Tuesday, November 27th, 2012
PETER WHORISKEY, - The Washington Post
Stephan: For several years now I have been writing about the corruption of the medical literature in the service of the Illness Profit System (See An Appraisal of The Illness Profit System http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2810%2900291-0/fulltext). This trend has received very little attention in the corporate media (this is the first piece I have seen in a major newspaper in months) but it has very dangerous implications for you and your family, and is specifically designed to mislead your local doctor, who guides his practice based on the papers in medical journals.
For drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, the 17-page article in the New England Journal of Medicine represented a coup.
The 2006 report described a trial that compared three diabetes drugs and concluded that Avandia, the company’s new drug, performed best.
‘We now have clear evidence from a large international study that the initial use of [Avandia] is more effective than standard therapies,
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Tuesday, November 27th, 2012
ERIC W. DOLAN, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Usually after events have happened the truth about what was really going on leaks out. It is already starting, concerning the just completed election. It isn't pretty, and people ought to be going to jail. If it is in society's interest to put someone in jail for a lid of pot, how much more egregious is the crime of voter suppression?
Former leaders of the Republican Party of Florida claim new election laws in the state were aimed at suppressing Democratic turnout on Election Day – not fighting voter fraud.
Republicans across the nation have pushed for restrictive voting laws in the name of fighting voter fraud. Democrats have alleged that GOP-backed laws limiting early voting, ending same-day registration and requiring photo-IDs to cast a ballot were cynical attempts to impede Democratic voters, an allegation Republicans have since now denied.
Jim Greer, the former head of the Florida Republican Party, told The Palm Beach Post that a new law shortening the early voting period in the state was intended to prevent Democrats from voting. Greer said that since at least 2009, GOP staff and consultants had discussed limiting early voting hours, which they believed helped Democratic candidates. He described current talk of eliminating voter fraud as a ‘marketing ploy.
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Monday, November 26th, 2012
ALEJANDRO REUSS, - Truthout.org
Stephan: I have had five Rightwing readers write me to tell me how the entitlements Democrats support are bankrupting the country. At one level I am fascinated by how it is possible to construct a worldview that is almost entirely fact free, and how incredibly effective the Rightwing media machine has been in brainwashing people. But at another level I'm just tired of the nonsense. I started to write a short essay about it, then ran across this when I was doing the research for today's edition. Here are some actual facts.
SOURCES: Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Product Accounts, Table 3.1.Government Current Receipts and Expenditures (bea.gov); Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index-All Urban Consumers (Series ID: CUSR0000SA0) (bls.gov); Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Product Accounts, Table 1.1.3. Real Gross Domestic Product, Quantity Indexes (bea.gov); U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates (census.gov); Social Security Administration, Actuarial Publications, Administrative Expenditures (ssa.gov); OECD Tax Database, Table A. Total tax revenue as percentage of GDP (oecd.org/tax).
In 1960, government transfers to individuals totaled $24 billion. By 2010, that total was 100 times as large. Even after adjusting for inflation, entitlement transfers to individuals have grown by more than 700 percent over the last 50 years. … There are sensible conclusions to be drawn from these facts. You could say that the entitlement state is growing at an unsustainable rate and will bankrupt the country.
-David Brooks, ‘Thurston Howell Romney,
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Monday, November 26th, 2012
RICHARD SCHIFFMAN , - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: This is how your tax money is going to pay the BP fine, through the pipeline of the military. Note that I had to find this in a British paper.
An explosion Friday on a rig in the Gulf owned by Houston-based Black Elk Energy has reportedly injured several workers, with four missing, two possibly killed. This latest incident – just a day after the US department of justice’s historic settlement with BP over the Deepwater Horizon disaster – highlights the risks of offshore oil-drilling, and the need for tougher regulations on one of America’s most hazardous industries.
British Petroleum has agreed to pay $4.5bn in damages to the US government, the largest criminal fine in US history. BP agreed that its corporate negligence had been a factor in causing the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In a settlement negotiated with the US justice department, the company pled guilty on 14 counts, including manslaughter charges against two of its supervisors who had failed to act on problems revealed during earlier safety tests. In a separate indictment, BP’s former vice-president and incident commander for the disaster, David Rainey, pleaded guilty for lying to Congress and concealing documents about the rate and seriousness of the spill.
The explosion on the BP rig on 20 April 2010 killed 11 crewmen and created a fireball that was visible 35 miles from the […]
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Monday, November 26th, 2012
, - Samar News (Phillipines)/GreenpeaceNovember 21, 2012
Stephan: Here is some more news on GMOs. I have come to see the proliferation of GMOs as essentially a worldwide lab experiment with the human race as the lab rats.
QUEZON CITY, PHILLIPINES — Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), such as Bt corn, Bt eggplant, and ‘golden rice’ pose significant risks to human health and the environment, a gene scientist warned today.
Speaking at a Greenpeace press conference, gene scientist Tushar Chakraborty said GMOs are not safe, have not been independently tested, and have not undergone long-term studies.
Following a landmark case in India last month that called for a 10-year moratorium on GMOs due to safety concerns, Dr. Chakraborty, Principal Scientist of the Gene Regulation Laboratory of the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, recommended the banning of GMOs in the Philippines as the prudent, science-based approach to the uncertainties surrounding these man-made food crops.
Dr. Chakraborty is among hundreds of scientists in India who have come out in support of a ban on GMO food crops in the subcontinent. He is in Manila at the invitation of Greenpeace, as an expert witness in ongoing Writ of Kalikasan hearings at the Supreme Court, to help substantiate scientific findings that GMOs are unstable and unsafe to be planted, processed, and eaten.
‘GMO technology is highly uncertain, as such, they are inherently unpredictable and irreversible,
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