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The McGlynn 31 Oct
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
[dailymotion xata12&related=0 nolink]
Archive for October, 2009
31 Oct
Moderate in America’s Jewish Lobby Causes a Stir
“You can be sure that this administration will be represented at all future J Street conferences.”
By NEIL A. LEWIS and MARK LANDLER,
NYT, October 31, 2009
WASHINGTON — The tensions and sharp disagreements that have ripened among many American Jews over President Obama’s approach to Middle East issues were on public display here this week as a fledgling Jewish group held its first convention.
Mr. Obama sent his top national security aide to the convention of the group, known as J Street, but the Israeli ambassador pointedly stayed home. Some members of Congress agreed to be part of the event, only to withdraw their support in the face of criticism from their own political backers.
J Street has only a small fraction of the resources and membership of more established pro-Israel groups, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and it remains unclear how potent it will be in presenting itself as an alternative. Nonetheless, it has had great success in quickly becoming a major reference point in the complicated debate over President Obama’s Middle East policy as well as the more emotional issue of the appropriate role for American Jews in supporting Israel.
While opinions in the Jewish community have never been uniform or monolithic, several analysts, elected officials and pollsters said the debate over Mr. Obama’s approach to Israel and its neighbors has sharpened boundaries between those who strongly support him and those who have grown more wary.
J Street has tried to position itself as a counterweight to groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, which J Street supporters say require the United States to support the Israeli government too reflexively.
Many of its critics say that J Street, by presenting itself as an American Jewish pro-Israel group that believes that Mr. Obama should be free to disagree with the Israeli government, is harmful to Israel’s long-term interests and encourages obduracy in its Arab adversaries.
Despite the controversy, the White House has made unmistakable gestures to lend support and legitimacy to J Street (the name is a play on the lobbyist corridor on K Street; Washington has no street named J). After including the group in a private meeting over the summer for major American Jewish organizations, it took the more notable and public step this week of sending Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, to deliver Tuesday’s keynote address at the J Street convention.
General Jones did not offer any new policy prescriptions but received prolonged standing applause when he told the crowd of more than 1,000, “You can be sure that this administration will be represented at all future J Street conferences.”
But among the missing at the conference was the Israeli ambassador, Michael B. Oren, who declined to attend, and more than a dozen of the 161 members of Congress who had agreed to be included on an honorary committee for the event. The Congressional members who reversed themselves asked that their names be withdrawn after some opponents of J Street asserted that supporting the group was not in Israel’s best interests.
Some Israeli officials have said privately that they do not want to offend Aipac and its members who have loyally supported the Israeli government for years. Ambassador Oren said in an interview that he declined to attend because of concerns “about several of J Street’s policies that may impair Israeli interests.” He said that he was not ordered by the Israeli government to skip the conference but that the government shared those concerns.
David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, which conducts an annual survey of American Jewish political opinion, said that he believed that there were now three distinct groups in the country. The largest, he said, is in the middle, composed of people who are hopeful that Mr. Obama will succeed in advancing peace in the Middle East but who remain understandably uncertain as to how things may play out.
Beyond that, he said, there have emerged “two doctrinaire camps” that he described as those who support Mr. Obama no matter what he does with regard to Israel and those who “are convinced that the president does not support Israel in his kishkes,” a Yiddish word similar to “gut.”
The opponents, Mr. Harris said, are a minority, but they have become more vociferous in their view that Mr. Obama “is focused on the Arab world and is trying to put Israel in a corner.”
Exit polls found that 77 percent of American Jews voted for Mr. Obama, a higher percentage than any other religious group. A recent Gallup poll found support for the president among 64 percent of American Jews, still the highest of any religious group. The American Jewish Committee survey last month had 54 percent of American Jews supporting the president’s relations with Israel and 32 percent disapproving.
The main issue that set the polarization in motion, many say, was the administration’s public feud in the summer with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after an American demand that Israel immediately freeze any construction in the settlements.
Steve Grossman, a former president of Aipac and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said that the administration’s approach on the settlements issue had caused “an enormous sense of anxiety” among many American Jews.
“It seemed that too much was being laid on Israel without any commensurate demand on the other side,” he said, noting that it created “an emotional chasm.”
The issue of how much any American administration should press an Israeli government to make concessions for peace is at the heart of delicate and long-unresolved questions among American Jews. At the least, say the traditional supporters of Israel, any disagreements should not be aired publicly.
At the height of the American-Israeli disagreement in June, Aipac was able to get more than 300 members of Congress to sign a resolution that in effect urged that disagreements between Israel and the United States be dealt with privately.
J Street officials have said one of their principal beliefs is that any administration, Mr. Obama’s included, should have some room to disagree with Israel’s government in order to become a more effective broker in the region.
A senior administration official said that the president and his advisers were aware of the restiveness caused by the summer’s dispute with Mr. Netanyahu over settlements. But the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Obama’s stance on settlements was not a drastic departure from longstanding policy and that relations with the Netanyahu government were now excellent.
Jim Gerstein, one of J Street’s founders, said his research and other polls found that most American Jews were uncomfortable with Israel’s settlement policy. But he said Orthodox Jews generally did support it.
In Israel itself, Mr. Obama’s favorable rating dropped in August to about 4 percent, according to a poll for The Jerusalem Post.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to arrive in Israel on Saturday to discuss the regional situation.
30 Oct
Profit Driven Swine Flu Propaganda – Pump Up the Volume (Posted by The McGlynn for information purposes)
“Every Child By Two, a group that promotes early immunization for all children, admits the group takes money from the vaccine industry, too – but wouldn’t tell us how much,” CBS investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.
Friday, October 30, 2009 by: Evelyn Pringle, health freedom writer
Article
In the video commentary titled, Mild Swine Flu & Over-Hyped Vaccine, on the website for the National Vaccine Information Center, the group’s co-founder and president, Barbara Loe Fisher, reports:
“We are witnessing a roll-out of the largest, most expensive mass vaccination campaign in the history of our nation. A rollout that is bigger than even the polio vaccine campaigns of the 1950′s.”
“If you or your child are injured from getting a flu swine flu shot, you are on your own,” Fisher warns.
“Because Congress shielded the vaccine manufacturers and any person giving swine flu shots from lawsuits if people get hurt,” she says. “There is no funded government vaccine injury compensation program for swine flu vaccine.”
“Doctors are telling some children under 10 years old to get 3 to 4 flu shots this year – 2 shots for seasonal flu and one or two more for swine flu,” Fisher points out.
“We have never given young children 3 to 4 flu shots in a single year and there is no information about how safe it is to do that,” she advises.
On October 18, 2009, the Wall Street Journal advised that: “Children ages six months to nine years who have never received a flu vaccine before are recommended to receive two doses of both the H1N1 and seasonal-flu vaccine about a month apart,” citing Paul Offit, chief of infectious disease at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, as the source, without letting readers know how rich he has become profiting off the vaccine industry.
Eight months ago, on February 16, 2009, “Age of Autism” published a report titled, “Voting Himself Rich: CDC Vaccine Adviser Made $29 Million Or More After Using Role to Create Market,” by Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxil, for an investigation that found:
“Dr. Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) took home a fortune of at least $29 million as part of a $182 million sale by CHOP of its worldwide royalty interest in the Merck Rotateq vaccine to Royalty Pharma in April of last year.”
“Based on an analysis of current CHOP administrative policies, the amount of income distributed to Offit could be as high as $46 million,” the report noted.
“In a Moody’s report dated June 2008, CHOP reported net proceeds from the Rotateq transaction of $153 million, a deal basis that would put the value of Offit’s 30% share at $45.9 million,” the authors wrote.
“Unlike most other patented products, the market for mandated childhood vaccines is created not by consumer demand, but by the recommendation of an appointed body called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP),” the AoA report states. “In a single vote, ACIP can create a commercial market for a new vaccine that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a matter of months.
“For example, after ACIP approved the addition of Merck’s (and Offit’s) Rotateq vaccine to the childhood vaccination schedule, Merck’s Rotateq revenue rose from zero in the beginning of 2006 to $655 million in fiscal year 2008,” the authors explain.
“When one multiplies a price of close to $200 per three dose series of Rotateq by a mandated market of four million children per year, it’s not hard to see the commercial value to Merck of favorable ACIP votes,” the authors point out.
From 1998 to 2003, Offit served as a member of ACIP. As a member of the ACIP, Offit “voted to include the rotavirus vaccine in the Vaccines for Children program, which ultimately made his Rotateq product worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Merck,” the National Autism Association reports.
Offit also holds a “$1.5 million dollar research chair at Children’s Hospital, funded by Merck,” according to a July 25, 2008 report by CBS News titled, “How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders?”
Calling them “the most trusted voices in the defense of vaccine safety,” CBS reports that the American Academy of Pediatrics, Every Child By Two, and pediatrician Dr Paul Offit, have something else in common – “strong financial ties to the industry whose products they promote and defend.”
“The vaccine industry gives millions to the Academy of Pediatrics for conferences, grants, medical education classes and even helped build their headquarters,” CBS found. Totals were secret, but documents cited by CBS reveal the following:
A $342,000 payment from Wyeth, maker of the pneumococcal vaccine – which makes $2 billion a year in sales.
$433,000 from Merck, the same year the academy endorsed Merck’s Gardasil vaccine – which made $1.5 billion a year in sales.
Another top donor was Sanofi Aventis, maker of 17 vaccines and a new five-in-one combo shot added to the childhood vaccine schedule in June 2008, CBS said.
“Every Child By Two, a group that promotes early immunization for all children, admits the group takes money from the vaccine industry, too – but wouldn’t tell us how much,” CBS investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.
In April 2009, the AAP even filed a friend of the court brief (amicus) with the US Supreme Court in support of a petition for a writ of certiorari from vaccine makers Wyeth and GlaxoSmithKline to overturn a unanimous ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court that decided a civil lawsuit filed by Marcelo and Carolyn Ferrari on behalf of their autistic son was not barred by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act.
The Georgia decision noted that recognizing presumptive preemption would “have the perverse effect of granting complete tort immunity from design defect liability to an entire industry.”
The Farrari family alleges that the vaccine makers could have manufactured safer childhood vaccines without the mercury-based, thimerosal, that caused their son’s autism. The Georgia court’s ruling would allow a jury to decide the case.
On September 9, 2009, the National Autism Association issued a press release with a headline: “Offit’s Failure to Disclose Jeopardizes Swine Flu Vaccine Program,” referring to his recent appearance on a segment of NBC’s Dateline.
“As autumn approaches and millions of Americans consider taking an H1N1 Swine Flu vaccination, the integrity of all vaccine developers has been called into question by the financial relationship of a leading vaccine advocate and a pharmaceutical manufacturer,” NAA advised.
“If people are to have confidence in the integrity of the Swine Flu vaccination program this fall then we need full disclosure of all financial relationships between proponents and manufacturers on every vaccine on the market,” said Jim Moody, attorney for the NAA, in the press release.
“Who has an objective opinion about a company that has made them rich?” he said.
“Offit has zero credibility in matters of vaccine safety,” says Wendy Fournier, president of the NAA. “Not only does he advance the absurd suggestion that children could safety get 100,000 vaccines at a time, he opposes any studies of the comparative health of unvaccinated children that could shed light on the extent and nature of vaccine-caused injuries, leading to their prevention.”
Beyond Offit’s financial conflicts, autism advocates are also dismayed about his credibility on speaking about autism in general, as he does not treat patients with autism.
“It’s a mystery how such an inexperienced and financially conflicted man has become the go-to guy for information on autism,” Ms Fournier says. “Here’s a man with no real knowledge about autism that again and again appears in media coverage.”
“Not only is he completely unqualified to address autism from a medical standpoint, his financial conflicts of interest disqualify him as a credible source for vaccine safety commentary as well,” she points out.
Too many shots
“Today’s immunization schedule now calls for kids to get 55 doses of vaccines by age 6,” according to the CBS News report.
The four flu shots recommended this year will be in addition to all the other vaccines children receive in complying with the mandatory childhood vaccine schedule.
On the “Age of Autism” website, Mary Podlesak warns that the flu vaccines still contain mercury. “I was reading the package inserts for the H1N1 vaccines from Novartis, Sanofi Pasteur and CSL last night,” she said. “All three state the vaccine contains 25mcg of mercury — not 25mcg of thimerosal — 25mcg of mercury.”
“When I checked the package inserts for the seasonal flu vaccine, they read the same as the H1N1 description,” Podlesak wrote.
The package insert states: “The 5-mL multidose vial formulation contains thimerosal, a mercury derivative, added as a preservative. Each 0.5-mL dose from the multidose vial contains 25 mcg mercury.”
Smaller amounts of thimerosal also remain in some other vaccines, even those marketed as “preservative-free,” according to Age of Autism.
The H1N1 vaccine insert also states: “Pregnancy Category C: Animal reproduction studies have not been conducted with Influenza A”
“(H1N1) 2009 Monovalent Vaccine or AFLURIA. It is also not known whether these vaccines can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman or can affect reproduction capacity. Influenza A (H1N1) 2009 Monovalent Vaccine should be given to a pregnant woman only if clearly needed. ”
Back on May 20, 2003, after a three year investigation of pediatric vaccine safety, initiated in the US House Committee on Government Reform, the “Mercury in Medicine Report,” was placed in the Congressional record.
“Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines in likely related to the autism epidemic,” the report concluded.
“This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding the lack of safety data regarding injected thimerosal and the sharp rise of infant exposure to this known neurotoxin,” the Committee advised.
“The FDA and the CDC failed in their duty to be vigilant as new vaccines containing thimerosal were approved and added to the immunization schedule,” the report pointed out.
“At the same time that the incidence of autism was growing,” the Committee said, “the number of childhood vaccines containing thimerosal was growing, increasing the amount of ethylmercury to which infants were exposed threefold.”
Vaccine makers and conflicted public health officials are always claiming that studies show vaccines did not cause the autism epidemic. In a February 24, 2009 Huffington Post article, Robert F Kennedy, Jr, pointed out “that for sixty years the tobacco industry successfully defended a product that was killing one out of every five of its customers against thousands of legal actions brought by its victims and their families.”
“Big tobacco prevailed for six decades,” he said, “even without the help of supportive government agencies deliberately suppressing real science and research.”
“In that sense vaccine victims must leap a much higher hurdle,” he added.
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Some History
[dailymotion x9mh9f&related=0 nolink]CBS ” 60 MINUTES” documentary on the swine flu epidemics of 1976 in the U.S. It went on air only once and was never shown again
30 Oct
Lieberman Twists the Knife
Is there a more hypocritical figure in American politics than Joe Lieberman?
Friday 30 October 2009
by: Robert Scheer, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s (I-Connecticut) threat to kill the Senate health care reform bill is the latest in a series of actions that has angered Democrats. (Photo: Charles Monaco / flickr)
Is there a more hypocritical figure in American politics than Joe Lieberman? The Connecticut senator declared Tuesday that he would support a filibuster of any health care reform bill that has a public option — even the version with the “trigger” compromise accepted by Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe — because it might cost money.
“I think that a lot of people may think that the public option is free,” said Lieberman, one of the Senate’s big spenders, in a suddenly frugal mood. “It’s not. It’s going to cost the taxpayers and people that have health insurance now, and if it doesn’t, it’s going to add terribly to our national debt.”
This from a senator who, as much as anyone, helped run up the national debt since Sept. 11 by pushing to raise the military budget to its highest level since World War II. It is a budget inflated by enormous expenditures on high-tech weaponry irrelevant to combating terror, such as the $2-billion-a-piece submarines — produced in his home state of Connecticut — that he claimed were needed to combat al-Qaida, a landlocked enemy holed up in caves. Lieberman is worried about the impact of a very limited public option on the debt the same week as he and others in Congress passed a $680 billion defense bill larded with pork of the sort the Connecticut senator has always supported.
Lieberman, whose state is also home to insurance companies that are opposed to any consumer-friendly medical coverage alternative, boldly stated that his opposition to even the most limited version of a public option should not be surprising: “I think my colleagues know for a long time that I’ve been opposed to a government-created, government-run insurance company.” Perhaps during his filibuster to prevent a vote on the public option Lieberman can square that position with his longtime support of the massive government-run insurance programs Medicare and Social Security.
Maybe he can also take some time then to justify his strong support for the government bailout of troubled banking and insurance companies that has tripled the federal deficit this year to $1.4 trillion. Is AIG not now a “government-run insurance company,” and doesn’t the $185 billion of taxpayer money thrown at that sorry enterprise add up to more than twice the yearly cost of the health reform package? And that’s without considering the trillions of taxpayer dollars put into play to shore up Citigroup, Bank of America, GM, Chrysler and those other suddenly socialized sectors of American corporate life.
If a scant public choice in health care is so threatening to our way of life, because health care alone must be kept a pristine captive of the most destructive impulses of an unbridled free market, then why not privatize Medicare as well as the publicly financed health care programs for government workers — including those in Congress like Lieberman, veterans and the active military?
And while we’re at it, why not revive that Republican fantasy, popular in their ranks just a few years ago, of privatizing Social Security by turning the most effective government program over to the vagaries of the stock market?
I do continue to begrudgingly respect the consistency, if not the wisdom, of libertarians like Ron Paul who oppose all of this big-government intrusion into the economy. At least their belief in the efficiency of the free market, affirmed in opposition to the banking bailout, is not compromised by a willingness to throw trillions in taxpayer dollars into backing the riskiest of corporate bets. But it is not possible to feel anything but loathing for those like Lieberman who vote for every big-government program, no matter how wasteful, in support of big business, but draw the line at a program designed to cut medical costs for the ordinary citizens they have been sworn to serve.
Lieberman’s threat to thwart a vote on sorely needed health care legislation, complete with a public option that a majority of Americans have consistently supported, should spell the end of his connection with the Democratic caucus. It should also cost him the committee chairmanship he was granted in order to guarantee the 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster.
But a filibuster, which would expose Lieberman and the others as irresponsible wreckers of essential reform, is not the worst outcome. The surrender by the Democratic leadership to this blackmail by the party’s disgraced former vice presidential candidate would be a blow from which the party would not deserve to recover.
29 Oct
Report: Bayh’s Wife Made Millions As Board Member For Health Insurer
By Zachary Roth | October 29, 2009, 2:15PM
