Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Torture R Us
For many years the International committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has walked a fine line. In exchange for keeping its mouth shut all sorts of governments, evil and benign, have agreed to allow the Red Cross to visit prisoners, refugees in crowded camps and other detainees. The ICRC has certainly heard countless grisly stories relating to genocide, torture, organized rape and other atrocities. By being known for its steadfast discretion even horrible human rights abusers have trusted the ICRC to provide medical care to people it has criminally mistreated. It has been and will continue to be a very difficult moral quandary for the ICRC to not speak up when it is aware of these crimes. The reason that they have continued to agree to confidentiality is in order to avoid what they see would be a worse scenario; total isolation of these populations.
The US government may now force the ICRC to change its policies. The Pentagon has been countering accusations of detainee torture at Guantanamo by frequently representing the fact that we allow Red Cross access to these detainees as proof that we must not be mistreating them. The Pentagon has been making these statements knowing that the ICRC has agreed to keep its mouth shut. The ICRC does agree to keep information gleaned from visiting such facilities to itself but the organization does report its findings at detention centers and refugee camps to the government hosting these facilities. It seems that some of these reports related to Guantanamo have been leaked. The picture is not pretty.
To me, Bush administration violation of the spirit of this confidentiality agreement morally frees the ICRC to publicly reveal all it knows about Guantanamo. This departure from long established policy would be a very difficult and painful decision for them to make. To avoid jeopardizing the ICRC's ability to do its job in the future there needs to be an official investigation including the subpoena of these Red Cross documents by Congress. If crimes are being committed in our name they must be stopped and those responsible need to be indicted as War criminals. The safety of our own troops is at stake.
It is pretty clear by now that the Bush administration has embraced torture as a legitimate method of interrogation and one of the chief architects of the legal justifications for this shameful policy change, Alberto Gonzalez, will soon be the nation's top law enforcement official. Before the Senate gives its assent to this nominee we must get to the bottom of these accusations.
For many years the International committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has walked a fine line. In exchange for keeping its mouth shut all sorts of governments, evil and benign, have agreed to allow the Red Cross to visit prisoners, refugees in crowded camps and other detainees. The ICRC has certainly heard countless grisly stories relating to genocide, torture, organized rape and other atrocities. By being known for its steadfast discretion even horrible human rights abusers have trusted the ICRC to provide medical care to people it has criminally mistreated. It has been and will continue to be a very difficult moral quandary for the ICRC to not speak up when it is aware of these crimes. The reason that they have continued to agree to confidentiality is in order to avoid what they see would be a worse scenario; total isolation of these populations.
The US government may now force the ICRC to change its policies. The Pentagon has been countering accusations of detainee torture at Guantanamo by frequently representing the fact that we allow Red Cross access to these detainees as proof that we must not be mistreating them. The Pentagon has been making these statements knowing that the ICRC has agreed to keep its mouth shut. The ICRC does agree to keep information gleaned from visiting such facilities to itself but the organization does report its findings at detention centers and refugee camps to the government hosting these facilities. It seems that some of these reports related to Guantanamo have been leaked. The picture is not pretty.
To me, Bush administration violation of the spirit of this confidentiality agreement morally frees the ICRC to publicly reveal all it knows about Guantanamo. This departure from long established policy would be a very difficult and painful decision for them to make. To avoid jeopardizing the ICRC's ability to do its job in the future there needs to be an official investigation including the subpoena of these Red Cross documents by Congress. If crimes are being committed in our name they must be stopped and those responsible need to be indicted as War criminals. The safety of our own troops is at stake.
It is pretty clear by now that the Bush administration has embraced torture as a legitimate method of interrogation and one of the chief architects of the legal justifications for this shameful policy change, Alberto Gonzalez, will soon be the nation's top law enforcement official. Before the Senate gives its assent to this nominee we must get to the bottom of these accusations.
Federal Vs. State
For much of American history the cry of "States Rights" was used to mask arguments for the continuation of slavery and more recently, racial segregation. Many on the left, especially those that remember first hand the struggles of the civil rights era, worked to strengthen the power of the Federal government to combat the ugly stain of legally sanctioned racism. As a result we as a nation created many federal programs to combat such problems as poverty, racism, lack of rural electrification, and to extend educational opportunities in under served areas. These programs, in many cases, were extremely successful, but the problems that they addressed have not magically disappeared. Is it time for a different approach?
I have been contemplating for many years now the common practice of the federal government extorting state legislature compliance in order for them to receive federal funds, not just for social welfare programs but for all manner of spending. A well known example of this practice was the mandate for maximum speed limits of 55 mph to avoid losing federal highway funds. This one size fits all solution was very unpopular especially for anyone who has driven across a state like Colorado.
It is one thing for the Federal government to step in when a state is violating the constitutional rights of its citizens but quite another when it seeks to make state legislatures irrelevant. I believe that we have reached this point in education. The increasing demands put on states by such federal programs as the No Child Left Behind Act have led many legislators, governors, teachers and parents to feel that they no longer have the control that they need to improve their own schools. Schools are constantly having to justify and beg for "federal funds" for education. It is easy to forget that these "federal funds" are state residents' tax dollars, sent to Washington in order for us to beg on bended knees for the same funds to be returned to us.
After this past election a lot of people on the left have been discussing on-line the interesting fact that most "red states" received more federal funds than they sent to Washington in the form of federal income taxes. This led me to focus on education because this is the one issue that most often dominates local government priority lists. In my state of Oregon it seems that for the last few years every dollar of federal taxes that we sent to DC we got about one dollar in return in federal spending here. This sounds like we have no room to complain except when you consider that the way these funds are spent is based on the mettlesome influence of the representatives of 49 other states.
According to a recent article by Lewis Lapham in Harper's magazine the smallest 26 states in terms of population account for only 22% of the nation's population but are able to exercise legislative control in the US Senate over the remaining 78% of the country. These small states are most frequently red states. The country is clearly bitterly divided at this time. Unfortunately this bitterness is increased by the fact that too many people pay attention exclusively to the federal government while ignoring state and local elections. One of the reasons that this happens is that people understand that as the power of the Federal government, especially the Executive branch of the federal government, grows there is a corresponding weakening of the power of state governments. This bitterness would be somewhat tempered if the electorate felt that at least they could exercise control over local matters in their own states, be they" red", "blue", or purple. Alas they cannot. The day after the election in the city of Portland there was scant solace in the fact that 72% of the city voted for Kerry, or that for the first time in many years Democrats gained control of the Oregon State Senate.
As a liberal I am certainly not opposed to federal government efforts at improving social welfare. However, as a precinct committee person I have seen just how out of touch citizens are with their own state governments. If we give state governments more autonomy I believe we will enliven local participation and we will have 50 vibrant democratic experiments rather than one federal program force fed to all classrooms in the country by folks far removed from local problems, cultures and concerns. We now have national federally-mandated standards in Mathematics, Reading and Writing. It is hard to imagine anyone being satisfied with federal standards in the teaching of Social Studies but they are soon coming to a classroom near you.
Perhaps it is time to consider transferring the job of education back to the states. Give state legislatures both the responsibility and the authority to manage education in their states. Perhaps it is time to abolish the US Department of Education and hand over control of education to each state.
Radical thought isn't it? Rather than tax state residents, transfer the money to DC, have the use of the money debated by creationists, segregationists, sex education advocates, abstinence only adherents, right wing Christians, liberals, and conservatives each trying to one up the other to wear the label of "the education candidate" and to deliver for their own constituencies why not let each state legislature control these funds in the first place?
What I am suggesting is not reducing education funding but to have tax revenues for education come from state income taxes not federal. I am proposing for reducing federal taxes and increasing state taxes by the same amount. Fiscally it would be a zero sum gain (for most "Blue states" anyway) but each state would have no-strings-attached control over education spending.
Do we really believe that state governments cannot handle this responsibility? Results will differ by state but results differ greatly already. States will benefit by adopting differing strategies and then being able to compare results, adopting ideas that work and rejecting those that do not. There still should be a roll for the federal government in education. Perhaps federal involvement would be along the lines of FEMA's (Federal Emergency Management Agency) roll in disaster relief. Disaster could strike in any state at any time. Citizens of every state pool resources in order to fund FEMA so a central agency can come quickly to the aid of citizens in any state suffering a disaster. Similarly federal funds can and should be accumulated in order to assist in education funding for regions hit hard by an eroding tax base or other such hardship that puts the education of children in jeopardy. A state which is doing well economically would get zero dollars for education from the federal government.
A big problem with this proposal is the knee jerk Republican opposition to tax increases. A Republican in the US House or Senate will happily stand up for lower federal taxes but will his fellow party member elected to the state legislature be willing to explain that he is for higher state taxes but lower federal ones? After the Bush tax cuts reduced state revenues, due to the fact that most states tie their own taxes to Federal taxes, Republicans running at the state level refused to agree to an increase in state taxes because they identify themselves as the party that always opposes higher taxes. The average tax payer sends almost twice as much money to the IRS as they do to their State Capital. To me this equation should probably be reversed. But how to reverse it if the Republicans insist on demanding lower Federal and State taxes?
A return to local control is certainly not an original idea at all, unfortunately it is often the cry of local relatively homogeneous communities that want to"return god to the classroom". As mentioned in my opening paragraph the argument has also unfortunately been made by very unsavory, racist characters. Keep in mind that nothing in my proposal should be read to suggest that States be given a free ride to establish policies that violate rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. We would continue to fight to preserve those rights, as we do now, in all states.
My wife is a public school teacher and we both feel that there is hardly any issue more important than education. I do not believe that people like Senators Trent Lott and Jim Bunning are helping her more effectively teach poor rural children in her school. I put a lot more faith in the people of Oregon than in these clowns that no one in our great state would have ever elected to state wide office. When we send education tax dollars to DC and then back out to the states clearly much of this revenue is drained away before it reaches the classroom. Our schools are in great need, federal interference in education spending drains a tremendous amount of revenue away from our teachers and children and into administrative costs. States could handle this spending priority in a much more efficient manner and any state legislature that fails to do so would be quickly thrown out of office by angry parents.
My mind is far from made up on this and I would welcome any comments that anyone has. The US Department of Education may be making great contributions that I am unaware of. Any thoughts?
For much of American history the cry of "States Rights" was used to mask arguments for the continuation of slavery and more recently, racial segregation. Many on the left, especially those that remember first hand the struggles of the civil rights era, worked to strengthen the power of the Federal government to combat the ugly stain of legally sanctioned racism. As a result we as a nation created many federal programs to combat such problems as poverty, racism, lack of rural electrification, and to extend educational opportunities in under served areas. These programs, in many cases, were extremely successful, but the problems that they addressed have not magically disappeared. Is it time for a different approach?
I have been contemplating for many years now the common practice of the federal government extorting state legislature compliance in order for them to receive federal funds, not just for social welfare programs but for all manner of spending. A well known example of this practice was the mandate for maximum speed limits of 55 mph to avoid losing federal highway funds. This one size fits all solution was very unpopular especially for anyone who has driven across a state like Colorado.
It is one thing for the Federal government to step in when a state is violating the constitutional rights of its citizens but quite another when it seeks to make state legislatures irrelevant. I believe that we have reached this point in education. The increasing demands put on states by such federal programs as the No Child Left Behind Act have led many legislators, governors, teachers and parents to feel that they no longer have the control that they need to improve their own schools. Schools are constantly having to justify and beg for "federal funds" for education. It is easy to forget that these "federal funds" are state residents' tax dollars, sent to Washington in order for us to beg on bended knees for the same funds to be returned to us.
After this past election a lot of people on the left have been discussing on-line the interesting fact that most "red states" received more federal funds than they sent to Washington in the form of federal income taxes. This led me to focus on education because this is the one issue that most often dominates local government priority lists. In my state of Oregon it seems that for the last few years every dollar of federal taxes that we sent to DC we got about one dollar in return in federal spending here. This sounds like we have no room to complain except when you consider that the way these funds are spent is based on the mettlesome influence of the representatives of 49 other states.
According to a recent article by Lewis Lapham in Harper's magazine the smallest 26 states in terms of population account for only 22% of the nation's population but are able to exercise legislative control in the US Senate over the remaining 78% of the country. These small states are most frequently red states. The country is clearly bitterly divided at this time. Unfortunately this bitterness is increased by the fact that too many people pay attention exclusively to the federal government while ignoring state and local elections. One of the reasons that this happens is that people understand that as the power of the Federal government, especially the Executive branch of the federal government, grows there is a corresponding weakening of the power of state governments. This bitterness would be somewhat tempered if the electorate felt that at least they could exercise control over local matters in their own states, be they" red", "blue", or purple. Alas they cannot. The day after the election in the city of Portland there was scant solace in the fact that 72% of the city voted for Kerry, or that for the first time in many years Democrats gained control of the Oregon State Senate.
As a liberal I am certainly not opposed to federal government efforts at improving social welfare. However, as a precinct committee person I have seen just how out of touch citizens are with their own state governments. If we give state governments more autonomy I believe we will enliven local participation and we will have 50 vibrant democratic experiments rather than one federal program force fed to all classrooms in the country by folks far removed from local problems, cultures and concerns. We now have national federally-mandated standards in Mathematics, Reading and Writing. It is hard to imagine anyone being satisfied with federal standards in the teaching of Social Studies but they are soon coming to a classroom near you.
Perhaps it is time to consider transferring the job of education back to the states. Give state legislatures both the responsibility and the authority to manage education in their states. Perhaps it is time to abolish the US Department of Education and hand over control of education to each state.
Radical thought isn't it? Rather than tax state residents, transfer the money to DC, have the use of the money debated by creationists, segregationists, sex education advocates, abstinence only adherents, right wing Christians, liberals, and conservatives each trying to one up the other to wear the label of "the education candidate" and to deliver for their own constituencies why not let each state legislature control these funds in the first place?
What I am suggesting is not reducing education funding but to have tax revenues for education come from state income taxes not federal. I am proposing for reducing federal taxes and increasing state taxes by the same amount. Fiscally it would be a zero sum gain (for most "Blue states" anyway) but each state would have no-strings-attached control over education spending.
Do we really believe that state governments cannot handle this responsibility? Results will differ by state but results differ greatly already. States will benefit by adopting differing strategies and then being able to compare results, adopting ideas that work and rejecting those that do not. There still should be a roll for the federal government in education. Perhaps federal involvement would be along the lines of FEMA's (Federal Emergency Management Agency) roll in disaster relief. Disaster could strike in any state at any time. Citizens of every state pool resources in order to fund FEMA so a central agency can come quickly to the aid of citizens in any state suffering a disaster. Similarly federal funds can and should be accumulated in order to assist in education funding for regions hit hard by an eroding tax base or other such hardship that puts the education of children in jeopardy. A state which is doing well economically would get zero dollars for education from the federal government.
A big problem with this proposal is the knee jerk Republican opposition to tax increases. A Republican in the US House or Senate will happily stand up for lower federal taxes but will his fellow party member elected to the state legislature be willing to explain that he is for higher state taxes but lower federal ones? After the Bush tax cuts reduced state revenues, due to the fact that most states tie their own taxes to Federal taxes, Republicans running at the state level refused to agree to an increase in state taxes because they identify themselves as the party that always opposes higher taxes. The average tax payer sends almost twice as much money to the IRS as they do to their State Capital. To me this equation should probably be reversed. But how to reverse it if the Republicans insist on demanding lower Federal and State taxes?
A return to local control is certainly not an original idea at all, unfortunately it is often the cry of local relatively homogeneous communities that want to"return god to the classroom". As mentioned in my opening paragraph the argument has also unfortunately been made by very unsavory, racist characters. Keep in mind that nothing in my proposal should be read to suggest that States be given a free ride to establish policies that violate rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. We would continue to fight to preserve those rights, as we do now, in all states.
My wife is a public school teacher and we both feel that there is hardly any issue more important than education. I do not believe that people like Senators Trent Lott and Jim Bunning are helping her more effectively teach poor rural children in her school. I put a lot more faith in the people of Oregon than in these clowns that no one in our great state would have ever elected to state wide office. When we send education tax dollars to DC and then back out to the states clearly much of this revenue is drained away before it reaches the classroom. Our schools are in great need, federal interference in education spending drains a tremendous amount of revenue away from our teachers and children and into administrative costs. States could handle this spending priority in a much more efficient manner and any state legislature that fails to do so would be quickly thrown out of office by angry parents.
My mind is far from made up on this and I would welcome any comments that anyone has. The US Department of Education may be making great contributions that I am unaware of. Any thoughts?
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Gloom, Doom
Well it looks like we gloom and doomers, alarmists and naysayers have more and more respectable company these days. The chief economist at Morgan Stanley, Stephen Roach believes that we are heading for economic "Armageddon". Not in some remote distant future but right about ..... NOW!
"Roach marshaled alarming facts to support his argument.
To finance its current account deficit with the rest of the world, he said, America has to import $2.6 billion in cash. Every working day.
That is an amazing 80 percent of the entire world's net savings.
Sustainable? Hardly."
My humble advice to anyone with floating rate debt is to try to lock it in at a fixed rate now. Not next week. NOW! If you own a home and have an adjustable rate mortgage refinance it at a fixed rate now. If you are currently having trouble paying your minimum debt service on floating rate debt you will be in a world of hurt very soon. You will have plenty of company. Personal bankruptcies, already at record levels for several years, are headed through the roof.
But forget all that. Let's give Paris Hilton some more tax relief.
Well it looks like we gloom and doomers, alarmists and naysayers have more and more respectable company these days. The chief economist at Morgan Stanley, Stephen Roach believes that we are heading for economic "Armageddon". Not in some remote distant future but right about ..... NOW!
"Roach marshaled alarming facts to support his argument.
My humble advice to anyone with floating rate debt is to try to lock it in at a fixed rate now. Not next week. NOW! If you own a home and have an adjustable rate mortgage refinance it at a fixed rate now. If you are currently having trouble paying your minimum debt service on floating rate debt you will be in a world of hurt very soon. You will have plenty of company. Personal bankruptcies, already at record levels for several years, are headed through the roof.
But forget all that. Let's give Paris Hilton some more tax relief.
Sunday, November 21, 2004
It Was Just A Mistake
It's funny how sometimes when a new bill containing lots and lots of words is written somehow, without any malicious intent, words are sometimes randomly placed in a sequence that could give the impression that something very fishy is going on. Nothing could be further from the truth. So when a long and complicated appropriations bill is written and buried deep inside the bill is a clause giving two elected officials, and anyone they choose to name, the power to thoroughly review any American's tax returns only the worst kind of cynic would think that there was any intent by anyone to use, or misuse, this power.
The Republicans have explained that "it was a mistake", that's all the explanation this trusting patriotic American needs. Afterall, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the words:
"Hereinafter, notwithstanding any other provision of law governing the disclosure of income tax returns or return information, upon written request of the Chairman of the House or Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service shall allow agents designated by such Chairman access to Internal Revenue Service facilities and any tax returns or return information contained therein."
--just randomly materialized within the body of this spending measure.
Afterall, the world of quantum physics is a long way from being understood at this time. The GOP has admitted to being embarrassed by this bizarre chance occurrence of legislative J. Edgar Hooverism so it must not have been intentionally put in the bill.
A few years ago by some strange anomaly in Microsoft word a Senate bill accidentally authorized Orrin Hatch to be allowed to enter any registered voter's home in order to steal one sock from their clothes dryer. Senator Hatch has been undergoing treatment for his debilitating foot fetish and has got it almost completely under control. The good Senator hardly has the time nor the inclination to actually use this awesome power and the large number of socks gone missing has nothing whatsoever to do with this innocent legislative oversight. Only the worst kind of cynic would believe otherwise.
It's funny how sometimes when a new bill containing lots and lots of words is written somehow, without any malicious intent, words are sometimes randomly placed in a sequence that could give the impression that something very fishy is going on. Nothing could be further from the truth. So when a long and complicated appropriations bill is written and buried deep inside the bill is a clause giving two elected officials, and anyone they choose to name, the power to thoroughly review any American's tax returns only the worst kind of cynic would think that there was any intent by anyone to use, or misuse, this power.
The Republicans have explained that "it was a mistake", that's all the explanation this trusting patriotic American needs. Afterall, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the words:
"Hereinafter, notwithstanding any other provision of law governing the disclosure of income tax returns or return information, upon written request of the Chairman of the House or Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service shall allow agents designated by such Chairman access to Internal Revenue Service facilities and any tax returns or return information contained therein."
--just randomly materialized within the body of this spending measure.
Afterall, the world of quantum physics is a long way from being understood at this time. The GOP has admitted to being embarrassed by this bizarre chance occurrence of legislative J. Edgar Hooverism so it must not have been intentionally put in the bill.
A few years ago by some strange anomaly in Microsoft word a Senate bill accidentally authorized Orrin Hatch to be allowed to enter any registered voter's home in order to steal one sock from their clothes dryer. Senator Hatch has been undergoing treatment for his debilitating foot fetish and has got it almost completely under control. The good Senator hardly has the time nor the inclination to actually use this awesome power and the large number of socks gone missing has nothing whatsoever to do with this innocent legislative oversight. Only the worst kind of cynic would believe otherwise.
Friday, November 19, 2004
Vioxx
I have too much time on my hands. Being currently unemployed I spend way too much time following the news. The more I follow the news, the more curmudgeonly I become, and the less employable. I'll keep struggling with that.
Case in point; yesterday I watched the Senate Finance Committee hearings on Vioxx on CSPAN (really I did, it was riveting). The drug's maker, Merck, recently pulled the drug off of the market siting evidence of an increased risk for heart attacks. The portion of the hearings that I watched covered the testimony of three doctors who struggled first to obtain scientific studies on Vioxx and then to warn the public about its dangers. It turns out that studies completed 4 years ago showed Vioxx to significantly increase the risk of heart attacks. One researcher from Stanford University, Dr. Gurkipal Singh, testified that a senior executive of Merck & Co. Inc., contacted his superiors and suggested that Singh would have career problems if he continued to raise concerns.
The response of the FDA to early studies showing greatly increased heart attack risks, due to its own rules, was to work with the drug maker to fashion a warning that was mutually acceptable to the drug company and the FDA! You read that right - current rules require that the drug company accept the language of FDA mandated warnings.
Dr. Singh's testimony was very powerful. He testified that the agreed upon label change was not even put in the warning section of the label but instead appeared under the title of Precautions. The precaution was something to the effect of: Vioxx unlike Aspirin has not been found to be a prophylactic against cardiac arrest. (Transcripts are not yet available from the hearing so I am unable to quote the exact wording Dr. Singh used.) Dr. Singh was extremely angry about this feeble and ridiculous labeling change given the nature of the dire public health dangers of this drug. He said, first of all that Vioxx was a pain killer prescribed to millions for arthritis and for other chronic pain sufferers. No one had ever claimed that it was for heart attack prevention. He said that the precaution might as well have stated that Vioxx did not prevent unwanted pregnancy. Nothing in this labeling change told physicians that patients using Vioxx doubled their risk of heart attacks or strokes.
When the testimony again returned to Dr. Graham it was time for Senator Orrin Hatch to question him. From his expression I could tell that this guy was about to get the treatment for standing up to protect the public. Hatch said, and again I am paraphrasing, Isn't it true Dr. Graham that one of the co-authors of your study is a paid consultant from rival drug maker Pfizer and aren't you concerned that this fact undermines your credibility?
I almost fell out of my chair when I heard this ridiculous slam. Dr. Graham responded that first of all he did not know of this at the time of his study, and secondly that 7 other researchers were involved as well and finally that the results of the study indicating the pronounced increase in heart attack risk have not been challenged only the number of actual heart attacks has been.
I strongly felt that this doctor was a good man, not a political guy, but someone who has devoted his life to public health. In over 20 years with the FDA he has recommended 12 drugs be removed from the market and of the 12 only 2 still remain approved for sale. This guy was trying to warn the Senate oversight committee that drugs were increasingly being approved whose risk-return ratio was way out of whack and that there are quite possibly 55,000 dead Americans as a result. So what does Hatch do, he attempts to slam the whistle blower making it less likely that we'll increase our knowledge of drug safety in the future.
The fact that Dr. Graham is not political made him unlikely to respond to Hatch's obvious smear attempt by saying what I would have said, "Senator Hatch, aren't you concerned that the fact that you have accepted $459,124 over the last Senatorial election cycle from the pharmaceutical industry, the very industry that you are charged with overseeing, may lead some to question your credibility and do you think maybe, just maybe, that could be part of the problem?"
One of the biggest stories today is that Dr. Graham named 5 drugs that, in his opinion, posed great enough public health risks that their continued sale should be reviewed. He did not voluntarily name these drugs and expressed concern that naming them publicly would cause him to be attacked for effecting their makers' stock prices. It was Hatch who bullied him into naming names and now Dr. Graham gets attacked for doing so.
Today I read the slanted coverage in the NY Times about yesterday's testimony and I can't help wondering if advertising dollars from the pharmaceutical industry has effected their credibility as well. As usual if you read the whole article the Times does present both sides of the argument, but not before it slants its coverage against the whistle blowers in the first page. Here is my favorite part, observe the magic that clever language can do:
"The clash was a rare public airing of tensions that have simmered in the agency for decades. It is a fight between those who focus on the potential of drugs to cure the sick and dying and those who see many medicines as high-priced commercial products with potentially risky side effects, between those who view pharmaceutical makers as beneficial partners and those who see the drug makers as antagonists needing to be curbed."
Let's analyze this powerful paragraph to try to get at the opinion of the writer (or more likely, his editor). Doctors Graham and Singh on one side and Bush appointed FDA officials on the other. Let's see if I understand this correctly. The doctors believe - Drug makers produce high-priced products many with risky side effects and they are antagonists that need to be curbed. Top FDA appointees (and senator Hatch) believe: Drug makers focus on the potential of drugs to cure the sick and dying and they are beneficial partners for public health. Who sounds shrill here? The doctors sound cynical and against all progress, their superiors who ignored warnings from scientists allowing thousands of folks to suffer heart attacks and die are optimisitic, can-do folks intent on saving lives.
This description comes no where close to representing the doctors that I watched on CSPAN yesterday. These guys were not in any way, shape, or form against the development of effective pharmaceuticals, in fact they have committed their lives to it. They just happen to put their obligation to protect public health ahead of private profit. That's their job and I am damn grateful for them.
There is a lesson here that transcends this one issue. The watchdog has been put to sleep. Be worried but not defeated. Consider giving Orrin Hatch a call and tell him he is a jerk (202) 224-5251 or write him at:
104 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510.
I have too much time on my hands. Being currently unemployed I spend way too much time following the news. The more I follow the news, the more curmudgeonly I become, and the less employable. I'll keep struggling with that.
Case in point; yesterday I watched the Senate Finance Committee hearings on Vioxx on CSPAN (really I did, it was riveting). The drug's maker, Merck, recently pulled the drug off of the market siting evidence of an increased risk for heart attacks. The portion of the hearings that I watched covered the testimony of three doctors who struggled first to obtain scientific studies on Vioxx and then to warn the public about its dangers. It turns out that studies completed 4 years ago showed Vioxx to significantly increase the risk of heart attacks. One researcher from Stanford University, Dr. Gurkipal Singh, testified that a senior executive of Merck & Co. Inc., contacted his superiors and suggested that Singh would have career problems if he continued to raise concerns.
"I was warned that if I persisted in this fashion, there would be serious consequences for me," Singh said.
Dr. David Graham, an FDA scientists, testified that the information gained from the 2000 study indicated that the drug could cause over 100,000 patients to suffer heart attacks, with as many as 55,000 being fatal. Merck has sold $2.5 billion of Vioxx pills in the US. I myself used it briefly for back spasms and it worked great without causing fatique or nausea.The response of the FDA to early studies showing greatly increased heart attack risks, due to its own rules, was to work with the drug maker to fashion a warning that was mutually acceptable to the drug company and the FDA! You read that right - current rules require that the drug company accept the language of FDA mandated warnings.
Dr. Singh's testimony was very powerful. He testified that the agreed upon label change was not even put in the warning section of the label but instead appeared under the title of Precautions. The precaution was something to the effect of: Vioxx unlike Aspirin has not been found to be a prophylactic against cardiac arrest. (Transcripts are not yet available from the hearing so I am unable to quote the exact wording Dr. Singh used.) Dr. Singh was extremely angry about this feeble and ridiculous labeling change given the nature of the dire public health dangers of this drug. He said, first of all that Vioxx was a pain killer prescribed to millions for arthritis and for other chronic pain sufferers. No one had ever claimed that it was for heart attack prevention. He said that the precaution might as well have stated that Vioxx did not prevent unwanted pregnancy. Nothing in this labeling change told physicians that patients using Vioxx doubled their risk of heart attacks or strokes.
When the testimony again returned to Dr. Graham it was time for Senator Orrin Hatch to question him. From his expression I could tell that this guy was about to get the treatment for standing up to protect the public. Hatch said, and again I am paraphrasing, Isn't it true Dr. Graham that one of the co-authors of your study is a paid consultant from rival drug maker Pfizer and aren't you concerned that this fact undermines your credibility?
I almost fell out of my chair when I heard this ridiculous slam. Dr. Graham responded that first of all he did not know of this at the time of his study, and secondly that 7 other researchers were involved as well and finally that the results of the study indicating the pronounced increase in heart attack risk have not been challenged only the number of actual heart attacks has been.
I strongly felt that this doctor was a good man, not a political guy, but someone who has devoted his life to public health. In over 20 years with the FDA he has recommended 12 drugs be removed from the market and of the 12 only 2 still remain approved for sale. This guy was trying to warn the Senate oversight committee that drugs were increasingly being approved whose risk-return ratio was way out of whack and that there are quite possibly 55,000 dead Americans as a result. So what does Hatch do, he attempts to slam the whistle blower making it less likely that we'll increase our knowledge of drug safety in the future.
The fact that Dr. Graham is not political made him unlikely to respond to Hatch's obvious smear attempt by saying what I would have said, "Senator Hatch, aren't you concerned that the fact that you have accepted $459,124 over the last Senatorial election cycle from the pharmaceutical industry, the very industry that you are charged with overseeing, may lead some to question your credibility and do you think maybe, just maybe, that could be part of the problem?"
One of the biggest stories today is that Dr. Graham named 5 drugs that, in his opinion, posed great enough public health risks that their continued sale should be reviewed. He did not voluntarily name these drugs and expressed concern that naming them publicly would cause him to be attacked for effecting their makers' stock prices. It was Hatch who bullied him into naming names and now Dr. Graham gets attacked for doing so.
Today I read the slanted coverage in the NY Times about yesterday's testimony and I can't help wondering if advertising dollars from the pharmaceutical industry has effected their credibility as well. As usual if you read the whole article the Times does present both sides of the argument, but not before it slants its coverage against the whistle blowers in the first page. Here is my favorite part, observe the magic that clever language can do:
"The clash was a rare public airing of tensions that have simmered in the agency for decades. It is a fight between those who focus on the potential of drugs to cure the sick and dying and those who see many medicines as high-priced commercial products with potentially risky side effects, between those who view pharmaceutical makers as beneficial partners and those who see the drug makers as antagonists needing to be curbed."
Let's analyze this powerful paragraph to try to get at the opinion of the writer (or more likely, his editor). Doctors Graham and Singh on one side and Bush appointed FDA officials on the other. Let's see if I understand this correctly. The doctors believe - Drug makers produce high-priced products many with risky side effects and they are antagonists that need to be curbed. Top FDA appointees (and senator Hatch) believe: Drug makers focus on the potential of drugs to cure the sick and dying and they are beneficial partners for public health. Who sounds shrill here? The doctors sound cynical and against all progress, their superiors who ignored warnings from scientists allowing thousands of folks to suffer heart attacks and die are optimisitic, can-do folks intent on saving lives.
This description comes no where close to representing the doctors that I watched on CSPAN yesterday. These guys were not in any way, shape, or form against the development of effective pharmaceuticals, in fact they have committed their lives to it. They just happen to put their obligation to protect public health ahead of private profit. That's their job and I am damn grateful for them.
There is a lesson here that transcends this one issue. The watchdog has been put to sleep. Be worried but not defeated. Consider giving Orrin Hatch a call and tell him he is a jerk (202) 224-5251 or write him at:
104 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510.
Saturday, November 13, 2004
"We're Making Progress"
George tells us things are going well in Iraq. We're making progress in Falluja. Spend some time at this website and click on some of the faces you see there. Read how they were killed, where they were from, and look at their ages. Look not just at the youth of many of these men and women but at the astonishing number of people in the guard and reserves who left wives or husbands, children and full time jobs behind to protect us from Saddam's WMD. Think about their families. Now consider that the number who weren't killed, only maimed is 4 times higher than the fallen you see at this website. Now consider for a moment that the casualty figures on the other side are 15, 20 times, maybe even higher. Think of the Iraqi families effected and the fact that they can't hide from this war by changing the channel on the TV like we can. Remember that we are doing this to spread democracy.
Now do you think we're making progress or making enemies?
George tells us things are going well in Iraq. We're making progress in Falluja. Spend some time at this website and click on some of the faces you see there. Read how they were killed, where they were from, and look at their ages. Look not just at the youth of many of these men and women but at the astonishing number of people in the guard and reserves who left wives or husbands, children and full time jobs behind to protect us from Saddam's WMD. Think about their families. Now consider that the number who weren't killed, only maimed is 4 times higher than the fallen you see at this website. Now consider for a moment that the casualty figures on the other side are 15, 20 times, maybe even higher. Think of the Iraqi families effected and the fact that they can't hide from this war by changing the channel on the TV like we can. Remember that we are doing this to spread democracy.
Now do you think we're making progress or making enemies?
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Falluja
It's begun. First step taken in the assault on Falluja; seize a hospital because it "is a center of propaganda". Yesterday we flattened Falluja's newest hospital. The NY Times shows hospital doctors kneeling at the feet of marines. This time we won't allow them to report on how many people they are treating as a result of our bombs and bullets, this is a fight for hearts and minds we can't have credible reports of massive civilian casualties interrupting Monday Night Football god damnit! The article explains that the last time we mounted a siege on this city back in April:
"The outrage, fed by mostly unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties, forced the Americans to withdraw. American commanders regarded the reports as inflated, but it was impossible to determine independently how many civilians had been killed. The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties. "It's a center of propaganda," a senior American officer said Sunday."
Falluja will be a blood bath, but it will be a deniable blood bath because we got to the doctors first. Notice in the above propaganda statement in the NY Times (liberal paper of record) very little was said about the Times effort, or lack of effort, to analyze the "mostly unconfirmed reports". The line "mostly unconfirmed" is meant to imply "false". It makes sense that the American military believed the hospital was the source of "rumors" since people tend to rush their loved ones there when half their legs get blown off.
I think I am going to be sick.
It's begun. First step taken in the assault on Falluja; seize a hospital because it "is a center of propaganda". Yesterday we flattened Falluja's newest hospital. The NY Times shows hospital doctors kneeling at the feet of marines. This time we won't allow them to report on how many people they are treating as a result of our bombs and bullets, this is a fight for hearts and minds we can't have credible reports of massive civilian casualties interrupting Monday Night Football god damnit! The article explains that the last time we mounted a siege on this city back in April:
"The outrage, fed by mostly unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties, forced the Americans to withdraw. American commanders regarded the reports as inflated, but it was impossible to determine independently how many civilians had been killed. The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties. "It's a center of propaganda," a senior American officer said Sunday."
Falluja will be a blood bath, but it will be a deniable blood bath because we got to the doctors first. Notice in the above propaganda statement in the NY Times (liberal paper of record) very little was said about the Times effort, or lack of effort, to analyze the "mostly unconfirmed reports". The line "mostly unconfirmed" is meant to imply "false". It makes sense that the American military believed the hospital was the source of "rumors" since people tend to rush their loved ones there when half their legs get blown off.
I think I am going to be sick.
Saturday, November 06, 2004
Catastrophe
Well, what can I say? We got beat. We were robbed. The media is at fault. Wah, Wah, Wah.
The bottom line is that we are facing 4 more years of Bush and it feels like I have been kicked in the nuts and thrown down a flight of stairs - by roughly half the country.
On Wednesday after Kerry conceded and the full scale of the loss was apparent I wandered into downtown Portland to seek some solace in what I knew would be a city grieving with me. At a coffee shop off of Pioneer Courthouse Square the girl behind the counter asked how I was doing. I said, "Not well at all." She said, "I know, isn't it terrible. We just have to figure out how to keep going." I wasn't wearing Kerry gear, my politics are not easily identifiable and I had never met this girl before. It didn't matter. Nearly all Portlanders (outside the financial district) had the same look on their faces. The look of a grieving person at a funeral of a loved one who died suddenly, dramatically and without warning.
Portland went for Kerry in a big way in this election. Kerry received 71.5% of the vote in Portland's Multnomah county winning by a margin of 152,000 votes. In Oregon as a whole Kerry prevailed by 68,000 votes which was a vast improvement over Gore's narrow 6700 vote win over Bush in 2000. In neighboring Washington county to the west and south of Portland, where I live, Kerry won by a 13,000 vote margin. In and around Portland Kerry volunteers worked tirelessly for the last six months to achieve the results that we did. Despite this effort the rest of our state mirrors the rural red states of the country and went strongly for Bush. Unfortunately anti-gay marriage Measure 36 prompted a large conservative turnout and the measure past by 138,000 votes. In fact more voters approved this measure than voted for Bush!
At Pioneer Courthouse Square I walked up to a guy who was wrapped in an American Flag that had a large peace sign in place of the stars in the blue field. I let him know that I was grieving over our loss. He began speechifying about Diebold and how they stole the election and it is not over yet and he was leading an effort to demand an investigation of the obvious fraud and that it was not too late if we fought hard to put Kerry in the White House...... blah, blah, blah. I told him that first Kerry had already conceded, second the Republicans are in control of all 3 branches of government so no investigation was likely to be done, third by his own admission computerized voting machines with no paper trail could not have votes recounted so it is a mute point unless we actually heard from a whistle blower from within the conspiracy if there even was a conspiracy. The bottom line is, we lost, and we lost big. Despite having the worst president in history we failed as a party to win even one state that we had not won in 2000. We should be asking how we can reach the people who voted against us rather than making them think we are bunch of sore losers and nut cases by crying foul. The guy was unmoved continuing to cry "Diebold stole it. It's not over. We are going to win!"
Two other women walked up to commiserate. One was from Portland and her friend was from Kenya. We spoke about what went wrong and discussed how heart broken we were. We talked about how Bush's supporters said that it was his morals that made all the difference in how they voted. The Kenyan woman said that America was not an especially moral country like its citizens want to believe it is. "The United States has been consistently behind the rest of the world in every issue of morality from slavery to civil rights to the death penalty and on and on." An old woman of Russian extraction who was an election judge for 30 years in Chicago walked up to us and said in a thick accent, "I just can't take having to listen and look at that idiot for another 4 years. I just can't. I am so ashamed for us!" The woman from Portland was on a lunch break and said that she just wanted to cry and was finding it impossible to work at a time like this.
This is not a normal post election reaction. This is not a victory that gives a mandate to the president. This is a country literally torn apart. Where does the opposition go from here? Not to the right as the hapless DLC would have us do. But we do need different strategies. We cannot continue to concede the red states, or the red zones within our states, and win on a national level. We must not allow Bush to claim that he has a mandate, which is what the bastard is doing right now. Democrats have to oppose the coming juggernaut of Bush dangerous policies that are coming down the pike and we need to prepare right now for the mid-term elections in 2006. We have to unapologetically present bold progressive policy initiatives and not allow the Rethuglicans' claim to be the party of God, when they are in fact the party of greed, racism and hate, to go unchallenged. We have to think of ourselves as being where the Republicans were in 1964 in the electoral wilderness after Goldwater's thumping at the polls - and then remember that it is not nearly that bad. They went from that low point to the so-called Reagan revolution in 16 short years. We must be willing to do the same. We must be willing to lose in the short run rather than capitulate and become the Republican Lite party. The battle is on.
It is not the hard work ahead for our party but rather the mistakes and catastrophes that Bush will no doubt involve us in before '06 which scares the hell out of me. I fear for my country and the world.
Enough for now. Time to listen to some Blues so I can cheer up.
------ Click on Comments for a follow up.
Well, what can I say? We got beat. We were robbed. The media is at fault. Wah, Wah, Wah.
The bottom line is that we are facing 4 more years of Bush and it feels like I have been kicked in the nuts and thrown down a flight of stairs - by roughly half the country.
On Wednesday after Kerry conceded and the full scale of the loss was apparent I wandered into downtown Portland to seek some solace in what I knew would be a city grieving with me. At a coffee shop off of Pioneer Courthouse Square the girl behind the counter asked how I was doing. I said, "Not well at all." She said, "I know, isn't it terrible. We just have to figure out how to keep going." I wasn't wearing Kerry gear, my politics are not easily identifiable and I had never met this girl before. It didn't matter. Nearly all Portlanders (outside the financial district) had the same look on their faces. The look of a grieving person at a funeral of a loved one who died suddenly, dramatically and without warning.
Portland went for Kerry in a big way in this election. Kerry received 71.5% of the vote in Portland's Multnomah county winning by a margin of 152,000 votes. In Oregon as a whole Kerry prevailed by 68,000 votes which was a vast improvement over Gore's narrow 6700 vote win over Bush in 2000. In neighboring Washington county to the west and south of Portland, where I live, Kerry won by a 13,000 vote margin. In and around Portland Kerry volunteers worked tirelessly for the last six months to achieve the results that we did. Despite this effort the rest of our state mirrors the rural red states of the country and went strongly for Bush. Unfortunately anti-gay marriage Measure 36 prompted a large conservative turnout and the measure past by 138,000 votes. In fact more voters approved this measure than voted for Bush!
At Pioneer Courthouse Square I walked up to a guy who was wrapped in an American Flag that had a large peace sign in place of the stars in the blue field. I let him know that I was grieving over our loss. He began speechifying about Diebold and how they stole the election and it is not over yet and he was leading an effort to demand an investigation of the obvious fraud and that it was not too late if we fought hard to put Kerry in the White House...... blah, blah, blah. I told him that first Kerry had already conceded, second the Republicans are in control of all 3 branches of government so no investigation was likely to be done, third by his own admission computerized voting machines with no paper trail could not have votes recounted so it is a mute point unless we actually heard from a whistle blower from within the conspiracy if there even was a conspiracy. The bottom line is, we lost, and we lost big. Despite having the worst president in history we failed as a party to win even one state that we had not won in 2000. We should be asking how we can reach the people who voted against us rather than making them think we are bunch of sore losers and nut cases by crying foul. The guy was unmoved continuing to cry "Diebold stole it. It's not over. We are going to win!"
Two other women walked up to commiserate. One was from Portland and her friend was from Kenya. We spoke about what went wrong and discussed how heart broken we were. We talked about how Bush's supporters said that it was his morals that made all the difference in how they voted. The Kenyan woman said that America was not an especially moral country like its citizens want to believe it is. "The United States has been consistently behind the rest of the world in every issue of morality from slavery to civil rights to the death penalty and on and on." An old woman of Russian extraction who was an election judge for 30 years in Chicago walked up to us and said in a thick accent, "I just can't take having to listen and look at that idiot for another 4 years. I just can't. I am so ashamed for us!" The woman from Portland was on a lunch break and said that she just wanted to cry and was finding it impossible to work at a time like this.
This is not a normal post election reaction. This is not a victory that gives a mandate to the president. This is a country literally torn apart. Where does the opposition go from here? Not to the right as the hapless DLC would have us do. But we do need different strategies. We cannot continue to concede the red states, or the red zones within our states, and win on a national level. We must not allow Bush to claim that he has a mandate, which is what the bastard is doing right now. Democrats have to oppose the coming juggernaut of Bush dangerous policies that are coming down the pike and we need to prepare right now for the mid-term elections in 2006. We have to unapologetically present bold progressive policy initiatives and not allow the Rethuglicans' claim to be the party of God, when they are in fact the party of greed, racism and hate, to go unchallenged. We have to think of ourselves as being where the Republicans were in 1964 in the electoral wilderness after Goldwater's thumping at the polls - and then remember that it is not nearly that bad. They went from that low point to the so-called Reagan revolution in 16 short years. We must be willing to do the same. We must be willing to lose in the short run rather than capitulate and become the Republican Lite party. The battle is on.
It is not the hard work ahead for our party but rather the mistakes and catastrophes that Bush will no doubt involve us in before '06 which scares the hell out of me. I fear for my country and the world.
Enough for now. Time to listen to some Blues so I can cheer up.
------ Click on Comments for a follow up.
