Running Time: 01:10:21
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Puppet Masters
Running Time: 01:10:21
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Olean -- Last week's column warned of imminent federal legislation that would toss powerful pharmaceutical companies billions of dollars and complete protection from liability suits in case untested and experimental bird flu vaccines damage American recipients. It drew heavy response.
The bill (S. 1873) -- a big congressional wet kiss to the drug industry -- is dressed up in a noble-sounding title: "Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act."In essence, however, it would force Americans to receive inoculations against a disease that has yet to kill one of them, while removing their constitutional right to seek redress in our courts in case of injury or death from the shots because of company negligence. The proposal, now moving its way through the Senate, would also ban citizens from using the Freedom of Information Act and other popular informational laws to discover whether the new vaccine (when it is finally produced) was effective and safe, and even whether anyone had suffered adverse reactions to it.
Some of the e-mails and letters were laudatory, but sadly and predictably, many readers missed the point.
One wrote that I could only have reached my conclusions if I started from the position that the pharmaceutical companies were "evil" and that the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, and "practically every virologist and epidemiologist in the world is part of a conspiracy." Or was I saying that I have "some sort of privileged information that H5N1 influenza will never mutate and begin to infect humans and even if it does, it won't reach the USA?"
He ended by quoting some venerable Chinese philosopher's advice to "plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small."
Well, yes, point taken on the aphorism -- but that's exactly the philosophical tack I'm following here: identifying a cancerous piece of federal business and dissecting it while it is still an undivided cell. If this bill -- which is absolutely laden with hidden agendas -- metastasizes into actual law, Senate 1873 could further ruin an already devastated national health care system.
Sure, the bird influenza that has killed 62 Asians may mutate into easily contractible flu for humans. I acknowledge that. It may soon reach the United States. I acknowledge that. But my beef is the thematic hidden agenda in this dangerous Senate bill that is designed to protect wealthy corporate contributors from any consequences of money-motivated, irresponsible scientific research and development. The legal precedent would be ruinous and take decades to set right.
One thing the bill-backer friends of Big Pharma are trying to slip through with this legislation is a market exclusivity provision that would extend patents on hugely profitable drugs that are about to evolve into the category of cheaper generic medicines.
Further, it would prohibit federal drug buyers from contracting with generic medicine makers to save taxpayers billions of dollars -- a current admirable practice.
Further, it would allow federal health officials to purchase medicines, vaccines and other palliatives by simple fiat without taking bids.
Further, and most onerously, the bill would vastly broaden the definition of products eligible to be characterized as "countermeasures" to terrorism -- in other words, potentially classifying commonly purchased substances like ibuprofen and aspirin as terrorist-fighting devices.
I'm not the only one who's noticed the exclusivity aspect of this legislative turkey.
The Coalition for a Competitive Pharmaceutical Market (CCPM) is an unusually broad-based national coalition of organizations powerful on Capitol Hill in representing employers, health insurers, chain drugstores, generic drug makers and pharmacy benefit managers.
Last week, this huge group urged the Senate to revise the "biodefense" bill to remove the broadened definition of terrorism "countermeasures" because the proposal allows it to be done "in a way that could grant existing everyday medicines -- rather than novel products related to (defense) against bioterrorism -- multiple years of additional market exclusivity."
This, contends CCPM chairman Annette Guarisco, "would unnecessarily drive up prescription drug costs for private and public payers without advancing our nation's bioterrorism preparedness."
Even the big health insurance companies and pharmaceutical management lobbyists were startled by the brazen provisions at the expense of common citizens Senate 1873 portends.
Mark J. Rubino, chief pharmacy officer for Aetna Inc., states, "For private and public purchasers seeking to provide consumers with therapeutically equivalent, but more cost-efficient generic drugs, the market exclusivity provision included in the Biodefense bill takes us in exactly the wrong direction."
Mark Merritt, president of the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, said, "This drug monopoly extension proposal is a sweeping and unprecedented measure that would rewrite drug-patenting and force working families, the disabled, and seniors to pay more for their prescription drugs. Perhaps most troubling of all, this measure has moved forward without any regard to the cost (effects) it would have on on Medicare, Medicaid, and private payers. America's working families, seniors, and small businesses deserve better."Some who read the column accused me of overstating the liability protections for Big Pharma contained in the bill. Surely, they wrote, I was guilty of hyperbole or making things up. Surely, federal legislators wouldn't remove the cherished American right to redress wrongs or seek compensation for uninvited injury.
Oh, yeah? The language seems pretty clear to me. It provides incredibly broad and iron-clad protection from any American seeking legal remedy from Big Pharma and just about everyone else involved in protecting against bird flu. Look up the draft bill's Section 319F-3 (a) if you don't believe me.
The bill (S. 1873) -- a big congressional wet kiss to the drug industry -- is dressed up in a noble-sounding title: "Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act."In essence, however, it would force Americans to receive inoculations against a disease that has yet to kill one of them, while removing their constitutional right to seek redress in our courts in case of injury or death from the shots because of company negligence. The proposal, now moving its way through the Senate, would also ban citizens from using the Freedom of Information Act and other popular informational laws to discover whether the new vaccine (when it is finally produced) was effective and safe, and even whether anyone had suffered adverse reactions to it.
Some of the e-mails and letters were laudatory, but sadly and predictably, many readers missed the point.
One wrote that I could only have reached my conclusions if I started from the position that the pharmaceutical companies were "evil" and that the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, and "practically every virologist and epidemiologist in the world is part of a conspiracy." Or was I saying that I have "some sort of privileged information that H5N1 influenza will never mutate and begin to infect humans and even if it does, it won't reach the USA?"
He ended by quoting some venerable Chinese philosopher's advice to "plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small."
Well, yes, point taken on the aphorism -- but that's exactly the philosophical tack I'm following here: identifying a cancerous piece of federal business and dissecting it while it is still an undivided cell. If this bill -- which is absolutely laden with hidden agendas -- metastasizes into actual law, Senate 1873 could further ruin an already devastated national health care system.
Sure, the bird influenza that has killed 62 Asians may mutate into easily contractible flu for humans. I acknowledge that. It may soon reach the United States. I acknowledge that. But my beef is the thematic hidden agenda in this dangerous Senate bill that is designed to protect wealthy corporate contributors from any consequences of money-motivated, irresponsible scientific research and development. The legal precedent would be ruinous and take decades to set right.
One thing the bill-backer friends of Big Pharma are trying to slip through with this legislation is a market exclusivity provision that would extend patents on hugely profitable drugs that are about to evolve into the category of cheaper generic medicines.
Further, it would prohibit federal drug buyers from contracting with generic medicine makers to save taxpayers billions of dollars -- a current admirable practice.
Further, it would allow federal health officials to purchase medicines, vaccines and other palliatives by simple fiat without taking bids.
Further, and most onerously, the bill would vastly broaden the definition of products eligible to be characterized as "countermeasures" to terrorism -- in other words, potentially classifying commonly purchased substances like ibuprofen and aspirin as terrorist-fighting devices.
I'm not the only one who's noticed the exclusivity aspect of this legislative turkey.
The Coalition for a Competitive Pharmaceutical Market (CCPM) is an unusually broad-based national coalition of organizations powerful on Capitol Hill in representing employers, health insurers, chain drugstores, generic drug makers and pharmacy benefit managers.
Last week, this huge group urged the Senate to revise the "biodefense" bill to remove the broadened definition of terrorism "countermeasures" because the proposal allows it to be done "in a way that could grant existing everyday medicines -- rather than novel products related to (defense) against bioterrorism -- multiple years of additional market exclusivity."
This, contends CCPM chairman Annette Guarisco, "would unnecessarily drive up prescription drug costs for private and public payers without advancing our nation's bioterrorism preparedness."
Even the big health insurance companies and pharmaceutical management lobbyists were startled by the brazen provisions at the expense of common citizens Senate 1873 portends.
Mark J. Rubino, chief pharmacy officer for Aetna Inc., states, "For private and public purchasers seeking to provide consumers with therapeutically equivalent, but more cost-efficient generic drugs, the market exclusivity provision included in the Biodefense bill takes us in exactly the wrong direction."
Mark Merritt, president of the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, said, "This drug monopoly extension proposal is a sweeping and unprecedented measure that would rewrite drug-patenting and force working families, the disabled, and seniors to pay more for their prescription drugs. Perhaps most troubling of all, this measure has moved forward without any regard to the cost (effects) it would have on on Medicare, Medicaid, and private payers. America's working families, seniors, and small businesses deserve better."Some who read the column accused me of overstating the liability protections for Big Pharma contained in the bill. Surely, they wrote, I was guilty of hyperbole or making things up. Surely, federal legislators wouldn't remove the cherished American right to redress wrongs or seek compensation for uninvited injury.
Oh, yeah? The language seems pretty clear to me. It provides incredibly broad and iron-clad protection from any American seeking legal remedy from Big Pharma and just about everyone else involved in protecting against bird flu. Look up the draft bill's Section 319F-3 (a) if you don't believe me.
The international forecaster editor Bob Chapman writes: We reported on the large contingent of Israelis and Mossad personnel in Colombia a couple of months ago ... they are there in the thousands.
© AP
America's most wanted … Abu Musab al-Zarqawi taunts George Bush in the 34-minute video.
America's most wanted … Abu Musab al-Zarqawi taunts George Bush in the 34-minute video.
"After first claiming responsibility for the Wednesday attacks on three hotels popular with Israelis and Westerners, al-Qaida in Iraq later issued a second Internet statement that appeared to acknowledge that its tactics may have backfired and undermined any support the group enjoyed among the Jordanian population," writes Greenberg. In other words, the intelligence ops who issue these "internet statements" for the dead al-Zarqawi's P2OG false flag terrorist group decided their initial story didn't hold water, so they are sending out a clarification via one of their secured servers.
"The group said the attacks were launched only after its leaders became 'confident that (the hotels) are centers for launching war on Islam and support the crusaders' presence in Iraq and the Arab peninsula and the presence of the Jews on the land of Palestine,'" Greenberg continues. "They also were, the group asserted, 'a secure place for the filthy Israeli and Western tourists to spread corruption and adultery at the expense and suffering of the Muslims.'" No mention here of the now scrubbed fact the "filthy Israelis" were tipped off and evacuated the hotel before the black op unit attacked. Moreover, as usual, the blasts killed not only innocent Arabs, but in this instance also "the commander of the Palestinian Special Forces, Bashir Nafeh, Jihad Fatouh, the commercial attaché at the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo, and Mosab Khorma, deputy Chairman of Cairo-Amman Bank in the Palestinian territories and Col. Abed Allun, another high-ranking Preventive Security forces official, were also killed in the three nearly simultaneous suicide bombings on American-owned hotels," according to Rumor Mill News. It sure is odd how al-Zarqawi kills important Palestinians for the Likudites.
Comment: Which brings to mind the other old chestnut, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public". Before writing in with irate comments that "Not all Americans are like that!"... we know. Unfortunately, enough are like that to guarantee Fox News, CNN, and even the New York Times, year after profitable year.
And, yes, there are enough people in other countries like that to ensure the situation is dire the world over. In fact, it is their world, the world of those who accept unthinkingly the news they get from the authorities. They seem to be missing some important wiring in their brains that enable them to think critically, to be able to digest the information they receive, rather than simply react to it in a mechanical way.
We're the outcasts and strangers. Who is this "We"? Those who sense that there must be something more to life than fame, money, and sex. Unfortunately, there is no easy way out. Just feeling like a misfit won't do the trick because we are all mechanical and unaware most of the day, even when we are howling that we don't belong in this crazy world where the most horrible crimes are accepted are normal "because it has always been that way" or because "it's just human nature", and as long as we are mechanical and unaware, we fit here perfectly.
Maybe it is their "human nature", but it is not ours, or, rather, it doesn't have to be; some people can attain a contact with their higher nature, their conscience, even if much of the time we have such a feable contact with it that we can often act in ways that are contrary to its warning voice.
Quite the conundrum.
Jon, I know you're not dumb, and I'd like to think you're not hypocritical, so maybe you just really have missed the boat on this one. Therefore, in thanks for all the great laughs you've given us, I'd like to help you out a bit and invite you to join us on our next trip to the West Bank and Gaza. That way you can learn about things. The trip's on us, and the humus is great.
Running Time: 00:44:45
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We all have those images engraved in our memories: the aircraft approaches the skycraper and explodes sending out a fireball against the blue sky; the dust and smoke begins to arise as the towers tremble, collapsing in a vertical free fall, leaving only the ghost of the central core before it, too, evaporates into dust. Over and over again we have watched these clips, on that day and on many days since.
Running Time: 00:32:23
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Running Time: 00:55:33
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Running Time: 00:37:51
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Comment: This bill provides us with a good insight into just how a population can be fooled into thinking they live in a functioning Democracy, while their government embraces policies that are normally the domain of the most totalitarian of regimes.
One of the minor apsects of this piece of Draconian legistaltion is that working families, the disabled and seniors will have to pay more for their basic prescription drugs. While the average U.S. citizen will likely just accept this price hike with a sigh and put it down to the "cost of living", the reality is that this is a deliberately planned and implemented policy to line the pockets of the "elite" with millions (or billions) at the expense of the average citizen.
Correct us if we are wrong here, but isn't defrauding the population of their hard-earned wages illegal in Democratic countries? Isn't the forced administration of drugs something that we usually only hear about in the torture chambers of the most barbaric regimes somewhere "out there" in the rest of the world?
Welcome to fascism by deception.