All those lies

The Rovians in the Shubministration are hard at work again ,spending your tax dollars on advertising campaigns to convince you that Social Security is in a crisis, and will be bankrupt by next Tuesday. The SSA itself is entering into PR contracts with private firms for the express purpose of creating ads and campaigns to fan the flames and jam privatization down our collective throats.

What those ads will fail to tell you is that privatization amounts to nothing more than a massive transfer of public wealth into private hands - but not your hands. It's another sick installment in the never ending saga to kill the one program that actually works as it's intended to.

Joe Conason talks about it.

Gee, what a suprise.

This is the sort of thing we reap from the seeds of religious privatization.


Panelists in FDA drug vote tied to makers

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Feb. 25, 2005 | Washington -- Ten members of the Food and Drug Administration advisory panel who voted that a group of powerful pain killers should continue to be sold had ties to the drug makers, an advocacy group says. A study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest indicates that 10 of the 32 panel members had ties to either Pfizer Inc. or Merck & Co., ranging from consulting fees and speaking honoraria to research support.

The FDA issued a statement saying it screened members of the panel for conflicts of interest. "This transparent process requires the agency to carefully weigh any potential financial interest with the need for essential scientific expertise in order to protect and advance the public health," the agency said.

After three days of hearings on the drugs, known as Cox-2 inhibitors, the panel voted 31-1 to keep Pfizer's Celebrex on the market, 17-13 with 2 abstentions in favor of Pfizer's Bextra and 17-15 that Merck's Vioxx should be allowed back on sale.

Merck pulled Vioxx from the market Sept. 30 after heart problems were reported in some users. Similar questions were later raised about the other two drugs, prompting the FDA to call the advisory panel to look into the matter.

Since drug companies fund many studies it is not unusual for researchers to have ties to manufacturers, though some have questioned the practice.

The transcript, including the votes by the individual members of the panel, has not yet been posted by the FDA. However, a copy obtained by The Associated Press indicated that the 10 panel members in question voted 10-0 in favor of keeping Celebrex and Bextra available and 9-1 in favor of allowing Vioxx to be brought back onto the market.

Without those ballots the vote would have been 13-7 in favor of withdrawing Bextra and 14-8 to keep Vioxx off sale.

The industry ties of the panel members were first reported Friday by The New York Times.

Courtesy Salon.com

The quick and the dead

In their zeal to stomp on file trading, a deceased woman who never owned a computer in her life was sued for file sharing by the RIAA. This tops the suing of a 12 year old girl last year.

Long live rock and roll!

Round Two

David Kay, weapons inspector extraordinaire, has penned an op-ed column in today's Washington Post drawing parallels between the incubation period prior to the Iraq invasion, and the noises the Shrubites are making about Iran.

There is an eerie similarity to the events preceding the Iraq war. The International Atomic Energy Agency has announced that while Iran now admits having concealed for 18 years nuclear activities that should have been reported to the IAEA, it is has found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program. Iran says it is now cooperating fully with international inspections, and it denies having anything but a peaceful nuclear energy program.

Vice President Cheney is giving interviews and speeches that paint a stark picture of a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Iran and declaring that this is something the Bush administration will not tolerate. Iranian exiles are providing the press and governments with a steady stream of new "evidence" concerning Iran's nuclear weapons activities. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned that Iran will not be allowed to use the cover of civilian nuclear power to acquire nuclear weapons, but says an attack on Iran is "not on the agenda at this point." U.S. allies, while saying they share the concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions, remain determined to pursue diplomacy and say they cannot conceive of any circumstance that would lead them to use military force. And the press is beginning to uncover U.S. moves that seem designed to lay the basis for military action against Iran.

Full article