Mexico City children’s hospital warns cancer drug shortage imminent again

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September 19, 2019

Drug manufacturer's permission to produce cancer medication has been suspended.

A Mexico City children’s hospital is warning yet again of a possible shortage of chemotherapy drugs.

The director of the Federico Gómez Children’s Hospital of Mexico (HIMFG) has warned lawmakers of an imminent shortage of the cancer drug methotrexate. But he claims that the federal health regulator has the capacity to provide an immediate solution to the problem.

During a meeting of the Senate Health Commission at the Mexico City hospital on Tuesday, Jaime Nieto Zermeño told senators, parents of children with cancer and federal health officials that the hospital’s supply of the chemotherapy agent will only last for the next two or three weeks.

However, he said, the pharmaceutical company PiSA could supply the drug to the hospital immediately if its authorization had not been stripped by the Federal Commission for Protection Against Sanitary Risk (Cofepris).

“PiSA . . . has the capacity to supply methotrexate the moment that the commission releases its certificate of good practice . . . The methotrexate problem can be solved so that the children who require the medication are not left without it,” Nieto said.

Cofepris suspended the authorization of a Jalisco-based PiSA subsidiary in May following a bacteria outbreak. But in a statement on August 27, the commission said that PiSA could sell and distribute methotrexate made before the suspension was imposed. Cofepris chief Alonso Novelo didn’t attend the Senate Health Commission meeting.

National Action Party (PAN) Senator Martha Márquez told the newspaper El Universal that the “revealing fact” that emerged from the meeting is that PiSA has the capacity to provide methotrexate but cannot supply it due to the Cofepris sanction.

“That’s why there’s a shortage because they’re the only ones that have produced [the drug],” she said.

Márquez said that directors of other hospitals are also concerned about the shortage of medications but are too afraid to speak out because they believe that doing so could result in them losing their jobs.

She said the National Cancer Institute and the Siglo XXI National Medical Center are among the health care facilities where there are “similar situations” to that in the HIMFG.

The PAN senator added that a Health Secretariat finance official revealed at the meeting that resources are not reaching Mexico’s health institutes as they did in the past.

“He explained that the Secretariat of Finance SHCP used to transfer money to the Health Secretariat after July . . . but we’re now almost in October and that hasn’t happened . . .” Márquez said.

Medicine shortages reported in more than 20 states earlier this year were blamed on federal budget cuts to the health sector but Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer said in May that the problem had been “fixed” after the SHCP released more than 2 billion pesos in funding that had been withheld.

However, at a protest at the Mexico City airport in late August, parents of cancer patients said there had been no cancer drugs for 1 1/2 months at both the HIMFG and the 20 de Noviembre hospital.

With methotrexate supplies at the former hospital on the verge of running out and PiSA unable to replenish them, the father of a cancer patient receiving treatment at the HIMFG revealed at yesterday’s meeting that at his and other parents’ request, oncology director Luis Enrique Juárez Villegas asked Cofepris to approve an “extraordinary importation” of the drug.

However, the health regulator has not yet responded, Israel Rivas Bastidas said.

He urged Cofepris to reinstate PiSA’s authorization to produce and distribute methotrexate so that child cancer patients can continue to receive the chemotherapy treatment they need.

“A concrete fact is that PiSA has the medication but [the company] is sanctioned . . . If I were the government, I would allow PiSA to release the medications . . . to save the lives of the children.”

Source: El Universal (sp)

Interjet suspends pilot who made ‘bomb-the-zócalo’ suggestion

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Simon Schatzberg

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September 19, 2019

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Pilot García has apologized for her remark.

Proposing that a bomb be dropped on the Mexico City zócalo during the Independence Day ceremony didn’t go over well in many quarters, and particularly with the Mexican airline Interjet, which has suspended the pilot who made the remark.

The airline temporarily suspended pilot Alí Ximena García and another employee after the former issued the threat on Wednesday.

“A bomb should fall in the zócalo . . . it would help all of us out,” said García in a Facebook post.

Another Interjet employee, Gabriela García Orozco, commented on the post, saying, “I support you.”

In a press release, Interjet said the two employees have been temporarily suspended for further evaluations.

“With respect to the unfortunate statements made by two of our employees, we want to say that following our security protocols, we have temporarily removed them from the airline as we proceed with a series of evaluations,” the airline said.

Alí Ximena García later uploaded a video to Facebook apologizing for her statement.

“I sincerely regret the comment I made, it was an immature comment,” she said. “people who are close to me, my family, my friends, know that I am against violence. I want to offer a sincere apology to my company, which is a great company, to the president, to Mexico, to all the people I truly offended, from the bottom of my heart, I apologize.”

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Drought affecting 66% of country after rainfall down 19% this year

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MND Staff

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September 18, 2019

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Drought conditions are the worst in Veracruz and Oaxaca.

Two-thirds of Mexico’s territory is in drought after almost 20% less rain than normal fell between January 1 and September 15, National Water Commission (Conagua) officials said on Tuesday.

Francisco Javier Aparicio Mijares, Conagua’s chief of engineering and binational water issues, told attendees at a meeting of the Droughts and Floods Inter-Secretarial Commission that 66.6% of the country was experiencing drought of varying degrees of severity at the end of August.

Six municipalities in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz are currently afflicted by the worst drought conditions in the country, according to the drought monitor operated by the National Meteorological Service (SMN), a Conagua department.

SMN chief Jorge Zavala said that rainfall was down 19.3% in the first eight and a half months of the year in comparison with average levels, adding that drought conditions were exacerbated by record-breaking temperatures in August.

The SMN reported this week that the average nationwide temperature in August was 27 C, 3.3 degrees higher than normal.

drought map — Worst affected areas are shown in brown (exceptional conditions) and in red (extreme).

For his part, Conagua surface water chief Alfredo Ocón said that water levels in Mexico’s 206 primary reservoirs are on average 16% lower than is normally the case at this time of year.

During August and the first half of September, rainfall capture in 13 of the country’s 20 largest dams was more than 10% lower than average, he said.

Víctor Alcocer Yamanaka, a Conagua deputy director, said the deficit in Mexico’s main reservoirs added up to more than 13 million cubic meters of water, which he explained was the worst shortfall in the last five years.

He described the situation as “worrying” but added that water-saving measures are being implemented at a local level depending on the severity of the conditions faced.

Distribution via the massive Cutzamala system, which supplies water to Mexico City and parts of México state, has been reduced by 10% since September 12, Alcocer said.

He added that almost 102 million liters of water was trucked into 11 municipalities in Campeche, Coahuila, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora and Veracruz between September 10 and 16 in order to alleviate pressure on depleted local reservoirs.

Since the new federal government took office last December, Conagua tanker trucks have supplied water to 33 drought-affected municipalities in 12 states, the deputy director said.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Tropical Storm Lorena strengthens, hurricane warning issued

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Tony Richards

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September 18, 2019

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Lorena's forecast track as of 4:00pm Wednesday. Hurricane warning area is indicated in red. us national hurricane center

A hurricane warning is in effect between Punto San Telmo, Michoacán, and Cabo Corrientes, Jalisco, as Tropical Storm Lorena gains strength off the southwestern coast of Mexico.

The United States National Hurricane Center said at 4:00pm CDT on Wednesday that the storm was situated about 125 kilometers south of Manzanillo, Colima, and 310 kilometers south-southeast of Cabo Corrientes and moving toward the northwest.

It is expected to move near or over the coast within the hurricane warning area tonight and Thursday, after which it is forecast to move away from the coast late Thursday and Friday. Additional strengthening could take place at that point.

The storm could threaten southern Baja California Sur on the weekend as a hurricane, forecasters said, but the forecast remained uncertain due to the potential for land interaction Wednesday night and Thursday.

Heavy rain is expected in Guerrero, Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco over the next few days.

A tropical storm warning is in effect between Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, and Punta San Telmo and from Cabo Corrientes to Punta Mita, Nayarit.

Mexico News Daily

The Ayotzinapa prison exodus: Iguala’s once-imperial couple could be next

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MND Staff

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September 18, 2019

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The former mayor of Iguala and his wife prior to their arrest in 2014.

The former mayor of Iguala, Guerrero, and his wife – the alleged masterminds of the abduction of the 43 students who disappeared and were presumably killed in 2014 – could soon be released from prison.

Only one federal criminal charge is keeping José Luis Abarca Velázquez and María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa in the Altiplano federal prison in México state and the federal women’s prison in Amacuzac, Morelos, respectively, the newspaper Milenio reported.

The ex-mayor and his wife, formerly known as the Imperial Couple of Iguala, have been exonerated of all other charges of which they were accused by prosecutors in the previous federal government.

Federal officials told Milenio that the one outstanding accusation against the couple is a 2017 charge relating to participation in organized crime and operations with resources of illicit origin.

Abarca and Pineda were both allegedly complicit with the Guerreros Unidos crime gang which, according to the previous government’s “historical truth,” killed the 43 students and burned their bodies in a municipal dump.

The charge against the couple, however, is based on testimony from three witnesses whose declarations were ruled invalid by a Tamaulipas-based judge because they were obtained through the use of torture.

Gildardo López Astudillo, who was allegedly the Guerreros Unidos plaza chief in Iguala at the time of the students’ disappearance, other gang members and 24 municipal police officers suspected of involvement in the case were recently released from prison because judges ruled that the evidence against them was obtained by illegal means, including torture.

An application for the release of Abarca and Pineda on the same grounds will be made in the coming days, Milenio said.

The newspaper also reported that a state-based charge against the former mayor for involvement in the 2013 abduction and murder of Arturo Hernández Cardona, who was the leader of the Democratic Revolutionary Party in Guerrero, is “hanging by a thread.”

Four other people accused of the crime have already been released from prison due to a lack of evidence.

Human rights undersecretary Alejandro Encinas said on September 4 that the release of López Astudillo set a “grave precedent” that could lead to other suspects in the Iguala case being freed, while this week he charged that the acquittal and release of municipal police officers detained in connection with the disappearance of the students was a sign of the “wretchedness and rot” of Mexico’s justice system.

Encinas said that Judge Samuel Ventura Ramos had made “a mockery of justice” by absolving the officers and warned that Abarca could also be exonerated for his alleged involvement in the disappearance of the 43 students of the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College.

Source: Milenio (sp)

US fuel exporters turn to trucks to get product into Mexico

By

Simon Schatzberg

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September 18, 2019

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More gasoline is being shipped to Mexico by road.

United States companies that sell fuel to Mexico are relying more and more on trucking to meet Mexico’s gasoline requirements amid shortcomings with other transportation methods.

Although trucking is less efficient and more expensive than rail, pipeline or maritime shipping, certain factors make it a good solution for U.S. exporters.

One of the companies that is trucking gasoline across the border is Mexico City-based Indimex Marketing and Trading. In an interview with Bloomberg, Indimex founder Rajan Vig said that Mexico’s geography makes trucking a good option.

“Given the fact that Mexico is a wide-spanning country, it is much easier to move product via truck,” he said. “Trucking is efficient. People understand the viable routes for trucking. Some areas of the country are just much easier to truck to, rather than to rail to.”

Mexico has long been dependent on the United States for gasoline and other refined petroleum products. In spite of being a net petroleum exporter, Mexico’s limited refining capabilities mean that it needs to turn to the United States to cover demand. In 2018, Mexico spent almost US $19 billion importing an average of about 600,000 barrels of gasoline a day.

The 2014 energy reform allowed the opening of gas stations not owned by the state oil company for the first time. The first private gas stations in Mexico opened in 2016 and now account for a large part of the fuel market, and are allowed to import fuel from private suppliers.

But strict import regulations and Pemex’s monopoly on distribution networks mean private gas stations are still supplied for the most part by the state oil company.

However, Pemex has faced a host of distribution problems, which is pushing private gas station operators to look for other foreign suppliers, former Pemex official Josefa Casas said at an energy conference in Mexico City last week.

“The supply crisis at the start of this year accelerated to some extent the need for a guarantee of supply and private companies began to look for alternative solutions,” she said.

However, Casas noted that trucking is relatively expensive and volume-limited compared to other shipping methods, and that Mexico should improve its port and rail infrastructure.

“Infrastructure remains limited, but that’s also an opportunity for investment,” she said.

Source: Bloomberg (en), El Economista (sp)

Sale of presidential plane will pay for municipal water improvements

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MND Staff

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September 18, 2019

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Its sale will mean water service in Hidalgo. — Its sale will mean improved water service for a community in Hidalgo.

The sale of the presidential plane will help fund a reliable water service for Zacualtipán, Hidalgo, President López Obrador told residents of the municipality on Tuesday.

The president made the commitment during a visit to the rural hospital in Zacualtipán, where residents complained that they only receive water once every 20 days, a situation that forces them to store water or purchase it from tanker trucks known as pipas.

“As soon as you hear that the presidential plane has been sold, [you can] start thinking that support to resolve the water problem will arrive soon,” López Obrador told the residents.

The plane, a luxurious Boeing 787 Dreamliner purchased in 2012 and delivered in 2014, is currently at the Southern California Logistics Airport as the government attempts to find a buyer for it.

López Obrador, who travels on commercial flights, said the aircraft cost 7 billion pesos (US $360.5 million at today’s exchange rate), which he calculated was 350 times more than Zacualtipán’s annual budget of 20 million pesos.

“. . . The presidential plane cost 350 years of Zacualtipán’s budget. Three and a half centuries!” the president remarked.

In June, he said the plane’s sale would help finance programs for migrants seeking asylum in the United States.

During the hospital visit, López Obrador also pledged that during his six-year term, the government will upgrade the highway between Zacualtipán, located about 100 kilometers north of Pachuca in the Sierra region of Hidalgo, and Huejutla, a municipality in the north of the state on the border with Veracruz.

Finance Secretary Arturo Herrera will ensure that sufficient resources are allocated to the project, he said.

Source: Notimex (sp)

Lack of oxygen thought to have killed fish in Tamaulipas canal

By

Cody Copeland

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September 18, 2019

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Thousands of fish have died from an unknown cause in a canal in Tampico, Tamaulipas.

The city’s Canal de la Cortadura, a popular tourist area, was clogged on Tuesday with a massive die-off of catfish. As of Wednesday, a total of 12 tonnes of dead fish had been pulled from the canal.

There was speculation that the deaths could have been due to a chemical product that was dumped into the Pánuco river, which runs through the coastal city, or a lack of oxygen caused by high temperatures.

“What’s begun happening in the canal is very dangerous, because it’s home to many species, not just catfish,” said local business owner Carmen González Navarro.

“It means that everything living in the canal could be dying, which is why we’re hoping the municipal secretary of ecology will tell us what’s happening,” she said.

González said that on Tuesday morning “we began seeing a huge quantity of little fish floating on the surface of the canal, and some were still alive. The color of the water began to change to a thick green” but no one is saying why.

Tampico officials have been cleaning the canal since the dead fish began accumulating. They pulled five tonnes out on Tuesday, and other seven today.

“This morning we woke to find many more dead fish, and now we’re getting close to, I believe, 12 tonnes,” said spokesman José Shekaivan Ongay. “Cleaning squads are working to remove them and avoid an unhealthy situation.”

Ecology Secretary Alejandro Deutsch Lozano claimed that the die-off was due to a lack of oxygen in the water caused by high temperatures.

Specimens were taken for analysis to determine the cause of death.

“We also believe it could have been due to the salinity of the water,” said Deutsch.

Sources: El Sol de Tampico (sp), Milenio (sp), Milenio (sp)

First the poor: AMLO seeks 470 billion pesos for anti-poverty spending

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MND Staff

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September 18, 2019

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President López Obrador is seeking to put government money where his mouth is, asking Congress to approve anti-poverty spending of almost half a trillion pesos in order to fulfill his promise to put the nation’s poor first.

The government’s 2020 budget, delivered to Congress by Finance Secretary Arturo Herrera on September 8, outlines spending of just over 470.6 billion pesos (US $24.3 billion) on more than 25 programs designed to alleviate poverty.

More than 52 million Mexicans – about 40% of the total population – live in poverty, according to the social development agency Coneval, including 9.3 million people who live in situations classified as extreme.

In an attempt to reduce those figures, the government is seeking to lift spending on seven key anti-poverty programs in 2020 to 192.8 billion pesos, a 33% increase over this year.

One of the programs on which spending will increase, pending approval by Congress, is the pension scheme for the elderly.

The López Obrador government is seeking 126.7 billion pesos to pay the pensions of 6.8 million senior citizens next year, an increase of 26.7% compared to the 100 billion pesos allocated to the program in 2018. Proposed spending on old-age pensions accounts for more than 25% of total anti-poverty expenditure outlined in the 2020 Economic Package.

The budget also proposes spending 72.5 billion pesos on the universal health care scheme known as Seguro Popular, 30.5 billion pesos for a scholarship scheme for primary and middle school students and 18.7 billion pesos for the Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life) tree-planting program.

Spending on the pension program for people with permanent disabilities is set to increase by 66% to 11.6 billion pesos, while the outlay on two education programs whose aim is to improve learning conditions at schools and help impoverished students overcome educational deficiencies is proposed to increase by 53% to 35.8 billion pesos.

The government plans to allocate 324,000 scholarships in 2020 to young people who enroll in the “Youths Building the Future” employment program and has proposed spending more than 12 billion pesos to support the achievement of food self-sufficiency in rural areas.

Anti-poverty funding will go to several federal secretariats including Welfare, Education, Health, Agriculture, Communications and Transportation and Agrarian Development and Urban Planning.

Just over 110 billion pesos is earmarked for state and municipal governments so they can implement local anti-poverty programs, while the new National Institute of Indigenous Peoples will also receive resources to tackle social and economic disadvantage in marginalized communities across the country.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Auction of pre-Hispanic artifacts goes ahead despite Mexico’s objection

By

Cody Copeland

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September 18, 2019

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This Mexica goddess sold for US $416,000.

An auction of 120 supposedly pre-Hispanic artifacts went ahead in Paris, France, Wednesday over the objections of the Mexican government.

According to Mexican experts, only 72 of the 95 pieces were confirmed as Olmeca and Mayan originals from the states of México, Guerrero and Oaxaca. The rest of the lot was believed to be made up of recently fabricated fakes.

The Mexican ambassador to France sent a letter to the auction house Millon requesting the restitution of the original pieces to Mexico and the cancellation of the auction. The letter from Juan Manuel Gómez Robledo also alerted the company to the likely dubious provenance of the recently manufactured pieces.

For Gómez, the cancellation of the sale would be “a first step toward the restitution of the authentic cultural property of Mexico.”

“This type of commerce promotes the pillaging, illegal trafficking and imitation practiced by transnational criminal organizations,” he said, lamenting that the pieces would be turned into “simple objects of decoration.”

But the sale by the auction house Millon went ahead anyway. Star of the sale was a statue of the Mexica goddess Chalchiuhtlicue, which sold for US $416,000, five times more than expected. Another goddess sold for $107,000.

In total, the auction generated $1.3 million in sales.

Last week, Guatemala announced that Millon had agreed to suspend the sale of one of its pre-Hispanic pieces after its government expressed opposition.

Gómez emphasized that the government of President López Obrador considers Mexico’s cultural heritage to be one of its “priorities in international politics.”

He stated that the attorney general sent France’s ministry of justice a request that it cooperate in criminal matters, while at the same time the government alerted UNESCO of the need to confirm the provenance of the pieces.

The latter urged that Millon postpone the event to allow it to do so, but the auctioneers were determined to go ahead. Alejandre Millon congratulated French authorities for their “serenity” in light of “media pressure.”

Source: El Economista (sp), AFP (sp)