democracynow--2020-06-25--How U.S. and Brazil Leadership That "Neglects Science" Led to Hemisphere's Worst Coronavirus Crises

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman here in New York , with Nermeen Shaikh broadcasting from her home .
Hi , Nermeen .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Good morning , Amy .
And welcome to our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , as COVID-19 cases soar in the United States to a new single-day high , we look at how the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ largest countries : the United States and Brazil .
We ’ ll start south in Brazil .
As the number of confirmed coronavirus infections worldwide approaches 10 million , nearly half of all of them can be found in the Americas , in part because of an explosion of cases in Brazil , which now has the worst infection rate in the world .
Some epidemiologists say the death toll of the pandemic in Brazil could pass the United States by next month .
This comes as a judge has ordered Brazil ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a mask in public , or he ’ ll face a fine of nearly $ 400 per violation .
Bolsonaro continues to attend massive political rallies across Brazil .
During a virtual briefing Wednesday , the World Health Organization ’ s Marcos Espinal said Brazil is not doing enough testing .
AMY GOODMAN : Meanwhile , Brazil is joining other countries in testing an experimental coronavirus vaccine created by Oxford University .
But the country ’ s health minister says the government has yet to strike a deal to get the vaccine if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we ’ re joined by Marcia Castro .
She ’ s professor of demography and chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H .
Chan School of Public Health .
She also co-chairs the Brazil Studies Program at Harvard ’ s Center for Latin American Studies .
Professor Castro , we welcome you to Democracy Now !
Why don ’ t you start off by talking about the scope of the problem in Brazil , approaching only the United States , which is number one in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases of infection and deaths .
We ’ ll talk about the U.S. in a minute , but talk about what ’ s happening in your country , in Brazil .
MARCIA CASTRO : Good morning , Amy .
So , I just want to start by saying that the frustrating thing about this story is that Brazil could be teaching a lesson to the entire world on how to respond to a pandemic by leveraging its history , its network of primary care , which is one of the largest in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ healthcare system .
And yet , what we see in the country is a reflection of the leadership that we have , so a leadership that has and continues to downplay the importance of the virus , that neglects science — and that ’ s an important point , as well — and that creates a situation that mayors and governors who want to give the right response to implement actions , they face this situation that they are doing something that goes against what the president says .
So it makes it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what they are trying to do .
And it also is a failure because we could have our community health agents — and we have almost 300,000 of those — being the backbone of the response .
And yet , the primary care and the community health agents are not being used as part of the response .
So , Brazil is not testing enough , as you said .
Well , we are not doing contact tracing , either .
So , the community health agents could be doing the contact tracing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the people that are more vulnerable .
They could identify those people that don ’ t have water at home .
That ’ s the other thing .
So , Brazil is a country with lots of inequalities .
We can not expect that you ’ re just going to take whatever countries in Europe or high-income countries have done , and implement in Brazil and it ’ s going to work .
It really has to be adapted to those inequalities of informal labor , people that can ’ t stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high-density households , so there is no way they can do self-isolation ; and people that don ’ t have access to water .
And we keep going with inequalities — the number of hospital beds and physicians per population .
Those numbers are worse in the states in the Amazon region .
It ’ s not by chance that we see the regional pattern of deaths in cases in Brazil that we are observing .
And it ’ s a shame that they could be very different if we actually use what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to reinvent the wheel , but just use the network of healthcare resources the country has .
And we are neglecting to do this .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Professor Castro , you ’ ve mentioned — you just talked about these community health centers and how they could be used for this , to combat this pandemic .
But I ’ d like to ask about , first of all , the region that ’ s been the worst affected by the pandemic in Brazil , namely the Amazon , and whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ region .
I mean , the situation is so bad .
We spoke to world-renowned Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado last month , and he said that the Indigenous population of the Amazon are effectively facing a genocide , if the government doesn ’ t intervene .
They are so vulnerable and have died in such large numbers .
So , could you talk about access to health services in the Amazon , why the region has been disproportionately affected , and also the accelerated rate of deforestation that ’ s presently occurring and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the virus ?
MARCIA CASTRO : Yeah , that ’ s a very important point , Amy .
So , what we have is , the region already has the worst indicators in terms of health services .
So , it is the place in Brazil where you have the lowest numbers of hospital beds per person , physicians per person .
Many municipalities don ’ t have hospitals and ICU beds ; then it ’ s even worse .
So , you already start the pandemic having fewer resources in those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ several communities in the region that have the other inequalities that I mentioned .
Overall in the Amazon region , 43 % of the population don ’ t have access to water .
But in some states , it ’ s even higher than that .
Then there is a completely separate healthcare for the Indigenous populations , and those have lost a lot of the physicians in the past few years when a large program that existed in Brazil that brought foreigner physicians to work in those underserved areas was completely dismantled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adding those layers , right ?
So , since this new president took term , there is not a lot of attention in terms of preserving the environment .
In fact , last year , we saw rampant deforestation , a horrible fire season .
And this year , we already overpassed the deforestation from last year , and we still have about a month and a half to go of the cutting season .
So , whenever you have this deforestation , you have contacts of those people that want to exploit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see that it ’ s exactly in the Indigenous reserves where we are seeing most of the damage .
And those areas are supposed to be preserved , and then they used to be .
So , you have Indigenous people dying because of this encounter , but , on top of this , now they are being infected because those — the people that come into the area may bring the virus , as well .
They can bring any pathogen .
And it ’ s not just deforestation , we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mining , which is another activity that exposed Indigenous people to that .
So , over all Brazil , we have 110 Indigenous areas that have been affected with COVID .
We have about 7,200 Indigenous people that have been infected , and the number keeps rising , and about 330 deaths that already have been reported .
Now , what happens also is that because a lot of municipalities don ’ t have hospitals , don ’ t have beds , the health system work with a sort of regionalization scheme .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , need to be hospitalized , there is a reference municipality that takes all those people .
What we saw in Manaus , which was the first capital in the Amazon region that really had a completely overloaded of the health system , is that once the capital is completely overloaded and they can not even provide hospitalizations for people living in the capital , they can ’ t serve all the municipalities that depend on them .
So , the very high number of deaths that we observed in those areas , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if we had enough hospital services available .
But , above all , they could have been avoided if we provided a better response .
So , the community health agents , they are all over Brazil .
They basically act on the community .
They know the people they serve .
And each team has about one physician , one nurse and around six community health workers .
They go to house by house to provide care .
And they have very good coverage in the poor and vulnerable areas , so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ again , once the pandemic started , those community health agents were not provided with protective equipment , so they can ’ t go on the street .
And they were not provided with training , either .
So , those people that could be right there on the ground helping to identify symptoms , helping to isolate people , and therefore helping to do contact tracing , and therefore helping to flatten the curve so we could have avoided this overload in the hospital system , they were not working .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the inequalities .
They do play a role .
It ’ s not just about the low provision of health services in the area .
They also play a role .
But it ’ s about the completely chaotic response that basically exacerbated all those inequalities , all of them combined , and created the situation we saw in Manaus , then we saw in Belém .
And right now Porto Velho , another capital in the Amazon , it has more than 90 % occupancy of hospital beds , so we can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Now , I also want to make a point that the fire season is about to start in about a month or so .
And if we had this high level of deforestation , the fires will come , because that ’ s usually the process .
The wood now is on the floor .
Whatever they couldn ’ t sell , they are going to burn .
And whenever we have the fire season , we have an increase in respiratory conditions .
We have an increase in the demand for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we have an increase in the mortality of children under the age of 10 .
Now , this is a very — it ’ s a horrible combination .
Increasing respiratory conditions may make people more susceptible to a severe COVID-19 infection .
So , we can have an overlay of two huge problems that will create , again , another collapse in the hospital system .
So , we ’ ve been trying to raise awareness of this and try to avoid a fire season like we had last year , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effects wouldn ’ t stay just in the Amazon .
What happens in the Amazon does not stay in the Amazon .
And as we saw last year , the smoke , and therefore all the particulates that comes from the forest fires , they can travel .
And they can go to other areas , and therefore affect other people in Brazil , as well .
AMY GOODMAN : Professor Castro , earlier this month , the iconic Amazon Indigenous Kayapó Chief Paulinho Paiakan died of COVID-19 .
He was 66 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Amazon rainforest , who in the 1980s led the resistance against the Belo Monte hydroelectric project , an environmentally destructive massive complex of dams planned to be built on the Xingu River in the heart of the Amazon , the project successfully suspended at the time but later reinstated .
In recent years , Paiakan had warned against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro ’ s calls to open the Amazon for agriculture and mining , which brings us back to the president and his policies and now the fact that he ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself not protecting himself , very similar to his ally , President Trump .
But his policies in the Amazon and what they ’ re doing now , Professor Castro ?
MARCIA CASTRO : Well , it ’ s unfortunate because when you see what ’ s being done in the Amazon now , we ’ re basically losing about 20 years of achievements , of really being able to make protected reserve forests , protected Indigenous areas .
We had a forest code that was really a model .
We were able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and maintain them there .
And we are losing this .
We are losing this at rampant rates .
That ’ s bringing a lot of deaths .
A lot of the deaths of local leaders , Indigenous peoples or people that are just trying to protect the forest are not even advertised .
So , the situation is very complicated , because those are big business people .
They are making money by clearing the forest .
And the local producers , the local communities , it ’ s very hard for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ especially when they are backed up by the government .
Recently , the government basically pardoned fines that people had to pay because of deforestation .
That sends a bad message .
So , if you ’ re not going to be penalized , if you ’ re not going to be held accountable , let ’ s go ahead and do more .
So , what we are seeing in the environmental agenda in Brazil is very concerning .
Recently , there have been different groups that wrote letters to international people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the agribusiness in Brazil , import products from Brazil .
And now I hope this is going to create some discussion at the federal level , because if there ’ s one thing they don ’ t want to damage , it ’ s the agribusiness in Brazil .
And if the big importers decide to stop buying the products because they are causing a lot of deforestation or a lot of changes in the balance , in the environmental balance , in the Amazon , then that could create a reaction .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ just can profit in ways that are really not understandable , because we have enough data to show that during the years when deforestation is going down , the Amazon was extremely productive , the agribusiness was extremely productive .
So we can make the Amazon to be productive and profitable without having to remove more forest cover .
But again , they are big fish , and it ’ s hard for local communities to fight against them .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Well , Professor Castro , you mentioned earlier that Brazil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be able to do the kinds of things , to take the measures that countries in Europe have taken , like social distancing and quarantines and wearing masks and so on .
And now , of course , COVID is spreading at an accelerated rate in developing countries and the poorer countries of Latin America , South Asia and Africa , where there is also a massive shortage of medical equipment , including the most urgent for fighting COVID , namely oxygen .
And in one country in Latin America , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Peru , now oxygen is being sold on the black market for up to a 1,000 % markup .
Meanwhile , Yemen , which was already the poorest country in the world before 2015 , the Saudi-led coalition bombing of the country , COVID is also spreading there , and unlike most of the world , 25 % of the people who contract COVID-19 in Yemen die .
That ’ s five times more than the global average .
So , if you could talk a little bit about — you ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looks at the development of a vaccine for COVID-19 and how to ensure access to the vaccine in the countries that have been most vulnerable to its spread , including Brazil .
So , could you tell us where that stands now ?
MARCIA CASTRO : Yes .
That ’ s a very good question .
So , Brazil now is going to test two vaccines .
So , there is an agreement that was signed with a Chinese pharmaceutical company and with a vaccine from Oxford .
And then there are also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccines .
So there ’ s a different effort in different fronts .
Now , the key issue for low- and middle-income countries will be , if we imagine a scenario , hypothetical scenario , that we get a good vaccine — whatever “ good ” means , that ’ s a different discussion — and it ’ s ready to be produced at scale and then for a vaccination at scale .
So , the first item , production at scale , right ?
So , if the production is going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it does raise the question : Who is going to get it first ?
And we saw this before , when we had the H1 and N1 , that the rich countries got the vaccine first , because they could pay for it or they were producing it , and then the others had to wait .
That is the first discussion .
That ’ s why it ’ s so important for those agreements , international agreements , that are being made , so that countries can have access to all the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they also can have access to the vaccine being produced .
Brazil is unique in the sense that they do have at least two public institutions — and I ’ ll go back to this point in a moment — but they have Butantan Institute , and they have a FIOCRUZ , that they already produce most of the vaccines distributed in the country .
They can do it .
However , it depends what type of coronavirus vaccine we ’ re going to have .
There are different types of them , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different type of industrial plant to be able to produce .
So , again , what countries should be doing now — and there are some European countries doing this — is the ones that have the industrial capacity to produce the vaccine , they should be trying to find ways to expedite the industrial production , so the moment something is ready , they can do it .
Again , not every country will be able to do this , and they will depend on the countries producing the vaccine to have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is , it depends on how the vaccine will be distributed .
Is it a type of vaccine that is very stable and easy to carry ?
Is it a type of vaccine that is not very stable and it ’ s going to be much more tricky to go around the country and to the very isolated areas to distribute ?
We don ’ t know that yet .
But that can bring challenges to the whole logistic process of doing vaccination at scale .
The other thing is , we don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re going to need .
And we don ’ t know how countries , inside each country , they will prioritize who is going to get first .
Now , again , the case of Brazil is interesting because we do have a universal health system .
Everybody gets access to care and to vaccination for free .
You don ’ t pay a penny for it .
So , in theory , every person in Brazil will be eligible to receive this vaccine once it ’ s available .
But if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to produce the vaccines— right ?
We have 8 billion people in the world .
So , how long is it going to take to produce 8 billion doses ?
Well , if you can only produce 1 billion per year , you can imagine that we ’ re going to have to set priorities , both on inside each country who is going to get first and how countries will make agreements on how many doses they are going to receive .
So , the vaccination at scale is going to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the support from Gavi , from WHO , we have to find ways to make this as equitable as possible , so we don ’ t see another situation where the most vulnerable takes the heavier burden in the vaccination scheme .
AMY GOODMAN : Professor Castro , we only have a minute , and I want to ask you about this massive spike of coronavirus infections in the United States .
In the most populous states , in Texas , California and Florida , which make up a quarter of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the largest spike in the history of this pandemic .
This comes as the White House now says it will no longer fund federal testing sites .
And you have President Trump refusing to wear a mask in public .
You have dozens of Secret Service agents who were with him in Tulsa , now in self-isolation .
That ’ s just one example .
A spike in Tulsa , where he was .
Very quickly , if you can say what you think needs to happen in this country ?
MARCIA CASTRO @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need is better leadership , because if we keep putting people , through rallies , in a closed environment where people don ’ t wear masks , if we keep sending the message that that ’ s no big deal , while people are dying — and dying a lot — then , you know , I can ’ t think of any way to solve the problem of the only two countries that have more than a million cases , other than having better leadership , a leadership that can trust in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Professor Marcia Castro , we want to thank you for being with us , professor of demography and chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H .
Chan School of Public Health , also co-chairs the Brazil Studies Program at Harvard ’ s Center for Latin American Studies .
When we come back , the Reverend William Barber , co-founder of the Poor People ’ s Campaign .
Stay with us .
AMY GOODMAN : “ Hold On Just a Little While Longer , ” the Virtual Choir @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Assembly and Moral March on Washington on Saturday , organized by our next guest , Reverend William Barber .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman here in New York, with Nermeen Shaikh broadcasting from her home. Hi, Nermeen.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Good morning, Amy. And welcome to our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, as COVID-19 cases soar in the United States to a new single-day high, we look at how the pandemic is devastating the hemisphere’s two largest countries: the United States and Brazil. We’ll start south in Brazil.
As the number of confirmed coronavirus infections worldwide approaches 10 million, nearly half of all of them can be found in the Americas, in part because of an explosion of cases in Brazil, which now has the worst infection rate in the world. Some epidemiologists say the death toll of the pandemic in Brazil could pass the United States by next month.
This comes as a judge has ordered Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro to wear a mask in public, or he’ll face a fine of nearly $400 per violation. Bolsonaro continues to attend massive political rallies across Brazil.
During a virtual briefing Wednesday, the World Health Organization’s Marcos Espinal said Brazil is not doing enough testing.
MARCOS ESPINAL: [translated] Brazil is a country that has many resources, that could increase the number of tests it’s conducting. Over the past few weeks, Brazil has made progress in increasing its testing for COVID, but Brazil still doesn’t arrive at 10,000 tests for each million residents, and it’s necessary that they do more.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, Brazil is joining other countries in testing an experimental coronavirus vaccine created by Oxford University. But the country’s health minister says the government has yet to strike a deal to get the vaccine if it works.
Well, for more, we’re joined by Marcia Castro. She’s professor of demography and chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She also co-chairs the Brazil Studies Program at Harvard’s Center for Latin American Studies.
Professor Castro, we welcome you to Democracy Now! Why don’t you start off by talking about the scope of the problem in Brazil, approaching only the United States, which is number one in the world when it comes to these coronavirus cases of infection and deaths. We’ll talk about the U.S. in a minute, but talk about what’s happening in your country, in Brazil.
MARCIA CASTRO: Good morning, Amy. So, I just want to start by saying that the frustrating thing about this story is that Brazil could be teaching a lesson to the entire world on how to respond to a pandemic by leveraging its history, its network of primary care, which is one of the largest in the world, and by using its universal healthcare system. And yet, what we see in the country is a reflection of the leadership that we have, so a leadership that has and continues to downplay the importance of the virus, that neglects science — and that’s an important point, as well — and that creates a situation that mayors and governors who want to give the right response to implement actions, they face this situation that they are doing something that goes against what the president says. So it makes it hard for the population to adhere to what they are trying to do.
And it also is a failure because we could have our community health agents — and we have almost 300,000 of those — being the backbone of the response. And yet, the primary care and the community health agents are not being used as part of the response. So, Brazil is not testing enough, as you said. Well, we are not doing contact tracing, either. So, the community health agents could be doing the contact tracing. They could be identifying the elderly, the people that are more vulnerable. They could identify those people that don’t have water at home.
That’s the other thing. So, Brazil is a country with lots of inequalities. We cannot expect that you’re just going to take whatever countries in Europe or high-income countries have done, and implement in Brazil and it’s going to work. It really has to be adapted to those inequalities of informal labor, people that can’t stop working; people that live in very high-density households, so there is no way they can do self-isolation; and people that don’t have access to water. And we keep going with inequalities — the number of hospital beds and physicians per population. Those numbers are worse in the states in the Amazon region. It’s not by chance that we see the regional pattern of deaths in cases in Brazil that we are observing.
And it’s a shame that they could be very different if we actually use what we have. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but just use the network of healthcare resources the country has. And we are neglecting to do this.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Castro, you’ve mentioned — you just talked about these community health centers and how they could be used for this, to combat this pandemic. But I’d like to ask about, first of all, the region that’s been the worst affected by the pandemic in Brazil, namely the Amazon, and whether such community health centers exist in the region. I mean, the situation is so bad. We spoke to world-renowned Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado last month, and he said that the Indigenous population of the Amazon are effectively facing a genocide, if the government doesn’t intervene. They are so vulnerable and have died in such large numbers. So, could you talk about access to health services in the Amazon, why the region has been disproportionately affected, and also the accelerated rate of deforestation that’s presently occurring and how that’s impacting the spread of the virus?
MARCIA CASTRO: Yeah, that’s a very important point, Amy. So, what we have is, the region already has the worst indicators in terms of health services. So, it is the place in Brazil where you have the lowest numbers of hospital beds per person, physicians per person. Many municipalities don’t have hospitals and ICU beds; then it’s even worse. So, you already start the pandemic having fewer resources in those places.
In addition, we have several communities in the region that have the other inequalities that I mentioned. Overall in the Amazon region, 43% of the population don’t have access to water. But in some states, it’s even higher than that. Then there is a completely separate healthcare for the Indigenous populations, and those have lost a lot of the physicians in the past few years when a large program that existed in Brazil that brought foreigner physicians to work in those underserved areas was completely dismantled. So, again, you keep adding those layers, right?
So, since this new president took term, there is not a lot of attention in terms of preserving the environment. In fact, last year, we saw rampant deforestation, a horrible fire season. And this year, we already overpassed the deforestation from last year, and we still have about a month and a half to go of the cutting season. So, whenever you have this deforestation, you have contacts of those people that want to exploit the land with Indigenous areas. We see that it’s exactly in the Indigenous reserves where we are seeing most of the damage. And those areas are supposed to be preserved, and then they used to be. So, you have Indigenous people dying because of this encounter, but, on top of this, now they are being infected because those — the people that come into the area may bring the virus, as well. They can bring any pathogen. And it’s not just deforestation, we have to remember. There’s also mining, which is another activity that exposed Indigenous people to that.
So, over all Brazil, we have 110 Indigenous areas that have been affected with COVID. We have about 7,200 Indigenous people that have been infected, and the number keeps rising, and about 330 deaths that already have been reported.
Now, what happens also is that because a lot of municipalities don’t have hospitals, don’t have beds, the health system work with a sort of regionalization scheme. So, whenever people need hospital care, need to be hospitalized, there is a reference municipality that takes all those people. What we saw in Manaus, which was the first capital in the Amazon region that really had a completely overloaded of the health system, is that once the capital is completely overloaded and they cannot even provide hospitalizations for people living in the capital, they can’t serve all the municipalities that depend on them. So, the very high number of deaths that we observed in those areas, part of them could have been avoided if we had enough hospital services available.
But, above all, they could have been avoided if we provided a better response. So, the community health agents, they are all over Brazil. They basically act on the community. They know the people they serve. And each team has about one physician, one nurse and around six community health workers. They go to house by house to provide care. And they have very good coverage in the poor and vulnerable areas, so in the north and northeast. But again, once the pandemic started, those community health agents were not provided with protective equipment, so they can’t go on the street. And they were not provided with training, either. So, those people that could be right there on the ground helping to identify symptoms, helping to isolate people, and therefore helping to do contact tracing, and therefore helping to flatten the curve so we could have avoided this overload in the hospital system, they were not working.
So, it’s not just about the inequalities. They do play a role. It’s not just about the low provision of health services in the area. They also play a role. But it’s about the completely chaotic response that basically exacerbated all those inequalities, all of them combined, and created the situation we saw in Manaus, then we saw in Belém. And right now Porto Velho, another capital in the Amazon, it has more than 90% occupancy of hospital beds, so we can start hearing from this capital pretty soon.
Now, I also want to make a point that the fire season is about to start in about a month or so. And if we had this high level of deforestation, the fires will come, because that’s usually the process. The wood now is on the floor. Whatever they couldn’t sell, they are going to burn. And whenever we have the fire season, we have an increase in respiratory conditions. We have an increase in the demand for hospitalizations because of respiratory conditions. And we have an increase in the mortality of children under the age of 10. Now, this is a very — it’s a horrible combination. Increasing respiratory conditions may make people more susceptible to a severe COVID-19 infection.
So, we can have an overlay of two huge problems that will create, again, another collapse in the hospital system. So, we’ve been trying to raise awareness of this and try to avoid a fire season like we had last year, because this would be devastating. And the effects wouldn’t stay just in the Amazon. What happens in the Amazon does not stay in the Amazon. And as we saw last year, the smoke, and therefore all the particulates that comes from the forest fires, they can travel. And they can go to other areas, and therefore affect other people in Brazil, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Castro, earlier this month, the iconic Amazon Indigenous Kayapó Chief Paulinho Paiakan died of COVID-19. He was 66 years old. He was a lifelong defender of the Amazon rainforest, who in the 1980s led the resistance against the Belo Monte hydroelectric project, an environmentally destructive massive complex of dams planned to be built on the Xingu River in the heart of the Amazon, the project successfully suspended at the time but later reinstated. In recent years, Paiakan had warned against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s calls to open the Amazon for agriculture and mining, which brings us back to the president and his policies and now the fact that he’s being fined by a judge for himself not protecting himself, very similar to his ally, President Trump. But his policies in the Amazon and what they’re doing now, Professor Castro?
MARCIA CASTRO: Well, it’s unfortunate because when you see what’s being done in the Amazon now, we’re basically losing about 20 years of achievements, of really being able to make protected reserve forests, protected Indigenous areas. We had a forest code that was really a model. We were able to reduce deforestation to the lowest levels and maintain them there. And we are losing this. We are losing this at rampant rates. That’s bringing a lot of deaths. A lot of the deaths of local leaders, Indigenous peoples or people that are just trying to protect the forest are not even advertised.
So, the situation is very complicated, because those are big business people. They are making money by clearing the forest. And the local producers, the local communities, it’s very hard for them to fight against those people, especially when they are backed up by the government. Recently, the government basically pardoned fines that people had to pay because of deforestation. That sends a bad message. So, if you’re not going to be penalized, if you’re not going to be held accountable, let’s go ahead and do more.
So, what we are seeing in the environmental agenda in Brazil is very concerning. Recently, there have been different groups that wrote letters to international people that basically import agro — related to the agribusiness in Brazil, import products from Brazil. And now I hope this is going to create some discussion at the federal level, because if there’s one thing they don’t want to damage, it’s the agribusiness in Brazil. And if the big importers decide to stop buying the products because they are causing a lot of deforestation or a lot of changes in the balance, in the environmental balance, in the Amazon, then that could create a reaction. But if nothing happens, if they just can profit in ways that are really not understandable, because we have enough data to show that during the years when deforestation is going down, the Amazon was extremely productive, the agribusiness was extremely productive. So we can make the Amazon to be productive and profitable without having to remove more forest cover. But again, they are big fish, and it’s hard for local communities to fight against them.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Professor Castro, you mentioned earlier that Brazil has, of course, less resources to be able to do the kinds of things, to take the measures that countries in Europe have taken, like social distancing and quarantines and wearing masks and so on. And now, of course, COVID is spreading at an accelerated rate in developing countries and the poorer countries of Latin America, South Asia and Africa, where there is also a massive shortage of medical equipment, including the most urgent for fighting COVID, namely oxygen. And in one country in Latin America, and perhaps not the only one, in Peru, now oxygen is being sold on the black market for up to a 1,000% markup. Meanwhile, Yemen, which was already the poorest country in the world before 2015, the Saudi-led coalition bombing of the country, COVID is also spreading there, and unlike most of the world, 25% of the people who contract COVID-19 in Yemen die. That’s five times more than the global average. So, if you could talk a little bit about — you’ve been working, attending a conference that looks at the development of a vaccine for COVID-19 and how to ensure access to the vaccine in the countries that have been most vulnerable to its spread, including Brazil. So, could you tell us where that stands now?
MARCIA CASTRO: Yes. That’s a very good question. So, Brazil now is going to test two vaccines. So, there is an agreement that was signed with a Chinese pharmaceutical company and with a vaccine from Oxford. And then there are also groups in Brazil developing different types of vaccines. So there’s a different effort in different fronts.
Now, the key issue for low- and middle-income countries will be, if we imagine a scenario, hypothetical scenario, that we get a good vaccine — whatever “good” means, that’s a different discussion — and it’s ready to be produced at scale and then for a vaccination at scale. So, the first item, production at scale, right? So, if the production is going to be restricted to the high-income countries, it does raise the question: Who is going to get it first? And we saw this before, when we had the H1 and N1, that the rich countries got the vaccine first, because they could pay for it or they were producing it, and then the others had to wait. That is the first discussion. That’s why it’s so important for those agreements, international agreements, that are being made, so that countries can have access to all the science behind the vaccine development, but they also can have access to the vaccine being produced.
Brazil is unique in the sense that they do have at least two public institutions — and I’ll go back to this point in a moment — but they have Butantan Institute, and they have a FIOCRUZ, that they already produce most of the vaccines distributed in the country. They can do it. However, it depends what type of coronavirus vaccine we’re going to have. There are different types of them, and each one of them demands a different type of industrial plant to be able to produce. So, again, what countries should be doing now — and there are some European countries doing this — is the ones that have the industrial capacity to produce the vaccine, they should be trying to find ways to expedite the industrial production, so the moment something is ready, they can do it. Again, not every country will be able to do this, and they will depend on the countries producing the vaccine to have access to it.
The second thing is, it depends on how the vaccine will be distributed. Is it a type of vaccine that is very stable and easy to carry? Is it a type of vaccine that is not very stable and it’s going to be much more tricky to go around the country and to the very isolated areas to distribute? We don’t know that yet. But that can bring challenges to the whole logistic process of doing vaccination at scale.
The other thing is, we don’t know how many doses we’re going to need. And we don’t know how countries, inside each country, they will prioritize who is going to get first. Now, again, the case of Brazil is interesting because we do have a universal health system. Everybody gets access to care and to vaccination for free. You don’t pay a penny for it. So, in theory, every person in Brazil will be eligible to receive this vaccine once it’s available. But if it takes a long period of time to produce the vaccines— right? We have 8 billion people in the world. So, how long is it going to take to produce 8 billion doses? Well, if you can only produce 1 billion per year, you can imagine that we’re going to have to set priorities, both on inside each country who is going to get first and how countries will make agreements on how many doses they are going to receive.
So, the vaccination at scale is going to be extremely complicated. And I think that with the support from Gavi, from WHO, we have to find ways to make this as equitable as possible, so we don’t see another situation where the most vulnerable takes the heavier burden in the vaccination scheme.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Castro, we only have a minute, and I want to ask you about this massive spike of coronavirus infections in the United States. In the most populous states, in Texas, California and Florida, which make up a quarter of the U.S. population, they’re seeing the largest spike in the history of this pandemic. This comes as the White House now says it will no longer fund federal testing sites. And you have President Trump refusing to wear a mask in public. You have dozens of Secret Service agents who were with him in Tulsa, now in self-isolation. That’s just one example. A spike in Tulsa, where he was. Very quickly, if you can say what you think needs to happen in this country?
MARCIA CASTRO: Well, honestly, what we need is better leadership, because if we keep putting people, through rallies, in a closed environment where people don’t wear masks, if we keep sending the message that that’s no big deal, while people are dying — and dying a lot — then, you know, I can’t think of any way to solve the problem of the only two countries that have more than a million cases, other than having better leadership, a leadership that can trust in science.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Professor Marcia Castro, we want to thank you for being with us, professor of demography and chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, also co-chairs the Brazil Studies Program at Harvard’s Center for Latin American Studies.
When we come back, the Reverend William Barber, co-founder of the Poor People’s Campaign. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Hold On Just a Little While Longer,” the Virtual Choir during the Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington on Saturday, organized by our next guest, Reverend William Barber.


democracynow--2020-06-25--Headlines for June 25, 2020

Headlines for June 25, 2020

The United States reported nearly 37,000 coronavirus cases nationwide Wednesday — the highest daily toll yet — as much of the U.S. South and West barreled toward a new and deadlier phase of the pandemic .
Florida , Oklahoma , South Carolina and Texas all confirmed record numbers of new COVID-19 cases , with infections increasing in 29 states .
In Houston , the Texas Medical Center reports 97 % of its intensive care unit beds are full .
Officials are planning to convert standard hospital beds into ICUs , many of them staffed by medical workers who don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
California hit a record-high 7,000 new cases Tuesday , as Governor Gavin Newsom warned residents to follow mandatory mask use and social distancing requirements or face a new round of lockdowns .
Disneyland , in Southern California , said it has abandoned plans to reopen the theme park on July 17 , while organizers of the New York City Marathon have canceled plans for November ’ s race .
Meanwhile , the governors of New York , New Jersey and Connecticut issued a travel advisory warning people arriving from states with high @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days or face heavy fines .
In March , New York Governor Cuomo threatened to sue Rhode Island when it imposed similar limits on New Yorkers .

The United States reported nearly 37,000 coronavirus cases nationwide Wednesday — the highest daily toll yet — as much of the U.S. South and West barreled toward a new and deadlier phase of the pandemic. Florida, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas all confirmed record numbers of new COVID-19 cases, with infections increasing in 29 states.
In Houston, the Texas Medical Center reports 97% of its intensive care unit beds are full. Officials are planning to convert standard hospital beds into ICUs, many of them staffed by medical workers who don’t have experience treating critical care patients.
California hit a record-high 7,000 new cases Tuesday, as Governor Gavin Newsom warned residents to follow mandatory mask use and social distancing requirements or face a new round of lockdowns. Disneyland, in Southern California, said it has abandoned plans to reopen the theme park on July 17, while organizers of the New York City Marathon have canceled plans for November’s race.
Meanwhile, the governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut issued a travel advisory warning people arriving from states with high rates of coronavirus to quarantine for 14 days or face heavy fines. In March, New York Governor Cuomo threatened to sue Rhode Island when it imposed similar limits on New Yorkers.


democracynow--2020-06-26--In Racial Justice Victory, Johnson & Johnson to Pay $2B to Women in Asbestos-Laced Baby Powder Suit

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
This week , a federal court ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay more than $ 2 billion to a group of women who developed ovarian cancer after using talcum powder contaminated with asbestos .
In its ruling , the Eastern District Missouri Court of Appeals said Johnson & Johnson , quote , engaged in conduct that was “ outrageous because of evil motive and reckless indifference , ” unquote .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from 2018 , which had been $ 4.7 billion .
But Johnson & Johnson still faces thousands more lawsuits .
It recently stopped selling its brand of talcum powder in the United States and Canada , but it continues to sell the products overseas .
The lawyer for the plaintiffs told consumers they should throw away any baby powder in their homes .
According to internal memos , Johnson & Johnson knew that asbestos may be in its talc products for at least half a century , 50 years .
But as concern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ad campaigns at Black , Latinx and overweight women .
In 2007 , the year after the International Agency for Research on Cancer determined talc was , quote , “ possibly carcinogenic , ” Johnson & Johnson planned to market the product to African Americans in , quote , “ Under developed geographical areas with hot weather and higher AA population , ” unquote .
This is Marvin Salter , the son of Jacqueline Salter-Fox , who sued Johnson & Johnson after being diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer in 2013 .
She didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Her family was awarded $ 72 million in 2016 , a decision which was later overturned .
Marvin Salter testified in 2019 before the House Oversight Committee .
AMY GOODMAN : That ’ s Marvin Salter , son of Jacqueline Salter-Fox , who sued Johnson & Johnson after being diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer .
For more , we ’ re joined by Isabelle Chaudry , senior policy manager for the National Women ’ s Health Network .
Welcome to Democracy Now !
, Isabelle .
So , lay out the significance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ verdict against Johnson & Johnson .
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY : Thank you for having me , Amy .
So , this case is really significant .
The court found that the plaintiffs proved , with convincing clarity , that defendants engaged in outrageous conduct because of an — I quote — “ evil motive or reckless indifference.
” And so , the court ended up reversing some of the jury ’ s award , and ultimately the punitive damages to Johnson & Johnson was $ 715.9 million , and then also $ 900 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Johnson Consumer Companies .
So this is very significant for consumers who have been fighting against Johnson & Johnson and alleging that their product caused their ovarian cancer .
As well , just last month — yes , in May — the company put out a statement saying that they were going to discontinue selling their baby powder product , their talc-based baby powder product , in the U.S. but continue to sell those same products abroad , which will impact countries like Africa and Brazil .
AMY GOODMAN : So , whole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this .
And also , I mean , people may be listening , some people , and saying , “ Baby powder ?
So , why is it mainly women who are the victims of this ?
” M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY : Well , Johnson & Johnson had engaged , as you mentioned , in practices that specifically targeted women , and they specifically targeted African American women , Latinx women , overweight women .
And we know , and Johnson & Johnson knew and studied cultural norms of certain communities and knew @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , certain women use their baby powder products .
AMY GOODMAN : For dealing with chafing , also , especially in hot countries , dealing with moisture .
So , if you can explain how the asbestos gets into the baby powder , the talcum powder , that Johnson & Johnson has marketed for so long ?
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY : Yes .
So , the way that talc is mined , it sometimes is commingled with asbestos .
And asbestos is a known carcinogen .
The American Cancer Society has said so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asbestos .
And so , when there ’ s any trace of asbestos in talc , the talc is then dangerous .
It can cause cancer .
And Johnson & Johnson knew of this for years , going back to the late 1950s .
And this is publicly recorded , so we can see through their public documents during litigation that they knew that there were trace amounts of asbestos in those products .
AMY GOODMAN : So , in 2008 , Johnson & Johnson hired an African American PR firm to develop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; in 2010 , launched a radio campaign in the South targeting women , quote , “ curvy Southern women 18 to 49 skewing African-American.
” M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY : Yes .
So , the company contracted with a North Carolina marketing firm called Segmented Marketing Services , Inc. , which specialized in promotions to ethnic consumers .
And they distributed $ 100,000 — 100,000 gift bags containing baby powder and other Johnson & Johnson baby products in African American and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago .
They also launched a 300,000 radio advertising @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aiming to reach , as you stated , “ curvy Southern women 18 to 49 ” of age .
AMY GOODMAN : So , if you can talk about the women who brought the lawsuit ?
Did any survive it ?
Did they all die ?
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY : OK .
So , there were over — upwards of 20ish women .
I think it was 22 women and their families brought lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson .
And as you stated before , they have thousands of lawsuits against them .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ loved ones .
Women have died of ovarian cancer .
And so , this has been a very serious issue that has impacted families , has impacted women , and is going to continue impacting these people if the products are still being sold and marketed , especially abroad .
And I understand that their current inventory will still be sold throughout the U.S.. AMY GOODMAN : Throughout the U.S. , the current inventory , before they won ’ t make it again , but they are continuing to make it for other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky issuing a statement in support of Black Lives Matter in response to the global uprising after the police killed George Floyd , Ahmaud Arbery , Breonna Taylor .
Can you talk about this statement ?
He said , “ As the CEO of the world ’ s largest healthcare [ company ] , I must state unequivocally that racism in any form is unacceptable , and that black lives matter.
” He went on to pledge to focus on inequity in medical care for communities of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY : My response is that the work of equity and justice needs to go beyond mere statements .
So , Johnson & Johnson joined a chorus of many companies who have pledged to address racism and , you know , stating Black lives matter , and especially after the recent events , that has led to the uprisings and protests .
And so , based on their own practices , their historic practices of targeting Black and Brown communities , historically marginalized communities , this statement is just not enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and sells products to consumers .
These are products that we use on our skin .
These are products that impact our health .
And so , to specifically target and double down on marketing efforts to historically marginalized communities and to continue to engage in those practices and now continue abroad to places like Africa , as I mentioned , they have — AMY GOODMAN : Ghana and Kenya in particular , among other places ?
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY : Yeah , Ghana , South Africa , Kenya , and also Brazil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And so , it ’ s just not enough to put out statements .
Their actions need to match the statements , and they have a history of engaging in racist practices .
AMY GOODMAN : So , what are your demands right now ?
You ’ re saying that if you go to a store in the United States , you could possibly find this contaminated baby powder .
They ’ re saying they ’ re discontinuing it after the current inventory is out ?
And then , in Africa , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ particular , and particularly communities of color ?
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY : So , my demands are that they outright ban these products globally , especially in places where it will impact the communities that they have targeted in the past .
So an outright ban on these products , and also acknowledging that they did engage in these practices and to commit to not continuing to engage in practices that target and harm Black and Brown communities .
AMY GOODMAN : How many more lawsuits does Johnson & Johnson face ?
M. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , since March , they have had upwards of , I think , 19,000 lawsuits .
So , they have a lot of lawsuits against them .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , we will continue to cover them .
I want to thank you so much , Isabelle Chaudry , for joining us , senior policy manager for the National Women ’ s Health Network .
That does it for our show .
Democracy Now !
is produced by an amazing group of people , sheltering at home , as well as here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ produced with Mike Burke , Renée Feltz , Deena Guzder , Libby Rainey , Nermeen Shaikh , Carla Wills , Tami Woronoff , Charina Nadura , Sam Alcoff , Tey-Marie Astudillo , John Hamilton , Robby Karran , Hany Massoud , Adriano Contreras and María Taracena .
Our general manager is Julie Crosby .
Special thanks to Becca Staley , Miriam Barnard , Paul Powell , Mike DiFilippo , Miguel Nogueira , Hugh Gran , Denis Moynihan .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
Thanks so much for joining us .
Stay safe @

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. This week, a federal court ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay more than $2 billion to a group of women who developed ovarian cancer after using talcum powder contaminated with asbestos. In its ruling, the Eastern District Missouri Court of Appeals said Johnson & Johnson, quote, engaged in conduct that was “outrageous because of evil motive and reckless indifference,” unquote. The appeals court reduced the original verdict amount from 2018, which had been $4.7 billion. But Johnson & Johnson still faces thousands more lawsuits. It recently stopped selling its brand of talcum powder in the United States and Canada, but it continues to sell the products overseas. The lawyer for the plaintiffs told consumers they should throw away any baby powder in their homes.
According to internal memos, Johnson & Johnson knew that asbestos may be in its talc products for at least half a century, 50 years. But as concern grew, Johnson & Johnson targeted its ad campaigns at Black, Latinx and overweight women. In 2007, the year after the International Agency for Research on Cancer determined talc was, quote, “possibly carcinogenic,” Johnson & Johnson planned to market the product to African Americans in, quote, “Under developed geographical areas with hot weather and higher AA population,” unquote.
This is Marvin Salter, the son of Jacqueline Salter-Fox, who sued Johnson & Johnson after being diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer in 2013. She didn’t live to see the trial. Her family was awarded $72 million in 2016, a decision which was later overturned. Marvin Salter testified in 2019 before the House Oversight Committee.
MARVIN SALTER: I sincerely believe that Johnson & Johnson took my mother’s life. We believed in the company, and the product specifically. My mother was a true fan. It was a staple in our house and a necessary part of our hygienic routine. It was as natural for her as her brushing her teeth every single day. …
She was diagnosed with the late stage of ovarian cancer in April of 2013. It was a rough time for us, but my mother was the type of woman who never let bad news overtake her joy. She was confident she would beat this disease. … Her spirit was never broken, despite what was happening to her body. She smiled through it all. …
Johnson & Johnson has yet to take ownership for what they have done, and they have yet to take one step to make amends to all of us whose lives have been turned upside down because we trusted in this company and they said their product was safe.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Marvin Salter, son of Jacqueline Salter-Fox, who sued Johnson & Johnson after being diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer.
For more, we’re joined by Isabelle Chaudry, senior policy manager for the National Women’s Health Network.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Isabelle. So, lay out the significance of this more than $2 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson.
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY: Thank you for having me, Amy.
So, this case is really significant. The court found that the plaintiffs proved, with convincing clarity, that defendants engaged in outrageous conduct because of an — I quote — “evil motive or reckless indifference.” And so, the court ended up reversing some of the jury’s award, and ultimately the punitive damages to Johnson & Johnson was $715.9 million, and then also $900 million to its subsidiary, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies. So this is very significant for consumers who have been fighting against Johnson & Johnson and alleging that their product caused their ovarian cancer.
As well, just last month — yes, in May — the company put out a statement saying that they were going to discontinue selling their baby powder product, their talc-based baby powder product, in the U.S. but continue to sell those same products abroad, which will impact countries like Africa and Brazil.
AMY GOODMAN: So, whole continents, Africa and Brazil. Explain this. And also, I mean, people may be listening, some people, and saying, “Baby powder? So, why is it mainly women who are the victims of this?”
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY: Well, Johnson & Johnson had engaged, as you mentioned, in practices that specifically targeted women, and they specifically targeted African American women, Latinx women, overweight women. And we know, and Johnson & Johnson knew and studied cultural norms of certain communities and knew that as part of their self-care practices, certain women use their baby powder products.
AMY GOODMAN: For dealing with chafing, also, especially in hot countries, dealing with moisture. So, if you can explain how the asbestos gets into the baby powder, the talcum powder, that Johnson & Johnson has marketed for so long?
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY: Yes. So, the way that talc is mined, it sometimes is commingled with asbestos. And asbestos is a known carcinogen. The American Cancer Society has said so. There is no safe level of asbestos. And so, when there’s any trace of asbestos in talc, the talc is then dangerous. It can cause cancer. And Johnson & Johnson knew of this for years, going back to the late 1950s. And this is publicly recorded, so we can see through their public documents during litigation that they knew that there were trace amounts of asbestos in those products.
AMY GOODMAN: So, in 2008, Johnson & Johnson hired an African American PR firm to develop marketing campaigns for its baby products line; in 2010, launched a radio campaign in the South targeting women, quote, “curvy Southern women 18 to 49 skewing African-American.”
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY: Yes. So, the company contracted with a North Carolina marketing firm called Segmented Marketing Services, Inc., which specialized in promotions to ethnic consumers. And they distributed $100,000 — 100,000 gift bags containing baby powder and other Johnson & Johnson baby products in African American and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago. They also launched a 300,000 radio advertising campaign in half a dozen markets, aiming to reach, as you stated, “curvy Southern women 18 to 49” of age.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk about the women who brought the lawsuit? Did any survive it? Did they all die?
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY: OK. So, there were over — upwards of 20ish women. I think it was 22 women and their families brought lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson. And as you stated before, they have thousands of lawsuits against them. Through this process, families have lost loved ones. Women have died of ovarian cancer. And so, this has been a very serious issue that has impacted families, has impacted women, and is going to continue impacting these people if the products are still being sold and marketed, especially abroad. And I understand that their current inventory will still be sold throughout the U.S..
AMY GOODMAN: Throughout the U.S., the current inventory, before they won’t make it again, but they are continuing to make it for other countries? I wanted to ask you about Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky issuing a statement in support of Black Lives Matter in response to the global uprising after the police killed George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor. Can you talk about this statement? He said, “As the CEO of the world’s largest healthcare [company], I must state unequivocally that racism in any form is unacceptable, and that black lives matter.” He went on to pledge to focus on inequity in medical care for communities of color. Your response, Isabelle?
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY: My response is that the work of equity and justice needs to go beyond mere statements. So, Johnson & Johnson joined a chorus of many companies who have pledged to address racism and, you know, stating Black lives matter, and especially after the recent events, that has led to the uprisings and protests.
And so, based on their own practices, their historic practices of targeting Black and Brown communities, historically marginalized communities, this statement is just not enough. They are a manufacturer that markets and sells products to consumers. These are products that we use on our skin. These are products that impact our health. And so, to specifically target and double down on marketing efforts to historically marginalized communities and to continue to engage in those practices and now continue abroad to places like Africa, as I mentioned, they have —
AMY GOODMAN: Ghana and Kenya in particular, among other places?
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY: Yeah, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and also Brazil holds all three segments of its company. And so, it’s just not enough to put out statements. Their actions need to match the statements, and they have a history of engaging in racist practices.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what are your demands right now? You’re saying that if you go to a store in the United States, you could possibly find this contaminated baby powder. They’re saying they’re discontinuing it after the current inventory is out? And then, in Africa, in Asia, in hot countries in particular, and particularly communities of color?
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY: So, my demands are that they outright ban these products globally, especially in places where it will impact the communities that they have targeted in the past. So an outright ban on these products, and also acknowledging that they did engage in these practices and to commit to not continuing to engage in practices that target and harm Black and Brown communities.
AMY GOODMAN: How many more lawsuits does Johnson & Johnson face?
M. ISABELLE CHAUDRY: Well, I know, since March, they have had upwards of, I think, 19,000 lawsuits. So, they have a lot of lawsuits against them.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we will continue to cover them. I want to thank you so much, Isabelle Chaudry, for joining us, senior policy manager for the National Women’s Health Network.
That does it for our show. Democracy Now! is produced by an amazing group of people, sheltering at home, as well as here at the studio. It’s produced with Mike Burke, Renée Feltz, Deena Guzder, Libby Rainey, Nermeen Shaikh, Carla Wills, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud, Adriano Contreras and María Taracena. Our general manager is Julie Crosby. Special thanks to Becca Staley, Miriam Barnard, Paul Powell, Mike DiFilippo, Miguel Nogueira, Hugh Gran, Denis Moynihan. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us. Stay safe.


democracynow--2020-06-26--One Bad Algorithm? Advocates Say Facial Recognition Reveals Systemic Racism in AI Technology

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
I ’ m Amy Goodman , as we turn to the growing controversy over police use of facial recognition technology after the first known case of police wrongfully arresting someone in the United dates based on the technology , though critics say there are likely many more cases that remain unknown .
It was January 9th when Detroit police wrongfully arrested Robert Williams , an African American man , in front of his own home , based @ @ @ @ @ @ @ His wife and daughters , ages 2 and 5 , watched him get arrested .
This is Williams and his cousin Robin Taylor describing the ordeal in an ACLU video .
AMY GOODMAN : After Detroit police arrested Robert Williams , they held him overnight in a filthy cell .
His fingerprints , a DNA sample , mugshot were put on file .
This is Williams describing how the officers interrogated him based on the false facial recognition hit .
AMY GOODMAN : But the next day , police told Williams , quote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it wrong , ” and he was finally released — nearly 30 hours after his arrest .
This comes as Democratic Senators Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley introduced a bill Thursday that would ban the use of facial recognition and other biometric surveillance by federal law enforcement agencies .
On Wednesday , Boston City Council voted unanimously to ban its use in Boston .
Earlier this month , Amazon placed a one-year moratorium on letting police use its facial recognition technology .
And IBM has announced it ’ s pulling out of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our next guest is a computer scientist and coding expert who documents racial bias in this type of technology .
Joy Buolamwini is a researcher at the MIT Media Lab , founder of the Algorithmic Justice League .
She ’ s also featured in the documentary Coded Bias .
Welcome back to Democracy Now !
It ’ s great to have you with us again , Joy .
It was great to interview you first at the Sundance Film Festival .
But , Joy , talk about this case .
Talk about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it happened .
What ’ s the technology ?
And what ’ s happening with it now ?
JOY BUOLAMWINI : Yes .
So , the thing we must keep in mind about Robert Williams ’ case is this is not an example of one bad algorithm .
Just like instances of police brutality , it is a glimpse of how systemic racism can be embedded into AI systems like those that power facial recognition technologies .
It ’ s also a reflection of what study after study after study has been showing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ MIT with Dr. Timnit Gebru , Deb Raji , studies from the National Institute for Standards and Technology , showing that on 189 algorithms — right ?
— you had a situation where Asian and African American faces were 10 to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white faces .
You have a study , February 2019 , looking at skin type , showing that darker-skinned individuals were more likely to be misidentified by these technologies .
So it is not a shock that we are seeing what happened to Robert @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in mind is this is a known case .
And we don ’ t know how many others didn ’ t have a situation where the police or the detective says , “ Oh , the computer must have got it wrong.
” And this is an important thing to keep in mind .
Oftentimes , even if there ’ s evidence in front of you — this man does not look like the picture — there is this reliance on the machine .
And when you have a situation of confirmation bias @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to already be guilty , this only adds to it .
Now , the other thing I want to point out is , you can be misidentified even if you ’ re not where a crime happened .
So , in April 2019 , you actually had Ms. Majeed .
She was a Brown University senior who was misidentified as a terrorist suspect in the Sri Lanka Easter bombings .
She wasn ’ t in Sri Lanka .
In the movie Coded Bias , the filmmaker shows a 14-year-old boy being stopped by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ misidentification .
So , again , this is not an example of one bad algorithm gone wrong , but it is showing , again , that systemic racism can become systematic when we use automated tools in the context of policing .
AMY GOODMAN : Joy , let me play clip from the documentary Coded Bias that shows that story , police in London stopping a young Black teen based on surveillance .
AMY GOODMAN : So , that is an excerpt from Coded Bias , that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more .
He was 14 years old .
JOY BUOLAMWINI : Yes .
And him being 14 years old is also important , because we are seeing more companies pushing to put facial recognition technologies in schools .
And we also continuously have studies that show these systems also struggle on youthful faces , as well as elderly faces , as well as on race and on gender and so many other factors .
But I want to also point out that while we are showing examples of misidentifications , there ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are made more accurate — right ?
— it doesn ’ t then say accurate systems can not be abused .
So , when you have more accurate systems , it also increases the potential for surveillance being weaponized against communities of color , Black and Brown communities , as we ’ ve seen in the past .
So , even if you got this technology to have better performance , it doesn ’ t take away the threat from civil liberties .
It doesn ’ t take away the threat from privacy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be the final frontier of privacy , and it can be the key to erasing our civil liberties , right ?
The ability to go out and protest , you have chilling effects when you know Big Brother is watching .
Oftentimes there is no due process .
In this case , because the detective said , “ Oh , the computer must have gotten it wrong , ” this is why we got to this scenario .
But oftentimes people don ’ t even know these technologies are being used .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ someone ’ s unique individual .
You have a company called HireVue that claims to analyze videos of candidates for a job and take verbal and nonverbal cues trained on current top performers .
And so , here you could be denied economic opportunity , access to a job , because of failures of these technologies .
So , we absolutely have to keep in mind that there are issues and threats when it doesn ’ t work , and there are issues and threats when it does work .
And right now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recognition technologies , it ’ s a high-stakes pattern recognition game , which equates it to gambling .
We ’ re gambling with people ’ s faces .
We ’ re gambling with people ’ s lives .
And ultimately , we ’ re gambling with democracy .
AMY GOODMAN : So , talk about the agencies that you understand are using this .
I mean , you ’ ve mentioned this in your writing — Drug Enforcement Administration , DEA ; Customs and Border [ Protection ] , CBP ; ICE .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ JOY BUOLAMWINI : Right .
And in addition to that , you also have TSA .
So , right now we have a Wild Wild West where vendors can supply government agencies with these technologies .
You might have heard of the Clearview AI case , where you scrape 3 billion photos from the internet , and now you ’ re approaching government agencies , intelligence agencies with these technologies , so they can be used to have investigative leads — right ?
— or they can be used to interrogate people .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ situation where there is transparency about the scope and breadth of its use , which is another situation where we think about due process , we think about consent , and we think about what are the threats of surveillance .
AMY GOODMAN : So , Joy , you have written , “ We Must Fight [ Face ] Surveillance to Protect Black Lives.
” If you can talk about the calls of the Black Lives Matter movement , people in the streets to defund police departments , to dismantle police departments ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ this ?
JOY BUOLAMWINI : Absolutely .
So , when we talk about defunding the police , what we have to keep in mind is , when resources are scarce , technology is viewed as the answer to save money , to be more efficient .
And what we ’ re seeing are the technologies that can come into play — right ?
— can become highly optimized tools for oppression and suppression .
So , as we ’ re thinking about how we defund the police , how we shift funds to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , invest in economic opportunities , invest in educational opportunities , we have to also understand that as a divestment from surveillance technologies , as well .
AMY GOODMAN : Talk about the recent announcements by IBM , Amazon , Microsoft , saying they ’ ll pause or end sales of their facial recognition technology .
Do you think what they ’ re saying is enough ?
What exactly are they doing ?
JOY BUOLAMWINI : So , IBM first came out to say that they will no longer sell facial recognition technology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all of these companies .
It then prompted Microsoft to come out , as well as Amazon .
And what I want to emphasize is , they didn ’ t do this out of the kindness of their hearts , right ?
It took the cold-blooded murder of George Floyd , protest in the streets , years of organizing by civil liberties and rights organizations , activists and researchers to get to this point .
So , it is welcome news that you have household name companies stepping back from facial recognition technologies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its harms , but there are so many other companies that are big players in the space .
We have to talk about NEC .
We have to talk about Cognitech .
We have to talk about Rank One .
And so , all of this shows that we must think about this as an ecosystem problem .
So , yes , it ’ s welcome news that we have three household tech giants stepping away from it , and it also elevates the conversation , but it can not end there .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ rely on businesses to self-regulate , or think that businesses are going to put the public interest above the business interest .
That is up to our lawmakers .
And so , this is the moment to step up and enact laws .
AMY GOODMAN : So , talk about those laws , Joy .
You have the Boston City Council — that ’ s where you are .
You have the Boston City Council that — did they unanimously vote to not allow facial recognition technology ?
What does that mean ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ have the Senate , just Thursday , introducing a facial recognition bill .
And how much does that ban the use of federal law enforcement in using it ?
JOY BUOLAMWINI : Absolutely .
So , we did have a unanimous vote in Boston , 13 to 0 , to ban government use of face surveillance technology in the city .
I was happy to lend my expertise at a hearing , alongside many others calling for a ban , including 7-year-old Angel , who talked about not wanting this kind of technology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And so , what you ’ re seeing , not just in Boston — right ?
— second-largest state , but across the U.S. , coast to coast — we saw the ban in San Francisco .
We ’ ve seen Berkeley .
We ’ ve seen Oakland .
We ’ ve seen Brookline .
We ’ ve seen Cambridge .
We ’ ve also seen the state of California say no to facial recognition on bodycams .
So , all of this shows that we have a voice , we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They ’ re resisting suppressive technology .
And also what this shows is , even if one city or one state makes a choice , we still have the rest of the American people to consider .
So this is why I was extremely happy to see the recent act that was announced this Thursday for the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act , because now we can say , “ Let ’ s at least provide base-level protections for all of the United States.
” This is the strongest bill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
AMY GOODMAN : And finally , masks .
How do they throw a wrench into the works ?
I mean , people wearing masks now to protect themselves and to protect the community — oh , all except the president of the United States , who doesn ’ t wear the mask .
But , you know , how does it affect [ facial ] technology ?
We know that a lot of these protests all over the country have been filmed .
Drones have been monitoring them .
But what does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
JOY BUOLAMWINI : It means that the technology becomes even less reliable , because to make a match , you want as much facial information as possible .
So if I cover any component of my face , that is less information , so you ’ re likely to have more misidentifications .
What happened to Robert Williams could become even worse .
But it ’ s also normalizing having your face covered , right ?
And so , if more people cover their face or resist these technologies , it will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ masks make it even more likely that you will have misidentifications .
AMY GOODMAN : I want to thank you so much , Joy Buolamwini , for joining us , researcher at the MIT Media Lab , founder of the Algorithmic Justice League , featured in the documentary Coded Bias .
To see our extended interview with her , you can go to democracynow.org .
When we come back , we look at how Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay more than $ 2 billion to a group of women who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Johnson talcum powder , which is contaminated with asbestos .
Johnson & Johnson heavily marketed the powder to African American women .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, as we turn to the growing controversy over police use of facial recognition technology after the first known case of police wrongfully arresting someone in the United States based on the technology, though critics say there are likely many more cases that remain unknown.
It was January 9th when Detroit police wrongfully arrested Robert Williams, an African American man, in front of his own home, based on a false facial recognition hit. His wife and daughters, ages 2 and 5, watched him get arrested. This is Williams and his cousin Robin Taylor describing the ordeal in an ACLU video.
ROBERT WILLIAMS: I was completely shocked and stunned to be arrested in broad daylight in front of my daughter, in front of my wife, in front of my neighbors. It was — it was — it was — it was — I don’t even — I can’t really put it into words. It was — it was one of the most shocking things I ever had happen to me.
ROBIN TAYLOR: He could have been killed if he would have resisted. You know, being a Black man being arrested or having any encounter with the police, it could go badly. And, you know, that is something that we worry about in the Black family when someone has an encounter with the police.
AMY GOODMAN: After Detroit police arrested Robert Williams, they held him overnight in a filthy cell. His fingerprints, a DNA sample, mugshot were put on file. This is Williams describing how the officers interrogated him based on the false facial recognition hit.
ROBERT WILLIAMS: So, when we get to the interview room, the first thing they had me do was read my rights to myself and then sign off that I read and understand my rights. A detective turns over a picture of a guy and says — I know, and he’s like, “So, that’s not you?” I look. I said, “No, that’s not me.” He turns another paper over. He says, “I guess this is not you, either.” I pick that paper up and hold it next to my face, and I said, “This is not me.” I was like, “I hope you all don’t think all Black people look alike.” And then he says, “The computer says it’s you.”
AMY GOODMAN: But the next day, police told Williams, quote, “The computer must have gotten it wrong,” and he was finally released — nearly 30 hours after his arrest.
This comes as Democratic Senators Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley introduced a bill Thursday that would ban the use of facial recognition and other biometric surveillance by federal law enforcement agencies. On Wednesday, Boston City Council voted unanimously to ban its use in Boston. Earlier this month, Amazon placed a one-year moratorium on letting police use its facial recognition technology. And IBM has announced it’s pulling out of the facial recognition business entirely.
Well, our next guest is a computer scientist and coding expert who documents racial bias in this type of technology. Joy Buolamwini is a researcher at the MIT Media Lab, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League. She’s also featured in the documentary Coded Bias.
Welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us again, Joy. It was great to interview you first at the Sundance Film Festival.
But, Joy, talk about this case. Talk about the Williams case and its significance, how it happened. What’s the technology? And what’s happening with it now?
JOY BUOLAMWINI: Yes. So, the thing we must keep in mind about Robert Williams’ case is this is not an example of one bad algorithm. Just like instances of police brutality, it is a glimpse of how systemic racism can be embedded into AI systems like those that power facial recognition technologies. It’s also a reflection of what study after study after study has been showing, studies I’ve conducted at MIT with Dr. Timnit Gebru, Deb Raji, studies from the National Institute for Standards and Technology, showing that on 189 algorithms — right? — you had a situation where Asian and African American faces were 10 to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white faces. You have a study, February 2019, looking at skin type, showing that darker-skinned individuals were more likely to be misidentified by these technologies. So it is not a shock that we are seeing what happened to Robert Williams.
What we have to keep in mind is this is a known case. And we don’t know how many others didn’t have a situation where the police or the detective says, “Oh, the computer must have got it wrong.” And this is an important thing to keep in mind. Oftentimes, even if there’s evidence in front of you — this man does not look like the picture — there is this reliance on the machine. And when you have a situation of confirmation bias, particularly when Black people are presumed to already be guilty, this only adds to it.
Now, the other thing I want to point out is, you can be misidentified even if you’re not where a crime happened. So, in April 2019, you actually had Ms. Majeed. She was a Brown University senior who was misidentified as a terrorist suspect in the Sri Lanka Easter bombings. She wasn’t in Sri Lanka. In the movie Coded Bias, the filmmaker shows a 14-year-old boy being stopped by police in the U.K. because of a misidentification. So, again, this is not an example of one bad algorithm gone wrong, but it is showing, again, that systemic racism can become systematic when we use automated tools in the context of policing.
AMY GOODMAN: Joy, let me play clip from the documentary Coded Bias that shows that story, police in London stopping a young Black teen based on surveillance.
SILKIE: Tell me what’s happening.
GRIFF FERRIS: This young Black kid’s in school uniform, got stopped as a result of a match. Took him down that street just to one side and like very thoroughly searched him. It was all plainclothes officers, as well. It was four plainclothes officers who stopped him. Fingerprinted him after about like maybe 10, 15 minutes of searching and checking his details and fingerprinting him. And they came back and said it’s not him.
Excuse me. I work for a human rights campaigning organization. We’re campaigning against facial recognition technology. We’re campaigning against facial — we’re called Big Brother Watch. We’re a human rights campaigning organization. We’re campaigning against this technology here today. And then you’ve just been stopped because of that. They misidentified you. And these are our details here.
He was a bit shaken. His friends were there. They couldn’t believe what had happened to them.
Yeah, yeah. You’ve been misidentified by their systems And they’ve stopped you and used that as justification to stop and search you.
But this is an innocent, young 14-year-old child who’s been stopped by the police as a result of a facial recognition misidentification.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that is an excerpt from Coded Bias, that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. But, Joy, tell us more. He was 14 years old.
JOY BUOLAMWINI: Yes. And him being 14 years old is also important, because we are seeing more companies pushing to put facial recognition technologies in schools. And we also continuously have studies that show these systems also struggle on youthful faces, as well as elderly faces, as well as on race and on gender and so many other factors.
But I want to also point out that while we are showing examples of misidentifications, there’s the other side. If these technologies are made more accurate — right? — it doesn’t then say accurate systems cannot be abused. So, when you have more accurate systems, it also increases the potential for surveillance being weaponized against communities of color, Black and Brown communities, as we’ve seen in the past. So, even if you got this technology to have better performance, it doesn’t take away the threat from civil liberties. It doesn’t take away the threat from privacy. So the face could very well be the final frontier of privacy, and it can be the key to erasing our civil liberties, right? The ability to go out and protest, you have chilling effects when you know Big Brother is watching. Oftentimes there is no due process. In this case, because the detective said, “Oh, the computer must have gotten it wrong,” this is why we got to this scenario. But oftentimes people don’t even know these technologies are being used.
And it’s not just for identifying someone’s unique individual. You have a company called HireVue that claims to analyze videos of candidates for a job and take verbal and nonverbal cues trained on current top performers. And so, here you could be denied economic opportunity, access to a job, because of failures of these technologies.
So, we absolutely have to keep in mind that there are issues and threats when it doesn’t work, and there are issues and threats when it does work. And right now when we’re thinking about facial recognition technologies, it’s a high-stakes pattern recognition game, which equates it to gambling. We’re gambling with people’s faces. We’re gambling with people’s lives. And ultimately, we’re gambling with democracy.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the agencies that you understand are using this. I mean, you’ve mentioned this in your writing — Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA; Customs and Border [Protection], CBP; ICE. Explain how they are using them.
JOY BUOLAMWINI: Right. And in addition to that, you also have TSA. So, right now we have a Wild Wild West where vendors can supply government agencies with these technologies. You might have heard of the Clearview AI case, where you scrape 3 billion photos from the internet, and now you’re approaching government agencies, intelligence agencies with these technologies, so they can be used to have investigative leads — right? — or they can be used to interrogate people. So, it’s not a situation where there is transparency about the scope and breadth of its use, which is another situation where we think about due process, we think about consent, and we think about what are the threats of surveillance.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Joy, you have written, “We Must Fight [Face] Surveillance to Protect Black Lives.” If you can talk about the calls of the Black Lives Matter movement, people in the streets to defund police departments, to dismantle police departments? How does facial recognition technology fit into this?
JOY BUOLAMWINI: Absolutely. So, when we talk about defunding the police, what we have to keep in mind is, when resources are scarce, technology is viewed as the answer to save money, to be more efficient. And what we’re seeing are the technologies that can come into play — right? — can become highly optimized tools for oppression and suppression. So, as we’re thinking about how we defund the police, how we shift funds to actually uplift communities, invest in healthcare, invest in economic opportunities, invest in educational opportunities, we have to also understand that as a divestment from surveillance technologies, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the recent announcements by IBM, Amazon, Microsoft, saying they’ll pause or end sales of their facial recognition technology. Do you think what they’re saying is enough? What exactly are they doing?
JOY BUOLAMWINI: So, IBM first came out to say that they will no longer sell facial recognition technology, which is the strongest position of all of these companies. It then prompted Microsoft to come out, as well as Amazon.
And what I want to emphasize is, they didn’t do this out of the kindness of their hearts, right? It took the cold-blooded murder of George Floyd, protest in the streets, years of organizing by civil liberties and rights organizations, activists and researchers to get to this point.
So, it is welcome news that you have household name companies stepping back from facial recognition technologies, because it underscores its dangers and its harms, but there are so many other companies that are big players in the space. We have to talk about NEC. We have to talk about Cognitech. We have to talk about Rank One. And so, all of this shows that we must think about this as an ecosystem problem. So, yes, it’s welcome news that we have three household tech giants stepping away from it, and it also elevates the conversation, but it cannot end there. And ultimately, we can’t rely on businesses to self-regulate, or think that businesses are going to put the public interest above the business interest. That is up to our lawmakers. And so, this is the moment to step up and enact laws.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about those laws, Joy. You have the Boston City Council — that’s where you are. You have the Boston City Council that — did they unanimously vote to not allow facial recognition technology? What does that mean? And now you have Congress, you have the Senate, just Thursday, introducing a facial recognition bill. And how much does that ban the use of federal law enforcement in using it?
JOY BUOLAMWINI: Absolutely. So, we did have a unanimous vote in Boston, 13 to 0, to ban government use of face surveillance technology in the city. I was happy to lend my expertise at a hearing, alongside many others calling for a ban, including 7-year-old Angel, who talked about not wanting this kind of technology when she’s going to school.
And so, what you’re seeing, not just in Boston — right? — second-largest state, but across the U.S., coast to coast — we saw the ban in San Francisco. We’ve seen Berkeley. We’ve seen Oakland. We’ve seen Brookline. We’ve seen Cambridge. We’ve also seen the state of California say no to facial recognition on bodycams. So, all of this shows that we have a voice, we have a choice. People are standing up. They’re resisting suppressive technology.
And also what this shows is, even if one city or one state makes a choice, we still have the rest of the American people to consider. So this is why I was extremely happy to see the recent act that was announced this Thursday for the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, because now we can say, “Let’s at least provide base-level protections for all of the United States.” This is the strongest bill that has come out of Congress yet.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, masks. How do they throw a wrench into the works? I mean, people wearing masks now to protect themselves and to protect the community — oh, all except the president of the United States, who doesn’t wear the mask. But, you know, how does it affect [facial] technology? We know that a lot of these protests all over the country have been filmed. Drones have been monitoring them. But what does it mean when people are wearing masks?
JOY BUOLAMWINI: It means that the technology becomes even less reliable, because to make a match, you want as much facial information as possible. So if I cover any component of my face, that is less information, so you’re likely to have more misidentifications. What happened to Robert Williams could become even worse. But it’s also normalizing having your face covered, right? And so, if more people cover their face or resist these technologies, it will also be harder to deploy. But masks make it even more likely that you will have misidentifications.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much, Joy Buolamwini, for joining us, researcher at the MIT Media Lab, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, featured in the documentary Coded Bias. To see our extended interview with her, you can go to democracynow.org.
When we come back, we look at how Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay more than $2 billion to a group of women who developed ovarian cancer after using Johnson & Johnson talcum powder, which is contaminated with asbestos. Johnson & Johnson heavily marketed the powder to African American women. Stay with us.