard epithet.

But in the wake of just-deposed White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramuccis profanity-laced, on-the-record tirade with a New Yorker reporter, the Grey Lady went blue. It printed, sans bowdlerization, words and phrases that surely would have been just as relevant to its coverage of President Lyndon Johnson, to say nothing of Bill Clinton.

My point here is not to criticize the Times double standards (there will be plenty of opportunities down the road for that). Its to note that politics or, more accurately, power, has a funny way of changing standards.

Which brings me back to those ties. Ive been around young conservatives since I was one myself. And its always interesting to see how fashion changes. When the first President Bush was in office, blue blazers were a kind of unofficial uniform for young men eager to mimic what then-Bush aide Tory Clarke called the C-SPAN-and-galoshes crowd surrounding the president.

When the second Bush was in office, the cowboy boot retailers near Young Americas Foundation chapters must have seen a huge increase in sales.

And now, because the president of the United States wears abnormally long power ties presumably to hide his girth one sees more and more twentysomething men sporting the new cravat codpiece.

This is not a phenomenon unique to conservatives. While its an urban legend that JFKs alleged refusal to wear a fedora to his inaugural killed the hat industry, countless young liberals with political ambitions tried to replicate the way Kennedy talked. When Franklin Roosevelt was a kid, he ostentatiously mimicked his distant cousin, Teddy, wearing those pince-nez glasses and shouting bully!

So about those barnyard epithets. Its hard to miss how so many rank-and-file Republicans relish the presidents crude taunts and insults. Nor is it easy to overlook the fact that the president seemed perfectly comfortable with Scaramucci speaking like a Sopranos character.

Not long ago, it fell to conservatives such as Bill Bennett, Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins or Mike Huckabee to denounce vulgarity wherever they saw it. And while these men dont publicly condone Trumps language they essentially roll their eyes at anyone who makes much of a fuss. And among the rank and file on Twitter and Facebook etc., theres fierce competition to be as vulgar as possible or to be as vigorous as possible in defending presidential vulgarity.

Of course, the president is not only changing standards hes the product of them. Over the last decade or so, a whole cottage industry of young anti-left sensationalists has embraced the romantic slogan pater la bourgeoisie! Their crudeness isnt a bug, its a feature.

The rising vulgar tide is typically justified either by the need to seem authentic or as genuflection to the sacred right to fight political correctness. Never mind that not everything that is politically incorrect is therefore correct. (William F. Buckley was not P.C., but he had the best manners of anyone I ever met.)

And the competition to seem verbally authentic has spilled over the ideological retaining wall. The Democratic National Committee sells a T-shirt that reads Democrats Give a S*** About People. Several leading Democrats have started dropping F-bombs and other phrases, seemingly as a way to prove their populist street cred.

I guess well know this race to the bottom is over when socialist hero Sen. Bernie Sanders starts wearing his ties past his fly.

jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

More from Opinion:

Trump is still giving Putin the benefit of the doubt and it's weakening U.S. policy on Russia

Here's how Trump could sabotage Obamacare

Don't delay regulations for electronic cigarettes

Continued here:
Power changes standards, from language to the length of your tie - Los Angeles Times

Posted in Politically Incorrect | Comments Off on Power changes standards, from language to the length of your tie – Los Angeles Times

VPNs are a vital defence against censorship – but they’re under attack – Amnesty International

Posted: at 5:44 pm

ByJoshua Franco, Technology and Human Rights Researcher at Amnesty International @joshyrama

You have probably heard of VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), right? Theyre those things you use to stream movies online in other countries that are annoyingly blocked in yours. If VPNs were banned, how would you watch the latest robot apocalypse blockbuster online without having to wait a whole year?

Now imagine that the online content banned in your country isnt movies, but rather major social media platforms, or the main sources of information about your religion, or your sexual orientation. Imagine you use a VPN to access this information, and now that tool is being taken away.

This is whats about to happen in Russia. Its already happening in China.

On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning anonymizers and VPNs, while over the weekend, Apple pulled most major VPNs from its app store in China, in order to comply with national legislation requiring VPNs to be licensed by the government

Anonymizers, such as VPNs or TOR, are a key enabler of human rights online. As the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Mr. David Kaye, has noted: Encryption and anonymity provide individuals and groups with a zone of privacy online to hold opinions and exercise freedom of expression without arbitrary and unlawful interference or attacks A VPN connection, or use of Tor or a proxy server, combined with encryption, may be the only way in which an individual is able to access or share information in [environments with prevalent censorship].

Russia is one such environment. Overly broad anti-extremism laws in Russia allow for the prosecution of people for all types of expression protected by human rights law. For example a young blogger was recently convicted and given a three-and-a-half year suspended prison sentence for inciting hatred and offending believers feelings after he posted a video of himself playing Pokmon Go in a cathedral in Yekaterinburg.

In Russia's environment of censorship and state-sponsored homophobia, online anonymity can be a lifeline.

Meanwhile Russias infamous gay propaganda law is used to censor and punish content relevant to LGBTI people and LGBTI rights. The discriminatory law was recently and rightly - condemned by the European Court of Human Rights, but it nonetheless remains in force. The absurd situation is now that the authorities consider extremist a caricature depicting President Putin as a gay clown, while at the same time failing to open a formal investigation into the horrific campaign of abduction, torture and in some cases killings of gay men in Chechnya.

In this environment of censorship and state-sponsored homophobia, online anonymity can be a lifeline. Anonymizing tools like VPNs could allow crucial access to impartial and accurate information, especially to LGBTI kids and teenagers, who may not be able to access it elsewhere. The internet is also a key means for seeking out community and support. Taking away VPNs will leave more and more people stuck in a smaller online world, where even the statement homosexuality is natural is considered illegal.

Anonymizing tools can also help protect political rights. It is becoming an unfortunately common tactic for governments to shut down or block parts of the web around elections, protests or other sensitive events. For example, Amnesty International and OONI (Open Observatory of Network Interference) documented how the Ethiopian government used illegal blocking to censor information about protests in which as many as 800 people were killed by security forces, and to block messaging apps.

Notably, the anonymizing tool TOR showed a spike in traffic during these times, clearly indicating the usefulness of anonymization tools to circumvent unlawful censorship and exercise the right to access information.

That is why Apples decision is deeply disappointing. Internet censorship in China is expansive, and increasing: the country aims to ban all non-state-operated VPN services by January 2018. If other companies follow Apples lead, it could soon be much harder for people in China to access information freely online.

Apple says it is simply complying with Chinese law, but this is not a sufficient response. Businesses have a responsibility to respect international human rights law, independent of a states own compliance with their human rights obligations. By withdrawing access to VPNs from its Chinese customers, Apple is betraying these responsibilities. We would have expected a more robust stance from Apple, a company that prides itself on being a privacy champion.

The internet once seemed to offer the promise of nearly unfettered access to communication, across borders, and free of the heavy-handed censorship which too often plagued broadcast or print media. This free flow of information promised to bring us together and make the world smaller.

But if governments are able to restrict our access to information they dont approve of, through censorship and blocking access to tools to circumvent it, then that promise will die. In its place we will find increasingly closed islands of information - and the web will be a less inclusiveplace.

Read the original post:
VPNs are a vital defence against censorship - but they're under attack - Amnesty International

Posted in Censorship | Comments Off on VPNs are a vital defence against censorship – but they’re under attack – Amnesty International

ACLU sues Maryland, Kentucky governors over social media censorship – The Hill

Posted: at 5:44 pm

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed lawsuits against the governors of Maryland and Kentucky, claiming they violatedconstituents' First Amendment rights by blocking individuals from official social media accounts.

The organizations Kentucky branch filed a lawsuit Monday on behalf of several constituents, while its Maryland branch filed suit on Tuesday. Both suits ask forinjunctions to stop Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) from blocking constituents on social media accounts.

"The highest purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the right of Americans to engage in political speech and to petition the government to address their concerns," Deborah Jeon, who serves as the ACLU of Marylands legal director, said in a statement.

One of the Marylandplaintiffs said she was a Democrat who voted for Hogan and was blocked from his Facebook page after asking the governor to issue a statement on President Trumps travel ban.

My comment was deleted and I was blocked from the page. From the moment it happened, I couldn't believe Governor Hogan would block people who disagreed with him, but who weren't rude or threatening, Meredith Phillips said. Deleting any comment from constituents that doesn't praise or agree with Governor Hogan is a violation of free speech."

The lawsuits come several weeks after a First Amendment groupsuedTrump for blocking social media accounts that exhibit dissenting opinions.

William Sharp, the legal director for the ACLU of Kentucky, said in a statement that the First Amendment does not allow the government to exclude speakers from a public forum because it disagrees with their viewpoint.

And even when the government seeks to enforce permissible limits in such a forum, permanently excluding individuals for violating those limits goes too far, Sharp added.

Read this article:
ACLU sues Maryland, Kentucky governors over social media censorship - The Hill

Posted in Censorship | Comments Off on ACLU sues Maryland, Kentucky governors over social media censorship – The Hill

Controversial Game House Party Returns to Steam After Some … – DualShockers

Posted: at 5:44 pm

House Partyis a weird game that was available on Steam.House Partywas also a game that got removed from Steam a few days ago. But now it has returned. But now it also has some new censorship features.

Back on June 30th a game calledHouse Partylaunched for PC via Early Access. It then stayed there for quite a bit. Then last week it was removed from Steam kinda out of nowhere. But at the same time everyone who played the game, couldve seen it coming.

According to developer Eek! Games at the time, the removal was temporary, and was the result after Steam very kindly reached out to the developer. According to Eek!, Steam reached out after they received a number of complaints about its nature, and thus after presumably some type of review, issued the above notice, and offered for the game to removed, modified, and then resubmitted.

So what were the complaints and issues? Well, according to the developer it all stemmed from the games inclusion of pornography. Thus, once the pornography was removed, the game would be re-enabled. No specifics were provided on what content Steam was referring to specifically, but if you watch some playthroughs of the game, Im assuming you could garner a pretty good guess.

But none of that matters anymore because the game is back on Steam. But as I mentioned above, it now has some censor bars; however, otherwise the games story and content remains the same. Just, adios male and female nudity. Steam is happy.

As for people who bought the game before this debacle and want their nudity back well Eek! Games has a solution for you in the form of an off-Steam patch that lets users restore the game to its original form (because the current Steam version does not). According to the developer, the patch is small and easy and of course on-the-house.

House Partyis available for $14.99 USD. There is currently no word on a final release. If you want, below, you can check out an overview-type look of the game, courtesy of MeatyLock:

See more here:
Controversial Game House Party Returns to Steam After Some ... - DualShockers

Posted in Censorship | Comments Off on Controversial Game House Party Returns to Steam After Some … – DualShockers

Apple Bows To Chinese Regulators, Removes Internet Censorship-Defying Apps – Benzinga

Posted: at 5:44 pm

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) notified a number of software developers Saturday that their virtual private network iOS apps would no longer be accessible in censorship-heavy China.

Consumers use the VPNs to circumvent the governments Great Firewall filtering internet content and limiting access to overseas sites, which renders some of the app features illegal and non-compliant with App Store guidelines.

A spokesperson implied that the decision is punitive merely for VPN developers failing to secure a government license.

We have been required to remove some VPN apps in China that do not meet the new regulations, Carolyn Wu, Apples China spokeswoman, told Bloomberg.

The apps are still available in other global markets, and at least one developer noted its continued accessibility in China through non-iOS platforms. ExpressVPN confirmed that users with international billing addresses will still be allowed to access the app in China.

Still, it expressed concern with the latest restrictions.

Were disappointed in this development, as it represents the most drastic measure the Chinese government has taken to block the use of VPNs to date, and we are troubled to see Apple aiding Chinas censorship efforts, the firm wrote in a press release. ExpressVPN strongly condemns these measures, which threaten free speech and civil liberties.

Golden Frog and Star VPN responded similarly.

We view access to internet in China as a human rights issue, and I would expect Apple to value human rights over profits, Golden Frog President Sunday Yokubaitis told the New York Times.

While many took the occasion to debate Apples social responsibility, some discussed the firms Catch-22 business position. Nearly a quarter of global sales come from China.

One argument is that, for the sake of its continuation in the Chinese market, Apple needed to submit to government standards and comply with regulations.

Conversely, some point out that its decision effectively repels consumers, whose only incentive to buy Apple over Android was the formers capacity to bypass security.

Related Links:

Can Apples Mega Cycle Overcome Chinese Demand Issues?

What The Future Holds For Apple In China

________ Image Credit: By Simon Wade - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Posted-In: News Topics Legal Global Markets Tech Media General Best of Benzinga

2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Read more:
Apple Bows To Chinese Regulators, Removes Internet Censorship-Defying Apps - Benzinga

Posted in Censorship | Comments Off on Apple Bows To Chinese Regulators, Removes Internet Censorship-Defying Apps – Benzinga