Postal Service Warns It Could Lose $18 Billion a Year

In a letter to Congress, Patrick Donahoe, the postmaster general, described an updated five-year cost-cutting plan put together in coordination with a Wall Street adviser, Evercore Partners. It reiterates many of the mail agency’s proposals to switch to a five-day delivery schedule, raise stamp prices and close about 252 mail-processing centers and 3,700 local post offices.

The Postal Service has already asked Congress for permission to make service cuts and reduce annual payments of about $5.5 billion in funding retiree health benefits. But in recent weeks, the Senate and House have stalled as lawmakers differ widely on costs, the level of financial oversight and the prospect of widespread postal closures.

On Thursday, Mr. Donahoe said the mail agency’s proposals would enable it to save $20 billion a year by 2015, repay its $12.9 billion debt to the Treasury and return to profitability. The plan, for instance, notes that if the post office could raise stamp prices from 45 cents to 50 cents, either in a single year or over a multiyear period, it could bring in new revenue of about $1 billion.

In contrast, Congressional inaction would result in significant annual losses and a “long-term burden to the American taxpayer.”

In a news briefing, Joe Corbett, the chief financial officer, said that no formal proposals had been made to increase the price of a first-class stamp. He said the plan described the additional revenue the mail agency could realize over a single or multiyear period if it could increase stamp prices above the rate of inflation.

Since 2006, the Postal Service has increased the price of the stamp four times, from 39 cents to 45 cents.

About half of the Postal Service’s cost-cutting proposals require legislative approval. Some Congressional proposals have focused on providing short-term relief through a cash infusion to prevent the mail agency’s bankruptcy but also postpone major decisions on cuts until later.

Last week, the Postal Service said its quarterly loss rose to $3.3 billion amid declining mail volume and said it could run out of money by October.

The agency forecasts a record $14.1 billion loss by the end of this year.

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Texas Agency’s Web Site Warns of Border Violence

“We see a lot of things, but we keep our mouths shut about it,” the farmer whose identity was concealed says in one video clip. “We just don’t want to be in anybody’s hit list.”

The Web site behind these videos — ProtectYourTexasBorder.com — is run by neither a Minuteman-style border patrol group nor a tech-savvy rancher. It is a product of Texas state government, created and operated by the Department of Agriculture, as a way to publicize the assertions by farmers and others that violence from Mexico’s drug war has spilled over the border. But it has a more political mission as well: to publicly challenge the Obama administration, which has called the belief that the border is overrun by violence from Mexican drug cartels “a widespread misperception.”

Begun in March, ProtectYourTexasBorder.com steers a Texas agency typically concerned with detecting plant diseases and regulating grain-storage warehouses into the more controversial realm of domestic security. It paints a frightening portrait of life along the 1,254-mile border that Texas shares with Mexico. One man talks about quitting the farming business out of fear for his family’s safety. There are police reports and news accounts of a ranch foreman getting injured by shattered glass after drug-smuggling suspects shot at his truck, vehicles being pursued by law enforcement crashing through farm fences and workers clearing trees being told to stop what they were doing or else.

“I would have 80-year-old ranchers meet with me, tears in their eyes, and say, ‘My family settled this land, I’ve been here my entire life and I’m scared to go on my own property,’ ” said the state’s agriculture commissioner, Todd Staples, who came up with the idea for the Web site. “That’s how I got involved, because landowners came to me.”

Mr. Staples’s focus on the border echoes the views of one of his predecessors, Gov. Rick Perry, who served as agriculture commissioner in the 1990s and who struck some of the same themes in his campaign for president. One month after starting the Web site, Mr. Staples announced that he was running for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 2014. The Web site has raised his public profile and helped draw attention to farmers’ safety concerns.

But its larger impact remains unclear.

In its first roughly nine months, from last March through November, the Web site had only about 7,500 visitors a month. Though it seeks to put pressure on the federal government to protect farmers better, it has not drawn a federal response, and some federal officials say they have not even seen it. The Web site has also been accused of exaggerating the level of violence and fueling anti-immigrant hostility.

Last year on the site’s message board, someone suggested land mines and tiger traps as border-security methods. Another commenter wrote: “Killem all!!!! They are destroying or great country.” Agriculture officials deleted those posts, and a message-board disclaimer states that the views expressed did not reflect those of the department or Mr. Staples.

No one who appears on the Web site’s video clips makes threatening remarks. But several portray the rural areas along the border as nothing less than a war zone. In one video, Arthur Barrera, a staff lieutenant with the Texas Rangers, says the Mexican cartels and their scouts come across the border daily. “We are in a war,” he says. “We are in a war, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it by any means.”

Though the Web site provides few crime statistics to make its case, relying instead on people telling their stories in their own words, ProtectYourTexasBorder.com underscores the widespread fear in rural border counties. The threat of cartel-related crime, whether the smuggling of drugs or illegal immigrants, has caused people to arm themselves to an extraordinary degree and take other precautions.

In the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, at a ranch outside Sullivan City about 11 miles from the border, Craig J. Teplicek carries a .380-caliber pistol in the back pocket of his jeans. In his truck he keeps a .357-caliber handgun, a .45-caliber pistol and a .222-caliber rifle. Last year, he chased and tackled a coyote — someone who guides and smuggles people across the border — after the man drove through a fence and abandoned a truck carrying illegal immigrants in one of his fields. Mr. Teplicek ran after the man, carrying his .357.

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FDA Warns Health Officials About Counterfeit Cancer Drug

The FDA announced on Tuesday that a counterfeit version of the drug Avastin has made its way into the U.S. market. Doctors, hospitals, and pharmacists are being urged to check their supply of the drug to make sure it was manufactured by Roche Group partner Genentech, the maker of the real Avastin.

What is Avastin?

Avastin is a "designer drug" created to treat cancer by isolating a protein known as vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF, according to Genentech. VEGF helps the body create new blood vessels, which in a person with cancer, can help feed the cancerous cells. By blocking VEGF, Avastin theoretically can "starve" cancer cells and kill them off, according to NPR.

Avastin has only been approved to help treat certain kinds of cancers, including colorectal, brain, kidney, and lung cancer. It was initially approved late last year for treating breast cancer as well, but the FDA withdrew the approval while it is re-evaluating the drug's effectiveness in treating advanced cases of the disease.

How did the FDA find out about the counterfeit?

CNN reports that the FDA tracked purchases made from Quality Specialty Products, which in the U.S. appears to also go under the moniker Montana Health Care Solutions. The company is alleged to have been sourcing counterfeit drugs from overseas distributors and then selling them to U.S. practitioners.

Genentech themselves tested the suspected counterfeit version of the drug and found it to be not merely repackaged but fraudulent. Some 19 different potential buyers have been identified. The FDA warned all of them individually about the counterfeit drug before releasing a more general press statement on Tuesday.

Is the counterfeit version dangerous?

Yes, in that it is missing the active ingredient bevacizumab, the key component in the real Avastin medication. Therefore, anyone who has been treated with the counterfeit would not have been getting needed cancer therapy. Roche and Genentech released a statement on Tuesday giving details on how to identify fake medications, as well as warning practitioners that the counterfeit should not be considered either safe or effective.

Does the FDA know if anyone has actually been given the counterfeit?

Not at this time. The path of the counterfeit drug once it hit American shores is still being investigated, according to MSNBC. Because the agency is still unsure just how much of the counterfeit was purchased and distributed, the FDA hasn't been able to determine whether anyone was actually administered the faux treatment.

Vanessa Evans is a musician and freelance writer based in Michigan, with a lifelong interest in health and nutrition issues.

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