Surprise victim of the Texas abortion pill ruling: Big Pharma

Plus: “Excuseflation," heatwaves and more. Bloomberg This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, smothered in a spicy sauce of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - The [abortion pill]( ban. - [Inflation]( complacency. - India’s [heatwaves](. - [Tree-planting]( woes. Sir, You Are Not the Expert There are certain types of people who will dip their toes in the water of a certain subject matter or culture and immediately think they are The Expert. Maybe your friend goes on vacation to a city like [Paris](, [Amsterdam]( or [Sydney]( and when they come back, it’s like they are a completely different person. Their clothes. The way they order food. Even their accent is weird. These kinds of armchair experts are relatively harmless. It’s not like they’re changing the retirement age in France or widening bike lanes in the Netherlands. But … what if they were? What if, after 48 hours of sightseeing, tourists were making decisions about a city they really knew nothing about? It’s a preposterous question, and yet we’re in the midst of a situation not so far off, [with the ruling on the abortion pill](. “A single judge without medical training decided his read on select data on a drug was more sound than the FDA’s vast expertise,” Lisa Jarvis writes. A Texas federal judge has chosen to “cherry-pick” the facts around mifepristone — a[pill that is demonstrated to be safer than Tylenol]( — and ban it. Lisa says it sets an extremely dangerous precedent for the FDA. The pharmaceutical industry, to a certain degree, conducts research under the assumption that someday, if proven safe, their drug will be available at a local CVS. Without that assurance, companies may forgo costly R&D processes altogether, halting innovation and hurting lives in the process. Since the fall of Roe, legal abortions have fallen as well, with [5,377 fewer procedures on average per month](: The judge’s ruling will harm not only those seeking access to abortion, but those seeking medical assistance in general. “The breadth of the ruling and the judge’s clear willingness to second guess the FDA’s own expertise could breed similar lawsuits in jurisdictions with similarly sympathetic judges,” Lisa writes, adding that “emergency contraceptives, birth control, HPV vaccines and medicines to prevent HIV” might be targeted next. Read [the whole thing](. Bonus biomedical reading: There’s no questioning the humanitarian [benefits of new medicines](, but what’s their impact on the economy? — Tyler Cowen Costly Cheese Have you heard? The US is having [a cottage cheese renaissance]( that would make [Richard Nixon]( proud: The high-protein dairy product, [once a villain](, is now [a national hero](. TikTokers are incorporating it into everything from [ice cream]( to [avocado toast](. This is great and all, but America is woefully late to the cottage cheese party. Consider [Israel](, for instance. Cottage cheese has long been considered the crème de la crème of their dairy aisle. In 2011, Israelis went so far as to stage a [cottage cheese boycott]( when prices of their precious curds skyrocketed. And it worked! Soon after, costs came back down to earth. Israel’s public rage is a lesson that Chris Bryant and Andrea Felsted argue can be [applied to customers today who are battling relentlessly high grocery bills](: Even in the 1960s, housewives didn’t resign themselves to paying absurd prices for their Sunday pot roast. They [revolted](. Today, we look at an $8.00 pack of butter and think to ourselves, “Eh, I guess it costs the same as my Netflix subscription. It’s not like I can go milk a cow and churn it myself ...” It’s a prime example of [“excuseflation.”]( For the past three years, we’ve been riding a hamster wheel of never-ending bad news. The pandemic ... supply chain shortages … the war in Ukraine … the energy crisis … the list goes on. All of it has conditioned us to pony up more and more money for [less and less stuff](. “Many of us will look at the [quoted price of a flight]( or [hotel]( in the coming months, curse loudly, then click purchase anyway. But buying a product or service despite knowing the price is outrageous perpetuates inflation,” Chris and Andrea write. We shouldn’t be rationalizing prices; we should be protesting them, just like the Israelis did with cottage cheese over a decade ago. Telltale Climate Charts Imagine 121 degrees Fahrenheit. Less than a year ago, [that temperature]( nearly melted India’s capital city, New Delhi. And the merciless heatwaves are predicted to be even [more intense]( this summer. In some ways, this is unfair: “The average American, Canadian or Australian is responsible for about eight times more emissions than the average Indian,” David Fickling writes. But [India’s insatiable demand for fossil fuels]( will likely change that equation in the coming decades, to the detriment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s already sweltering people, and the planet: Trees are the tofu of the environment! Okay, I swear that sentence made sense in my head … so hear me out. Vegetarians have long been sated by the solid white blocks of coagulated soy milk in all its forms: silken, regular, firm, you name it. Alone, it can be horrifyingly bland. But when smothered in a [spicy sauce]( or kneaded into [garlicky knots of goodness](, tofu is delicious. Similarly, environmentalists have spent decades shouting “PLANT MORE TREES” from the mountaintops, spurring do-good corporations to sink gajillions of saplings into the ground. These [planting pledges]( may cause investors to swoon, but trees alone do not create a balanced ecosystem. Lara Williams says [diverse populations of animals — wolves, wildebeests, whales and everything in between]( — are needed to complement our trees and remove even more CO2 from the atmosphere. And it works the other way, too. [Tree groves like ancient aspens]( have long supported “a vast diversity of plants and animals,” Faye Flam writes. If those tree networks die from human meddling, so, too, do the animals that rely on them: Further Reading Emmanuel Macron [just raised an issue]( that the US — and the rest of Europe — shouldn’t ignore. — Lionel Laurent Elon Musk’s [feud with Substack]( gives the newsletter service all the more credibility. — Tim Culpan Wait, whatever happened to [the metaverse](? — Parmy Olson The electric vehicle revolution hinges on [one Chinese company](. — Anjani Trivedi Our fear of [hyper-intelligent machines]( dates back to Darwin. — Stephen Mihm Probably for the first time in its existence, the IRS is becoming a model of [efficiency](. — Max Stier Bond investors should think twice before gambling on [the inverted yield curve](. — Nir Kaissar ICYMI Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg [is suing]( Representative Jim Jordan. Janet Yellen [shrugs off]( the haters. [California’s economy]( is on edge. You’ll never guess [the day]( Twitter’s legacy checkmarks will disappear. Kickers [Water]( is wealth. [Invasive rodents with orange teeth]( are coming for your golf course. (h/t Andrea Felsted) [The business of death]( has a rather morbid history. Philly cheesesteaks are [super popular]( in Pakistan. Solving the mystery of [Australian “fairy circles.”]( (h/t Scott Duke Kominers) Notes:  Please send cheesesteaks and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](