The Threat of Christofascism

David Rosen

Photograph Source: David Geitgey Sierralupe – CC BY 2.0

The U.S. is struggling through a profound socio-political crisis reflecting the deeper global economic and environmental realignments now taking place.  The presidential campaigns of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump signify a unique expression of the crisis: Harris, moderation and accommodation; Trump, radicalism and selfishness.   The election outcome will shape the nation for a decade to come.

One key force in Trump’s campaign is those broadly associated with “Christian nationalism.” Two sociology professors, Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead, state:

Simply put, Christian nationalism—an ideology that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity* with American civic belonging and participation—is a form of nascent or proto-fascism.

*“Christian” in this sense represents more of an ethno-cultural and political identity that denotes a specific constellation of religious affiliation (evangelical Protestant), cultural values (conservative), race (white), and nationality (American-born citizen).

Going further, they argue:

Our research clearly demonstrates that Christian nationalism actually has little to do with religiousness per se. In fact, when we compare how Christian nationalist ideology and traditional measures of religious commitment (e.g., worship attendance, prayer, sacred text reading) influence Americans’ political attitudes and behaviors, we find they work in the exact opposite direction.

In 1982, Dorothee Sölle’s coined the term “Christofascism” to characterize the authoritarian populism that arises from the mass disenfranchisement inherent to capitalism. In the West, it is not limited to Trump in the U.S., but also to Viktor Orban in Hungary, Andrzej Duda in Poland and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.  Even Russia’s Vladimir Putin has attempted to co-opt Christian legitimacy to rationalize his authoritarian rule.

In the U.S., Christian nationalist are radicals Christians who share three key beliefs.  First and foremost, they believe that America was founded as a white Christian nation by white men who were not only Christians but deeply steeped in the Bible – and the Bible is the word of God.  As Time magazine noted, “The ideal American is generally understood to be a natural-born Anglo Protestant. It is this group who created the U.S., and it is this group who should remain central to its cultural identity and political leadership.”

Second, as the Heritage Society argues, the U.S. of A is not a “democracy” but a “republic” – a republic adhering to the word of God.  To this end, some Christian nationalists are part of Convention of States Project that embraces Article V of the Constitution, that distinguishes between two paths for constitutional amendments.  One involves the ratification of a proposed amendment by a two-thirds vote in each chamber of Congress and being ratified by three-fourths of states.  The second path requires two-thirds of states to pass resolutions calling for a constitutional convention and voting on the amendment. It’s never been used but some Christian nationalists are pursuing it.

Third, Christian nationalism support strong – if not authoritarian — leaders who are not afraid of using violence to enforce “God-given” social hierarchies. Time magazine goes so far as to note that “This includes setting aside the results of free and fair elections to ensure a chosen leader remains in power.”

Not surprising, the rise of Christian nationalism is occurring as religious beliefs in the U.S. is declining and the nation is becoming ever-more secular.  A recent Gallup survey found that Americans’ membership in houses of worship dropped below 50 percent for the first time in eight decades. In 2020, 47 percent of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50 percent in 2018 and 70 percent in 1999.

At the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, some of the rioters wore MAGA hats and T-shirts declaring, “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president.”

The Christian nationalist movement is one of the most radical tendencies within the (broadly speaking) radical right.  Christofascist embrace a set of common belief that an ideal society is based on patriarchy, heterosexuality and pronatalism. These beliefs include: (i) support for ending a woman’s right to vote, the repeal the 19^th Amendment; (ii) support for “Heartbeat Acts” that grant citizens the right to sue abortion providers; (iii) support for school vouchers that would funnel taxpayer dollars to private schools, thus undercutting public education; (iv) support for book banning in schools and libraries; and (v) support for the outlawing of pornography which, they claim, leads to a breakdown of morals and to rapes.

In 2023, the Public Religion Research Institute, (PRRI) interviewed more than 22,000 adults as part of its American Values Atlas and found that three in ten Americans qualify as Christian nationalism “Adherents” (10%) and “Sympathizers” (20%).  Not surprising, they reported high rates of voting for Trump in 2020.

White Christian nationalists prioritize the issues of immigration and access to guns more so than Hispanic and Black Christian nationalists.  Most troubling, a majority of Christian nationalism “Adherents” (54%) and “Sympathizers” (45%) agree that “there is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders,” compared with only 22% of Skeptics and 7% of Rejecters.

One of the most radical tendencies within Christian nationalist movement is the “Dominionists,” as The New York Times reports, that comes from “the passage in Genesis in which man is given ‘dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’”

Another Christian nationalist far-right tendency is the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), an association formed in the 1990.  It has been defined as “an unbiblical religious movement that emphasizes experience over Scripture, mysticism over doctrine, and modern-day ‘apostles’ over the plain text of the Bible.”

Mike Johnson (R-LA), Speaker of the House of the Representatives, is affiliated with NAR.  On his first day as Speakers, he declared:

I believe that scripture, the Bible, is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority, he raised up each of you, all of us. And I believe that God has ordained and allowed us to be brought here to this specific moment and time.

And in 2022, he stated “The founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around.”

Often forgotten, before Johnson launched his political career, he was a lawyer advising Exodus International.  According to CNN, he “partnered with the groups to put on an annual anti-gay event aimed at teens.” The group was founded in 1976 and was a proponent of what was dubbed “ex-gay” conversion movement.  It argued that conversion therapy programs, based on religious and counseling methods, could make gay individuals straight.

The Christian nationalist strategy is outlined in the Heritage Society’s “Project 2025,” an authoritarian plan to steer the U.S. toward autocracy.  It lays out the Christian right’s agenda in no uncertain terms:

The next conservative president must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (‘SOGI’), diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights, out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists. [p. 4]

Whoever wins the 2024 election, the nation’s deepening socio-political crisis will likely intensify the Christian nationalist call for an autocratic white religious regime to control the country. If Trump wins, this tendency will likely be adhered to through the implementation of Project 2025. If Trump loses, efforts toward secession will likely increase.  In either case, failure to address the deepening global economic and environment realignments now reshaping the world will only make it all so much worse.

Gaping holes in banking regulatory system

Nick Beams

A report released last week has pointed to the fact that there are large gaps in the so-called Basel Framework, the international regulatory mechanism aimed at preventing the kind of global financial crisis which erupted in 2008.

The update was issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision of the Bank for International Settlements. It expands on an analysis, published by the Committee in October 2023, on the crisis which engulfed three mid-sized American banks in March 2023 and the collapse and liquidation of the global bank Credit Suisse.

Bank for International Settlements (BIZ) in Basel, Switzerland [Photo by Wladyslaw Sojka (Free Art License 1.3)]

The US crisis was only overcome through a significant intervention by the Federal Reserve Board. The Credit Suisse crisis required its takeover by rival Swiss bank UBS, in a controversial operation organised by the Swiss government which broke previous liquidation conventions.

In its latest report the Committee again underscored the significance of the 2023 events.

It said the turmoil was the “most significant system-wide banking stress since the Great Financial Crisis in terms of scale and scope. Over the span of 11 days—from 8 to 19 March 2023—four banks with total assets of about $900 billion were shut down, put into receivership or rescued.”

None of this was supposed to happen.

As the report explained: “The Committee issued supervisory principles for managing liquidity risks in 2008 and found that they remained fit for purpose in 2019. Nevertheless, the 2023 banking turmoil highlighted clear challenges in overseeing banks’ liquidity risks.”

Nothing in the report indicates that these challenges have been overcome and in fact there is evidence to suggest they may have grown.

The report said that “all of the distressed banks during the 2023 banking turmoil experienced a series of liquidity shocks” and that “the turmoil raised questions about the design and calibration of the Basel III liquidity standards.”

But nothing was advanced as to how this issue might be addressed. The report merely said that these developments “prompt consideration by supervisors” as to whether “their monitoring of bank, sectoral and market information” provided “the relevant information, in a timely manner, for them to identify when material liquidity outflows start to take place.”

Here the Committee raised a core problem which arises from the very structure of the global capitalist economy and its financial system. While financial markets are global in nature, regulation is determined on a national basis.

“The Basel Framework applies on a consolidated basis to internationally active banks. It does not define the concept of internationally active banks. Jurisdictions [that is, national governments beholden to their “own” sections of finance capital] have full responsibility in deciding on the scope of banks beyond internationally active ones and have opted for different approaches in implementing Basel III.”

The establishment of a system of regulation based on so-called “Basel Core Principles” might be thought to provide a mechanism for the prevention of a global crisis. But it does not, as the Committee itself made clear, not least because the global character of the financial system means that turmoil even in a relatively small area can rapidly have international consequences.

As it noted, the 2023 events showed that “the failure of a bank can have systemic implications through multiple channels, including first- and second-round propagation effects. For example, the distress of relatively small banks (which are not subject to the full Basel III Framework) can trigger broader and cross-border systemic concerns and contagion effects.”

In its examination of the failure of Credit Suisse, the report pointed out that, even where regulations were adhered to, this did not prevent a crisis.

The Basel regime requires that global banks hold enough assets that can be easily sold to cover 30 days of cash outflows if they come under stress. Credit Suisse met this requirement almost up to the end but then went to the edge of a collapse when customers withdrew a quarter of its assets in just a few days.

Credit Suisse faced another problem, in that assets which had been counted to meet liquidity standards could not be used because they were assigned to other entities within the organisation and so were “trapped liquidity.” Had they been sold, this would have had to be disclosed to investors leading to a crisis of confidence.

In the case of the three US banks, their problem was that the market value of the Treasury bonds they had on their books, purchased as supposed security when money was flowing in, fell below their book value when interest rates began to rise with the tightening of the Fed’s monetary policy starting in 2022.

Had they been sold to meet cash demands, then the banks would have had to realise the losses they had incurred, leading to a lowering of their capital.

There have been efforts to claim that the failure of the three US banks, starting with the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank, was simply due to bad management. No doubt this played a role. But the report noted that “irrespective” of liquidity rules “not being applied to the US banks that failed,” the speed of the outflows “far exceeded” the assumptions on which those rules were based.

In other words, the entire system for determining the stability of banks, based on whether they are considered to have sufficient liquidity, turned out to be useless in a period of instability.

The report itself went some way to acknowledging this. It noted that “recent events have demonstrated that the liquidity regulations alone cannot prevent all liquidity runs in an age characterised by easy access to information as banking services via various digital tools.”

But this is the age in which the financial system operates.

The Committee’s report did not advance any solution, saying only that it would continue “prioritising work to strengthen supervisory effectiveness and identify issues that could merit additional guidance at a global level.”

And even if new rules are drawn up at a global level, whether they will be adopted is another question as recent experience in the US has demonstrated.

In the wake of the March 2023 US bank failures, Michael Barr, the Fed official in charge of bank regulation, insisted he was going to press ahead with rules that required banks to maintain an increased level of capital to deal with losses.

In September this year, following a massive campaign by the banks, because the new regulations would eat into their profits, Barr announced that the proposed regulations had been scrapped and underscored his total capitulation and subservience to finance capital, saying life had given him the opportunity “to learn and relearn the lesson of humility.”

IFA CrossCulture Program (CPP) Fellowships 2025

Application Deadline:

The application deadline for the IFA CrossCulture Program Fellowships 2025 is December 5, 2024.

Tell Me About The IFA CrossCulture Program (CPP) Fellowships 2025:

The IFA CrossCulture Program (CPP) Fellowships 2025 offer 55-60 scholarships to professionals and volunteers from over 40 countries for a 2-3 month professional stay with host organizations in Germany or CCP partner countries. Participants gain specialized knowledge, valuable contacts, and enhanced intercultural skills, while host organizations benefit from the fellows’ regional expertise and networks. Fellows can also join transcultural workshops, networking, and specialist events. Scholarships are available on-site or digitally, based on personal circumstances and current regulations, with funding provided by the Federal Foreign Office.

Which Fields are Eligible?

The following fields are eligible:

• Politics and Society
• Media and Culture
• Human Rights and Peace
• Sustainable Development and Climate Justice

Type:

Fellowship 

Who can Apply For The IFA CrossCulture Program (CPP) Fellowships 2025?

Also, applicants must meet the following criteria:

• Minimum age: 23 years at the time of application
• Professional experience: At least two years of professional experience or voluntary work in a civil society organisation in the country of origin
• Good written and spoken English skills
• Good health for a longer stay abroad (if you are unsure about this, please contact us: crossculture@ifa.de.)
• Exclusion criterion: Students are excluded from participating in the program.

Required Documents:

Applicants are also to submit the following documents:

• Current CV in English with detailed information on education/studies, professional experience, voluntary work and other skills
• Letter of recommendation from the home organization or place of work in the country of origin, for example from a supervisor, using the  template provided
• Optional: a current photo

Which Countries Are Eligible?

The following countries are eligible: Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Germany, Georgia, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Colombia, Cuba, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Philippines, Republic of Moldova, Russia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam.

Where will the Award be Taken?

Germany 

How Many Awards?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of the Award?

Additionally, the IFA covers the following costs for scholarship holders from abroad :

• monthly scholarship of 650 euros
• cost of the round-trip flight
• Accommodation
• Monthly ticket for local public transport within the place of residence
• health insurance
• reimbursement of visa fees

How Long Will the Award Last?

Unspecified 

How to Apply:

To apply, click this link.

COVID XEC variant “taking charge” and leading to surge of cases and deaths across Europe

Robert Stevens

A COVID wave fueled by the XEC variant is leading to hospitalisations throughout Britain.

According to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the admission rate for patients testing positive for XEC stood at 4.5 per 100,000 people in the week to October 6—up significantly from 3.7 a week earlier. UKHSA described the spread as “alarming”.

A team of doctors, nurses and physiotherapists take care of critical patients with COVID-19 in the ICU of the Vila Nova Cachoeirinha hospital, north of São Paulo [Photo: Gustavo Basso]

Last week, Dr. Jamie Lopez Bernal, consultant epidemiologist at the UKHSA, noted of the spread of the new variant in Britain: “Our surveillance shows that where Covid cases are sequenced, around one in 10 are the ‘XEC’ lineage.”

The XEC variant, a combination of the KS.1.1 and KP.3.3 variants, was detected and recorded in Germany in June and has been found in at least 29 countries—including in at least 13 European nations and the 24 states within United States. According to a New Scientist article published last month, “The earliest cases of the variant occurred in Italy in May. However, these samples weren’t uploaded to an international database that tracks SARS-CoV-2 variants, called the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), until September.”

The number of confirmed cases of XEC internationally exceeds 600 according to GISAID. This is likely an underestimation. Bhanu Bhatnagar at the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe noted that “not all countries consistently report data to GISAID, so the XEC variant is likely to be present in more countries”.

Another source, containing data up to September 28—the Outbreak.info genomic reports: scalable and dynamic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 variants and mutations—reports that there have been 1,115 XEC cases detected worldwide.

Within Europe, XEC was initially most widespread in France, accounting for around 21 percent of confirmed COVID samples. In Germany, it accounted for 15 percent of samples and 8 percent of sequenced samples, according to an assessment from Professor Francois Balloux at the University College London, cited in the New Scientist.

Within weeks of those comments the spread of XEC has been rapid. Just in Germany, it currently accounts for 43 percent of infections and is therefore predominant. Virologists estimate that XEC has around twice the growth advantage of KP.3.1.1 and will be the dominant variant in winter.

A number of articles have cited the comments made to the LA Times by Eric Topol, the Director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California. Topol warns that XEC is “just getting started”, “and that’s going to take many weeks, a couple months, before it really takes hold and starts to cause a wave. XEC is definitely taking charge. That does appear to be the next variant.”

A report in the Independent published Tuesday noted of the make-up of XEC, and its two parent subvariants: “KS.1.1 is a type of what’s commonly called a FLiRT variant. It is characterised by mutations in the building block molecules phenylalanine (F) altered to leucine (L), and arginine (R) to threonine (T) on the spike protein that the virus uses to attach to human cells.

“The second omicron subvariant KP.3.3 belongs to the category FLuQE where the amino acid glutamine (Q) is mutated to glutamic acid (E) on the spike protein, making its binding to human cells more effective.”

COVID cases are on the rise across the UK, with recent data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) indicating a 21.6 percent increase in cases in England within a week.

There is no doubt that the spread of XEC virus contributed to an increase in COVID cases and deaths in Britain. In the week to September 25, there were 2,797 reported cases—an increase of 530 from the previous week. In the week to September 20 there was a 50 percent increase in COVID-related deaths in England, with 134 fatalities reported.

According to the latest data, the North East of England is witnessing the highest rate of people being hospitalised, with 8.12 people per 100,000 requiring treatment.

Virologist Dr. Stephen Griffin of the University of Leeds has been an active communicator of the science and statistics of the virus on various public platforms and social media since the start of the pandemic. He was active in various UK government committees during the height of the pandemic. In March 2022, he gave an interview to the World Socialist Web Site.

This week Griffin spoke to the i newspaper on the continuing danger of allowing the untrammelled spread of XEC and COVID in general. “The problem with COVID is that it evolves so quickly,” he said.

He warned, “We can either increase our immunity by making better vaccines or increasing our vaccine coverage, or we can slow the virus down with interventions, such as improving indoor air quality. But we’re not doing those things.”

“Its evolutionary rate is something like three or four times faster than that of the fastest seasonal flu. So you’ve got this constant change in the virus, which accelerates the number of susceptible people.

“It’s creating its own new pool of susceptibles every time it changes to something that’s ‘immune evasive’. Every one of these subvariants is distinct enough that a whole swathe of people are no longer immune to it and it can infect them. That’s why you see this constant undulatory pattern which doesn’t look seasonal at all.”

There are no mitigations in place in Britain, as is the case internationally, to stop the spread of this virus. Advice for those with COVID symptoms is to stay at home and limit contact with others for just five days. The National Health Service advises, “You can go back to your normal activities when you feel better or do not have a high temperature”, despite the fact that the person may well still be infectious. Families are advised that children with symptoms such as a runny nose, sore throat, or mild cough can still “go to school or childcare' if they feel well enough.

The detection and rapid spread of new variants disproves the lies of governments that the pandemic is long over and COVID-19 should be treated no differently to influenza.

Deaths due to COVID in the UK rose above 244,000 by the end of September. It is only a matter of time before an even deadlier variant emerges.

Walgreens retail pharmacy announces closure of 1,200 stores over next 3 years

Benjamin Mateus

Walgreens pharmacy in Los Angeles on March 10, 2023. [AP Photo/Jae C. Hong]

Walgreens, the second-largest pharmacy store chain operating in the United States, announced it would be closing 1,200 locations over the next three years, including 500 over the next year, as it supposedly struggles to restructure itself. The move is deemed a cost-saving measure, caused by what CEO Tim Wentworth, who took the helm of the company a year ago, called sluggish consumer spending and low drug reimbursement rates that contributed to a $3 billion quarterly loss. At present, management is looking to offload its investment in VillageMD primary care providers group that it purchased for $5.2 billion in 2021.

The initial announcement of these closures was made back in June when Wentworth told the Wall Street Journal that he was planning to pull back from the struggling franchise, plunge into primary-care business and close what were deemed “poorly performing stores.”

As he explained then, smaller revenue growth from prescription drugs, which had historically driven sales, and pressures from pharmacy benefit managers who negotiate drug prices for insurers, has meant losses on more commonly used high-price drugs. Additionally, Wentworth added, competition from telehealth organizations like Amazon, which owns its own pharmacy business, has meant a loss in the chain’s customer base.

Shares had initially plummeted by 25 percent, from just under $16 to $11.79 per share. However, on news of the affirmation of these closures, shares jumped close to 16 percent Tuesday morning, putting the company back to one of its best performance days in years.

In a statement to investors and the public, Wentworth said, “This turnaround will take time, but we are confident it will yield significant financial and consumer benefits over the long term.”

Yet, adjusted earnings beat analyst estimates and sales topped $37.5 billion, nearly $2 billion above predictions. Also, the company saw annual sales totaling $150 billion, slightly above forecasts, in stark contrast to management claims about the company’s dire situation. In short, optimization of profit margins drives the sudden closure of pharmacies that serve as a lifeline for millions of Americans who depend on them to access their medications, vaccines and medical supplies.

Walgreens, a 123-year-old company that is known as a neighborhood regular, operates 8,500 stores in the US with a few thousand overseas. All the “poor performing” stores that will be closed are in the United States. In what is standard financial parlance, Wentworth said, “While the decision to close the store is never an easy one, we feel confident in our ability to continue to serve our customers, and we intend to follow our historic practice to redeploy the majority of the work force in those stores that we closed.”

He also confessed, “We are at a point where the current pharmacy model is not sustainable and the challenges in our operating environment require [that] we approach the market differently.” One must ask if conditions are problematic, how they expect to face, as McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm said, “[the] saturated retail locations, ongoing labor shortages, inflationary pressures and a leveling-off of generic drug penetration.”

Pressures from the likes of Amazon and online outlets are considerable and even the 6,000 profitable stores can quickly go under in the face of declining profit margins. As Neil Saunders, managing director of consulting and data analysis firm GlobalData said of the Walgreens announcement, “All these things have the potential to undercut store performance and Walgreens needs to ensure that this does not happen. If it doesn’t, the latest slate of store closures will not be the last and Walgreens will enter the dangerous spiral of being an ever-shrinking business.”

It should be recalled that Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection a year ago and has emerged from bankruptcy protection after the closure of 1,300 locations, or one-third of its drugstores. Michigan was the hardest hit state with at least 165 of its 185 Rite Aid pharmacies being shuttered, with more than 2,000 jobs disappearing in the process. Some areas have been left without services, creating what are known as pharmacy deserts.

CVS Health is also on track to complete their three-year plan to close 900 stores. The recent strike authorization by 7,000 low-wage CVS retail pharmacy workers in September across California only underscores that the decision made in the spacious conference rooms at the financial offices have direct impact on the ability of workers to barely support themselves and their families.

As one shift supervisor in San Luis Obispo, told the media, “I work full-time yet can’t afford to get health insurance, which is ridiculous, because CVS owns Aetna, and the only option I am given is a health insurance plan that’s outside of what I can even afford due to the pay of my job.” A survey conducted by CVS members at UFCW Local 770 found that nearly two-thirds of workers do not have health insurance through their employer, citing high costs, despite CVS having reported more than $11 billion in profits.

The closure of these pharmacies is not just an attack on the livelihood and rights of pharmacy workers but must be seen by workers everywhere as a frontal assault on the US healthcare system, which is being torn down piecemeal and sold away to feed the insatiable greed of Wall Street and pernicious financial wizards.

Pharmacies have become central to primary care, with many looking to obtain their vaccines and other medications at their neighborhood retail stores. Under these conditions the creation of pharmacy deserts has real consequences for the health of the local population.

A recent Health Affairs Scholar study noted that as many as 16 million people live in regions, both rural and urban, where lack of access to pharmacies poses serious challenges. Another study found that 46 percent of US counties have at least one or more pharmacy desert, defined as a 10-mile radius without a retail pharmacy. Many of these regions are also the poorest. They often include those who have not attained more than a high school education, have no health insurance, do not speak English well, or have disabilities. They also lack access to healthy foods, reliable transportation, stable housing, and face the prospects of low wage jobs and permanent indebtedness.

The report states, “Nationally, our results indicate that pharmacy desert neighborhoods are associated with many social and political determinants of health, including lower educational attainment, lower income, lower health insurance coverage, and a higher proportion of people identifying as racial or ethnic minorities.” These are the characteristic of the stores that Wentworth cites as poor performing stores that need to be shuttered.

There is a direct correlation between the closure of these pharmacies and eventual health outcomes for those living in these deserts. For instance, a drastic drop in adherence to cardiovascular medication prescriptions also means an increase in the morbidity and mortality associated with noncompliance.

As the report concluded:

If left unaddressed, pharmacy deserts may contribute to widening health disparities for populations living in these areas. Our results indicate that, on average, pharmacy desert residents already face many known barriers to accessing health care, including lower income, lower educational level, lower English-speaking ability, and lower health insurance coverage. All of these barriers may layer on each other to further limit patients’ abilities to reach accessible, appropriate, affordable health care.