Dear Editor:

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has a dangerous new rule beginning Oct. 22 that will threaten the healthcare of millions of Americans. The rule, “Indefinite Suspension of the De-Minimize Exemption for Mail Shipments,” will effectively end Americans’ ability to personally import their prescription medicines.

Importing prescription drugs from licensed international pharmacies is the only lifeline for seniors on limited incomes, people with high-deductible health plans, and the uninsured.

That’s why CBP and the FDA have allowed it for decades. Due to the much lower cost of medications in Canada and other countries, imported medicine is their only option.

Many imported drugs can be less than half the U.S. price. These necessary medicines prevent blood clots, treat diabetes, and much more. This CBP rule will cut off access to the only affordable prescription drugs for millions, and that will lead to unnecessary harm and preventable deaths.

I ask readers to immediately call or write our Senators and U.S. Representatives and demand they stop CBP from implementing any rule-making that restricts Americans from importing personal-use prescription drugs from licensed pharmacies in Canada or other countries.

Sandra Workman, Richmond Hill, Georgia

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Dear Editor:

With well-justified opposition to datacenters dominating headlines, the public has been distracted from related threats to our quality-of-life, environment, and health.

Driving the demand for datacenters is artificial intelligence (AI). Although media coverage of datacenters often mentions that burgeoning growth in developing these facilities is propagated by the enormous, rapidly increasing information processing requirements of AI systems, there appears to be little local attention to the AI problem.

At the Center for a Sustainable Coast, for most the past year we have been linking the two predicaments – AI and datacenter impacts – in our website postings and articles circulated among donors, advisors, and followers. In fact, we have dedicated a special section entitled “AI and datacenters” on our homepage. (See www.sustainablecoast. org ) AI has far more treacherous worst-case-scenario consequences than datacenters alone. In defiant deception of their human creators, AI algorithms have demonstrated an alarming tendency to “go rogue.” In recent Congressional testimony, AI experts emphasize the importance of preventing advanced AI from overtaking human control of infrastructure – possibly including the electricity grid, the Internet, financial systems, and even national security and weapon systems.

Although flawless prevention of AI subversion may prove impossible, a ‘kill-switch’ is proposed as the only potential safeguard. This would require ironclad government control of datacenters supporting advanced AI applications having the potential for renegade actions, with rigorous monitoring of all such systems. Despite this, corporate executives lavishly profiting from AI technology propose to “self-regulate” – which has never worked for any business activities that threaten the public.

David Kyler, Center for a Sustainable Coast, St. Simons Island, Georgia