Sunday, June 24, 2007
Big Profits in Biowarfare Research
Corporate America's Deadliest Secret
By SHERWOOD ROSS
A number of major pharmaceutical corporations and biotech firms are
concealing the nature of the biological warfare research work they are
doing for the U.S. government.
Since their funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, the
recipients are obligated under NIH guidelines to make their activities
public. Not disclosing their ops raises the suspicion they may be
engaged in forbidden kinds of germ warfare research.
According to the Sunshine Project, a nonprofit arms control watchdog
operating out of Austin, Texas, among corporations holding back
information about their activities are:
Abbott Laboratories, BASF Plant Science, Bristol-Myers Squibb, DuPont
Central Research and Development, Eli Lilly Corp., Embrex,
GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffman-LaRoche, Merck & Co., Monsanto, Pfizer Inc.,
Schering-Plough Research Institute, and Syngenta Corp. of Switzerland.
In case you didn't know it, the White House since 9/11 has called for
spending $44-billion on biological warfare research, a sum
unprecedented in world history, and an obliging Congress has
authorized it.
Thus, some of the deadliest pathogens known to humankind are being
rekindled in hundreds of labs in pharmaceutical houses, university
biology departments, and on military bases.
An international convention the U.S. signed forbids it to stockpile,
manufacture or use biological weapons. But if the U.S. won't say
what's going down in those laboratories other countries are going to
assume the worst and a biowarfare arms race will be on, if it isn't
already.
Sunshine says failure to disclose operations also puts corporate
employees involved in this work at risk. Only 8,500, or 16%, of the
52,000 workers employed at the top 20 U.S. biotech firms work at an
NIH guidelines-compliant company, Sunshine says.
Francis Boyle, an international law authority at the University of
Illinois, Champaign, says pursuant to national strategy directives
adopted by Bush in 2002, the Pentagon "is now gearing up to fight and
win' biological warfare without prior public knowledge and review."
Boyle said the Pentagon's Chemical and Biological Defense Program was
revised in 2003 to endorse "first-use" strike in war. Boyle said the
program includes Red Teaming, which he described as "plotting,
planning, and scheming how to use biowarfare."
Besides the big pharmaceutical houses, the biowarfare buildup is
getting an enthusiastic response from academia, which sees new funds
flowing from Washington's horn of plenty. "American universities have
a long history of willingly permitting their research agenda,
researchers, institutes and laboratories to be co-opted, corrupted,
and perverted by the Pentagon and the CIA," Boyle says.
What's more, the Bush administration is pouring billions in biowarfare
research while some very real killers, such as influenza, are not
being cured.
In 2006, the NIH got $120 million to combat influenza, which kills
about 36,000 Americans annually but it got $1.76 billion for
biodefense, much of it spent to research anthrax. How many people has
anthrax killed lately? Well, let's see, there were those five people
killed in the mysterious attacks on Congress of October, 2001 ---
attacks that suspiciously emanated from a government laboratory at
Fort Detrick, Md.
One would think the FBI might apprehend the perpetrator whose attack
shut down the Congress of the United States but nearly six years have
gone by and it hasn't caught anybody. Seem a bit odd to you? Some
folks suspect the anthrax attack was an inside job to panic the
country into a huge biowarfare buildup to "protect" America from
"terrorists."
Milton Leitenberg, of the University of Maryland's School of Public
Policy, though, says the risk of terrorists and nonstate actors using
biological agents against the U.S. "has been systematically and
deliberately exaggerated" by administration scare-mongering.
And molecular biologist Jonathan King of Massachusetts Institute of
Technology says, "the Bush administration launched a major program
which threatens to put the health of our people at far greater risk
than the hazard to which they claimed to have been responding." King
added President Bush's policies "do not increase the security of the
American people" but "bring new risk to our population of the most
appalling kind."
In the absence of any credible foreign threat, Sunshine's Hammond
said, "Our biowarfare research is defending ourselves from ourselves.
It's a dog chasing its tail." Sadly, it looks more and more every day
like a mad dog.
Sherwood Ross has worked as a reporter for major dailies and wire
services. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com
SOURCE:
http://www.counterpunch.org/ross06222007.html
*************************
Pick up your FREE Elemental Health Research Guide Today!
http://www.advancedhealthplan.com
Friday, June 22, 2007
Self, the stroke threat and other groundless magazine articles
It has been upsetting to me lately to read some of the sensational scare tactic articles that are hitting the news stands. One that came to mind was an article in Self Magazine. The article brought up the issue of the chiropractic adjustment to the neck and the threat of stroke.
That scare unfortunately has hurt many who would have benefitted from chiropractic care and stayed away because of this concern. Reality check...
Chiropractors have among the lowest malpractice rates in the country. Ours is about $1300 annually. Since this is based on risk, and since our rates are about 90 percent less than your family practice doctor pays, one can only assume that what we do in our offices is quite safe.
The article below that you can download talks about the true risks. The truth is that having a stroke at the hands of your chiropractor is a chance of less than 1 in one million adjustments. Considering many patients neck problems are actually in their mid back and lower back regions, especially in our office, we do not manipulate the neck unless absolutely necessary. We take all precautions and prescreen patients for any possible problems. When compared to tylenol which can have serious consequences in as few as 1 in 7500 people taking the drug, chiropractic is a no brainer.
http://www.acatoday.org/membersonly/ChiroRisks_Lauretti_06.pdf
Don't be put off by the scare tactics and sensational headlines that others seek. When compared to medical methods, chiropractic has proven itself over and over to be safe and effective and our patients know we deliver the goods in the absense of drugs and surgery.
I find it funny that athletes cannot get enough of us. Recently, the Mets hired a team chiropractor. I guess it is still up to our patients judgement as to whom they will use for the care of their frame and musculoskeletal system.
Our patients know we are effective and we have research to back it up. For many of us though, our bodies are our own labs. While chiropractic care may not fix all problems over night, our patients not only get relief but are in overall better health with a true sense of wellbeing, not a drug induced facsimile.
That scare unfortunately has hurt many who would have benefitted from chiropractic care and stayed away because of this concern. Reality check...
Chiropractors have among the lowest malpractice rates in the country. Ours is about $1300 annually. Since this is based on risk, and since our rates are about 90 percent less than your family practice doctor pays, one can only assume that what we do in our offices is quite safe.
The article below that you can download talks about the true risks. The truth is that having a stroke at the hands of your chiropractor is a chance of less than 1 in one million adjustments. Considering many patients neck problems are actually in their mid back and lower back regions, especially in our office, we do not manipulate the neck unless absolutely necessary. We take all precautions and prescreen patients for any possible problems. When compared to tylenol which can have serious consequences in as few as 1 in 7500 people taking the drug, chiropractic is a no brainer.
http://www.acatoday.org/membersonly/ChiroRisks_Lauretti_06.pdf
Don't be put off by the scare tactics and sensational headlines that others seek. When compared to medical methods, chiropractic has proven itself over and over to be safe and effective and our patients know we deliver the goods in the absense of drugs and surgery.
I find it funny that athletes cannot get enough of us. Recently, the Mets hired a team chiropractor. I guess it is still up to our patients judgement as to whom they will use for the care of their frame and musculoskeletal system.
Our patients know we are effective and we have research to back it up. For many of us though, our bodies are our own labs. While chiropractic care may not fix all problems over night, our patients not only get relief but are in overall better health with a true sense of wellbeing, not a drug induced facsimile.
Hurting our patients and our profession by Judicial means
Many of our patients are appalled that our right to adjust extremities (arms, legs, wrists, elbows, fingers and other such articulations that relate to movement) had been taken away by an appellate court decision. It has hurt all chiropractors and their patients, especially since they are the only ones really qualified universally in NJ to perform these services. Although a chiropractor may still work on these areas, actual adjustments to these joints to reestablish normal movement and free patients of pain has been a mainstay of chiropractic practice for decades.
Our scope of practice had been interpreted by our state chiropractic regulatory board to include the practice which is used across the country, allowing chiropractors a unique solution to many joint problems.
This decision was made during a malpractice case that was won by the chiropractor in question. The attorneys on the other side queried the appellate court as to weather we as a profession can adjust extremities. Of course, they were shown only what the attorneys wanted them to see causing a bad judgement which took away our interpreted practice law since 1991. They over rode our own chiropractic board. Unfortunately, we all fall victims since this was all about legal strategies and trying to win a lost case.
The profession is attempting to overturn this poor decision but also is trying to use the opportunity to also put forth a new scope of practice, which will update NJ's which is from 1954 and it quite restrictive, when compared to other states.
Unfortunately, our attempts to get this passed yesterday, 6/22/07 failed in the hands of the senate. We will again attempt this in September and hopefully, not only will we prevail for the sake of the profession and our patients, but will emerge with a modern practice act which allows us to perform what we learned in school including nutrition.
I will keep you posted
Dr C
Our scope of practice had been interpreted by our state chiropractic regulatory board to include the practice which is used across the country, allowing chiropractors a unique solution to many joint problems.
This decision was made during a malpractice case that was won by the chiropractor in question. The attorneys on the other side queried the appellate court as to weather we as a profession can adjust extremities. Of course, they were shown only what the attorneys wanted them to see causing a bad judgement which took away our interpreted practice law since 1991. They over rode our own chiropractic board. Unfortunately, we all fall victims since this was all about legal strategies and trying to win a lost case.
The profession is attempting to overturn this poor decision but also is trying to use the opportunity to also put forth a new scope of practice, which will update NJ's which is from 1954 and it quite restrictive, when compared to other states.
Unfortunately, our attempts to get this passed yesterday, 6/22/07 failed in the hands of the senate. We will again attempt this in September and hopefully, not only will we prevail for the sake of the profession and our patients, but will emerge with a modern practice act which allows us to perform what we learned in school including nutrition.
I will keep you posted
Dr C
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)