Latest news with #Langone
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Compound in common over-the-counter supplement gives little boy, 8, the ability to walk again
A compound in a common over-the-counter supplement has given an eight-year-old the ability to walk again, in what has been called a 'dream come true'. The eight-year-old, who was not named, used to be the fastest runner in his class and an avid soccer player, regularly enjoying games with friends. But in August 2023, he started to struggle to walk — and within three months was limping, suffering frequent falls and needing a wheelchair. His parents rushed him to doctors, where physicians at NYU Langone diagnosed him with a genetic condition called HPDL deficiency. The disease is rare — with only 90 recorded cases since it was discovered in 2022 — and inhibits the body's ability to make enough of an enzyme called coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), a compound that plays a vital role in giving cells energy. Taking CoQ10 supplements, available over-the-counter for around 20 cents per pill, can help, but they aren't enough to fuel cells in the brain because the enzyme is too large to cross the blood-brain barrier. Without enough of the enzyme in the brain, sufferers struggle to walk or control their muscles and are at risk of suffering from seizures. So, rather than simply give the little boy a supplement, his doctors said: 'We figured, why not give the cell the building blocks so that the cell can make it itself?' The 'building block' of CoQ10 is called 4-HB and is thin enough to cross the blood-brain barrier. Doctors were able to put this in a powder, which the boy took dissolved in a solution of water. His parents, speaking to STAT News on the condition of anonymity, said: 'Our son's condition dramatically changed in a short period. 'He went from being the fastest runner in his class and an avid soccer player to struggling just to walk, often limping and experiencing frequent falls'. 'It was one of the hardest decisions we've ever made [to try the experimental treatment], but doing nothing felt riskier. We saw how quickly our son was declining and knew we had to act. 'After speaking with doctors and doing our research, we got hope and confidence to step into the unknown.' Within a month of receiving the treatment in November 2023, he was smiling and walking again — completing nearly a mile-long hike across New York City's Central Park. He now regularly enjoys long hikes and sports and has celebrated two birthdays since. The case was revealed in the journal Nature, with researchers now saying they hope it can be used to help others. HPDL deficiency occurs when someone inherits two mutated versions of the human 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase-like (HPDL) gene, which is used to make the CoQ10 enzyme. In some cases, the condition is very severe and strikes at an early age, causing significant cognitive delays and seizures. In these cases, researchers say patients often do not live beyond 18 months. But it can also strike at later stages in childhood and adolescence, leading otherwise healthy children to suffer muscle weakness and stiffness in the legs. Doctors have linked the condition to abnormal activity in the cerebral cortex — the outermost layer of the brain — which is involved in thought and muscle movement. In this case, the child reportedly suffered no symptoms until he turned eight years old — although doctors said it was likely that there were warning signs. The little boy was initially started on CoQ10 supplements before doctors suggested to the family that he try 4-HB - which is not approved by the FDA. His use of the supplements was then discontinued. Over the first 30 days, he drank the supplement in a 600ml solution, equivalent to nearly three glasses of water, which often led him to throw up afterward. This was then reduced to a 300ml solution, or just over one glass of water. The FDA has not approved CoQ10 or 4-HB as a treatment for any specific disease or condition, although CoQ10 is available as an over-the-counter supplement. The supplement is often recommended to boost energy and fight feelings of fatigue. Doctors say it can also provide support to people with conditions like congestive heart failure and migraines. 4-HB was initially tested on mice in a 2021 study that had HPDL deficiency, with researchers finding it restored the rodents' ability to walk. Its use in the eight-year-old was the first time it's been used for this condition in humans. '[CoQ10] is safe. It's reasonably effective at treating symptoms outside of the brain, but almost completely ineffective at treating symptoms within the brain, because it doesn't get through the blood-brain barrier,' Michael Pacold, an associate professor of radiation oncology at NYU Langone and one of the study authors, told STAT. The suggestion to use the 4-HB building block in the little boy was consented by the parents, the boy and the FDA — which approved its use as a single patient investigational drug, meaning the doctors could use an unapproved drug or substance for a specific patient to treat a specific condition. Based on its success, scientists are calling it a breakthrough in medicine. 'We all dream of this as scientists. And every morning I pinch myself … is this really a dream?' said Pacold. Dr Navdeep Chandel, a medicine expert at Northwestern University who was not involved in the research, added: 'That is basic science is translating into clinical medicine, a dream come true. '[But] here's somebody who took a very basic biochemical approach, and they found the enzyme, and they found what the enzyme does, and they gave that enzyme to people who had genetic mutations. And it made a difference.' Now, Pacold and his team are working on a larger study to test the approach on more children.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
4 grocery store items colon cancer doctors avoid — and 3 they love
Diet isn't the only factor that contributes to colon cancer, but it often plays a role. Some of the clearest links have been drawn to sugar and red meat. Experts love coffee and cruciferous greens with anti-inflammatory properties. One of the most common questions that doctors treating colon cancer get is: "What else can I do?" Since colon cancer starts in the digestive tract, the food we put in our bodies is — rightly or wrongly — one of the first places people look, wondering: Is there some food I can eat that will help fight cancer, or some cancer-causing thing I should eliminate from my diet, stat? The truth is that how cancer emerges inside a body is quite complex. There isn't usually one single thing a person can do to stop it. While attending the world's biggest cancer conference earlier this month, I figured I'd cut through some of the noise out there and ask top colon cancer doctors directly what they generally recommend. Dr. Paul Oberstein, a medical oncologist at NYU Langone who specializes in gastrointestinal cancers, says his patients are often hunting for a winning superfood that can combat colon cancer. He fields questions routinely about the merits of avocados, pine nuts, and other items. Could adding those single items to the grocery cart help? While he says he's "doubtful" any single food can really make the difference in cancer recurrence, there are a few well-trodden truths doctors live by. These are backed by reams of study data from around the world. We still can't say for sure whether there's one specific diet that is best to combat cancer, and especially one diet that's best for you in particular. Plus, people with seemingly "clean" diets do get digestive cancers, even in their 30s and 40s. That being said, these four foods are consistently included in diets that seem to lead to cancer diagnoses later on, so oncologists warn against them. Sorry to everyone firing up the grill this summer! Study after study suggests that there really is something about red meat (and especially processed meats like hot dogs and deli cuts) that does the kind of DNA damage that can lead to colon cancer. Oberstein says patients often want to get prescriptive about it: Can I have red meat once a week? Twice a month? He's not really comfortable getting that granular with his advice, based on the data available. "We just don't have the quantification and the confidence to say it's either for sure going to help, or you can't have it ever," he told Business Insider. Dietician Lindsey Wohlford from MD Anderson Cancer Center created a chart in 2016 that recommends eating no more than two softballs' worth (18 oz.) of red meat per week. It's common knowledge in the medical community that over-consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages — including fruit juices, flavored coffees, and soda — can sharply up a person's risk of all kinds of diseases, from diabetes to colon cancer. Sugary drinks are more potent than sweet foods because liquid sugar is absorbed very fast — sometimes too fast. It can saturate the small intestine, spilling excess sugar into the colon. There's also evidence from animal studies that excess fructose — abundant in sugar and high fructose corn syrup — can escalate tumor growth. The latest research on young colon cancer also suggests that young people who report eating more sugary foods tend to have a higher risk of developing late-stage colon cancer. Dr. Andrea Cercek, co-director of the Center for Young Onset Colorectal Cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering, is leading this research. She said it's not exactly a new idea that sugar can drive cancer growth. "There's even data in animal models that fructose can lead to polyps," Cercek told BI. Her latest find opens up new questions about what might be prompting more aggressive cases of young colon cancer. "Is sugar maybe somehow driving and accelerating this process?" Cercek asked. In a very basic sense, alcohol is just fermented sugar, and it seems to carry a lot of the same cancer risks. Additionally, our liver breaks down alcohol into acetaldehyde, a known cancer-causing chemical that can damage DNA. Finally, alcohol dampens nutrient absorption and can kill off good bacteria in your gut. In study after study, alcohol consumption is linked to more colon cancer diagnoses, and in general the more you drink, the greater your risk. Evidence suggests there might be something especially harmful about binge drinking or drinking on an empty stomach, when it comes to colon cancer. Most cancer doctors are not going to insist you can't enjoy a glass of wine or beer now and then, but they would probably say it's best to have it with a meal. If you're feeling hopeless now, buck up! There are a few tried-and-true items cancer doctors recommend adding to your shopping cart. Leafy salad greens are rich in all kinds of nutrients that are great at fighting off cancer, like folate and fiber. A special shout-out should go to the cruciferous green veggies like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and kale, which are called "brassicas." They harbor bioactive compounds which are released when we chew them that have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer effects. Fiber has a reputation for being great at keeping folks full and regular. But that's not all that it does. It also picks up debris in your gut, helping clear out the junk, and dropping off good guy bacteria. That's why Dr. Pashtoon Kasi, a medical oncologist at City of Hope who specializes in GI cancers, said it's "not just fiber for fiber's sake." He says it's underappreciated how fiber is "ameliorating or modulating the microbiome" in ways that may help prevent cancer in the long run. "Coffee comes up in every study," Oberstein said. This is great news for him personally, because he runs on the stuff. (But he says you don't need to feel pressured to start drinking coffee if you don't enjoy it.) There seems to be something deeply beneficial about the anti-inflammatory properties of coffee. Studies show that coffee isn't just good at preventing colon cancer (in one study, coffee drinkers had roughly 26% lower odds of contracting colon cancer) — people with colon cancer diagnoses who drink several cups of coffee a day also lower their odds of death. If you're looking for more widespread dietary advice, the National Comprehensive Cancer Care network guidelines for colon cancer patients recommend sticking to a "low glycemic load" diet, which means choosing more foods that are slow to digest and pack a fiber-rich punch. Low-glycemic foods include all kinds of fruits, veggies, nuts, beans, and whole grains. Dr. Kimmie Ng, a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber, where she is the founding director of the young-onset colorectal cancer center, says her recommendations fit this basic framework: "A diet less in red meat and processed foods and more in healthy proteins and fruits and vegetables is generally what we recommend," she told BI. "We know that that's typically anti-inflammatory and just healthier overall for a variety of chronic diseases, including cancer." Read the original article on Business Insider
New York Times
29-04-2025
- Health
- New York Times
A Lawmaker Blasted a Hospital's Super Bowl Ad. Then He Changed His Tune.
The 30-second television advertisement showed star doctors from a top-notch Manhattan hospital clumsily playing football. From the sidelines, a former standout player for the Giants suggested they should stick to medicine. The ad promoting NYU Langone Health probably did not rank among this year's most memorable Super Bowl commercials. But it sure bothered one viewer: a North Carolina congressman. The lawmaker promptly sent NYU Langone's chief executive a stern letter, noting that the hospital benefits from federal funds. 'I write today with questions about your stewardship of this money, including our serious concern about your decision to purchase a 30-second advertisement — estimated to cost $8 million — during Super Bowl LIX,' Representative Greg Murphy, a Republican, wrote on Feb. 11. The letter contained a list of pointed questions about NYU Langone's finances. It is the sort of missive that congressional offices routinely write to gather information for lawmaking or hearings. NYU Langone is hardly the only New York hospital to spend money on a national advertising campaign, although a Super Bowl ad is unusual. Those commercials speak to the intense competition among the country's elite medical centers. The congressman's reaction illustrates that with the promise of being in the spotlight comes peril. But, it turns out, opinions can change. Eight days after he first contacted the hospital, Representative Murphy wrote a follow-up letter. And that letter could not have been more different. The congressman had gone from critic to booster. The second letter expressed enthusiastic admiration for NYU Langone's 'world class patient outcomes' and 'superb' metrics — such as fewer deaths and shorter hospital stays. 'America would be much healthier if all hospitals could report these excellent numbers,' he wrote. Representative Murphy's letter stated that he had been left 'all-the-more impressed' after recently speaking with NYU Langone's chief executive, Dr. Robert Grossman. The letter does not indicate whether Dr. Grossman and the congressman had a phone call or met in person. But just two days before Representative Murphy sent his second letter, a private jet had landed at the sleepy airport in Greenville, N.C., the state's 12th-largest city, where Representative Murphy lives. The Bombardier Global 5000 was registered to Invemed Securities, the parent company of Invemed Associates, the investment firm founded by Kenneth G. Langone, the billionaire benefactor of NYU Langone and the chairman of the hospital's board of directors. Mr. Langone, who is best known for cofounding Home Depot, has given hundreds of millions of dollars to NYU's hospital system. In return, his name appears on the hospital. And Mr. Langone's largess allows for free tuition at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He is also a major Republican donor, contributing more than $500,000 since 2020 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, which works to elect Republicans to the House of Representatives. He has donated millions more to other Republican organizations, such as the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC. Records do not show campaign donations from Mr. Langone to Representative Murphy; there can be delays in reporting contributions. It is not clear who was on the plane. A spokesman for NYU Langone, Steve Ritea, declined to answer questions about the hospital's interactions with the congressman or his staff members. Mr. Ritea also declined to say whether Dr. Grossman, the hospital CEO, flew to see Representative Murphy. Mr. Langone did not respond to requests for comment. Representative Murphy's office also declined repeated interview requests on the topic. But his spokesman acknowledged that it might seem 'a little confusing' that the tone in Representative Murphy's letters to Dr. Grossman went from critical to admiring. His spokesman would not share any information about material Dr. Grossman provided or what led the congressman to turn so quickly from critic to booster. 'I don't have much to add,' the spokesman for the congressman, Alexander Crane, said. 'I'd certainly understand that, you know, from A to B to C might seem a little confusing, but basically they had a wonderful private conversation.' Representative Murphy is a urologist who still regularly treats patients in Greenville. Another doctor at the same office where the congressman sees patients, Dr. Jonathan Hamilton, said he did not know if Mr. Langone or Dr. Grossman came to Greenville to visit Representative Murphy. The incoming chairman of the county's Republican Party said he hadn't heard of any such visit either. The operations manager for the Pitt-Greenville Airport Authority, John Hanna, confirmed that an aircraft with a tail number matching Mr. Langone's private jet was 'here for a short duration.' Flight records, accessible through a company that tracks flight information, place that private jet on the ground at Pitt-Greenville Airport for more than two hours on the afternoon of Feb. 17, Presidents' Day. The plane had flown in from Boca Raton, Fla., and returned there afterward. It appears to have been the only time this year the plane went to Greenville. Two days later, Representative Murphy released a statement along with his second letter. 'I was left impressed and grateful for the work the institution is doing,' he said. Representative Murphy's first letter, on Feb. 11, had posed questions that went beyond how much the Super Bowl ad had cost and how NYU Langone had paid for it. The congressman also asked about the hospital's overseas investments and why it had sought a 'rural' designation that would have increased the subsidies it received. NYU Langone is on Manhattan's East Side, on land that hasn't been rural for two centuries. The letter sought information on whether the health system was exploiting legal loopholes to maximize profit. In his follow-up letter, on Feb. 19, Representative Murphy wrote that he considered all his 'questions thoroughly answered.' But his office has declined to provide those answers to the public.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Hiltzik: Can Trump's billionaire backers pull him back from the tariff cliff?
Many of America's billionaires and millionaires thought they knew how they would profit from a second Trump term: There would be tax cuts and deregulation and an end to bothersome government investigations. In other words, a White House sedulously attuned to their interests. What they didn't count on, however, was a chaotic and nonsensical tariff policy that threatens to plunge their investment holdings into a bear market — or in some cases, has already done so — and to unravel the global economy in which they made all their money. What Trump unveiled Wednesday is stupid, wrong, arrogantly extreme, ignorant trade-wise and addressing a non-problem with misguided tools. Investment manager Ken Fisher Now, many of his erstwhile supporters among America's plutocrats are screaming for mercy. In interviews and social media postings, and in one case even via a federal lawsuit, they've been calling on him to roll back his tariff plans or at least to pause them for several months. Is he listening? So far, he hasn't indicated a change in strategy. Whether Trump is open to persuasion or his White House sits behind a figurative barrier against criticism, like the Coulomb barrier that repels protons from an atomic nucleus until they reach a high energy level, isn't known. Criticism of the tariffs by Trump's wealthier supporters has emerged as the investment markets continue to reel over Trump's tariff plans and his apparent resistance to moderating the levies or his anti-free-trade rhetoric. One can't pretend that Trump's backers haven't been speaking clearly. Let's listen in on the backlash from billionaires and the billionaire-adjacent. Among the most vociferous is Ken Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot. Langone, whose net worth is estimated at about $9.5 billion by Forbes, is a Trump backer whose political contributions have gone mostly to Republicans, including a $500,000 donation last year to the GOP's Senate Leadership Fund. In an interview with the Financial Times published Monday, Langone decried Trump's tariffs as too large, imposed too hastily, and based on an incoherent mathematical formula. Read more: Hiltzik: Yes, America absolutely should annex Greenland and Canada. Here's why Langone told the FT that he thought Trump was 'poorly advised.' He questioned the math used by the White House to calculate the "reciprocal tariffs" Trump announced on April 2. "I don't understand the goddamn formula," he said. 'I believe he's been poorly advised by his advisors about this trade situation — and the formula they're applying.' Focusing on how the formula produced a 42% tariff on goods from Vietnam, he called that figure "bulls—. ... Forty-six percent on Vietnam? Come on! You might as well tell them, 'Don't even bother calling.'' He also called the 34% tariff on China "too aggressive, too soon." He spoke before Trump threatened to add another 50% to tariffs on goods from China if it pursued plans to retaliate with higher tariffs on U.S. goods. Langone is not alone in questioning the April 2 formula. Because of a definitional error, according to economists Kevin Corinth and Stan Veuger of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, the formula yielded tariffs that are roughly four times too high. The proper rate for Vietnam, they calculated, should be 12.2%, not 46%. "The formula the administration relied on has no foundation in either economic theory or trade law," Corinth and Veuger wrote. "But if we are going to pretend that it is a sound basis for US trade policy, we should at least be allowed to expect that the relevant White House officials do their calculations carefully." Among others weighing in on the tariffs was Stanley Druckenmiller, a revered investment manager who once worked for progressive philanthropist George Soros, and was once the mentor and boss of Scott Bessant, Trump's treasury secretary. In the 2020 election, Druckenmiller contributed $250,000 to the GOP's Senate Leadership Fund. In an interview Sunday with CNBC that he later cited in a tweet on X, Druckenmiller said tariffs shouldn't exceed 10% to avoid triggering retaliatory tariffs by targeted countries. Trump's tariffs start at 10% and go higher from there. "What Trump unveiled Wednesday," tweeted billionaire investment manager Ken Fisher, who has contributed to Republicans and Democrats, "is stupid, wrong, arrogantly extreme, ignorant trade-wise and addressing a non-problem with misguided tools. ... On tariffs Trump is beyond the pale by a long shot." Fisher called the tariff formula "ridiculous" and predicted that "if GOP congress members don't get Trump's tariffs reigned in pretty quickly, the midterms ... will be a blood bath for them big time." Among the most vociferous critics of the tariffs has been billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who was one of Trump's most steadfast supporters during the presidential campaign and since the election. But he drew the line at the tariff announcement. Referring to the plan to begin imposing reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday, Ackman tweeted that if "on April 9th we launch economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets and pocket books, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate." He added, "What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large, long-term, economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war? I don't know of one who will do so." He urged Trump to "call a time out." Business leaders have also begun speaking out. As I reported earlier, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who earlier this year counseled Americans that Trump's plans for relatively modest tariff increases were no big deal — "Get over it," he advised — changed his tune in a his annual letter to JPM shareholders published Monday. There he observed that "the recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession.' Wilbur Ross, an investment banker who served as Commerce Secretary during Trump's first term, indicated that he was unnerved by the magnitude of the planned tariff hike. 'It's more severe than I would have expected,' he told the Financial Times. 'Particularly the way it is impacting Vietnam, China and Cambodia is more extreme than I would have thought.' He added, 'It's hard to deal with uncertainty. Fear of the unknown is the worst for people and we are in a period of extreme fear of the unknown.' Trump's tariff policy has exposed a serious rift within his inner circle, with conflict between his advisor Elon Musk and Peter Navarro, Trump's hard-line trade counselor, breaking into the open. Speaking on CNBC Monday — after Musk called for "a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free-trade zone between Europe and North America' — the opposite of Trump's approach — Navarro called Musk "not a car manufacturer" but a "car assembler," referring to Tesla, the electric vehicle maker Musk controls. Navarro's goal was to imply that Tesla is dependent on imported parts that would be subject to the new tariffs. Musk responded with tweets in which he called Navarro "truly a moron" and "dumber than a sack of bricks." The assertion that Tesla relies on imported parts, he wrote, is "demonstrably false." The Trump White House downplayed the conflict as a minor spat. "Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. Another path of attack on Trump's tariffs was opened last week by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a conservative legal group that has been funded by right-wing sources including the Koch network, the Linde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation. The Alliance filed a lawsuit last week asserting that the law Trump cited as giving him power to set tariffs — a power the constitution reserves for Congress — does not, in fact, provide that authority. Get the latest from Michael HiltzikCommentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize me up. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
09-04-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Can Trump's billionaire backers pull him back from the tariff cliff?
Many of America's billionaires and millionaires thought they knew how they would profit from a second Trump term: There would be tax cuts and deregulation and an end to bothersome government investigations. In other words, a White House sedulously attuned to their interests. What they didn't count on, however, was a chaotic and nonsensical tariff policy that threatens to plunge their investment holdings into a bear market — or in some cases, has already done so — and to unravel the global economy in which they made all their money. Now, many of his erstwhile supporters among America's plutocrats are screaming for mercy. In interviews and social media postings, and in one case even via a federal lawsuit, they've been calling on him to roll back his tariff plans or at least to pause them for several months. Is he listening? So far, he hasn't indicated a change in strategy. Whether Trump is open to persuasion or his White House sits behind a figurative barrier against criticism, like the Coulomb barrier that repels protons from an atomic nucleus until they reach a high energy level, isn't known. Criticism of the tariffs by Trump's wealthier supporters has emerged as the investment markets continue to reel over Trump's tariff plans and his apparent resistance to moderating the levies or his anti-free-trade rhetoric. One can't pretend that Trump's backers haven't been speaking clearly. Let's listen in on the backlash from billionaires and the billionaire-adjacent. Among the most vociferous is Ken Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot. Langone, whose net worth is estimated at about $9.5 billion by Forbes, is a Trump backer whose political contributions have gone mostly to Republicans, including a $500,000 donation last year to the GOP's Senate Leadership Fund. In an interview with the Financial Times published Monday, Langone decried Trump's tariffs as too large, imposed too hastily, and based on an incoherent mathematical formula. Langone told the FT that he thought Trump was 'poorly advised.' He questioned the math used by the White House to calculate the 'reciprocal tariffs' Trump announced on April 2. 'I don't understand the goddamn formula,' he said. 'I believe he's been poorly advised by his advisors about this trade situation — and the formula they're applying.' Focusing on how the formula produced a 42% tariff on goods from Vietnam, he called that figure 'bulls—. ... Forty-six percent on Vietnam? Come on! You might as well tell them, 'Don't even bother calling.'' He also called the 34% tariff on China 'too aggressive, too soon.' He spoke before Trump threatened to add another 50% to tariffs on goods from China if it pursued plans to retaliate with higher tariffs on U.S. goods. Langone is not alone in questioning the April 2 formula. Because of a definitional error, according to economists Kevin Corinth and Stan Veuger of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, the formula yielded tariffs that are roughly four times too high. The proper rate for Vietnam, they calculated, should be 12.2%, not 46%. 'The formula the administration relied on has no foundation in either economic theory or trade law,' Corinth and Veuger wrote. 'But if we are going to pretend that it is a sound basis for US trade policy, we should at least be allowed to expect that the relevant White House officials do their calculations carefully.' Among others weighing in on the tariffs was Stanley Druckenmiller, a revered investment manager who once worked for progressive philanthropist George Soros, and was once the mentor and boss of Scott Bessant, Trump's treasury secretary. In the 2020 election, Druckenmiller contributed $250,000 to the GOP's Senate Leadership Fund. In an interview Sunday with CNBC that he later cited in a tweet on X, Druckenmiller said tariffs shouldn't exceed 10% to avoid triggering retaliatory tariffs by targeted countries. Trump's tariffs start at 10% and go higher from there. 'What Trump unveiled Wednesday,' tweeted billionaire investment manager Ken Fisher, who has contributed to Republicans and Democrats, 'is stupid, wrong, arrogantly extreme, ignorant trade-wise and addressing a non-problem with misguided tools. ... On tariffs Trump is beyond the pale by a long shot.' Fisher called the tariff formula 'ridiculous' and predicted that 'if GOP congress members don't get Trump's tariffs reigned in pretty quickly, the midterms ... will be a blood bath for them big time.' Among the most vociferous critics of the tariffs has been billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who was one of Trump's most steadfast supporters during the presidential campaign and since the election. But he drew the line at the tariff announcement. Referring to the plan to begin imposing reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday, Ackman tweeted that if 'on April 9th we launch economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets and pocket books, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate.' He added, 'What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large, long-term, economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war? I don't know of one who will do so.' He urged Trump to 'call a time out.' Business leaders have also begun speaking out. As I reported earlier, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who earlier this year counseled Americans that Trump's plans for relatively modest tariff increases were no big deal — 'Get over it,' he advised — changed his tune in a his annual letter to JPM shareholders published Monday. There he observed that 'the recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession.' Wilbur Ross, an investment banker who served as Commerce Secretary during Trump's first term, indicated that he was unnerved by the magnitude of the planned tariff hike. 'It's more severe than I would have expected,' he told the Financial Times. 'Particularly the way it is impacting Vietnam, China and Cambodia is more extreme than I would have thought.' He added, 'It's hard to deal with uncertainty. Fear of the unknown is the worst for people and we are in a period of extreme fear of the unknown.' Trump's tariff policy has exposed a serious rift within his inner circle, with conflict between his advisor Elon Musk and Peter Navarro, Trump's hard-line trade counselor, breaking into the open. Speaking on CNBC Monday — after Musk called for 'a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free-trade zone between Europe and North America' — the opposite of Trump's approach — Navarro called Musk 'not a car manufacturer' but a 'car assembler,' referring to Tesla, the electric vehicle maker Musk controls. Navarro's goal was to imply that Tesla is dependent on imported parts that would be subject to the new tariffs. Musk responded with tweets in which he called Navarro 'truly a moron' and 'dumber than a sack of bricks.' The assertion that Tesla relies on imported parts, he wrote, is 'demonstrably false.' The Trump White House downplayed the conflict as a minor spat. 'Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. Another path of attack on Trump's tariffs was opened last week by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a conservative legal group that has been funded by right-wing sources including the Koch network, the Linde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation. The Alliance filed a lawsuit last week asserting that the law Trump cited as giving him power to set tariffs — a power the constitution reserves for Congress — does not, in fact, provide that authority.
