A Nation on Mind Altering Drugs: Antidepressants Most Commonly Prescribed Drugs in US

September 18, 2009

Natural News

by S.L. Baker

As NaturalNews has reported in detail, antidepressants like Prozac (fluoxetine) and the growing list of similar selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor drugs (SSRIs) not only can have numerous side effects from nausea to headaches — but they’ve also been linked to horrendous problems including suicide in teens, sudden death in women (http://www.naturalnews.com/025811.html) and even murders. But has that stopped US doctors from prescribing the drugs or slowed down the antidepressant pill popping by Americans? Apparently not. New research shows that antidepressants are now the most widely prescribed drugs in the country.

According to a report in the August issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, a journal of the American Medical Association, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of antidepressants since l996. It’s not only stressed out middle-aged folks being treated for problems caused by supposed depression, either. Perhaps the most disturbing part of the new study is that it shows a broad expansion in the patient population being put on these drugs — starting with children as young as six.
“Several factors may have contributed to this trend, including a broadening in concepts of need for mental health treatment, campaigns to promote mental health care and growing public acceptance of mental health treatments,” the researchers stated in their article.

To come up with the new antidepressant statistics, Mark Olfson, M.D., M.P.H., of Columbia University Medical Center and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, and Steven C. Marcus, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, studied data from the 1996 and 2005 Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to estimate US health care usage and costs. In all, 18,993 people from age six and older were included in the 1996 survey and 28,445 in the 2005 survey which covered information regarding medical visits,prescriptions, conditions for which they were treated and other healthcare details.

In all, the researchers found that the rate of antidepressant treatment increased from 5.84 percent to 10.12 percent between 1996 and 2005. That translates into a remarkable increase from an estimated 13.3 million taking antidepressants to 27 million people now on the mind and body-altering drugs.

Curiously, the only people who aren’t apparently being prescribed these medications in droves are those in racial and ethnic minorities, possibly because they may be less likely to afford the expensive drugs or insurance copays. “Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans, who had comparatively low rates of use in both years (1996, 3.61 percent; 2005, 4.51 percent),” the authors wrote. “Although antidepressant treatment increased for Hispanics, it remained comparatively low (1996, 3.72 percent; 2005, 5.21 percent).”

And it isn’t only antidepressant usage that is soaring. The report found that among the millions of Americans taking those drugs, huge numbers of them are also now being prescribed antipsychotic medications. The percentage who were also prescribed antipsychotic medications increased between 1996 and 2005 from 5.46 percent to 8.86 percent.

Wouldn’t common sense dictate that people who are so mentally ill that they need to be put on strong antipsychotic medications should be getting psychotherapy help, too? The new study shows that isn’t the the case. In fact, there’s been an enormous drop in the number of people undergoing psychotherapy — a decrease from 31.5 percent to 19.87 percent — in recent years.

“Together with an increase in the number of antidepressant prescriptions per antidepressant user (an average of 5.6 vs. 6.93 per year), these broad trends suggest that antidepressant treatment is occurring within a clinical context that places greater emphasis on pharmacologic rather than psychologic dimensions of care,” the authors wrote.

In simple terms, too many doctors are handing out prescriptions for powerful drugs that affect the mind and entire body — supposedly because of mental or emotional illness — without any attempt to see if counseling or therapy might be a safer, and more sane, approach.

Click here for the full report.

Uninsured More Likely to Die, Study Finds

September 18, 2009

ABC News

by Emily Walker

WASHINGTON People without health insurance are 40 percent more likely to die than those with private insurance, according to a new study whose authors say the finding underscores the need to expand coverage to the 46 million who lack it.

According to the report, published today in the Journal of Public Health, lack of health insurance was a factor in the death of as many as 45,000 people in 2005.

Researchers lead by Dr. Andrew Wilper, of the Cambridge Health Alliance, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, conducted a survival analysis of data from 9,000 adults under the age of 64 who were enrolled in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III).

Participants in the survey, which ran from 1986 through 1994, were asked questions about insurance, health status, income, and education, among other things, and were examined by a physician.

Among the 9,000 participants, about 16 percent were uninsured. People who were young, minorities, smokers, and had less education and income were more likely to be uninsured (P=0.01 for all comparisons).

For the current study, researchers looked at the number of people enrolled in NHANES III who had died by 2000 and determined about 3 percent of the participants were dead.

After adjusting for factors such as obesity, exercise habits, alcohol use, and smoking status, researchers determined those without insurance were 40 percent more likely to die than those with a private insurance plan.

Researchers excluded those on Medicare or Medicaid from their analyses.

Among the other factors that increased the risk of death were clinically-verified poor health (222 percent), smoking (102 percent), being a former smoker (42 percent), and being a male (40 percent).

So, while other factors clearly make a person more likely to die, the new finding suggests that being uninsured is more hazardous to the health than previously thought.

In fact, the risk factor is 2.5 times higher than a 2002 estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which that suggested about 18,000 people between the ages of 25 and 64 die per year because of lack of health insurance.

Uninsured Less Likely To Seek Or Get Necessary Care
The study’s authors said previous investigations have shown that the uninsured are more likely to go without needed care, which could make them more likely to die than their insured counterparts.

Also, uninsured people are more likely to use emergency rooms, indicating that a decision not to treat a preventable illness might stem from not having insurance.

The IOM has said that having insurance improves health because it allows people to get medical care when they need it, to have a regular source of care, and to have continuity of coverage.

The authors also said the increased risk of death attributable to lack of insurance suggests that alternative measures of medical care for uninsured people, such as community health centers, do not protect against fatal medical issues as effectively as private health insurance.

“Despite widespread acknowledgment that enacting universal coverage would be life saving, doing so remains politically thorny,” the study authors said. “Now that health reform is again on the political agenda, health professionals have the opportunity to advocate universal coverage.”

The leading Senate healthcare reform plan from Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) would cover about 90 percent of the uninsured, the senator said. Baucus is the ranking member of the Finance Committee.

The study’s authors pointed out several limitations. One is that data was collected at a single-point, so that investigators would not know if an uninsured person became insured later on.

However, the authors point out that if a person is uninsured at a specific point, he is likely to be part of a group of people who are uninsured over the long term.

Click here for the full report.

Obama: Legalize illegals to get them health care

September 18th, 2009

The Washington Times

by Stephen Dinan

President Obama said this week that his health care plan won’t cover illegal immigrants, but argued that’s all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.

He also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered – a major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants.

“Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don’t simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. “That’s why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.

Mr. Obama added, “If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all.”

Republicans said that amounts to an amnesty, calling it a backdoor effort to make sure current illegal immigrants get health care.

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“It is ironic that the president told the American people that illegal immigrants should not be covered by the health care bill, but now just days later he’s talking about letting them in the back door,” said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

“If the American people do not want to provide government health care for illegal immigrants, why would they support giving them citizenship, the highest honor America can bestow?” Mr. Smith said.

But immigrant rights groups see the speech as a signal that Mr. Obama is committed to providing health care coverage for anyone in the United States legally, regardless of their citizenship status.

“It’s the first time I’ve certainly heard, publicly, him talking more about legal immigrants,” said Eric Rodriguez, vice president for research and advocacy at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). “I think that was certainly positive progress. We were absolutely concerned about not hearing that.”

On Wednesday, hours before Mr. Obama’s speech, the NCLR had given the administration a public scolding, demanding that Mr. Obama needed to make “a public commitment … to ensure that those who are here legally are covered.”

A White House spokesman did not respond to questions about where the White House would make the cutoff for eligibility, and Mr. Rodriguez said he’s still waiting for an answer from the administration.

“We don’t know where they mean to draw the line,” he said. “Our biggest concern is that most people don’t realize legal immigrants are currently barred from receiving health care benefits for the first five years in the country.”

Under the 1996 welfare overhaul, most federal aid programs are restricted to citizens and legal immigrants who have been in the country for at least five years. Democrats have tried this year to chip away at that rule.

Immigration has dogged Mr. Obama in the health care debate. Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, shouted, “You lie,” when the president, in an address to Congress last week, said his plans wouldn’t cover illegal immigrants.

Lawmakers – who got an earful from constituents back home during August – have insisted on extra checks to make sure illegal immigrants do not have access to taxpayer-funded programs.

Senators have worked on language that would prevent illegal immigrants from buying insurance through a proposed insurance exchange envisioned in the health care reform package.

But the NCLR said that could lead to situations where some members of a family would be covered and others, including children of illegal immigrants, wouldn’t be.

Mr. Obama said legalizing illegal immigrants is a way to take the sting out of the entire issue.

But Republicans said by pushing to legalize illegal immigrants, Mr. Obama is signaling that those here illegally eventually will get access to taxpayer-funded benefits.

Still, the push to pass a legalization bill is beginning to gain steam, even as advocates fret that the White House is moving too slowly.

On Thursday, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat and an outspoken advocate for legalization, agreed to take leadership in writing a new, more generous bill.

“We simply cannot wait any longer for a bill that keeps our families together, protects our workers and allows a pathway to legalization for those who have earned it,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “Saying immigration is a priority for this administration or this Congress is not the same as seeing tangible action, and the longer we wait, the more every single piece of legislation we debate will be obstructed by our failure to pass comprehensive reform.”

Click here for the full report.

Ten Swine Flu Lies Told by the Mainstream Media

September 18, 2009

NaturalNews

by Mike Adams

The mainstream media is engaged in what we Americans call “bald faced lies” about swine flu. It seems to be true with this issue more than any other, and it became apparent to me recently when a colleague of mine — a nationally-syndicated newspaper columnist — told me their column on natural defenses for swine flu was rejected by newspapers all across the country. Many newspapers refused to run the column and, instead, ran an ad for “free vaccine clinics” in the same space.

The media, it seems, is so deeply in bed with the culture of vaccinations that they will do almost anything to keep the public misinformed. And that includes lying about swine flu vaccines.

There are ten key lies that continue to be told by the mainstream media (MSM) about swine flu and swine flu vaccines.

Lie #1 – There are no adjuvants used in the vaccines

I was recently being interviewed by a major U.S. news network when the reporter interviewing me came up with this humdinger: There are no adjuvantsbeing used in the swine flu vaccines, he said!

I assured him that adjuvants were, indeed, a crucial part of the vaccine recipe, and they were being widely used by drug companies to “stretch” the vaccine supply. It’s no secret. But he insisted he had been directly told by a drug company rep that no adjuvants were being used at all. And he believed them! So everything being published by this large news network about swine flu vaccines now assumes there are no adjuvants in the vaccines at all.

Lie #2 – The swine flu is more dangerous than seasonal flu

This lie is finally starting to unravel. I admit that in the early days of this pandemic, even I was concerned this could be a global killer. But after observing the very mild impact the virus was having on people in the real world, it became obvious that this was a mild flu, no more dangerous than a seasonal flu.

The MSM, however, continues to promote H1N1 swine flu as being super dangerous, driving fear into the minds of people and encouraging them to rush out and get a vaccine shot for a flu that’s really no more likely to kill them than the regular winter sniffles. Sure, the virus could still mutate into something far worse, but if it does that, the current vaccine could be rendered obsolete anyway!

Lie #3 – Vaccines protect you from swine flu

This is the biggest lie of all, and the media pushes it hard. Getting a vaccine, they insist, will protect you from the swine flu. But it’s just flat-out false. Even if the vaccine produces antibodies, that’s not the same thing as real-world immunity from a live virus, especially if the virus mutates (as they often do).

As I pointed out in a recent article, statistically speaking the average American is 40 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to have their life saved by a swine flu vaccine. (http://www.naturalnews.com/026955_s…)

Lie #4 – Vaccines are safe

And how would any journalists actually know this? None of the vaccines have been subjected to real-world testing for any meaningful duration. The “safety” of these vaccines is nothing more than wishful thinking.

The MSM also doesn’t want you to know what’s in the vaccines. Some vaccines are made from viral fragments grown in diseased African monkeys. If that sounds incredible, read the true story here: http://www.naturalnews.com/026779_s…

Lie #5 – The vaccine isn’t mandatory

You hear this lie all the time: The swine flu vaccine shot is voluntary, they say. But it’s not true if you’re an employee at a place where vaccines are being mandated. Millions of Americans are now being told by their employers that if they don’t get vaccine shots, they will be effectively fired from their jobs. It’s especially true with health care workers, day care employees and school teachers.

Lie #6 – Getting a vaccine shot is a good bet on your health

In reality, a vaccine shot is far more likely to harm you than help you. According to one viral expert, the actual mortality rate of the swine flu virus is estimated to be as low as .007 percent (http://www.reuters.com/article/heal…). That means H1N1 swine flu kills less than one person in 100,000. Even if the vaccine works, let’s say, 10 percent of the time, you’d have to vaccine one million people to prevent one death from swine flu.

And in vaccinating one million people, you would inevitably harm or kill several people, simply from the vaccine side effects! Your net risk of death isincreased by getting a swine flu vaccine.

Lie #7 – The vaccine isn’t made with “attenuated live virus”

When the swine flu vaccines were first being announced several months ago, they were described as being made with “attenuated live virus.” This was directly mentioned in CDC documents, among other places.

This term apparently freaked out the American news consumer, and it has since been all but erased from any discussion about vaccines. Now, journalists will actually argue with you and insist the vaccines contain no attenuated live viruses whatsoever.

Except they’re wrong. The vaccines are, indeed, made with “attenuated live viruses.” That’s how you make a vaccine: You take live viruses, then you weaken them (“attenuate”) and inject them into people.

Lie #8 – Wash, wash, wash your hands (to avoid exposure)

This idea of washing your hands a hundred times a day is all based on the assumption that you can avoid exposure to the swine flu virus. But that’s impractical. The virus is now so widespread that virtually everyone is certain to be exposed to it through the air if not other means. This whole idea of avoiding exposure to the swine flu virus is nonsense. The conversation should shift to ways to survive exposure via a healthy immune system.

Of course, hand washing is a very good idea in a hospital setting. Recent news reveals that doctors are too busy to wash their own hands, resulting in the rampant spread of superbugs throughout most large hospitals in first world nations.

Lie #9 – Children are more vulnerable to swine flu than adults

This is just a flat-out lie, but it makes for good vaccine sales. Vaccines are right now being targeted primarily to schoolchildren.

But the truth is that swine flu is extremely mild in children. “It’s mildest in kids,” says Dr Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University. “That’s one of the really good pieces of news in this pandemic.” Reuters actually had the guts to report this story, but most of the larger media outlets are still reporting that children are the most vulnerable.

Lie #10 – There is nothing else you can do beyond a vaccine and Tamiflu

This is where the media lies by omission. The mainstream media absolutely refuses to print just about any story that talks about using vitamin D, anti-viral herbs or natural remedies to protect yourself from swine flu. In the MSM, there are two options and only two: Vaccines and Tamiflu. That’s it. No other options exist in their fictional reality.

Why is the mainstream media so afraid to print the truth these days? Why can’t reporting on swine flu see the light of day… literally, with a mention of sunlight and vitamin D? Apparently, Big Pharma has such a tight grip on mainstream newspapers that no true story on swine flu can ever make it past the editor’s desk.

Killing stories, deceiving the public

It must really be depressing to work for the mainstream media. Even the reporters I know can’t stand it. The truth, they admit, rarely makes it into print.

Over the last few years, I’ve had a couple of job offers from large media outlets. They want to pay me a six-figure salary and stick me behind a desk where they can control what I report. Needless to say, I routinely reject those offers. If I can’t write the truth like I do here on NaturalNews.com, there’s no point writing at all. In too many ways, the mainstream media has become little more than a corporate mouthpiece, whoring itself out to the highest bidder / advertiser.

It’s no fault of the frontline reporters who actually work there. For the most part, they agree with what I’m saying. It’s the fault of the profit-oriented corporate mindset where news is about selling newspapers rather than actually informing the public.

Important news stories get killed every day in the newsrooms across America. They get killed not because they are poorly investigated or poorly written, but because they upset advertisers and corporate string pullers who shape the news and reject any stories that threaten their own financial interests.

Here in 2009, the distorted reporting on the swine flu vaccine has been one of the greatest media frauds ever perpetrated. The media has in every way contributed to the widespread ignorance of the American people on the subject of vitamin D and natural immune-boosting defenses that could reduce swine flu fatalities. Rather than informing readers, the MSM has made it a point to keep the people stupid, and in doing so, the media has failed its only mission and betrayed the very audience is claims to serve.

Click here for the full report.

Did the US do a Deal with Russia?

September 18, 2009

Guardian

by Meir Javedanfar

The stated goal of the US’s missile shield programme, which was devised during the Bush administration, was to defend the US against any missiles launched from Iran. However, the Russian government, especially the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, opposed it, for several reasons. It saw the programme as a challenge to Russia’s own long-range missiles, important components of Russia’s strategy of reasserting itself into the global arena as a superpower. Furthermore, plans to base the missiles in Czech Republic and Poland, countries which once were under Russian control, were also considered as provocative and even insulting to Moscow.

Russia’s leadership was so infuriated that it even went as far as threatening military action to dissuade the US and the host countries from deploying the system. This was an unprecedented move in Russia’s post-cold war relations with the west. It was also a strong indication of the threat Moscow felt and how far it was willing to go to stop it from materialising.

To some, especially American neoconservatives, Washington’s decision to scrap the system may be interpreted as capitulation to Russia.

However, if we look at the timing of the decision and the reaction from Moscow, we can see that President Obama may have a bigger goal in mind; preventing Iran from becoming armed with nuclear weapons.

With talks between the P5+1 (consisting of the US, Russia, China, UK, France and Germany) and Iran scheduled for 1 October, Obama has been trying to ensure that the west enters the negotiations with a strong hand. To achieve this goal he has devised a multi-faceted strategy, which consisted of reaching out to the Muslim world through his Cairo speech, stabilising Iraq and increasing his efforts to restart talks between Israelis and Palestinians. He also reached out to the Iranian government through two letters to the Iranian supreme leader, as well as his New Year message to the people of Iran.

All these efforts slowly started to put Iran’s leadership on the back foot. Suddenly, it was deprived from its two main battle cries. One was that America was against the Muslim world and the other that the US had ambitions to apply regime change in Iran. This panicked Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which is why he decided to back Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in presidential elections, apparently allowing extensive fraud in his favour.

With the regime’s legitimacy severely damaged domestically after the recent demonstrations, and its foreign influence weakened after Hezbollah’s defeat in the Lebanese elections, the Iranian government became even more dependent on support from Russia and China.

This is especially true after the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement last week that Moscow would not back further sanctions against Iran. After this, the importance of Russia to Iran’s leaders as one of its two pillars of support in the UN security council increased even further.

However, such sense of comfort in Tehran was unexpectedly dashed yesterday, after the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, stated what many consider to be a U-turn, by making a strong hint in his speech that Russia could now back tougher sanctionsagainst Iran.

This is a severe setback for Iran, as it is very possible that Russia would do this. Moscow has let Tehran down before, and it could do so again.

However the question remains: did the recent Russian overture come about as part of a deal with Washington, whereby in return for scrapping the missile shield programme, Moscow would back the US in its efforts to impose tougher sanctions against Iran?

Judging by statements made by Obama during a trip to Prague in April this year, the answer seems positive. During that trip, he linked the missile system issue to the Iranian nuclear programme. He suggested that a it could be discarded. “If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security, and the driving force for missile defence construction in Europe at this time will be removed,” the US president said. The fact that the US scrapped this system the day after Medvedev’s statement further backs the theory that a deal was made, especially since Russian backing for sanctions could eliminate the Iranian threat, as Obama put it.

Should Russia desert Iran’s side and join the west, China could find itself standing alone. Under such circumstances, its leadership could also decide that the cost of supporting Iran far outweighs the benefits. This would mean that the US achieved two goals, with one move.

Obama’s decision shows that the US president is prioritising. Although the missile defence shield is important, stopping Iran from becoming armed with nuclear weapons is far more vital. America could always replace the system in the future. It has no “point of no return”. But Iran’s path to becoming a nuclear state does, and the US president seems to be applying smart chess moves to prevent this from happening.

Click here for the full report.

The Kevin Trudeau Show Comes to California!

Starting October 3rd, tune in to these 3 stations to hear The Kevin Trudeau Show in California!

KCAA-AM 1050

KMET-AM 1490

KRXA-AM 540

Obama Administration to Seek Extension of Patriot Act Spy Powers

September 17, 2009

World Socialist Web Site

By Patrick Martin

In a letter from the Justice Department to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Obama administration has gone on record for the first time supporting the extension of key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, including the notorious provision that gives the federal government the power to subpoena library records of any individual.

Several provisions of the Patriot Act, legislation adopted in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks that grants sweeping surveillance powers to US intelligence agencies, are scheduled to expire December 31, unless renewed by Congress. The House and Senate judiciary committees have scheduled hearings next week on the proposed reauthorizations.

In a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chairman of the Senate panel, sent Monday and reported in the press Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich argues for reauthorization of three expiring sections of the Patriot Act:

Section 206, which provides for roving surveillance of targets who take evasive measures like using throw-away cell phones. In such cases, US intelligence agencies can monitor any telecommunications device that might be used by the suspect, without being compelled to specify the number in advance or get a warrant.

Section 215, dubbed by civil liberties groups the “library provision,” which allows federal agents to obtain business, medical, library and other records simply by presenting a written demand, called a national security letter, to the organization maintaining the records. This provision has been used 220 times over the past eight years, Justice Department officials said, but it is not clear whether a single letter to a large corporation, like AT&T or Verizon, could be used to make repeated demands for information. The national security letters must be approved by a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which almost never rejects such surveillance requests.

The third section has been nickname the “Lone Wolf” provision, since it authorizes intelligence gathering against any non-citizen, regardless of whether the individual is suspected of being linked to a foreign government or terrorist organization. The Obama administration claims that the provision has never been actually used, but that the power needs to be held in reserve in case of need.

Assistant Attorney General Weich claims in his letter to Leahy that the roving wiretap provision has been used only 20 times. But last March, in testimony before Congress, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said that his agency alone had used roving wiretaps in terrorism investigations a total of 147 times since 2001.

The discrepancy only underscores the lack of credibility of all declarations from the spy agencies about their secret surveillance tactics. In practice, the US intelligence apparatus (as well as the Pentagon) conduct their operations without any oversight or accountability, with the complicity of their supposed watchdogs in the congressional intelligence committees.

Section 215 is the most expansive of the three sections, since it allows the FBI and other agencies to demand electronic records of any business, as well as “any tangible things” like bank and credit card statements, as well as medical and mental health records, on any individual.

The Obama administration letter explicitly defends the record of the Bush administration in exercising surveillance powers under Section 215. Weich writes:

“At the time of the USA PATRIOT Act, there was concern that the FBI would exploit the broad scope of the business records authority to collect sensitive personal information on constitutionally protected activities, such as the use of public libraries. This simply has not occurred, even in the environment of heightened terrorist threat activity.”

The assistant attorney general then argues that the good behavior of the Bush administration justifies an extension of the “library” provision:

“Based upon this operational experience, we believe that the FISA business records authority should be reauthorized. There will continue to be instances in which FBI investigators need to obtain transactional information that does not fall within the scope of authorities relating to national security letters and are operating in an environment that precludes the use of less secure criminal authorities.”

The reaction of congressional Democrats to the proposed extension of Patriot Act powers has been overwhelmingly favorable. In a statement issued Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Chairman Leahy said, “I am pleased that the Justice Department has signaled its willingness to work with Congress in addressing the expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. It is important that Congress and the executive branch work together to ensure that we protect both our national security and our civil liberties.”

Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois and liberal Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin issued a joint statement favorably contrasting the Obama administration’s willingness to consult with Congress to the Bush administration’s simple assertion of executive powers. The two Democrats are introducing a bill to provide a fig leaf for the reauthorization of the Patriot Act by supposedly tightening the legal standard for obtaining national security letters, including requiring the government to show some “nexus” to terrorism. The two introduced similar legislation previously, with the support of then-Senator Barack Obama.

The Durbin-Feingold bill would repeal the legal immunity given to telecommunications companies that collaborated with illegal government spying. Obama voted last year in favor of the legislation that granted the telecoms immunity, and his administration strongly opposes any repeal.

The American Civil Liberties Union took essentially the same position as the Senate liberals, calling the administration position on Patriot Act reauthorization “a mixed bag,” while hailing its willingness to work with Congress as “definitely a sea change from what we’ve seen in the past.”

On the same day as the Justice Department letter on the Patriot Act, the Obama administration filed an 85-page legal document with the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia arguing that prisoners at the US-run prison at Bagram, near Kabul, Afghanistan, should not have access to US courts. A lower federal court ruled that prisoners seized in other countries and taken to Afghanistan by the US government can challenge their detention in US courts through habeas corpus, like the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.

While Obama has publicly vowed to close Guantánamo Bay by next January, only a handful of the nearly 250 prisoners have been moved to other facilities or released, and the CIA and military are building up Bagram as an even larger facility for interrogation and imprisonment without trial. There are an estimated 600 detainees now at Bagram, an unknown number of them non-Afghans brought into the country on CIA and military planes.

Click here for the full report from wsws.org

Cameras Keep Track of All Cars Entering Medina

September 16, 2009

The Seattle Times

By Sonia Krishnan

City signs have a unique way of greeting people. In Issaquah, for instance, motorists are told they’re entering “a special place where people care.” For years, Bothell invited people to stay “for a day or a lifetime.”

In Medina, a new sign bears this warning: “You Are Entering a 24 Hour Video Surveillance Area.”

Cameras have recently been installed at intersections to monitor every vehicle coming into the city.

Under the “automatic license plate recognition” project, once a car enters Medina, a camera captures its license-plate number. Within seconds, the number is run through a database.

If a hit comes up for a felony — say, the vehicle was reported stolen or is being driven by a homicide suspect — the information is transmitted instantaneously to police, who can “leap into action,” said Police Chief Jeffrey Chen.

“These cameras provide us with intelligence,” Chen said. “It gets us in front of criminals. I don’t like to be on a level playing field with criminals.”

He declined to give the number and location of all the cameras.

Medina — a city of 3,100 with an average household income of $222,000 — had discussed the idea for years as a way to discourage crime, city officials said.

Last year, there were 11 burglaries, Chen said.

“Some people think [that number of burglaries] is tolerable,” he said. “But even one crime is intolerable.”

All captured information is stored for 60 days — even if nothing negative turns up, he said. That allows police to mine data if a crime occurs later, Chen said.

Doug Honig, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, said such a system smacks of privacy violations.

“Government shouldn’t be keeping records of people’s comings and goings when they haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. “By actions like this, we’re moving closer and closer to a surveillance society.”

Medina City Councilmember Lucius Biglow said crime prevention “outweighs concern over privacy.”

“Privacy is considerably less nowadays than it was, say, 50 years ago,” he said. “I think most of us are pretty well-documented by the federal government … simply because of the Internet and credit cards.”

It’s no secret cameras are everywhere — in stores, streets, parks and intersections where police want to cite drivers for running red lights.

A 2005 city survey showed that nearly a half of Medina’s residents agreed with the camera installation. In 2007, the City Council unanimously approved moving forward. (A cost for the project was not immediately available Tuesday from city officials.)

The city looked to nearby Hunts Point as an example. The peninsula-shaped residential community just north of Medina has been using a video-camera setup to record a continuous loop of car traffic in and out of town for more than three years, town administrator Jack McKenzie said.

The town of about 500 residents hasn’t had a single break-in since the cameras were installed. “I recommend it highly,” McKenzie said.

He said visitors to Hunts Point can’t miss the video equipment: “It’s 12 feet tall and covered with cameras,” he said of the installation, which is located at the traffic circle at the entrance to the community. There are eight cameras in all; pairs of cameras point in four directions.

No residents have ever complained about it, he said.

McKenzie said the town has used it for evidence in a couple of cases. In one case, he said, a woman driving a Mercedes ran into a mailbox pagoda, damaging the mailboxes and her car.

Medina police — who provide Hunts Point with police protection — reviewed the tape and picked out the undamaged Mercedes going into town, and the damaged car later coming out.

Medina City Council members say the cameras aren’t about preserving a gated-community atmosphere.

“We’re not elitist at all,” Councilmember Robert Rudolph said. “There is a mix of people in Medina of all economic strata. What we’re doing here is protecting our citizenry.”

Click here for the full report from the Seattle Times

Blind Woman Sees With ‘Tooth-in-Eye’ Surgery

September 17, 2009

ABC News

By Lauren Cox

Forget about an eye for an eye — doctors in Florida have taken a blind woman’s tooth, and used it to help restore her vision.

A team of specialists at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine announced Wednesday that they are the first surgeons in the United States to restore a person’s sight by using a tooth. The procedure is formally called modified osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis (or MOOKP).

Sharron “Kay” Thornton, 60, went blind nine years ago from a rare disorder called Stevens-Johnson syndrome. The disorder left the surface of her eyes so severely scarred she was legally blind. But doctors determined the inside of her eyes were still functional enough that she might one day see with the help of MOOKP.

“This is a patient where the surface of the eye is totally damaged — no wetness, no tears,” said Dr. Victor L. Perez, the ophthalmologist at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami who operated on Thornton. “So we kind of recreate the environment of the mouth in the eye.”

The three-phase operation started with University of Miami dentist, Dr. Yoh Sawatari, who removed a tooth from Thornton’s mouth and prepared an implant of her own dental tissue for her most severely damaged eye. The tissue would be used to make a new cornea to replace the damaged one.

Doctors then removed a section of Thornton’s cheek that would become the soft, mucus tissue around her pupil. Finally, Perez and his team implanted the modified tooth — which had a hole drilled through the center — to support a prosthetic lens.

“We use that tooth as a platform to put the optical cylinder into the eye,” explained Perez.

Perez said doctors often use less risky and less invasive techniques to replace corneas, but the damage from Thornton’s Stevens-Johnson syndrome ruled those out.

Using a tooth might sound strange, but it also offers an advantage. Because doctors used Thornton’s own cheek and tooth tissue she faces less risk that her immune system will attack the tooth and reject the transplant. Patients getting a cornea transplant from a deceased donor, on the other hand, face chances that their immune system will reject the new tissue.

This Labor Day, Thornton was able to take off the bandages and she immediately saw the light.

Regaining Her Vision With Tooth in Eye Surgery
“From the first day, she’s been able to see 20/70,” said Perez. “She cannot drive legally (yet), but she can see her hands, see TV, see the sky, see the clouds.”

At the moment, Thornton has nothing covering the cheek tissue on her eye, an aesthetic drawback MOOKP patients must face.

“Her eye looks different but, the goal is once she heals more we can put on a cosmetic eye shield,” said Perez.

The technique was developed in Italy in the early 1960s, but the original procedure has been modified over the years by doctors in Europe. Hundreds of people in Japan, England and Italy have regained vision through the technique, but most eye specialists in the U.S. don’t foresee MOOKP catching on in America.

“It’s a complicated and rare procedure that a few people use in desperate situations [and] some patients benefit when the alternative is blindness,” said Dr. Stanley Chang, an ophthalmologist at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

Why the Tooth and Eye Procedure Is Rare

While OOKP is used more often in Europe, doctors U.S. typically choose a less tedious technique called the Boston Keratoprosthesis, which is similar to MOOKP but uses a prosthetic cornea instead of one grown from dental tissue and does not require cheek tissue to surround the implant.

The Boston technique, experts say, can save patients time and give them a more natural looking eye.

“The [MOOKP] procedure is unlikely to be very commonly used because of the difficulty, length, and invasiveness of the surgery and the cosmetic appearance after surgery,” said Dr. James Chodosh, a cornea specialist at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

But some patients are better candidates for the MOOKP procedure than the Boston Keratoprosthesis  including people with Stevens-Johnson syndrome, or who were chemical burn victims.

“These conditions, although rare or uncommon, are still important because the patients may have little or no vision, and because there have not been very effective treatments to restore their vision,” said Chodosh.

Rare Procedures to Reverse Blindness Still Have Benefits
Dr. Uyen Tran, associate professor of ophthalmology at the Vanderbilt Eye Institute, agrees that “these types of patients are not common” and says that “we probably see about 20 cases a year at our center.”

Yet, while the number of patients for MOOKP may never reach the number of patients getting the Boston Keratoprosthesis, Perez said he hopes to perform more of these procedures for those in need.

“Absolutely there are a lot of patients like her (Thornton), and also patients with chemical burns& we also want to work with the Department of Defense to help with soldiers who are scarred,” said Perez.

Click here for the full report from ABC News

New Cranberry Technology Tackles Tartness

September 15, 2009

FoodNavigator-USA.com

By Caroline Scott-Thomas

A Wisconsin-based company claims it has developed a method to significantly reduce cranberry acidity without using chemicals or additives, which could lead to low- and no-sugar cranberry products.

Cranberries can cause problems for food manufacturers due to their high acidity, which can interfere with the leavening process in bakery products or leave very tart and bitter flavors. Where cranberries are used, the tartness usually needs to be offset by large amounts of sugar.

Jonathan Smith, president of Alpine Foods and developer of the acidity-reducing technology, told FoodNavigator-USA.com that he has developed a way to tackle this problem, using temperature, pressure, vacuum and quick freeze technology. This process, claims Smith, retains most of the juice, while eliminating much of the acidity.

“I use the cell wall as its own molecular sieve,” explained Smith, who has three patents pending on the technology.

Berry Bits is the first product to use this method, moving away from the company’s established realm of instant quick freeze berries.

Applications

Alpine Foods said the low-acid refrigerated or frozen sliced berries can be incorporated into a wide range of food applications, including yogurts, bakery, sauces, ice cream, meats and cheese.

Smith said: “The most promising areas are yogurts and dairy applications like ice creams because you get the flavor without the bite.”

Berry Bits, which can be eaten without extra sweetening, contain about five percent added sugar, which – together with the sugars that occur naturally in cranberries – brings the total up to about 14 percent.

Sweet and savory

However, they do not have to be sweetened at all for some applications. Smith said: “We made use of a jalapeno infusion for a Mexican cranberry pie and to be incorporated into a meat product. We are also getting into the savory as well as the sweet. We can infuse with garlic, or with barbecue sauce…The appeal that I see is that most people are using the sweetened dried cranberries that are about 75 percent sugar. Ours are about 14 percent.”

As for their potential uses in sweet products, Smith said it could be possible to ditch the sugar entirely.

“We could take it out completely,” he said. “We are helping a company make a sugar-free one right now, which is really neat.”

The company currently has production capacity of about 12m pounds a year, although Smith said that if he sold that much, he could quickly expand production.

And there may well be other applications for the technology, including tart cherries and blueberries, although he said that this may be “ten to 20 years down the road”.

Click here for the full report from FoodNavigator-USA.com

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