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Six 5G Stocks to Buy to Ride a Technology Wave

Six 5G stocks to buy are expected to ride a growing technology wave that should lift companies that provide key components to bring advanced communication to reality.

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3 years ago

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Six 5G stocks to buy are expected to ride a growing technology wave that should lift companies that provide key components to bring advanced communication to reality.

The six 5G stocks to buy include companies engaged in semiconductors, technical equipment, software and related services. The recent pullback in technology stocks is giving investors an opportunity to purchase shares of the six 5G stocks to buy while they are trading at a comparative discount to the significantly higher prices that they sold for just months ago before relaxed fiscal and monetary policy led to rising concerns about inflation.

The annual inflation rate in the United States reached 4.2% for the 12 months ended April 2021, rising from 2.6% for the 12 months ended in March, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The trend is undeniable with the 4.2 percent jump reported in April standing as the biggest spike for a 12-month period since a 4.9-percent surge in the 12 months ended September 2008.

Six 5G Stocks to Buy Recommended by BoA Global Research

The 5G trend is just beginning and its implications are “barely visible,” but BoA telecommunications analyst David Barden is forecasting that the technology will be used in health care, industrials, energy and consumer markets, among others. While there is not a “killer app” for 5G yet, Barden expects the right applications to be developed over time as networking deployment and phone adoption stimulate use amid a generational technology battle between United States and China.

Long-term possibilities for use of 5G include doctors performing remote surgeries, flying cars, haptic bodysuits that fully immerse players in the game world, machines monitoring and warning of breakdowns and predictive maintenance and smart grids for utility providers, Barden wrote in a recent research note.

Kevin O’Leary, chairman, O’Shares ETFs and a panelist on the “Shark Tank” television program, said in a recent podcast that 5G will be a “really big game changer” in the sense that any business that wishes to reach out to its customer and form a direct relationship will benefit from using the technology. 

Paul Dykewicz interviews Kevin O’Leary, chairman of O’Shares ETFs and “Shark Tank” panelist

Kevin O’Leary, called ‘Mr. Wonderful’ on ‘Shark Tank,’ Predicts Big 5G Growth

“The [5G] losers are going to be the companies that do not adapt to understand how to acquire customers that way,” O’Leary said. “There are plenty of those. They just haven’t figured out social media. They haven’t figured out what it takes to acquire a customer. They haven’t figured out how to digitally market. They are still trying to do it in the newspaper. Those days are gone.”

Connor O’Brien, CEO of Boston-based O’Shares ETFs, moderated the podcast and interjected that the days of businesses and individuals buying classified advertisements in print publications to sell products are on the wane. 5G is an “emerging technology” that has not been rolled out extensively across the country yet, O’Brien added.

Connor O’Brien, CEO of O’Shares ETFs

In a nutshell, 5G is the “next generation” of mobile and communications services, said Sylvia Jablonski, chief investment officer of New York-based Defiance ETFs, during the same podcast. The compound annual growth rate of 5G is projected to be about 70% between 2020 and 2025, Jablonski added.

“5G is 100 times faster than 4G is already,” Jablonski said.

Applications thus far targeted by 5G will allow for the creation of a “digitalized economy,” the continued rollout of electric vehicles, machine learning and artificial intelligence and advanced internet connectivity, Jablonski said. Another important use of 5G will be to provide real-time medical data for doctors and hospitals, she continued. 

Six 5G Stocks to Buy Include Marvell Technology

Hamilton, Bermuda-based Marvell Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVL), a developer and producer of semiconductors and related technology, ranks as one of the six 5G stocks to buy, according to BoA. The stock is poised to growth strongly as market opportunities increase in the second half of 2021 and beyond.

Marvell’s April 20 acquisition of San Jose, California-based Inphi Corporation obtained capabilities such as the production of 10-800G high-speed analog and mixed-signal semiconductor components. The combination led BoA to boost its price objective on the surviving entity to $50 from $58 on April 26.  

Even though the acquisition of Inphi is dilutive near-term to Marvell, it improves the long-term compound annual growth rate of the buyer to 16% from 12%, according to BoA. Plus, profitability will be aided as Marvell shows it is well positioned to benefit from 5G deployments in the second half of 2021 across the United States, China and Japan, as demand for cloud services rises.

Marvell, a supplier of mixed signal and analog semiconductor products for storage, computing and communication applications, appears positioned for “secular growth” in enterprise data centers, cloud 5G mobile and security markets, BoA opined. 

Nonetheless, Marvell faces threats to achieve the $66 price target BoA gave it, based on integration risks from its recent deals, financial risks stemming from going into net debt on a net cash position and in achieving expected cost synergies in a timely manner. Cyclical industry risks for Marvell include a potential slowdown in legacy hard disk drive and storage assets and competition from larger and well-resourced rivals, BoA cautioned.

Chart courtesy of www.StockCharts.com

Analog Devices Earns Berth Among Six 5G Stocks to Buy

Analog Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADI), a semiconductor company headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts, specializes in data conversion, signal processing and power management technology. The company gained a spot among the six 5G stocks to buy from BoA and received a price objective from the investment firm of $178. The valuation seemed justified by BoA due to Analog Digital’s “best in class profitability” and differentiated communications exposure.

Potential threats to ADI include a possible economic downturn that could hurt demand for automotive and industrial products, as well as an inability to realize the planned cost synergies in its combination with Linear Tech. Other risks include possible higher-than-historical debt that could limit ADI’s valuation multiples and add risks in a cyclical downturn, concentration on key customers such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) contributing 10% of its vendor’s sales on an average, as well as much higher amounts during seasonally stronger quarters, according to BoA.

Competition from larger vendors also poses a challenge from companies such as Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:TXN), which have lower-cost production facilities. However, that challenge is not unique to Analog Devices, since other fast-growing technology companies such as Marvell also incur competition from bigger and better-established rivals.

Chart courtesy of www.StockCharts.com

Cell Tower Companies Offer Alternative to Six 5G Stocks to Buy

A pension fund chairman is recommending investing in 5G through infrastructure companies. The preference is for companies that own the cell towers on which the transmission equipment is located and that rent space on the towers to the different 5G providers, said Bob Carlson, chairman of the Board of Trustees of Virginia’s Fairfax County Employees’ Retirement System with more than $4 billion in assets. 

Carlson, who also leads the Retirement Watch investment newsletter, said 5G stocks have had a strong rally over the last year, so be careful and look for corrections. Carlson continued that he prefers to avoid the 5G provider stocks and focus instead on recommending selected cell tower stocks.

Pension fund and Retirement Watch leader Bob Carlson answers questions from Paul Dykewicz prior to COVID-19-related social distancing.

Qualcomm Receives Place With Six 5G Stocks to Buy

San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc., (NASDAQ:QCOM) creates semiconductors, software and services related to wireless technology. The company owns patents that are important to the 5G, 4G, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA and WCDMA mobile communications standards.

BoA assigned Qualcomm a $200 price target, while acknowledging it gave the stock a “premium” valuation compared to its mobile and large-cap semiconductor peers. The valuation came about partly due to Qualcomm’s status as a stable, high-margin royalty business, after resolving its legal disputes with Apple. Plus, Qualcomm has amassed a high market shares for 5G baseband and 5G radio frequency (RF) front-end content.

Possible threats to Qualcomm include worse-than-expected conflict resolution terms with Chinese rival Huawei, low adoption rate of smartphones worldwide due to global economic pressure and fierce competition to keep semiconductor pricing down as the company grows its presence in emerging markets. Other potential risks are semiconductor competition, needing to maintain its royalty rate when the market expands to different types of devices, such as tablets and other mobile wireless devices, or different technology generations, as well as any future negative trade policies related to China.

Chart courtesy of www.StockCharts.com

Money Manager Kramer Gives Nod to Qualcomm as One of Six 5G Stocks to Buy

Qualcomm is a favorite 5G stock of Hilary Kramer, who heads the GameChangers and Value Authority advisory services. Kramer, who also hosts the nationally aired “Millionaire Maker” radio program, said Qualcomm is the “obvious starting point” for 5G investors. 

Kramer mentioned that Qualcomm holds the patents on the wireless chips that new devices coming onto the 5G network will need to incorporate in some form. Qualcomm also offers investors an opportunity to benefit from dividend growth.

The company currently offers a dividend yield of 2% but that quarterly payout has swelled 300% in the last decade, twice as fast as the payout rate of Apple, Kramer continued. Investors who hold onto the stock could lock an 8% yield by 2030. That’s what getting into a “technological revolution early” can give investors, she added.

Paul Dykewicz conducts a pre-COVID-19 interview with Hilary Kramer, whose premium advisory services include IPO Edge, 2-Day Trader, Turbo Trader and Inner Circle.

Teradyne Joins the List of Six 5G Stocks to Buy

Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER), a North Reading, Massachusetts-based provider of advanced test solutions for semiconductors, electronic systems, wireless devices and more ensure that products perform as they were designed, also gained a place on the list of six 5G stocks to buy.  The company produced revenue of $3.1 billion in 2020 and seeks to help manufacturers of all sizes improve productivity and lower costs.

BoA’s $155 price objective on TER is based price-to-earnings (P/E) valuation that at the high end of the company’s long-term trading range. The reasoning is due to Teradyne’s unique exposure to 5G and automation, cyclical recovery in auto and industrial markets, as well as market share in selected testing.

Potential threats to prevent achieving the price objective include cyclicality and market share losses in the core semiconductor testing arena, along with rising competition in the robotics segment, according to BoA.

Chart courtesy of www.StockCharts.com

Qorvo Nets Position With Six 5G Stocks to Buy

Qorvo (NASDAQ:QRVO), a Greensboro, North Carolina-based semiconductor company that designs, manufactures and supplies radio-frequency systems for applications that drive wireless and broadband communications, as well as foundry services, is another 5G play that received a buy rating from BoA. The investment firm gave a $215 price objective to Qorvo based a valuation that is at the higher end of the semiconductor company’s long-term range but justified by BoA due to upcoming major product ramp-ups and lessened customer concentration relative to its peers.

Potential threats to Qorvo fulfilling that price objective include possible market share losses in handset power amplifiers (PAs) in which product cycles are just 6-12 months for key customers, customer concentration at Apple and Samsung and gross margin headwinds due to reduced factory use from weaker design-win momentum. Among other possible setbacks are weakened smartphone growth trajectory, semiconductor cyclicality driven by strong macroeconomic conditions and supply chain expansion, as well as lingering COVID-19 headwinds further impacting the supply chain or creating demand destruction, BoA noted.

Prospective catalysts to Qorvo meeting or beating the $215 price objective set by BoA for the stock include: 1) higher RF content growth in new smartphones more than offsetting quarterly unit volatility in the fourth quarter, 2) mergers and acquisitions that diversify the business away from mobile and add more long-life cycle business and 3) substantial share gain against peers in the smartphone market due to increased research and development (R&D) spending.

Chart courtesy of www.StockCharts.com

Broadcom Breaks Into the Six 5G Stocks to Buy

San Jose, California-based Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO),  a designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of semiconductor and infrastructure software products that serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wireless, and storage and industrial markets, is another 5G stock with a buy recommendation from BoA.

BoA assigned a $550 price objective to Broadcom, but thatt is less than the median for large-cap diversified peers to reflect AVGO’s higher debt leverage and reliance on software M&A. Further threats to Broadcom achieving its price objective come from semiconductor cycle risks including sensitivity to U.S.-China trade relations, high exposure to Apple, along with increased competitive in networking, smartphone, storage and enterprise software markets. Broadcom also is a “frequent acquirer” of assets that add financial and integration risks, revealing vulnerability to its recent strategy of moving into non-core software businesses.

Chart courtesy of www.StockCharts.com

Six 5G Stocks to Buy Evade Worst of COVID-19 Crisis

Advances in the COVID-19 vaccination process offer increased hope that new cases and deaths may fall further in the weeks and months ahead. Renewed optimism comes from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approving a third COVID-19 vaccine, manufactured by Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), which requires just one dose rather than two, as the first two vaccine providers do.

COVID-19 cases worldwide have reached 174,001,158 and caused 3,747,385 deaths, as of June 9, according to Johns Hopkins University. Also as of June 9, U.S. COVID-19 cases totaled 33,391,092 and have been blamed in 598,326 deaths. America has the unenviable distinction as the nation with the most COVID-19 cases and deaths.

The six 5G stocks to buy offer a chance for investors to profit from next-generation communication technology. A recent $1.9 trillion federal stimulus package, increased COVID-19 vaccine availability and an improving economy should help to boost the six 5G stocks to buy sooner or later.

Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce, Seeking Alpha, GuruFocus and other publications and websites. Paul, who can be followed on Twitter @PaulDykewicz, is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper. Paul also is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz. The book is great as a gift and is endorsed by Joe Montana, Joe Theismann, Ara Parseghian, “Rocket” Ismail, Reggie Brooks, Dick Vitale and many others. Call 202-677-4457 for special Father’s Day gift pricing!

The post Six 5G Stocks to Buy to Ride a Technology Wave appeared first on Stock Investor.

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Chinese migration to US is nothing new – but the reasons for recent surge at Southern border are

A gloomier economic outlook in China and tightening state control have combined with the influence of social media in encouraging migration.

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2 hours ago

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March 11, 2024

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Chinese migrants wait for a boat after having walked across the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama. AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko

The brief closure of the Darien Gap – a perilous 66-mile jungle journey linking South American and Central America – in February 2024 temporarily halted one of the Western Hemisphere’s busiest migration routes. It also highlighted its importance to a small but growing group of people that depend on that pass to make it to the U.S.: Chinese migrants.

While a record 2.5 million migrants were detained at the United States’ southwestern land border in 2023, only about 37,000 were from China.

I’m a scholar of migration and China. What I find most remarkable in these figures is the speed with which the number of Chinese migrants is growing. Nearly 10 times as many Chinese migrants crossed the southern border in 2023 as in 2022. In December 2023 alone, U.S. Border Patrol officials reported encounters with about 6,000 Chinese migrants, in contrast to the 900 they reported a year earlier in December 2022.

The dramatic uptick is the result of a confluence of factors that range from a slowing Chinese economy and tightening political control by President Xi Jinping to the easy access to online information on Chinese social media about how to make the trip.

Middle-class migrants

Journalists reporting from the border have generalized that Chinese migrants come largely from the self-employed middle class. They are not rich enough to use education or work opportunities as a means of entry, but they can afford to fly across the world.

According to a report from Reuters, in many cases those attempting to make the crossing are small-business owners who saw irreparable damage to their primary or sole source of income due to China’s “zero COVID” policies. The migrants are women, men and, in some cases, children accompanying parents from all over China.

Chinese nationals have long made the journey to the United States seeking economic opportunity or political freedom. Based on recent media interviews with migrants coming by way of South America and the U.S.’s southern border, the increase in numbers seems driven by two factors.

First, the most common path for immigration for Chinese nationals is through a student visa or H1-B visa for skilled workers. But travel restrictions during the early months of the pandemic temporarily stalled migration from China. Immigrant visas are out of reach for many Chinese nationals without family or vocation-based preferences, and tourist visas require a personal interview with a U.S. consulate to gauge the likelihood of the traveler returning to China.

Social media tutorials

Second, with the legal routes for immigration difficult to follow, social media accounts have outlined alternatives for Chinese who feel an urgent need to emigrate. Accounts on Douyin, the TikTok clone available in mainland China, document locations open for visa-free travel by Chinese passport holders. On TikTok itself, migrants could find information on where to cross the border, as well as information about transportation and smugglers, commonly known as “snakeheads,” who are experienced with bringing migrants on the journey north.

With virtual private networks, immigrants can also gather information from U.S. apps such as X, YouTube, Facebook and other sites that are otherwise blocked by Chinese censors.

Inspired by social media posts that both offer practical guides and celebrate the journey, thousands of Chinese migrants have been flying to Ecuador, which allows visa-free travel for Chinese citizens, and then making their way over land to the U.S.-Mexican border.

This journey involves trekking through the Darien Gap, which despite its notoriety as a dangerous crossing has become an increasingly common route for migrants from Venezuela, Colombia and all over the world.

In addition to information about crossing the Darien Gap, these social media posts highlight the best places to cross the border. This has led to a large share of Chinese asylum seekers following the same path to Mexico’s Baja California to cross the border near San Diego.

Chinese migration to US is nothing new

The rapid increase in numbers and the ease of accessing information via social media on their smartphones are new innovations. But there is a longer history of Chinese migration to the U.S. over the southern border – and at the hands of smugglers.

From 1882 to 1943, the United States banned all immigration by male Chinese laborers and most Chinese women. A combination of economic competition and racist concerns about Chinese culture and assimilability ensured that the Chinese would be the first ethnic group to enter the United States illegally.

With legal options for arrival eliminated, some Chinese migrants took advantage of the relative ease of movement between the U.S. and Mexico during those years. While some migrants adopted Mexican names and spoke enough Spanish to pass as migrant workers, others used borrowed identities or paperwork from Chinese people with a right of entry, like U.S.-born citizens. Similarly to what we are seeing today, it was middle- and working-class Chinese who more frequently turned to illegal means. Those with money and education were able to circumvent the law by arriving as students or members of the merchant class, both exceptions to the exclusion law.

Though these Chinese exclusion laws officially ended in 1943, restrictions on migration from Asia continued until Congress revised U.S. immigration law in the Hart-Celler Act in 1965. New priorities for immigrant visas that stressed vocational skills as well as family reunification, alongside then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s policies of “reform and opening,” helped many Chinese migrants make their way legally to the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s.

Even after the restrictive immigration laws ended, Chinese migrants without the education or family connections often needed for U.S. visas continued to take dangerous routes with the help of “snakeheads.”

One notorious incident occurred in 1993, when a ship called the Golden Venture ran aground near New York, resulting in the drowning deaths of 10 Chinese migrants and the arrest and conviction of the snakeheads attempting to smuggle hundreds of Chinese migrants into the United States.

Existing tensions

Though there is plenty of precedent for Chinese migrants arriving without documentation, Chinese asylum seekers have better odds of success than many of the other migrants making the dangerous journey north.

An estimated 55% of Chinese asylum seekers are successful in making their claims, often citing political oppression and lack of religious freedom in China as motivations. By contrast, only 29% of Venezuelans seeking asylum in the U.S. have their claim granted, and the number is even lower for Colombians, at 19%.

The new halt on the migratory highway from the south has affected thousands of new migrants seeking refuge in the U.S. But the mix of push factors from their home country and encouragement on social media means that Chinese migrants will continue to seek routes to America.

And with both migration and the perceived threat from China likely to be features of the upcoming U.S. election, there is a risk that increased Chinese migration could become politicized, leaning further into existing tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Meredith Oyen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Vaccine-skeptical mothers say bad health care experiences made them distrust the medical system

Vaccine skepticism, and the broader medical mistrust and far-reaching anxieties it reflects, is not just a fringe position in the 21st century.

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2 hours ago

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March 11, 2024

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Women's own negative medical experiences influence their vaccine decisions for their kids. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

Why would a mother reject safe, potentially lifesaving vaccines for her child?

Popular writing on vaccine skepticism often denigrates white and middle-class mothers who reject some or all recommended vaccines as hysterical, misinformed, zealous or ignorant. Mainstream media and medical providers increasingly dismiss vaccine refusal as a hallmark of American fringe ideology, far-right radicalization or anti-intellectualism.

But vaccine skepticism, and the broader medical mistrust and far-reaching anxieties it reflects, is not just a fringe position.

Pediatric vaccination rates had already fallen sharply before the COVID-19 pandemic, ushering in the return of measles, mumps and chickenpox to the U.S. in 2019. Four years after the pandemic’s onset, a growing number of Americans doubt the safety, efficacy and necessity of routine vaccines. Childhood vaccination rates have declined substantially across the U.S., which public health officials attribute to a “spillover” effect from pandemic-related vaccine skepticism and blame for the recent measles outbreak. Almost half of American mothers rated the risk of side effects from the MMR vaccine as medium or high in a 2023 survey by Pew Research.

Recommended vaccines go through rigorous testing and evaluation, and the most infamous charges of vaccine-induced injury have been thoroughly debunked. How do so many mothers – primary caregivers and health care decision-makers for their families – become wary of U.S. health care and one of its most proven preventive technologies?

I’m a cultural anthropologist who studies the ways feelings and beliefs circulate in American society. To investigate what’s behind mothers’ vaccine skepticism, I interviewed vaccine-skeptical mothers about their perceptions of existing and novel vaccines. What they told me complicates sweeping and overly simplified portrayals of their misgivings by pointing to the U.S. health care system itself. The medical system’s failures and harms against women gave rise to their pervasive vaccine skepticism and generalized medical mistrust.

The seeds of women’s skepticism

I conducted this ethnographic research in Oregon from 2020 to 2021 with predominantly white mothers between the ages of 25 and 60. My findings reveal new insights about the origins of vaccine skepticism among this demographic. These women traced their distrust of vaccines, and of U.S. health care more generally, to ongoing and repeated instances of medical harm they experienced from childhood through childbirth.

girl sitting on exam table faces a doctor viewer can see from behind
A woman’s own childhood mistreatment by a doctor can shape her health care decisions for the next generation. FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images

As young girls in medical offices, they were touched without consent, yelled at, disbelieved or threatened. One mother, Susan, recalled her pediatrician abruptly lying her down and performing a rectal exam without her consent at the age of 12. Another mother, Luna, shared how a pediatrician once threatened to have her institutionalized when she voiced anxiety at a routine physical.

As women giving birth, they often felt managed, pressured or discounted. One mother, Meryl, told me, “I felt like I was coerced under distress into Pitocin and induction” during labor. Another mother, Hallie, shared, “I really battled with my provider” throughout the childbirth experience.

Together with the convoluted bureaucracy of for-profit health care, experiences of medical harm contributed to “one million little touch points of information,” in one mother’s phrase, that underscored the untrustworthiness and harmful effects of U.S. health care writ large.

A system that doesn’t serve them

Many mothers I interviewed rejected the premise that public health entities such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration had their children’s best interests at heart. Instead, they tied childhood vaccination and the more recent development of COVID-19 vaccines to a bloated pharmaceutical industry and for-profit health care model. As one mother explained, “The FDA is not looking out for our health. They’re looking out for their wealth.”

After ongoing negative medical encounters, the women I interviewed lost trust not only in providers but the medical system. Frustrating experiences prompted them to “do their own research” in the name of bodily autonomy. Such research often included books, articles and podcasts deeply critical of vaccines, public health care and drug companies.

These materials, which have proliferated since 2020, cast light on past vaccine trials gone awry, broader histories of medical harm and abuse, the rapid growth of the recommended vaccine schedule in the late 20th century and the massive profits reaped from drug development and for-profit health care. They confirmed and hardened women’s suspicions about U.S. health care.

hands point to a handwritten vaccination record
The number of recommended childhood vaccines has increased over time. Mike Adaskaveg/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images

The stories these women told me add nuance to existing academic research into vaccine skepticism. Most studies have considered vaccine skepticism among primarily white and middle-class parents to be an outgrowth of today’s neoliberal parenting and intensive mothering. Researchers have theorized vaccine skepticism among white and well-off mothers to be an outcome of consumer health care and its emphasis on individual choice and risk reduction. Other researchers highlight vaccine skepticism as a collective identity that can provide mothers with a sense of belonging.

Seeing medical care as a threat to health

The perceptions mothers shared are far from isolated or fringe, and they are not unreasonable. Rather, they represent a growing population of Americans who hold the pervasive belief that U.S. health care harms more than it helps.

Data suggests that the number of Americans harmed in the course of treatment remains high, with incidents of medical error in the U.S. outnumbering those in peer countries, despite more money being spent per capita on health care. One 2023 study found that diagnostic error, one kind of medical error, accounted for 371,000 deaths and 424,000 permanent disabilities among Americans every year.

Studies reveal particularly high rates of medical error in the treatment of vulnerable communities, including women, people of color, disabled, poor, LGBTQ+ and gender-nonconforming individuals and the elderly. The number of U.S. women who have died because of pregnancy-related causes has increased substantially in recent years, with maternal death rates doubling between 1999 and 2019.

The prevalence of medical harm points to the relevance of philosopher Ivan Illich’s manifesto against the “disease of medical progress.” In his 1982 book “Medical Nemesis,” he insisted that rather than being incidental, harm flows inevitably from the structure of institutionalized and for-profit health care itself. Illich wrote, “The medical establishment has become a major threat to health,” and has created its own “epidemic” of iatrogenic illness – that is, illness caused by a physician or the health care system itself.

Four decades later, medical mistrust among Americans remains alarmingly high. Only 23% of Americans express high confidence in the medical system. The United States ranks 24th out of 29 peer high-income countries for the level of public trust in medical providers.

For people like the mothers I interviewed, who have experienced real or perceived harm at the hands of medical providers; have felt belittled, dismissed or disbelieved in a doctor’s office; or spent countless hours fighting to pay for, understand or use health benefits, skepticism and distrust are rational responses to lived experience. These attitudes do not emerge solely from ignorance, conspiracy thinking, far-right extremism or hysteria, but rather the historical and ongoing harms endemic to the U.S. health care system itself.

Johanna Richlin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19

Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19

A new survey reveals that only 20% of Americans view covid-19 as "a major threat"…

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11 hours ago

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March 11, 2024

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Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19

A new survey reveals that only 20% of Americans view covid-19 as "a major threat" to the health of the US population - a sharp decline from a high of 67% in July 2020.

(SARMDY/Shutterstock)

What's more, the Pew Research Center survey conducted from Feb. 7 to Feb. 11 showed that just 10% of Americans are concerned that they will  catch the disease and require hospitalization.

"This data represents a low ebb of public concern about the virus that reached its height in the summer and fall of 2020, when as many as two-thirds of Americans viewed COVID-19 as a major threat to public health," reads the report, which was published March 7.

According to the survey, half of the participants understand the significance of researchers and healthcare providers in understanding and treating long COVID - however 27% of participants consider this issue less important, while 22% of Americans are unaware of long COVID.

What's more, while Democrats were far more worried than Republicans in the past, that gap has narrowed significantly.

"In the pandemic’s first year, Democrats were routinely about 40 points more likely than Republicans to view the coronavirus as a major threat to the health of the U.S. population. This gap has waned as overall levels of concern have fallen," reads the report.

More via the Epoch Times;

The survey found that three in ten Democrats under 50 have received an updated COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 66 percent of Democrats ages 65 and older.

Moreover, 66 percent of Democrats ages 65 and older have received the updated COVID-19 vaccine, while only 24 percent of Republicans ages 65 and older have done so.

“This 42-point partisan gap is much wider now than at other points since the start of the outbreak. For instance, in August 2021, 93 percent of older Democrats and 78 percent of older Republicans said they had received all the shots needed to be fully vaccinated (a 15-point gap),” it noted.

COVID-19 No Longer an Emergency

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued its updated recommendations for the virus, which no longer require people to stay home for five days after testing positive for COVID-19.

The updated guidance recommends that people who contracted a respiratory virus stay home, and they can resume normal activities when their symptoms improve overall and their fever subsides for 24 hours without medication.

“We still must use the commonsense solutions we know work to protect ourselves and others from serious illness from respiratory viruses, this includes vaccination, treatment, and staying home when we get sick,” CDC director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a statement.

The CDC said that while the virus remains a threat, it is now less likely to cause severe illness because of widespread immunity and improved tools to prevent and treat the disease.

“Importantly, states and countries that have already adjusted recommended isolation times have not seen increased hospitalizations or deaths related to COVID-19,” it stated.

The federal government suspended its free at-home COVID-19 test program on March 8, according to a website set up by the government, following a decrease in COVID-19-related hospitalizations.

According to the CDC, hospitalization rates for COVID-19 and influenza diseases remain “elevated” but are decreasing in some parts of the United States.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/10/2024 - 22:45

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