First Lady to Meet with Food Companies on Anti-Obesity Strategy

March 16, 2010

Associated Press

Michelle Obama has talked to schools and nutrition groups across the country in her effort to reduce childhood obesity. On Tuesday she will face the food companies that make the snacks and junk food that stuff grocery aisles and school vending machines.

Not that the companies mind. The Grocery Manufacturers Association — which counts Kraft Foods Inc., Coca Cola Co. and General Mills Inc. among its members — invited her to speak at its science forum.

Welcoming the first lady and embracing her campaign for healthier kids, launched earlier this year, could have advantages.

The industry is positioned to take some blows in the coming year, including a child nutrition bill about to move through Congress that could eliminate junk food in schools, digging into some companies’ profits.

The Food and Drug Administration is also beginning to crack down on misleading labeling on food packages, saying some items labeled “healthy” are not, and the Senate last year mulled a tax on soda and other sweetened drinks to help pay for overhauling health care.

That tax did not make it into the health care bill, but it could be seen as an opening shot in a quietly growing effort to target food companies, especially as local, state and federal governments scrounge for revenue in a tight fiscal environment.

Michelle Obama has not previously taken her anti-obesity campaign directly to the large food companies. She said recently, however, that she would like to see more customer-friendly food labels “so parents won’t have to spend hours squinting at words that they can’t pronounce to figure out whether the foods that they’re buying are healthy or not.”

She has also said she will push companies that supply foods to schools to improve nutritional quality. Her campaign is largely focused on school lunches and vending machines, along with making healthy food more available and encouraging children to exercise more.

Scott Faber, a lobbyist for the grocery association, said the industry is open to working with the government on finding ways to produce healthier foods.

“Consumers are demanding more and more healthy choices,” he said. “Our industry will do our part by changing the way we make and market our foods, but government has a big role to play as well.”

This approach is a far cry from the fights consumer groups had with food companies a decade ago, said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

“When I first started working on junk food in schools, it was a very contentious issue where we regularly did battle with junk and snack food companies,” she said. “Now it’s a whole new world, and many of them are supporting updating standards.”

Wootan said she believes that embarrassment is in part fueling the companies’ push, as more attention has been placed on foods’ nutritional values or lack thereof. More uniform federal standards could also be helpful to food companies, she said, as some states and localities are creating their own standards for marketing and making foods.

“When you see the handwriting on the wall, it’s time to get on the right side of the issue,” Wootan said.

Consumer advocates say they are cautiously optimistic about the industry’s involvement, but will wait to see how amenable they are to real change.

“They want to be riding that crest rather than fighting it,” said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the Trust for America’s Health, a Washington-based public health research organization. “There is a long ways between saying the right things and doing the right thing.”

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House May Try to Pass Senate Healthcare Bill Without Voting on It!

March 16, 2010

The Washington Post

By Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane

After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate’s health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers “deem” the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic — known as a “self-executing rule” or a “deem and pass” — has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

“It’s more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know,” the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. “But I like it,” she said, “because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.”

Republicans quickly condemned the strategy, framing it as an effort to avoid responsibility for passing the legislation, and some suggested that Pelosi’s plan would be unconstitutional.

“It’s very painful and troubling to see the gymnastics through which they are going to avoid accountability,” Rep. David Dreier (Calif.), the senior Republican on the House Rules Committee, told reporters. “And I hope very much that, at the end of the day, that if we are going to have a vote, we will have a clean up-or-down vote that will allow the American people to see who is supporting this Senate bill and who is not supporting this Senate bill.”

House leaders have worked for days to round up support for the legislation, but the Senate measure has drawn fierce opposition from a broad spectrum of members. Antiabortion Democrats say it would permit federal funding for abortion, liberals oppose its tax on high-cost insurance plans, and Republicans say the measure overreaches and is too expensive.

Some senior lawmakers have acknowledged in recent days that Democrats lack the votes for passage. Pelosi, however, predicted Monday that she would deliver.

“When we have a bill, then we will let you know about the votes. But when we bring the bill to the floor, we will have the votes,” she told reporters.

Pelosi said Monday that House Democrats have yet to decide how to approach the vote. But she added that any strategy involving a separate vote on the Senate bill “isn’t too popular,” and aides said the leadership is likely to bow to the wishes of its rank and file.

As Pelosi and other congressional leaders pressed wavering lawmakers, President Obama highlighted how close the result may be as he focused his attention Monday on Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who has been a stalwart no vote on health-care reform.

Kucinich, an uncompromising liberal, has rejected any measure without a government-run insurance plan. Obama invited Kucinich to join him aboard Air Force One for a trip to suburban Cleveland, where the president made a plea for reform, the third such pitch in eight days.

As he addressed a crowd of more than 1,400, Obama repeatedly called on lawmakers to summon the “courage to pass the far-reaching package.” He painted the existing insurance system as a nightmare for millions of American who cannot afford quality coverage.

The president lashed out at Republican critics who have argued that the health-care initiative would undermine Medicare, and he argued that the measure would end “the worst practices” of insurance companies.

“I don’t know about the politics, but I know what’s the right thing to do,” he said, nearly shouting as the crowd cheered. “And so I’m calling on Congress to pass these reforms — and I’m going to sign them into law. I want some courage. I want us to do the right thing.”

Asked whether he was reconsidering his position, Kucinich demurred. But Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Kucinich is coming under intense pressure from Ohioans who want Congress to act, and from his colleagues in Washington.

“All of us — the governor, the congressional delegation, the president — are making clear to Dennis that we won’t have another chance for a decade if this doesn’t happen,” Brown said.

Persuading liberals such as Kucinich to support the Senate bill is critical to the Democratic strategy, which has been rewritten since January, when Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. The Senate Democratic caucus, reduced to 59 seats, lost its ability to override Republican filibusters and soon abandoned plans to pass a revised version of the health-care bill that would reflect a compromise with House leaders.

As House leaders looked for a path that could get the Senate legislation through the chamber and onto Obama’s desk, conservatives warned that Pelosi’s use of deem-and-pass in this way would run afoul of the Constitution. They pointed to a 1998 Supreme Court ruling that said each house of Congress must approve the exact same text of a bill before it can become law. A self-executing rule sidesteps that requirement, former federal appellate judge Michael McConnell argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Democrats were also struggling Monday to put the finishing touches on the package of fixes. Under reconciliation rules, it is protected from filibusters and could pass the Senate with only 50 votes, but can include only provisions that would affect the budget.

Democratic leaders learned over the weekend that they may not be able to include a number of favored items, including some Republican proposals to stem fraud in federal health-care programs and a plan to weaken a new board that would be empowered to cut Medicare payments.

Click here for the full report.

National ID Card Will Only Strengthen Big Brother

March 11, 2010

Fox News

By Alex Nowrasteh

The Senate is working toward a ghastly compromise on immigration reform that includes a biometric national identification card for all Americans. The stated purpose of this national ID, which an employee must present before getting a job, is to prevent undocumented workers from being employed. Back in December I warned that a national ID is the inevitable conclusion of the anti-immigration movement. The failure of E-Verify to catch 54% of undocumented workers is only accelerating the call for a national ID.

A national ID hurts American workers while pretending to help them.

First, every worker would have to ask permission from the federal government to get a job. American workers shouldn’t have to beg or plead to anybody to get permission to work. Being employed should be a private agreement between an employer and employee. Period. The government should get out of the way.

Second, carrying around government papers with biometric identification on it conjures up images of a more technologically savvy Oceania or East Germany. No thanks.

Third, the system will exclude millions of legal workers by accident and fail to catch the majority of undocumented immigrants. For instance, if E-Verify were instituted nation-wide 3.6 million Americans would be denied employment each year and have to visit the Social Security Administration to correct their records. The employer either fires them or delays training. Will a biometric ID card make this system better? How does that help American workers?

Fourth, it will cost businesses up to $800 to buy a scanner. Or as Senator Chuck Schumer says, employers can just go down to the DMV. Senator Schumer doesn’t know squat about running a business. The last thing an employer wants to do is spend time at the DMV when he could be spending it improving his business. And all this during an economic slump!

Fifth, it would treat every American like a criminal by requiring them to enter their most intimate and personal data into a government database. One of the benefits of not having committed any crimes is that my information is not in a government record office. I’d like to keep it that way.

Has the very notion of liberty been so diluted in this great nation that no-one is willing to decry this as the naked government power grab that it is? Must every American now ask government permission to get a job? Think what you will about undocumented immigration, is ending it so important that every single American must be entered into a massive government database and given an ID they must present when applying for a job?

It most emphatically is not.

Click here for the full report

Foodborne Illness Costs US $152 Bil Annually

March 3, 2010

Reuters

By Christopher Doering

Food safety advocates are hoping that the study will boost efforts in Congress to overhaul the nation’s antiquated food safety system.

Dozens of pathogens, many of them unknown, creep into the food supply each year, sickening millions. The price tag includes medical costs, lost productivity and quality-of-life, according to a study from the Produce Safety Project.

“This is significantly more than previous official estimates and it demonstrates the serious burden that foodborne illness places on society,” said Sandra Eskin, a spokeswoman with Make Our Food Safe Coalition, a group of consumer, public health and other groups pushing for stronger food safety laws.

The latest study to delve into foodborne illnesses comes as Congress works to craft legislation that would mark the first major overhaul of the food safety system in 50 years.

The House passed its bill last July and the Senate, which has been bogged down with healthcare and regulatory reform, is expected to act this year.

“My hope… is that the sobering numbers of this report will compel the Senate to act immediately on food safety legislation,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who has vigorously pushed for food safety reform. “We literally cannot afford to wait.”

Past official government estimates of health-related costs of foodborne illness have ranged from $7 billion to as much as $35 billion, but they considered only limited costs and pathogens, according to the report.

The new study, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts and Georgetown University, considered more pathogens and health-related costs, pushing the price tag to $152 billion. Overall, foodborne illness costs related to produce total $39 billion per year, the study estimated.

The U.S. food supply has been battered by a series of high-profile outbreaks, many involving produce, such as lettuce, spinach, peppers and peanuts, since 2006 led to a rash of illnesses for consumers and cost businesses millions.

Many firms including Kellogg Co, whose company lost nearly $70 million in products from the recent peanut recall, and ConAgra Foods have been among those affected.

An estimated 76 million people in the United States get sick each year with foodborne illness and 5,000 die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study found Kentucky had the lowest cost per foodborne case at $1,731. Alternatively, greater exposure to higher cost pathogens pushed the price tag to about $2,008 per case in Hawaii. The average cost in the United States was $1,851.

Typical medical costs from a case of foodborne illness range from $78 in Montana to $162 in New Jersey with much of the difference due physician and hospital charges. The average productivity loss from a case of foodborne illness is between $377 in Mississippi and $924 in Delaware.

Click here for the full report

Abuse of Power by The Government

March 3, 2010

The Wall Street Journal

A string of electoral defeats and the great unpopularity of ObamaCare can’t stop Democrats from their self-appointed rendezvous with liberal destiny—ramming a bill through Congress on a narrow partisan vote. What we are about to witness is an extraordinary abuse of traditional Senate rules to pass a bill merely because they think it’s good for the rest of us, and because they fear their chance to build a European welfare state may never come again.

The vehicle is “reconciliation,” a parliamentary process that fast-tracks budget measures and was created in 1974 as a deficit-reduction tool. Limited to 20 hours of debate, reconciliation bills need a mere 50 votes in the Senate, with the Vice President as tie-breaker, thus circumventing the filibuster. Both Democrats and Republicans have frequently used reconciliation on budget bills, so Democrats are now claiming that using it to pass ObamaCare is no big deal.

Yet this shortcut has never been used for anything approaching the enormity of a national health-care entitlement. Democrats are only resorting to it now because their plan is in so much political trouble—within their own party, and even more among the general public—and because they’ve failed to make their case through persuasion.

“They know that this will take courage,” Nancy Pelosi said in an interview over the weekend, speaking of the Members she’ll try to strong-arm. “It took courage to pass Social Security. It took courage to pass Medicare,” the Speaker continued. “But the American people need it, why are we here? We’re not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress.”

Leave aside the irony of invoking “the American people” on behalf of a bill that consistently has been 10 to 15 points underwater in every poll since the fall, and is getting more unpopular by the day, particularly among independents. As Maine Republican Olympia Snowe pointed out in a speech last December, Social Security passed when Democrats controlled both Congress and the White House, yet 64% of Senate Republicans and 79% of the House GOP voted for it. More than half of the Senate Republican caucus voted for Medicare in 1965. Historically, major social legislation has always been bipartisan, because it reflects a durable political consensus.

Reconciliation is the last mathematical gasp for ObamaCare because Democrats can’t sell their policy to Senator Snowe, any other Republican, or even dozens of Democrats. This raw exercise of political power is of a piece with the copious corruption and bribery—such as the Cornhusker kickbacks and special tax benefits for union members—that liberals had to use to get even this far.

Democrats often point to welfare reform in 1996 as a reconciliation precedent, yet that bill passed the Senate with 78 votes, including Joe Biden and half of the Democratic caucus. The children’s health insurance program in 1997 was steered through Congress with reconciliation, but it, too, was built on strong (if misguided) bipartisan support. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that created Schip passed 85-15, including 43 Republicans. Even President Bush’s 2001 tax cuts, another case in reconciliation point, were endorsed by 12 Senate Democrats.

Click here for the full report

Dems Retreat on New Privacy Protections

February 26, 2010

My Way

By Larry Margasak

Senate Democrats have retreated from adding new privacy protections to the nation’s primary counterterrorism law, as Republicans refused to lend support and portrayed the majority as willing to harm terror investigations.

Lacking the necessary 60-vote supermajority, Democratic leaders settled on a one-year extension of expiring surveillance and seizure provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

They tossed aside curbs – and greater scrutiny – on government authority agreed to by the Senate Judiciary Committee in October after spirited debate.

The extension passed Wednesday night by voice vote with no debate. The bill goes to the House, but with key sections of the law ready to expire Sunday, there’s little chance that changes will be made. Expiration of key anti-terrorism tools, even for a short time, would seriously hamper law enforcement.

The Democratic retreat is an important political victory for Republicans, who gained new ammunition for their election theme that the GOP can better protect America. The outcome is a major disappointment for Democrats and their liberal allies, like the American Civil Liberties Union and supporters who believe the Patriot Act fails to protect Americans’ privacy and gives the government too much authority to spy on Americans and seize their property.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., noted that the bill had been approved in committee by a bipartisan majority. He said the measure “should be an example of what Democrats and Republicans can accomplish when we work together, but I understand some Republican senators objected to passing the carefully crafted national security, oversight and judicial review provisions in this legislation.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on Leahy’s committee, set the GOP tone in December when the same provisions faced an earlier expiration date and received a short extension.

“The bill that eventually emerged from the Judiciary Committee does not meet the key test for any national security legislation: First, do no harm,” Sessions said. “The bill reported by the committee would make the jobs of our national security officials more difficult.”

The Obama administration supported the revisions to the law as approved by the committee.

The three sections of the Patriot act that would stay in force:

_Authorize court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones.

_Allow court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations.

_Permit surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.

The Judiciary Committee bill would have restricted FBI information demands known as national security letters, and made it easier to challenge gag orders imposed on Americans whose records are seized with these letters.

Library records would have received extra protections. Congress would have closely scrutinized FBI use of the Patriot Act to prevent abuses. Dissemination of surveillance results would have been restricted, and after a time, unneeded records would have been destroyed.

Republicans have been steadily pounding the Obama administration over the closing of the detainee prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as the possibly of holding civilian trials for detainees in the United States. They have also criticized federal agents for informing a Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, of his right to remain silent after 50 minutes of questioning for allegedly trying to ignite explosives on a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas.

If Democrats had allowed the Senate to have a full debate on the Judiciary Committee restrictions, they would have exposed themselves to Republican arguments that Democrats were hurting law enforcement.

With their health care overhaul bill on the ropes and joblessness still high, Democratic lawmakers need a victory.

Not surprisingly, the Democratic retreat didn’t please the party’s liberal allies, but they recognized the political realities.

“The American Library Association understands why the Democratic leadership has to go with a clean reauthorization, but that doesn’t take away the disappointment we have,” said Lynne Bradley, the group’s chief lobbyist. “It is more than unfortunate that Republicans think they own the ground when it comes to surveillance and national security.”

Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the ACLU, said, “Events of the last few months changed the tone in Washington when it comes to national security issues.”

“Were it not for the Christmas Day attack, you might have seen a bill with even modest reform go through,” she said. “The numbers weren’t there.”

Click here for the full report

McCain’s Dietary Supplement Bill is Direct Assault On Natural Health Freedom

February 26, 2010

Info Wars

By Brandon Turbeville

A bill recently introduced to the U.S. Senate, the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 (S. 3002), by Senators John McCain and Byron Dorgan is possibly the most direct assault on natural health freedom we have seen for some time. If passed into law, this bill would require all dietary supplement manufacturers, distributors, and holders all the way down to the retail store level to be comprehensively registered. It would also allow for the arbitrary banning of nutritional supplements by the FDA and the introduction of deceitful reporting of adverse events related to them.

The cover for this legislation is that it is designed to prevent both intentional and unintentional steroid adulteration of dietary supplements. The trigger, according to McCain, was six NFL players who were accused of doping with supplements tainted with steroids. Even with this being the case, however, the FDA already has the authority to regulate synthetic anabolic steroids via the Anabolic Control Act of 2004 which permits them to do just that. Nevertheless, under the guise of the behavior of six NFL players, an entire market that has been proven not only very safe but very healthy will be essentially regulated out of business. (NHF)

The Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 would require registration of any “business or operation engaged in manufacturing, packaging, holding, distributing, labeling, or licensing a dietary supplement for consumption in the United States,” definitions which could possibly include even retail stores that sell herbal and nutritional products. (DSSA p.2) Currently, under the Dietary Supplements and Non-Prescription Consumer Protection Act, small retailers are not required to register. This, however, will change with the passage of McCain-Dorgan’s bill. (NHF)

The switch from the current practices of Serious Adverse Event Reporting to that of simply Adverse Event Reporting is of concern as well. Existing law requires the reporting of serious adverse events related to the supplement in question to be reported for regulatory and recall purposes. The McCain-Dorgan bill, however, removes the language “Serious Adverse Event” and replaces it with the term “adverse event,” opening up the floodgates for the most ridiculous possible claims of adverse events such as bad taste or even dislike of packaging. This “report everything possible” stance is will vastly increase the numbers of complaints that will hence be used to add credence to the arguments for banning supplements in the future. Not only that, but more government bureaucracies will have to be created in order to organize and sort through all of the incoming “adverse event reports.” (NHF)

Yet the most frightening aspect of this bill is the immediate effects it would have on natural supplements. Currently, due to the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), all supplements on the market prior to October 15, 1994 can lawfully be sold in the United States. However, the legislation being proposed completely reverses this and defines a “new dietary supplement” as one that “is not included on the list of ‘Accepted Dietary Ingredients’, to be prepared, published, and maintained by the Secretary” (DSSA p.5-6). This seemingly slight change in language actually removes the grandfathering in of supplements on the market prior to 1994. These new dietary supplements will also be considered “adulterated” unless “there is a history of use or other evidence of safety establishing that the dietary ingredient when used under the conditions recommended or suggested in the labeling of the dietary supplement….” (DSSA p.5) The registrants are then required to create and maintain a “scientifically reasonable substantiation file” which is to be made available for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to inspect at his/her whim. These products are to be registered at least 75 days prior to market. (NSF)

As quoted above, the bill also mandates that an “Accepted Dietary Ingredients” list should be created by the Secretary of HHS which will replace the current guidelines. Such a list effectively gives the FDA carte blanche to do whatever it wishes in regards to natural supplements. The FDA is given absolute authority to determine what supplements are allowed on the “Accepted Dietary Ingredients” list, thereby granting it the authority to ban any supplement without due process, scientific merit, or even a hearing simply by refusing to place it on the ADI list. (NSF) The FDA will also be able to remove supplements from market even after it has allowed it to be included on its’ list. As the bill states,

“If the Secretary finds there is a reasonable probability that a dietary supplement or a product marketed or sold as a dietary supplement would cause serious, adverse, health consequences or death, or is adulterated or misbranded, the Secretary shall issue a cease distribution and notification order requiring the person named in the order to immediately – cease distribution of such dietary supplement or a product marketed or sold as a dietary supplement; notify distributors, importers, retailers, and consumers of the order; and instruct those distributors, importers, retailers, and consumers to cease distributing, importing, selling, and using the dietary supplement.”(DSSA p.9)

The cost of the recall, of course, will be absorbed by the retailer. (DSSA p.11)

While the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 is an egregious attack on Americans’ freedom of choice, it is also a symptom of an even larger problem. The McCain-Dorgan bill is not just another silly attempt by corrupt politicians to demonstrate that they still have some value to their constituents, but an attempt to implement Codex Alimentarius at the national level and move the United States away from our Common Law heritage. The European Union has already passed similar legislation in the European Union Food Supplements Directive which has decimated open access to natural dietary supplements. Canada has passed laws to the same effect in recent weeks as well.

Click here for the full report

GlaxoSmithKline Hid Evidence of Avandia Harm

February 23, 2010

Natural News

By Mike Adams

GlaxoSmithKline, maker of the diabetes drug Avandia, knew the drug was linked to tens of thousands of heart attacks but went out of its way to hide this information from the public, says a 334-page report just released by the Senate Finance Committee. (http://finance.senate.gov/press/Gpr…)

This report also accuses the FDA of betraying the public trust, explaining that FDA bureaucrats intentionally dismissed safety concerns found by the agency’s own scientists.

The report says that Big Pharma’s drugs “put public safety at risk because the FDA has been too cozy with drug makers and has been regularly outmaneuvered by companies that have a financial interest in downplaying or under-exploring potential safety risks.” Sales of Avandia were $3.2 billion (yes, billion) in 2006.

According to a statistical analysis in the report, if all the diabetics currently taking Avandia were put on a “safer” drug, it would avert 500 heart attacks and 300 cases of heart failure every month in the United States alone. Presently, hundreds of thousands of Americans are still taking this drug, and hundreds will continue to die each month as a result, according to the report estimates.

This report, championed by U.S. Senators Grassley and Baucus, is the result of investigators pouring through more than 250,000 pages of documentation gathered from GlaxoSmithKline and the FDA. The document reveals some rather startling facts about the dangers of Avandia, including evidence from the FDA’s own scientists who concluded that Avandia was associated with 83,000 heart attacks.

GlaxoSmithKline intimidates scientists
This investigative report also reveals that GSK engaged in the intimidation of physicians, saying: “GSK executives attempted to intimidate independent physicians, focused on strategies to minimize or misrepresent findings that Avandia may increase cardiovascular risk and sought ways to downplay findings that a competing drug might reduce cardiovascular risk.”

“Patients trust drug companies with their health and their lives, and GlaxoSmithKline abused that trust.” said Sen. Baucus. (Gee, really? Is anyone really surprised that GSK put its own financial interests ahead of a few thousand human lives?)

A separate letter sent to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg by Senators Baucus and Grassley added, “the totality of evidence suggests that GSK was aware of the possible cardiac risks associated with Avandia years before such evidence became public.”

The FDA’s own research also showed Avandia to be associated with a significant increase in heart attack risk, yet the FDA did nothing to protect the public. The agency’s own scientists wrote in 2008, “There is strong evidence that rosiglitazone [Avandia] confers an increased risk of [heart attacks] and heart failure compared to pioglitazone [a rival drug on market].” This evidence went completely ignored at the FDA.

The FDA’s famous Dr David Graham — the key whistleblower on the Vioxx scandal — concluded from his own research, “Rosiglitazone should be removed from the market.”

Even the American Medical Association — a long-time defender of Big Pharma’s drugs — admitted Avandia was dangerous. Its journal, JAMA, wrote in 2007: “Among patients with impaired glucose tolerance or type 2 diabetes, rosiglitazone use for at least 12 months is associated with a significantly increased risk of myocardial infarction and heart failure, without a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular mortality.”

The New England Journal of Medicine also warned about the safety of the drug in an article published in 2007.

Despite these multiple warnings, an FDA panel voted 22 – 1 in favor of keeping Avandia on the market. This is no surprise, of course, to those who know how the FDA really operates (and where its priorities really lie).

Analysis: What does it all mean?
Are you kidding me? A drug company hid data that its high-profit drug was linked to increased risk of heart attacks? A drug company intimidated physicians and got away with hoodwinking the public while raking in billions of dollars in sales for a drug that the FDA’s own scientists said should be pulled from the market?

Sounds like business as usual at the FDA, the “sweep it under the rug” division of the pharmaceutical industry. Once again, Dr David Graham turns out to be the sharpest guy in the room while having the courage to tell the truth even when surrounded by an agency full of morons and criminals.

The drug industry must hate this guy. But they can’t get rid of him because he’s one of the very few scientists in the FDA who is actually committed to protecting the public. Gee, what a concept, huh? The FDA as a whole abandoned that idea so long ago that virtually nobody there even remembers what it means. Protect the public? What do you mean? As in, lose profits by banning dangerous drugs that just happen to be making big money?

That’s unthinkable at the FDA as we know it today. The agency exists to promote pharmaceuticals, not to limit their sales just because a hundred thousand people happen to drop dead each year from taking FDA-approved drugs.

When it comes to safety vs. profits, the FDA chooses profits for Big Pharma time and time again.

Do the math on this: If Avandia is linked to 83,000 heart attacks, and if roughly 50% of those are fatal (that’s just an estimate), then Avandia could conceivably be the cause of 40,000 deaths. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 killed roughly 3,000 Americans, and yet just one drug that has been mysteriously kept on the market by the FDA appears to have killed more than ten times as many Americans as the terrorists.

So what does that make the FDA? More dangerous than the terrorists, of course!

So why is the FDA still allowed to operate in America if it’s such a dangerous organization that’s killing so many American citizens? Because it’s profitable, of course!

There’s one thing that’s true about both WAR and MEDICINE: As long as the right corporations are making money, it really doesn’t matter how many people die in the process.

And for all those diabetic Americans struggling to find improved health right now, there’s something you desperately need to know: There’s a price to putting your faith in the FDA, the drug companies and your pill-pushing doctor. That price may very well be your own life.

Diabetes has a cure, you know. You can reverse it in as little as four days by changing your diet. Read the books on diabetes by Dr Gabriel Cousens or Dr Julian Whitaker. Or read more about diabetes right here on NaturalNews: http://naturalnews.com/diabetes.html

Click here for the full report.

White House to Unveil Health Care Plan

February 22, 2010

Good Morning America

By Jake Tapper

The White House this morning unveiled President Obama’s health care plan and the changes he wants to make to the Senate Democratic health care bill. Even before the release of the proposal, it had already met with fierce Republican resistance.

The plan will reduce the deficit by $100 billion over the next decade, and more than $1 trillion in the years after that, and expand health care to 31 million more Americans, according to the White House.

Administration officials call the health care bill a “jumping-off” point for Thursday’s televised, bipartisan discussions on health care overhaul.

“This is our take on the best way to merge the House and Senate bills,” a senior White House official told ABC News. The official said the proposal was “informed by our conversations from negotiations” before Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., was elected, thus depriving Democrats of their 60-vote majority, as well as from subsequent discussions.

“We thought it would be a more productive meeting if we brought one consolidated plan to use as jumping-off point,” the official said. “We hope the Republicans do the same.”

The White House proposal doesn’t just represent ideas but a potential strategy — to have the House pass the Senate bill, with fixes to come to make it more palatable.

With Brown’s win in Massachusetts last month, Democrats no longer have a supermajority, so they would pass the “fix” using a controversial maneuver that requires only 51 votes.

White House officials are signaling that Thursday’s discussion won’t be just a parlor meeting to chat about health care principles, though they insist their minds will be open to incorporate some Republican ideas.

“Maybe we’ll sit across from each other and identify 10 things we can move forward on,” the official said. “We hope new ideas come to the table. The proposal we’re walking into the meeting with is not the same one we will walk out of the meeting with.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., believes passing the bill is “possibly doable,” the senior White House official said. “But she may ultimately decide the math is impossible.”

If that does not work, the next plan is to push a more modest bill — a smaller expansion of health insurance reform, some tax breaks for small businesses to help provide insurance for employees, a more modest expansion of Medicaid and the creation of the health insurance exchanges.

Among the fixes to the Senate bill that the president is proposing are “an additional series of measures proposed by Republicans to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse,” a White House official said. “The president believes the bipartisan discussion on Thursday will be the most productive if Democrats come to the table with a consolidated proposal — what he’s releasing today — and he hopes the Republicans will follow suit and come with their own unified proposal. He’ll be open to Republican ideas, and he hopes they’ll be open to ours.”

For the president, the conversation starts with four key parts of the Senate health care bill, which passed on Christmas Eve after weeks of deadlock.

First are insurance reforms, such as prohibiting insurers from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, a reform that Republicans have also said they would like to see happen.

Second, as proposed in both the House and Senate bills, the president wants to see health insurance exchanges created at the state level to ensure competition, a thorny point for Republicans.

Third, there would be no option of a government-run insurance plan that would compete with the private sector. The House health care bill includes a public option, but the Senate legislation does not, and even though the president initially pushed a public option as part of a health care overhaul package, he has said that to achieve compromise that aspect would need to be given up. Republicans are staunchly against any public option, saying it would hurt competition and the private sector.

Fourth, all Americans would be required to have health insurance coverage, and Medicaid would be expanded for low- and middle-income Americans to purchase health insurance. Both are points of contention for Republicans.

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Senator Durbin Blasts DC for Shutting Down for Snow

February 15, 2010

The Hill

By Jordy Jager

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) blasted Washingtonians for going “into a full-scale panic” during snowstorms, unlike people from Illinois who “know how to live with it.”

“I first came here as a student in 1963 … I lived a big part of my life, at least part-time, in Washington, D.C.,” Durbin said in remarks delivered on the Senate floor on Thursday. “I never could get over how people in this town reacted to snow.
“I am convinced that infants born in Washington, D.C., are taken from the arms of their loving mothers right when they are born into a room where someone shows a film of a snowstorm with shrieking and screaming so that those children come to believe snow is a mortal enemy, like a nuclear attack, because I have seen, for over 40 years here, people in this town go into a full-scale panic at the thought of a snowfall.

“We joke about it. Those of us from parts of the country that get snow and know how to live with it cannot get over how crazy the reaction is many times.”

Durbin, however, acknowledged that this past week’s worth of snowfall — which, with more than 55 inches, broke D.C.’s record — was due cause for D.C.-area residents to be concerned.

“But in fairness, this has been a heck of a snowstorm … You had every right to be concerned. Some of the other [storms], maybe not, but this one was the real deal.”

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