This morning I inadvertently published a draft post before it was finished. It’s an easy mistake to make (kind of amazes me, in fact, that I’ve gone this long without doing it before). And fortunately there was nothing embarrassing in it, other than my messy typing and thought processes. My apologies, nonetheless, to the subscribers who got this in their in-boxes or feed-readers earlier, and to the subjects of the post. I hope you’ll read the revised post, which is up now.
Entries categorized as ‘Uncategorized’
BP Bought Barton at Bargain Basement Rates
July 2, 2010 · 1 Comment
Compared to many other things, buying a member of Congress is fairly cheap:
To be precise, $110,620 is the amount oil and gas industries gave U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) in the most recent election cycle. The pay back came when Barton apologizized to BP for all the nastiness suffered by the company because of the spill,at a congressional hearing –Public Citizen,Money and Democacy Update.
Categories: Uncategorized
BP’s Ownership Stake in Congress
June 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment
In the statistics set forth below, published by Public Citizen today,you can easily see why Congress never provided oversight on BP, and why the giant British company, ensconsed in the protective arms of friendly Washington politicians, has nothing to worry about.
- $20 billion: Size of fund BP has agreed to create to pay for claims associated with the Gulf oil disaster.
- $239 billion: BP’s sales and other operating revenue in 2009.
- $9 million – $14.5 million: The value of stock in oil and gas companies held by members of the House of Representatives and Senate who are charged with oil and gas oversight.
Categories: Uncategorized
South Africa’s World Cup Grannies
June 13, 2010 · 1 Comment
The first World Cup to be played on African soil opened Friday in Johannesburg. Not the least of the amazing things the competition has brought to light is a soccer team of 35 South African grandmothers, ages 49 to 84, called Vakhegula Vakhegula (Grannies Grannies).
The New York Times reported on the Grannies last week, after the team played an exhibition game.
From the team’s meager beginning [five years ago], Vakhegula Vakhegula have become well known in the region, and news of the team has spread to the United States. The team received an invitation to compete in the Veterans Cup, a tournament for teams with players 30 or older, next month in Lancaster, Mass…
The grandmothers will not be mistaken for a national team; they play at a deliberate but purposeful pace and with plenty of passion. They play on a modest park field, a world away from the new stadium, named after Mokaba, in nearby Polokwane, which is hosting four first-round World Cup games.
[Beka] Ntsanwisi’s decision to found the team came out of her own sense of personal challenge.
In 2003, she learned she had colon cancer; by 2005, she was using a wheelchair. In the process of her treatment, Ntsanwisi visited a number of public hospitals and was disturbed by the level of treatment of elderly patients, especially women. Many were despondent or confused. She thought that regular exercise would be beneficial. That exercise evolved into soccer.
The team’s center and the oldest member, 83-year-old Nora Makhubela, told an Al Jazeera reporter: “I have had stroke six times, before I started playing, I couldn’t walk properly, my legs used to ache a lot, now I feel better, I can even run faster than you!”
Other members of the Grannies told the Times that the team had become their family, helping them through difficult times. One had lost a husband; another, eight of her twelve children. [Beka] Ntsanwisi’s cancer is remission, “but even if I die, I just want to leave a legacy, something that people will remember me by,” she said. “Even if I’m not here, somebody will say, ‘Beka started this.’ ”
This video provides a glimpse of Vakhegula Vakhegula in action. (Now, here’s a subject they ought to make into a reality TV show about elders. Fat chance.)
Categories: international · women elders
Tagged: Grannies, Johannesburg, soccer, South Africa, sports, Vakhegula Vakhegula, World Cup
Inventing Disease to Sell Drugs
May 11, 2010 · 2 Comments
Pharmaceutical companies are ingenious in all the different ways they pump drugs into the system.The best know techniques include buying medical experts to put their names on articles written by the drug companies,and which then can be placed in medical journals, hosting small casual dinners of docs to tell them about supposedly new proven but still off label uses for drugs. Docs get asked to come along for wonderful vacations with the dealers. They get great money making speeches.
Adriane Fugh-Berman, a Georgetown University doctor and colleague of mine on Pharmedout.org, drives the pushers nuts with her research and writing exposing their underworld.. She has published a new article in the Boston Review setting out a basically unknown genius way Big Pharma makes a killing.In addition to buying docs, the drugsters invent diseases! They then pump knowledge about the creepy new disease into the medical world through a process known as Continuing Medical Education or CME. This is how the docs and health care people in general are supposed to keep abreast of new developments in their field.It works like this:
CME is the pharmaceutical industry’s most important marketing tool. Through a largely unnoticed process that plays out over a course of years, the pharmaceutical industry uses CME—which, unlike other forms of drug promotion, is not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—to prepare the market for new drugs, expand existing markets, position products against competitors, and promote unproven uses of treatments.
Here’s how it works. Pharmaceutical-company employees, or specialized vendor services, identify opinion leaders—influential (or up-and-coming) health-care professionals at academic medical centers. Physicians are the primary target, but as nurse-practitioners and physician assistants become increasingly important in primary care, these hidden prescribers are also being targeted. Industry’s influence on NPs and PAs has not received enough attention; for example, the recently passed Physician Payments Sunshine Act requires that pharmaceutical companies disclose payments made to physicians, but not those made to other prescribers.
Selected opinion leaders are wooed, perhaps over an expensive one-on-one meal with a company researcher or executive—not someone identified with marketing. In the course of discussing the opinion leader’s work, the industry representative will elicit his or her opinions on a variety of topics, including the “disease state” of interest. Opinion leaders whose perspectives align with a company’s marketing goals are then courted. A company may nurture relationships with targeted health-care professionals over many years and will pay them to educate their peers at CME events and other settings.
Industry-paid speakers frequently deny espousing marketing messages. I’ve heard many physicians justify their pharma-funded speaking gigs by saying, “I never emphasize their product” or, triumphantly, “I don’t even mention their drug!” But these comments only highlight their sales skills. Pharma doesn’t hire doctors to sell drugs; that’s a drug rep’s job. Pharma hires physicians to sell diseases.
Read the entire article in the Boston Review, and then,if you want to follow the ups and downs of the industry,take a look at pharmedout.org.It provides recent developments in the drug business, a lengthy bibliography of blogs and sources of information as well as a few videos of drug reps spilling the beans and telling how the business works inside out.
Categories: drug industry · health care
Tagged: Continuing Medical Education, Boston Review, Adriane Fugh-Berman.Pharmedout.org
Tracking the Ash
April 20, 2010 · Leave a Comment
With news this morning from Britain’s National Air Traffic Service that “the volcano eruption in Iceland has strengthened and a new ash cloud is spreading south and east towards the UK,” the ash saga seems about ready to take yet another new turn.
There’s also possible threats to the North American mainland.Readers following the volcanic ash saga,may want to turn their attention to weather forecasts which suggest a change in wind patterns may push the ash clouds over Newfoundland and onto mainland Canada.It’s unclear whether the ash will ever work its way down the east coast into the US. Here is a snippet from a BBC weather report this morning:
A new high-pressure system will form in the Atlantic by the weekend.”The wind should change to the opposite direction: it could start to disperse some of the stuff that has been blown over from Iceland,” Mr Taylor said.”As we move from Friday into the weekend, we will start to see south and south-westerly winds. Even if there is any fresh eruption, the ash should not be blown over the UK.”The weather pattern should continue to blow the ash cloud away into next week, Mr Taylor said.But a respite for the UK and Europe means bad news elsewhere. “It means that ash will circulate over north-east Canada and the North Atlantic,” Mr Taylor added.However ash will continue to fall on Europe. “It is up there in the atmosphere, and factors like gravitational pull and rainfall will bring it back down.”
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: air flights, Canada, UK, volcanic ash
Volcanic Ash Found in Nato Fighter jet
April 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment
This morning the airline industry is dumping on the EU nations for shutting air space because of the danger to plane engines from volcanic dust. Among other things,the media is citing the damage to the diamond and flower industries as indications of growing economic travail.
Several test flights show no danger to aircraft engines,according to the airlines that fly in Europe.
In 1989, a commercial flight nearly crashed over Alaska when it flew through volcanic ash and its engines temporarily stopped working. See my previous post.
On its web site,Boeing in its Aero Magazine states:
In the past 30 years, more than 90 jet-powered commercial airplanes have encountered clouds of volcanic ash and suffered damage as a result. The increased availability of satellites and the technology to transform satellite data into useful information for operators have reduced the number of volcanic ash encounters. However, further coordination and cooperation, including linking operators and their dispatchers to the network of government volcano observers, is required throughout the industry. Boeing has always advocated that flight crews avoid volcanic ash clouds or exit them immediately if an encounter occurs. The company also recommends specific procedures for flight crews to follow if they cannot avoid an encounter.
Tucked into a BBC story this morning is this cryptic sentence:
A build-up of glass has been found in the engine of a Nato fighter jet in Europe, a US official says. Further details were not immediately available.
Later in the day Reuters reported US military officials confirming ash buildup in military jets:
“Allied F-16s were flying and they did find glass build-up,” the U.S. official said, adding that the glass had been found in the engine of one plane that had flown in European airspace.
“So this is a very, very serious matter that in the not too distant future will start having real impact on military capabilities … if the … issue doesn’t disappear.”
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Aircraft engines.NATO fighter jet, volcanic ash
Near 1989 Air Crash in Alaska due to Volcanic Ash
April 18, 2010 · 1 Comment
In a May,2009 report The U.S. Geological Survey(USGS) warned it was “ helping to lead a major international effort to warn the aviation community about the hazards of volcanic ash clouds. Aircraft that encounter volcanic ash clouds have lost engine power. If aircraft have to lower their flying altitudes to stay beneath an ash cloud, airport approaches are affected, and some airports can be forced to shut down.” It reported:
In 1989, a wide-body passenger jet destined for Anchorage airport flew into the volcanic ash cloud generated by Mount Redoubt, Alaska and lost thrust in all 4 engines. The plane entered the ash cloud at 25,000 feet, accelerated, and then rapidly descended to 13,000 feet. The pilot was finally able to restart its engines. The Alaska Range in the area where the plane lost power has peaks from 7,000 to 11,000 feet, so this was an extremely close call. In 1992, the effects of volcanic eruptions on aviation were felt well beyond Alaska when a volcanic ash cloud from the Mount Spurr (Alaska) eruption drifted across the continental U.S. and Canada, shutting down airports in the Midwest and Northeast two days after the eruption. The Spurr cloud affected citizens who are normally not concerned about volcanoes.Volcanoes are active throughout the rim of the Pacific Ocean, as well as in other locations. Many of these volcanoes are in current flight paths.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Iceland volcano, USGS Study, Volcanic Ash Danger to Aircraft
No Indictment for Granny-Tasering Cop in Texas
April 2, 2010 · 1 Comment
A grand jury in Travis County, Texas, has chosen not to indict Deputy Constable Christopher Bieze on a charge of “injury to an elderly person,” the Austin Statesman reports. Last May, Bieze used his Taser gun to zap a 72-year-old woman after a routine traffic stop.
Kathryn Winkfein initially refused to sign the speeding ticket Bieze gave her, saying “Go on, take me to jail–a 72-year-old woman.” After the cop ordered her get out of her SUV so he could arrest her, and then shoved her back toward the road shoulder–reportedly to get her out of traffic–she shouted, “Give me the fucking thing and I’ll sign it.”
Winkfein has been described as “confrontational” by many news sources. (Others used “feisty,” that catch-all condescending term for pissed off old people.) But the footage from the Bieze’s dashboard camera shows a 4′ 11″ woman doing nothing more than making some scrappy remarks and staring down a burly cop a foot taller than she is. Yet he quickly began threatening to tase her if she didn’t back away. Winkfein replied “I dare you”–and a few moments later she was writhing on the ground, with Bieze screaming at her to get her hands behind her back. She was handcuffed, jailed, and charged with resisting arrest.
As the excellent Texas criminal justice blog Grits for Breakfast sums it up: “Supposedly he violated no policies, violated no laws, and yet the officer demonstrated a complete lack of discipline and restraint, basically using force on the angry 4’11″ woman because she ‘dared’ him, not because she posed a threat to him or anyone else.”
Last fall Winkfein sued Travis County and accepted a $40,000 settlement. An internal investigation cleared Bieze, who is a deputy constable–a type of minor local cop that exercises more power in Texas than in most other states. And earlier this week, the grand jury let him off as well.
Take a look at this unedited video if you want to see what it’s all about. (FYI, after the first half nothing much happens–other than an old woman lying on the ground outside the frame, moaning intermittantly.)
Categories: legal issues · prisons / criminal justice
Tagged: Christopher Bieze, Grits for Breakfast, Kathryn Winkfein, police brutality, stun gun, tase, Taser, Texas, traffic ticket
Driving While Old and Black
March 16, 2010 · 1 Comment
Maurice Alexander, 63, is the Washington D.C. leader of CURE (Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants), a group made up of prisoners and their families and others devoted to prison reform. He served time at one point on an assault conviction–which, he told me, had been overturned after 5 years, leading to his release. He has worked with prison reform efforts since he got out of prison, and is looking forward to taking courses to become a nurse.
This is all by way of background. What follows is the story Alexander told me this week.
Two years ago in August, he had gone down into southern Maryland to visit his small son. When it came time to leave, Alexander looked around for a ride, and ran across a distant acquaintance who offered him a lift back home in a rental truck. The driver had also given a woman a ride. The trip was uneventful, until the driver pulled over at LaPlata, a Maryland community, supposedly to get a soda at a Safeway.. Alexander had dozed off,waiting for the man to return. Soon the driver returned. As he was pulling out of the lot, “I heard a siren. [The driver] pulled the van to the side of he road.
According to the subsequent police report,the cops had been alerted to a robbery of several cases of bottled water and some Pepsis from the Safeway by the van’s driver. The police took off to find the alleged thieves.
“I looked through the passenger’s rear view mirror and could see…an officer approaching my door,” Alexander said. “He had his gun drawn…When he reached my door, he ordered me to get out with my hands in view.”
At this point the driver told the police Alexander “had nothing to do with this.” The cop “at gun point ordered me out of the van. He then handcuffed my hands behind my back. He searched my pockets and removed my identification. At this point we were on the passengers’s side of the truck and out of sight from everyone else…With my hands cuffed behind my back [the officer] pointed his revolver at my head and ordered, ‘old as nigger, get down on your belly. On the ground nigger.’”
Alexander told the cop he wasn’t getting down for anybody. “I told him I could not do so while my hands were cuffed behind my back. “You need some help?” the officer asked. “The next thing I know is that he had knockled me to the ground. And stomped me in the side. I passed out.”
The La Plata police report states that when Alexander would not get down on the ground, the cop threatened to tase him. “I ordered Alexander to the ground. He replied ‘no.’ I kicked Alexander’s feet from underneath of him and he fell to the ground.”
Alexander picks up the story: “When I regained consciousness I was on the ground in tremendous pain. The police on the scene tried to question me. I refused to answer any questions and they sent for medical care. The medics came and took my vital signs. I complained about my rib cage. They ignored me…For about 10 hours I was handcuffed under the most excruciating pain while in detention. My moans and groans became so annoying to the other inmates that someone decided to give me something for my pain. It worked as I was pain free for about half an hour. I later found out it was crack cocaine.’’
About 2:30 am the next day, Alexander went before a magistrate who released him in his own recognizance to appear at a later court date.
“Around 3 am two officers came to my cell and carried me to the front door of the entrance of the detention center because I could not stand on my own, and they shoved me out.” Alexander took a few steps and, losing consciousness, fell down in the street. “When I regained consciousness a passserby had called an ambulance. I was taken to Civista Hospital in Charles County. My hospital records reflect that I suffered four fractured ribs and a collapsed lung.’’ In addition, his teeth were kicked in.
“I remained in the hospital for 5 days, and continue now under a doctor’s care. I have not been able to work since this incident.” A year later charges were dropped. Alexander was presented with a $10,000 hospital bill, which he told me he was trying to pay. It is possible Medicaid may pick up some of it. He is living on disability.
Alexander said he couldn’t find a pro bono attorney interested enough to take his case. So, taking matters into his own hands, he went to federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, and filed a pro se action with the clerk. Next he went to the Justice Department main building in Washington in an effort to find an official who could guide him in seeking further redress against the police under a program specifically set up to help people bring such cases. There, guards turned him away from the door of the building. He finally sent a certified letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, again seeking help. He never got a reply from Holder’s office. In fact, he said, he never got a reply from any of the government agencies he contacted.
Alexander hopes to regain his health so as to begin nursing school this June. Later this spring he will receive an award for his work with the Prison Visitors Program, a privately sponsored group that tries to help prisoners adjust to society when they finish serving their sentences. “Maurice,” said Charles Sullivan who heads the national CURE office with headquarters in Washington, “is an example of someone who has become a prison reform advocate when he’s actually been in the system himself.”
Categories: Uncategorized
