What Explains the Low Success Rate of Investor-State Disputes?

The treatment of foreign investment has become the most controversial issue in global governance. At the center of the controversy lies the mechanism of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which allows private firms legal recourse against governments if government interference has degraded their investment. Using newly released data covering 742 investment disputes, I assess some of the central claims about ISDS. I argue that the regime has indeed undergone an important shift: a majority of claims today deal not with direct takings by low-rule-of-law countries, but with regulation in democratic states. Such "indirect expropriation" claims have seen a precipitous decrease in their odds of legal success over the past twenty years. They are also far less likely to result in early settlement. These parallel trends may be a result of a rise in strategic litigation by investors whose aim is not only to obtain compensation but also to deter governments' regulatory ambitions

Taking One for the (Other) Team: Does Political Diversity Lower Vaccination Uptake?

What implications might rising animosity towards political out-partisans have for public health? Vaccination has a significant social aspect, protecting not only the vaccinated, but also those around them. While political ideology in the United States was an important driver of individuals’ willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19, with those on the political right displaying greater hesitancy, we examine the role that political diversity has on vaccine uptake across US states and commuting zones. Using data from the Cooperative Election Study fielded on over 20,000 respondents in November 2021, and controlling for individual partisanship, we find that those who are political outliers in their community are significantly less likely to get vaccinated. By contrast, we find no equivalent negative effect for ethnic diversity. In sum, the impact of affective polarization is not limited to encounters between non-partisans; it can lead to decreased pro-social behavior that harms political friends and foes alike. Yet these behavioral effects depend on how individuals relate to their community’s predominant political ideology

New drugs for the treatment of hyperlipidemia in statin-intolerant patients - review

Introduction Cardiovascular diseases are the most numerous group of diseases prevalent in the world. They are a challenge for many health systems, in terms of keeping life comfortable and also economics. The cause of selected disease entities is too much cholesterol in the blood. The most popular treatment for hypercholesterolemia is based on statins. Many patients are affected by intolerance to these drugs, so an important issue is the discovery and improvement of alternatives to statins. Purpose of work The purpose of this review is to collect literature data on the latest treatments for hypercholesterolemia with drugs other than statins and ezetimibe. Materials and methods Materials are from a review of recent literature available in PubMed. To search for articles, we used keywords such as: bempedoic acid, non-statin therapy, cardiovascular risk, inclisiran, alirocumab, cardiovascular disease, dyslipidemia, evolocumab. Summary Treatment of hypercholesterolemia with statins remains the most popular management strategy. Intolerance to treatment with these drugs creates serious clinical problems for patients. Recently, we could see the emergence of new drugs as alternatives to statins. As the results show, the new drugs can effectively replace statins in the hypolipemic treatment especially of patients who cannot be treated with them