FEATURED: Why Are At Home COVID-19 Tests Scarce and Expensive? 

Photo credit: Liam Eisenberg, special to ProPublica

A few months ago, we began wondering why at-home COVID-19 tests were scarce and expensive in the U.S., while they were cheap and widely available in Europe. What we found was that two firms won early FDA approval and were allowed to dominate the market — and both firms previously employed the FDA official who oversees the approval process.

 

So, we reached out to ProPublica to dig deeper. We found that the full story isn’t necessarily one of corruption — it’s one of an entrenched bureaucratic ideology that equated fewer test manufacturers with greater efficiency. We all know how that’s worked out: higher prices and hard-to-find tests; yet another hit to smaller pharmacies, who are cut out of deals that test manufacturers make with large chains; and, of course, kneecapping a critical component of the U.S. pandemic response.

 

Since we originally wrote to HHS in August, HHS and NIH have announced a new program that will allow NIH to coordinate with the FDA to review data and establish an accelerated pathway to approve more rapid testing products, while the FDA has approved several more rapid testing products and included additional authorizations to allow existing products to be used more broadly.

Corporate Power vs Communities. Today at 11am ET, we’re thrilled to host New York State Senator Michael Gianaris, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, and other rising state and local leaders to discuss the constellation of on-the-ground efforts to roll back corporate power. Tune in here. We also released a toolkit to help state lawmakers take on Big Tech, which you can read about in NBC News. And over the weekend, with More Perfect Union, we helped tell the story of one Oregon community’s fight against a proposed Google data center that would jeopardize the local water supply.

 

Working People vs. Monopolies. As the FTC and DOJ strain to put the brakes on an unprecedented merger frenzy, Executive Director Sarah Miller wrote an essay for The Washington Post to sound the alarm around the rise in mass layoffs that are accompanying it. In The New Yorker, Helen Rosner interviewed Senior Fellow Moe Tkacik about Economic Liberties’ Protect Our Restaurants campaign to help protect independent restaurants and gig workers facing exploitation from delivery apps like GrubHub and UberEats. (The FTC recently put businesses like DoorDash and Uber on notice that attempts to deceive gig workers will be met with large civil penalties.) And in his influential newsletter BIG, Research Director Matt Stoller interviewed Oklahoma pharmacist turned labor organizer Bled Marchall Tanoe, who’s leading a growing movement of chain store pharmacists to fight for safe, dignified working conditions at corporate giants like CVS and Walgreens.

 

Will Farmers and Ranchers Finally See Relief? As the White House took aim at agriculture monopolies, Economic Liberties partnered with More Perfect Union to lift up the stories of ranchers on the front lines, then joined with the National Farmers Union to host a discussion with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, USDA Senior Advisor Andy Green, and farmers who have been at the forefront of the fight for fair markets. Watch the video here and catch the event, “Beefing Up Antitrust,” here. And as workers at farm machinery monopoly John Deere went on strike, Economic Liberties released a new “corporate cheatsheet” to explain how regulators allowed John Deere to amass dangerous amounts of power in the first place.

 

Facebook as Transnational Criminal Enterprise. Economic Liberties sent a letter to federal law enforcers outlining what appears to be wide-ranging criminal activity perpetrated by Facebook’s senior executives. Read more in Bloomberg and the American Prospect or check out the letter here. As the Wall Street Journal reported the FTC had begun investigating whether internal documents indicate that Facebook violated its 2019 settlement agreement, Matt Stoller took to The Guardian to break down Facebook’s long history skirting of the law, while Sarah Miller and spoke to TIME and debated a tech industry lobbyist on BBC. And in response to a letter from 12 former national security officials to Speaker Pelosi that argued that breaking up Big Tech would ultimately empower China, Economic Liberties led a forceful coalition response covered in Bloomberg.

 

Out in Front on the Supply Chain Shock. In February of 2020, before many observers thought COVID-19 was likely to interfere with American life, Matt Stoller wrote “The End of Affluence Politics” in WIRED, predicting a supply chain crash that would accompany a worldwide public health crisis. Fast forward a year and a half, and addressing systemic supply chain bottlenecks is a major challenge facing the Biden administration. In a new piece in The Guardian, Matt explained how monopolies breed fragility that paralyzes supply chains, causing smaller businesses to struggle without critical inputs while consumers contend with rising costs.

 

Fierce Women Fight Monopolists. Economic Liberties’ very own Sarah Miller was named one of the most powerful women in Washington in Washingtonian magazine. And in New York Magazine, Nancy Scola profiled the most powerful figure in the antimonopoly movement, FTC Chair Lina Khan.

 

• In the Senate, Amy Klobuchar and Chuck Grassley introduced a bill to end platform self-preferencing with a number of bipartisan co-sponsors; our take on the bill — that it follows Lina Khan’s overwhelming confirmation as another proof point that bipartisan action is possible — was picked up in The Washington Post, Reuters, and Bloomberg.
• Newly-minted CFPB Director Rohit Chopra recently took aim at how Big Tech’s ambitions in the financial sector will affect consumers and fair competition, with Matt Stoller explaining the implications for CBS News and Sarah Miller talking to Axios.
• DOJ Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust nominee Jonathan Kanter was voted out of committee with only one“no” vote. Sarah Miller shared her take on his nomination hearing with the Washington Post and Roll Call.

 

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