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The mystery of India’s new solar tariffs

On April 1, India slapped tariffs on solar cells and modules. This wouldn’t be newsworthy except that India made these tariffs out of whole cloth. This is as audacious as protectionism gets.

Tariff hikes in India are not uncommon. Over the last eight years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has increased 3,000 tariffs, hitting 70 percent of the country’s imports. Tariffs are front and center in Modi’s drive to make India more economically “self-sufficient.” They also add central budget revenue. But even against this backdrop, the new solar tariffs are striking.

Like many countries, India is keen on renewables. Modi hopes to produce half the nation’s electricity from renewables by 2030, mostly wind and solar. More impressive still, India wants to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070. To reach these goals, India has lavished protectionism on its domestic producers. Antidumping duties and safeguards have given these producers some much-needed breathing room, particularly against cheap imports from China. But these temporary tariffs have expired. No one doubted the government would fill in with new tariffs. But not like this.

Here’s the mystery.

The solar cells fall under tariff code 85414011, and the modules under 85414012. Look at India’s World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations and you’ll see that both tariffs are bound at zero. In other words, India has no tariffs to increase on solar cells or on modules. Quite simply, India’s 25 percent tariff on cells, and 40 percent tariff on modules, are pure fiction.

India calls tariffs basic customs duties, not trade remedies. There’s no evidence that India conducted an antidumping or a safeguard investigation that could have triggered temporary tariffs. So again, where did India’s solar tariffs come from?

India also has non-tariff barriers on solar. Most famously, it’s Approved List of Models and Manufacturers favors domestic over foreign solar. Given these non-tariff barriers, it’s not obvious India needed two new tariffs to backfill for its recently expired safeguard.

Conversely, if India was intent on defying its WTO obligations, why not go bigger than 25 percent and 40 percent? The answer is that the tariffs, on top of COVID-19-related price spikes, will hurt solar sales. Import duties make solar panels more expensive, but domestic companies find it difficult to compete without protectionism.

There was no need for India to make these solar tariffs out of whole cloth. An antidumping duty would have done the trick. India is the world’s most prolific user of antidumping duties, and China the world’s number-one target. Yet another antidumping duty wouldn’t have been noticed.

But the global economy should notice this. India’s new solar tariffs are a big deal because they are as obvious an infraction as could be. What will other countries infer from this? That India is rewriting its WTO tariff obligations? That all is fair game in competing over renewables? Or just when China is the source of cheap imports?

For whatever India intended to signal by making solar tariffs out of whole cloth, the move was too clever by half.

Marc L. Busch is the Karl F. Landegger Professor of International Business Diplomacy at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Follow him on Twitter @marclbusch.

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Sheldon Adelson’s widow cuts back on GOP donations

Miriam Adelson, the widow of the late GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, has given less donations to the Republican Party since her husband’s death last year, according to Federal Elections Commission (FEC) data. 

Sheldon Adelson spent much of his fortune promoting Republican candidates and pro-Israel conservative causes before he died in January 2021 at age 87. He gave more than $420 million to conservative candidates and groups during the 2020 election cycle, and he and his wife spent more than $520 million on federal races between 2009 and last year, according to an analysis from a nonprofit working to reduce the role of money in politics. 

But FEC data shows that Miriam has only made two donations during the current cycle since her husband’s death. She donated $5 million in July to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC that works to elect Republicans to the House, and $5,000 in June 2021 to the Stand for America PAC, which former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) established to support conservative causes. 

Two people familiar with Miriam Adelson’s activity told Bloomberg that she has mostly avoided attending large events with politicians that usually lead to large donations. Bloomberg reported that her wealth has also dropped throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Her $5 million contribution is only one-sixth of what she and her husband gave to the Congressional Leadership Fund at this point of the 2018 midterm election cycle, according to Bloomberg. 

One person familiar with Miriam’s thinking told Bloomberg that she is passionate about Israel but is less vocal and interested in U.S. politics.

Adelson did not immediately return a request from The Hill for comment through her family foundation.

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Witnessing an execution is always problematic, even when there’s nothing much to see

James Coddington was put to death in Oklahoma on Aug. 25 for the 1997 murder of his friend and coworker, Albert Hale. His was the first of the state’s planned 25 executions in the next could of years.

Witnesses accounts of his execution gave the impression that there was nothing much to see, since all seemed to go according to plan. Yet the accounts of what they saw — and what they didn’t see — offered a reminder of the long history of witnessing executions and the problems associated with that act.

The tradition of having witnesses at an execution is almost as old as execution itself. And while people no longer are put to death in public, state law in Oklahoma and elsewhere allows some people to see them. In the past, some states have even recruited witnesses.

Some people, especially the victim’s family, may feel compelled to see for themselves that a convicted person has been put to death. They seek closure and consolation.

Others, like the condemned inmate’s lawyer, may be present as a comfort to their client or to provide any last minute legal representation. Still others witness out of a sense of duty or because it is their job to do so.

Media witnesses may be there as the public’s eyes and ears. As the late ABC News reporter Ted Koppel said of his own decision to witness the 1995 Texas execution of Mario Marquez, “If we are going to live with capital punishment we have to see it and know what it is about.”

Today, witnessing executions occurs within a framework of state laws and regulations that create a hierarchy among witnesses, privileging some and burdening others.

Some, usually family members of the victim, have a right to attend. Others, including family members of the condemned and media witnesses, require permission and are subject to various background checks and rules of decorum.

Regulations also differentiate those who must witness from those who may be present. Included in the first category in Oklahoma are the “Agency director or designee and H Unit Section chief shall be present.” H Unit is the name of Oklahoma’s death row. Others who “may” be present include an odd array of state officials, some of whom were involved in the case of the condemned, including: the Cabinet Secretary of Public Safety or designee; the judge who presided during the trial; the chief of police of the municipality in which the crime occurred; the district attorney or designee of the county of conviction and other law enforcement officials.

The regulations say that the condemned may have five witnesses “as selected by the inmate and approved by the director (of the DOC).”

Because of a heightened concern for security when outsiders are allowed into the prison where Oklahoma’s executions are carried out, family members of both the victim and the offender are subject to a “criminal records check.”

In Oklahoma, each media witness must agree “to immediately report to the non-witnessing members of the assembled news media” their account of the execution as they witnessed it “immediately following the execution” and prior to filing their story. The repeated reference to “immediately” suggests some suspicion that delay might introduce inaccuracies or that advocacy groups would exert undue influence on media witnesses once they are outside of DOC control.

Witnesses at Coddington’s execution included his victim’s son, Mitch Hale, and other family members, five media witnesses, two lawyers from the Federal Public Defender’s Office and the Oklahoma’s Cabinet Secretary for Public Safety.

They had very different reactions to what they saw.

Emma Rolls, one of Coddington’s lawyers, cried quietly in the witness room during his execution.

After it was over, Mitch Hale told the press that he had taken no “joy” in witnessing the execution, but wanted to be present to “represent” his father. He claimed that seeing Coddington die would allow him and his family to “move on after years of legal proceedings” — even though he was convinced, because Coddington did not use his final words to apologize to the Hale family, that he had never been truly remorseful.

The four media witnesses who attended the execution each offered chilling minute by minute accounts of what they had seen.

One of them, Reporter Chris Polansky of KWGS in Tulsa, later told a National Public Radio interviewer that “everyone was watching to see if there would be any problems,” as there have been during past Oklahoma executions. “There were no visible convulsions,” he said, “or any other signs that I could see, as a witness, that anything went wrong.” 

What Polansky and the other media witnesses said after Coddington’s death might reassure us that we can know, as Koppel said, what capital punishment “is about.” But the few minutes of an execution that witnesses are allowed to see cannot give them — or us — an adequate understanding of the capital punishment process and its meaning.

Lawyers who represent the condemned and those who have gone through the death penalty journey may have that understanding. But for others seeing an execution, as the well-known death penalty defense lawyer David Bruck once noted, may “give a false and misleading picture of the damage and suffering which is necessarily part of the capital punishment process… It doesn’t show the effect of this process on anyone else…(and) it creates the illusion the viewer is seeing the truth.”

No deeper truth about capital punishment or about the condemned person’s experience can be found in witnessing a person being put to death. I am convinced, as the cultural critic Wendy Lesser says, that doing so can be “nothing short of ghoulish.”

Austin Sarat (@ljstprof) is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. He is author of numerous books on America’s death penalty, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty. The views expressed here do not represent Amherst College.

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As overdose crisis rages, we must prioritize saving lives with harm reduction

As advocates and service providers working on the frontlines of the overdose crisis, we’ve seen firsthand the devastating toll and growth of the overdose epidemic. All around us, people are dying. Families and communities are struggling. Everyday we hear stories of loss and of loved ones and residents trying to find life-saving assistance. 

The scale of this public health crisis is staggering – Americans are now more likely to die of an overdose than in a car accident. Throughout the past decade, over 1 million people lost their lives, with 2021 taking more than 107,000 Americans in just 12 months. Existing racial inequities are being compounded, as Black Americans now suffer from higher opioid death rates than white Americans. These numbers will continue to grow with each passing year unless we change the way we deal with substance use, which is why we must focus on public health solutions. That means ending the stigma around substance use and instituting harm-reduction policies that are proven to save lives.

How does a crisis causing the deaths of so many people go unaddressed? In part, it’s because of the stigma our country places on people who use drugs. Rather than focusing on the human cost of overdose and on public health solutions, policies dealing with substance use often center on criminalization and punishment, perpetuating racial injustice by design. Because of targeted policing, Black people make up 24 percent of drug arrests, almost double their demographic percentage, and are three times more likely to be arrested for drugs than white people, despite using and selling drugs at the same rates. Additionally, legislators continue to push new laws that disproportionately harm Black, Latinx and Indigenous people by sending them to prison, reducing access to life-saving support.

Harm reduction is an evidence-based approach that prioritizes keeping people alive. From the distribution of life-saving medicines like naloxone, to syringe service programs that provide education while reducing the spread of infectious diseases, this strategy prevents deaths, protects those who use substances and provides them with options when they are ready to seek treatment.

Harm reduction is compassionate, recognizing the dignity and humanity of people who use drugs. But it is also grounded in evidence. Hundreds of studies over more than three decades show that syringe service programs reduce overdose deaths and infectious disease transmission rates. States that have expanded access to naloxone, a drug that reverses opiate overdoses, saw double-digit reductions in overdose deaths. For instance, Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance engaged approximately 3,500 participants, distributed 4,200 Narcan doses, and reversed over 300 drug overdoses in 2021. 

In fact, new recipients of syringe service programs are five times more likely to enter drug treatment than those who don’t use the programs. They also save taxpayers millions of dollars in medical treatment costs. However, while the U.S. has increased funding for drug prevention and treatment, there has been little money directed toward evidence-based programs that work with — and save the lives of — people who use drugs.

Congress and the Biden administration need to do more to keep people alive by increasing access to effective, lifesaving interventions, such as harm reduction services. 

Traditionally, federal support has focused on access to drug prevention and treatment services. To expand support for harm reduction and related interventions, Congress and the administration should provide resources for syringe services programs and related harm reduction programs nationwide to help prevent drug overdose and provide access to critical health and support services. They should make naloxone readily available to the people who use drugs, their friends and family and to people in the communities most affected by the overdose crisis. They should communicate often with directly impacted people and their families, harm reduction providers, and community leaders in order to rapidly respond and implement the solutions required to turn the corner on this deadly crisis.  

Today, we are at a major inflection point. Most overdose deaths are preventable. But for too long, we have let fear stand in the way of evidence, compassion and common sense. Too many of our children, sisters, brothers, parents, neighbors and friends have been lost.

We can either resign ourselves to this incredible loss, or we can take action. Congress and the administration must come together, take a public-health approach to this crisis, and fund effective harm reduction programs.

Mark Jenkins is founder and executive director of the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance.

Kassandra Frederique is executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

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Dried mushrooms recalled in 15 states over salmonella 

Story at a glance

•  Asian food importer Thai Phat Wholesalers is pausing the sale of four types of its “Three Coins Dried Mushrooms” in 15 states including Maryland and Virginia. 

• The products have been recalled after the Maryland Department of Heath conducted a routine test on the product and found the bacteria in packages. 

• Everyone who has purchased a type of “Three Coins Dried Mushrooms” should return the product for a full refund. 

An Asian food importer based in Maryland is recalling some of its dried mushrooms due to a potential salmonella contamination.  

Thai Phat Wholesalers is stopping the sale of four types of its “Three Coins Dried Mushrooms” in 15 states: Virginia, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Maryland, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Tennessee.  

The specialty retailer issued a recall for the mushrooms on Friday after a routine test from the Maryland Department of Health detected bacteria in some packages.  

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Most people who become infected with salmonella will suffer from stomach cramps, fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and recover within a week, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the bacteria pose a more serious threat to those with weakened immune systems and can sometimes result in serious and even fatal infections in young children and the elderly.  

So far, no one has gotten sick from eating any of the “Three Coins Dried Mushrooms” but Thai Phat is urging people to not purchase the product or replace purchased packages for a full refund.  

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How cable news is reacting to Biden's prime time speech

President Biden’s prime time speech on Thursday evening is being met with scorn by some pundits on cable news over its tone and the staging that accompanied it.

The speech, during which Biden framed the wing of the Republican Party loyal to former President Trump as a threat to democracy, served as a scathing rebuke of the ongoing political influence of his predecessor, which Democrats hope will energize voters ahead of this fall’s midterm elections.

Made against a dark red backdrop in Philadelphia with a pair of U.S. Marines standing behind the president as he spoke, the speech also portrayed Republicans who are loyal to Trump over the GOP establishment as aiming to take the country “backward.” 

“Not every Republican, not even a majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology,” Biden said during his remarks. “But there’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country.”

Immediately after the speech and during the day Friday, cable news and Twitter was buzzing with critics hammering the president for what they said was the political tone of his remarks and the staging used in Philadelphia.

“This was an inappropriate speech,” said Ari Fleischer, a former aide to president George W. Bush and now a Fox News contributor. “This was a campaign speech, and the U.S. Marine Corps has some explaining to do. How did they get used? Why were two Marines used in the background of that shot.”

On CNN’s morning program, New Day, host Brianna Keilar spoke with veteran Allison Jaslow who argued Democrats politicized two Marines staged in the background of Biden’s televised address.

“Somebody made the decision to put those Marines in the shot,” Jaslow said. “And the reality is those Marines didn’t have a choice.”

On Friday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the administration’s decision to use the Marines in the shot.

“The presence of the Marines at the speech was intended to demonstrate the deep and abiding respect the president has for these service members to these ideals and the unique role our independent military plays in defending our democracy no matter which party is in power. Again, no matter which party is in power,” Jean-Pierre said.

In terms of the substance of the speech, some on the political left felt Biden’s speech did not go far enough in calling out Republicans who have backed Trump’s false claims of election fraud and other statements and policies on race, immigration and other cultural issues.

“I don’t know who the ‘It’s not all Republicans, just MAGA Republicans’ [is] for,” said liberal pundit Elie Mystal during an appearance Thursday night on MSNBC. “I’m sure there are some White supremacists who will vote with White supremacists, who don’t think they are White supremacists who are happy Biden didn’t call them a White supremacist.”

Biden attempted to clarify his comments about Republicans more generally again on Friday.

“I don’t consider any Trump supporter to be a threat to the country,” Biden said. “I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it’s used, refuses to acknowledge an election has been won, insists upon changing the way in which we rule and count votes, that is a threat to democracy.”

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How will Biden handle his first major climate decision after Inflation Reduction Act?

With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. has finally put a substantial down payment toward the clean energy transition needed to address the climate crisis. But like a 30-year home mortgage, even a hefty down payment doesn’t settle the debt. Every month over the course of decades, you have to keep paying down that mortgage.

The Inflation Reduction Act makes a hefty commitment of resources toward building clean energy, but unless we stop burning fossil fuels, our carbon debt will continue to grow. That’s why impending decisions about federal subsidies for fossil fuel-burning power plants are so important.

A proposed combined-cycle gas power plant in Superior, Wisconsin, known as the Nemadji Trail Energy Center (NTEC), will be one of the first major climate decisions faced by President Biden after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.

If built, NTEC would emit up to 2.7 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent every year, equal to putting over 500,000 new gas-powered cars on the road. It would be jointly owned by three utility companies: Dairyland Power Cooperative, Basin Electric Cooperative and Minnesota Power. Dairyland would own the largest piece of the plant and seeks hundreds of millions in federally subsidized loan money for its share.

In 2021, Biden ordered federal agencies to eliminate federal fossil fuel subsidies and prioritize implementation of clean energy. Nonetheless, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Utilities Service loan program is considering loaning hundreds of millions of dollars to build this new fossil fuel power plant. A flawed Trump administration analysis completely ignored its climate impacts. Fortunately, USDA has agreed that a new environmental study must address the plant’s projected climate impacts before deciding whether to greenlight the loan. Now that the results are in, it should go further and reject the federally backed loan altogether.

Six years ago, when NTEC was first proposed, the industry notion that gas power plants were a necessary “bridge” to renewable energy was widespread. Since then, the cost of wind and solar power has plummeted, battery storage has become affordable and feasible, and our scientific understanding of the urgency of the climate crisis has grown. We do not have time or resources to waste on 30-year commitments to fossil fuels, especially when better and less expensive alternatives are ready to be deployed.

NTEC is an unnecessary and expensive proposal that makes even less sense now than it did when it was originally proposed in 2016. Recent regulatory filings by Dairyland and Minnesota Power show that neither utility has electricity demands that justify spending $700 million to build this plant.Using the same models as the power companies, clean energy advocates have repeatedly shown that power demands can be met with solar and wind energy and battery storage while saving money for ratepayers.

In August, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) weighed in on the NTEC proposal. It found that using the “social cost of carbon” that assigns monetary costs to carbon pollution, NTEC would cause $2.15 billion in climate damage in the first 15 years of operation. Noting the international scientific consensus that “we have less than a decade to transition from fossil fuel to clean energy” in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the EPA called for significant changes to the proposed power plant and additional environmental study.

The Rural Utilities Service loan program is a valuable and important function of the USDA and has funded a host of clean energy projects over the past decade. These loans should be targeted at building out a 21st-century electric grid for rural communities. It makes no sense to spend billions to clean up our energy system while continuing to fund climate-polluting projects that make the problem worse. NTEC is expensive, unnecessary and would shatter the commitments to shift from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy made by Biden and Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack.

At the 2021 international climate conference, Vilsack was clear and direct. Climate change “is not a future threat; it’s here … We cannot continue on this dire trajectory.” These words echoed those of Biden, who said upon taking office, “In my view, we’ve already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis, and we can’t wait any longer. We see it with our own eyes, we feel it, we know it in our bones, and it’s time to act.”

These words are appropriately urgent. Now it’s up to Vilsack and Biden to heed them and deny a federal subsidy for the NTEC gas power plant.

Aaron Klemz is chief strategy fficer for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization with offices in Duluth and St. Paul, Minnesota. MCEA has lobbied against the federal loan for NTEC and opposed NTEC at the Minnesota Utilities Commission and in state court.  

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YouTube more likely to recommend election-fraud content to those skeptical of the 2020 election: study

Tailoring algorithms to user interests is a common practice among social media companies. But new research underscores the harms this practice can yield, especially when it comes to public perception of election legitimacy. 

A study conducted by researchers at New York University found YouTube was more likely to direct videos on election-fraud to those skeptical of 2020 election results compared with those less skeptical. Researchers say this practice may perpetuate existing misconceptions.

Those who were most skeptical of the presidential election outcome were shown up to three times as many videos on election-fraud in their feeds, compared with those least skeptical of the outcomes. This accounted for about eight additional recommendations out of 400 in total. 

“Narratives of fraud and conspiracy theories proliferated over the fall of 2020, finding fertile ground across online social networks, although little is known about the extent and drivers of this spread,” authors wrote.

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To better understand the association, researchers sampled over 300 Americans with YouTube accounts in November and December 2020, who were then surveyed about their level of concern regarding the legitimacy of the presidential election.  

A browser extension was installed to record the amount and content of recommended videos displayed to users. Users were instructed to click on a randomly assigned “seed” video then on one recommendation following the video, according to a randomly assigned rule. This way, researchers could isolate the algorithm’s influence on users in real time. For example, some participants were assigned to always click on the second video displayed in recommendations.

Despite the overall low prevalence of election-fraud videos displayed in the study, “Our findings uncover the detrimental consequences of recommendation algorithms and cast doubt on the view that online information environments are solely determined by user choice,” said co-author James Bisbee, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, in a statement.

Displaying election-fraud content to those most concerned about the election’s legitimacy is one way misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories can reach those most likely to believe the false claims, researchers explained.  

“Many believe that automated recommendation algorithms have little influence on online ‘echo chambers’ in which users only see content that reaffirms their preexisting views,” Bisbee continued. 

However, results of the current study highlight “the need for further investigation into how opaque recommendation algorithms operate on an issue-by-issue basis.”

With campaigning for the 2022 midterm elections in full swing, many social media companies are working to mitigate the spread of misinformation that plagued previous election cycles. 

YouTube recently announced new policies aimed at addressing election-related misinformation that will add context to any midterm-related videos in both Spanish and English.

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Biden: 'I don't consider any Trump supporter to be a threat to the country'

President Biden on Friday said he does not view supporters of former President Trump as a threat to the country, one day after he delivered a speech describing “MAGA Republicans” as a danger to democracy and the soul of the nation.

“I don’t consider any Trump supporter to be a threat to the country,” Biden told reporters when asked about the distinction. “I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it’s used, refuses to acknowledge an election has been won, insists upon changing the way in which we rule and count votes, that is a threat to democracy.”

“People voted for Donald Trump and support him now, they weren’t voting for attacking the Capitol. They weren’t voting for overruling an election. They were voting for a philosophy he put forward,” Biden added.

Biden said he was specifically speaking about those who seek to cast doubt on elections or who fail to condemn violence.

The president on Thursday night tied Trump and other so-called MAGA Republicans to corrosive ideas like casting doubt on election results, spreading conspiracy theories and attacking law enforcement.

“Not every Republican, not even a majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology,” he said. “But there’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country.”

The president has faced criticism from Republicans, who, in the wake of his speech, accused Biden of being the “divider-in-chief” and broadly painting those who support Trump as a danger to democracy.

“That was a campaign speech under the guise of a presidential address,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who is considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate, tweeted.

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New drug shows promise for autism-linked syndromes

A new drug candidate shows promise in reducing seizures in children with epilepsy linked to autism, according to a study published in Epilepsia.  

The drug, called soticlestat, has completed phase 2 clinical trials. It must complete phase 3 trials before being approved for use. 

The drug was tested in children who have Dravet syndrome (DS) or Lennox–Gastaut syndrome (LGS), which are considered developmental and epileptic encephalopathies or brain disease. The phase 2 clinical trial was conducted as a randomized controlled trial, with half of the participants receiving a placebo.  

The children in the study were aged 2 to 17 and had three or more convulsive seizures per month with DS and four or more drop seizures per month with LGS. A convulsive seizure is defined as “rhythmic convulsions that last less than 5 minutes,” and a drop seizure, also called an atonic seizure, is defined as a seizure that results in sudden loss of muscle strength. 

Among the 129 participants who completed the trials, median reduction in seizures was about 30 percent. For patients with DS, the median reduction was about 50 percent. And for patients with LGS, the median reduction was about 17 percent. 

It’s still early days for this drug. It will need to go through larger trials with more participants to further show its effectiveness and safety. Experts are hopeful though, since the participants seemed to benefit from it and the drug was well tolerated.  

“This is important because in these patients, new treatments often impose a large burden of adverse effects that can worsen quality of life in spite of a reduction in seizure frequency,” Emilio Perucca, a clinical professor of medicine at Austin Health at the University of Melbourne in Australia who did not participate in the study, told Spectrum. 

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