The Feb. 20 editorial “How to weigh the Warner Bros. deal possibilities” rightly urged enforcers to put aside politics and culture wars and evaluate the competing Netflix and Paramount bids for Warner Bros. based on the legal and economic merits.
However, as a former antitrust litigator at the Justice Department who now represents Netflix, I disagree that “Netflix might also have more trouble clearing antitrust review.” The Netflix merger raises fewer concerns because Netflix does not own a major theatrical studio, and competition in streaming and TV viewing will remain strong even if Netflix and HBO Max share common ownership. By contrast, the Paramount bid presents a classic horizontal merger of two major movie studios: exactly the type of deal that raises antitrust red flags.
Beyond the harm to competition for theatrical film production and distribution stemming from a Paramount deal, enforcers should consider harm to labor, just like the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia did in the Penguin Random House case. Paramount’s plan to find billions of dollars in cost-saving “synergies” is code for thousands of lost jobs in the entertainment industry. But no matter how you measure it, a Paramount-Warner Bros. tie-up presents substantial antitrust concerns. The Netflix deal does not.
Aaron Teitelbaum, Washington
Donor registries protect individual choice
Etan Yeshua’s Feb. 26 Thursday Opinion commentary, “I plan to donate my organs — but I’ve taken my name off the registry,” questioned the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, which has guided organ donation in the U.S. for 60 years to ensure an individual’s decision to register as a donor is legally recognized.
The UAGA has also always recognized the right of individuals not to register as donors and instead leave the donation decision to family. This component of U.S. donation policy is a strength of our system design. There are two pathways to authorize donation: An individual may make a legally binding decision during life by registering, or a family may authorize donation at the time of death if no prior decision was recorded.
Weakening the UAGA to allow families to override a donor registration or invite legal uncertainty at the time-critical moment of donation would not only strip individuals of their legal right to decide. It would also cost the lives of those awaiting the gift of life.
Donor registries were created to ensure that those who wish to make their own decision have a clear, legal mechanism to document that choice — and to have it honored.
The case described in the op-ed appears unusually complex: a late hospital referral, language barriers, religious considerations and possible confusion about what donor registration entails. Such situations are not the norm. Earlier involvement of the organ procurement organization by the hospital may have alleviated timing and concerns over prolonged interventions.
Donor registration is the best way for individuals who want to become donors to make their own legally binding decision. But the choice is — and should remain — yours.
Alexandra K. Glazier, Boston
The writer is president and CEO of New England Donor Services and chair of Donate Life America.
Etan Yeshua’s report of a patient grimacing is understandably distressing to the public. However, to maintain trust in organ donation, we must distinguish between two very different medical situations.
I am a practicing pediatric critical care physician. The patient in question was clearly not brain-dead. Brain death is a final, clinical diagnosis when all brain function has ceased; a person in this state cannot feel pain or respond to their environment. The scenario Yeshua described sounds like the DCD (Donation after Circulatory Death) pathway, in which a patient is terminal but still has brain activity. In these cases, the focus is entirely on the patient’s comfort. Donation happens only after life support is removed and the heart has naturally stopped beating.
Conflating these two distinct paths leads to a misunderstanding of how transplants work. It’s vital for the public to know that no one who can still feel pain is ever treated as brain-dead by the medical community
Rodrigo Mejia, Houston
Precision matters in vaccine messaging
The Feb. 24 online article “As measles cases climb, these 9 diseases threaten comebacks” left the impression that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has broadly weakened the childhood immunization schedule. That implication is misleading.
Vaccines against most of the diseases highlighted in the article remain in the routine schedule. Those core protections have not been removed. Where recommendations have shifted, they involve diseases with very different epidemiology. Chronic hepatitis B affects fewer than 1 percent of pregnant women in the United States. Rotavirus, while common, is rarely life-threatening here. Moving certain vaccines into shared decision-making reflects proportionality, not abandonment.
Public health communication should distinguish between highly contagious community threats such as measles and diseases that are rare or concentrated. Precision matters if we are to have the trust we need to engage parents in vaccination.
Monique Yohanan, Washington
The writer is a senior fellow for health policy at Independent Women.
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