More corruption exposed at the FDA

Remember Vioxx? There's a lot more where that came from. Remember According to the NYT, more corruption has been uncovered at the FDA. According to the unanimous conclusion of FDA's scientists, a medical device called the Menaflex was unsafe. But after receiving what an F.D.A. report described as “extreme,” “unusual” and persistent pressure from four Democrats from New Jersey — Senators Robert Menendez and Frank R. Lautenberg and Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. and Steven R. Rothman — agency managers overruled the scientists and approved the device for sale in December. According to the story, the members of Congress each received significant campaign contributions from the manufacturer. The FDA is now considering rescinding approval for the device. All of this raises an interesting question: Who would be more qualified to determine whether a medical device should go to market, A) a medically trained scientist or B) members of Congress who receive campaign contributions from the manufacturer of the device? Easy call, right? Anyone with a high school education should know that politicians shouldn't override scientists on matters of science. If this were a just world, one or more people would be going to prison for this corruption which has endangered (and potentially, injured) many of those people purchasing the defective device.

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The ACORN hypocrisy

Over the past few weeks, videotapes have been trickling out that purport to show ACORN employees offered tax advice to those seeking to engage in child prostitution or other salacious activities. Having viewed the tapes, it's obvious that they have been edited extensively, and that alone should make one wonder what the original tapes may show. Further, Media Matters has a lengthy critique of the credibility of the conservative activists and the manufactured news story that they have created, including failing to report that in at least one instance police were called and the filmmakers were removed from the premises after inquiring about underage prostitution. But really, whether ACORN employees did or did not do everything they are accused of is a side issue. The Huffington Post yesterday pointed out that the legislative zeal to cut off funding for ACORN may have created an even bigger problem: it may eliminate the entire military-industrial complex. You see, the legislation prohibits federal funding or promotion of organizations that, among other things, "has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency". The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) maintains a database of companies holding federal contracts that also have "histories of misconduct such as fraud" that would ostensibly bar them from receiving any further governmental funding under the "Defund ACORN Act". Top violators include Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grummond, Raytheon, KBR (former Halliburton subsidiary).... and a staggering number of other large corporations doing business with the federal government. House Republican leader John Boehner released a statement congratulating house Republicans for all they "have done to hold ACORN accountable for its abuse of taxpayer dollars and the public trust.” One wonders whether he will hold these other corporations to the same standard that they require of ACORN? After all, the scale of the violations by the weapons industry dwarfs anything ACORN is accused of. For fiscal year 2007, Lockheed Martin had federal contracts valued at $34.2 billion (with a b) dollars, and the cost of their misconduct since 1995 is valued at $577.2 million. ACORN has only received $53 million in federal funds since 1994, and none of the allegations show any actual harm was done to the government. In other words, Lockeed Martin has committed fraud to the tune of over 10 times the total amount of federal funding ACORN has received.

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How’s your water quality?

The debate over tap water vs. bottled water will probably go on for quite some time. Many people believe that by purchasing bottled water, they are consuming better quality water than that which comes from the tap. Others argue that the environmental impact of bottled water is massive, and that bottled water is no safer than tap water. A report earlier this year from the Government Accounting Office claims that because public water supplies are regulated by the Safe Water Drinking Act and those regulations are enforced by the EPA, they are therefore safer than bottled water, which is regulated by the FDA-- and we all know what a wonderful job the FDA has been doing. But a new investigative report by the New York Times calls this conclusion into question.

In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses. However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment. State officials have repeatedly ignored obvious illegal dumping, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which can prosecute polluters when states fail to act, has often declined to intervene.

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Dark days and “Green Shoots”

“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.” --Supreme Court Justice Lous D. Brandeis
For all the discussion of "green shoots" and an economy on the mend, there's plenty of data and commentary to the contrary. What's interesting to me, is that recent developments only highlight the extent to which Main Street economics have become irrelevant to Wall Street. The administration is claiming that the crisis is largely over, and that it's time to breathe a sigh of relief. President Obama yesterday argued that "we can be confident that the storms of the past two years are beginning to break." Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner discussed last week beginning to wind down some of the programs that were implemented in the heat of the crisis late last year. The value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen from its July low of 8146, and is now trading around 9600. Everything seems well and good in the world of high-finance. But others see it differently. Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz argued this week that nothing has been done to address the underlying banking problems that created the mess in the first place, adding that "the problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis." Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the IMF, echoes that sentiment, and points out that the real issues underlying the crisis have not been addressed at all. He lays out 4 areas of concern:
  1. The big banks need to be made to be dramatically smaller.
  2. Executives need to have a great deal of their personal wealth tied up in their banks to prevent a reckless focus on short-term results.
  3. An end to the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington, DC. "There is no way people should be able to go directly (or even overnight) from a failing bank to designing bailout packages to benefit such banks. In any other industry, in any other country, and at any other time in American history, this would have been seen as an unconscionable conflict of interest. "
  4. The financial elite is aware that they are able to exploit the Federal Reserve and use it as a "bailout machine".

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Did Obama fall for Big Pharma sales hype?

Did you hear that Obama has been cutting some secret deals with Big Pharma after his campaign filled with promises that health care reform would be a big open book? I don't quite know what to think of this. Maybe Obama is leading Pharma on, and he's gonna stab them in the back at the last minute. That ploy has the advantage of freezing the Pharma advertising money in place for now. This is important because Pharma has enough advertising money to destroy what's left of health care reform. So three cheers for the possibility that Obama is a shrewd guy who is keeping his enemies close to keep them at bay, at least for now. I'd give that about a 2% chance of being the case. What I'm assuming is that Obama knows that the system is so utterly corrupted by legalized bribery (campaign contributions) that Congress is incapable of giving us real health care reform. That's why Obama is unwilling to promote the single payer system that most Americans want. In this more likely scenario, Obama has already given up on any meaningful health care reform. Instead, he's working hard to spin the illusion of health care reform, and the final plan will actually be a few trinkets and whistles. Maybe the government will subsidize dentists to give out candy to their patients. Maybe it will be nothing at all, but all of the Congressional Leaders will nonetheless pose and smile with their 3,000 page health care reform bill that no one will have actually read and for good reason. As many progressives are arguing, with increasing volume these days, why not take the profit out of health care insurance? Why not essentially expand medicare to all Americans? The experts I trust say that single payor is the only legitimate reform. Everything else is throwing tax money at a corrupt and inefficient system. I wasn't a big fan of single payor until I started learning how many other countries are making it work. The benefits are many (In addition to the obvious improvement that sick people won't be thrown on the street, employed people won't be locked into terrible jobs just for the insurance). Really, why should we have for-profit health insurance any more than we might have for-profit fire departments and for-profit libraries? Except that we have a for-profit Congress and a for-profit military (e.g., Blackwater and all those private soldiers earning $100,000 to be in Afghanistan). It's getting downright un-American to be duped into doing something because it's RIGHT. But I'm still obsessing about the deal Obama cut with Pharma. We heard how Pharma would save Americans $80 Billion over the next 10 years. Did you see what the written deal is: It's "up to $80 Billion." pharma-memo Now what is Obama thinking? When I see that a store is offering "up to" 80% off, I know (because I'm not a total idiot) that this means the store might be offering 2 items at 10% off and everything else at 0% off. That's the meaning of "up to." Signing an agreement with "up to" is stupid, truly idiotic. My question (which I raised in the beginning of this post) is "Who is the one being stupid?" I'll be watching for some happy 11th hour excitement when Obama tells Pharma to fuck off, that we're enacting single payor and that for its loyalty and naivete, Pharma will be rewarded with tax breaks of "up to" 100%, which means negative 37%. Take that, assholes. That's what you get for trying to cut secret deals with my President. If only. Epilogue: For those of you who are pissed that Obama is a communist, note that Blue Cross just tried to raised its rates by 56% in Michigan.

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