Thoughts of an Average Woman

Define Terrorist

Are these 10 men and women, who participated in arson, really terrorists?

Their guilt isn't in question. The six men and four women already admitted being involved in a series of arson fires that did $40 million in damage to research facilities, a ski resort and other businesses in the West. But are they terrorists?

A federal was to hear arguments Tuesday on a motion by the government to add a so-called terrorism enhancement to their sentencing.

As Bush's program to spy on Americans unfolded, war protesters and ecology groups were found to be under surveillance.

Defense motions argue that none of the fires killed or injured anyone, and the terrorism enhancement is really a way for the Bush administration to claim a victory in its war on terror.

"The Government has Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' political agenda to advance with this case, and nothing else to lose if the Court declines to impose the enhancement," wrote attorney Terri Wood, who represents Stanislas G. Meyerhoff, who faces the stiffest sentence recommendation for his involvement in seven fires and toppling a high-tension power line.

But, what about the people that have bombed or sent anthrax to women's health clinics, that have, or could have, killed and maimed others? Was Eric Rudolph, who has killed and maimed abortion clinic workers, as well as bombing the Olympics, classified as a terrorist? Will the DOJ push to have Paul Ross Evans classified as a terrorist?

My point is, the "classification" of terrorist is being used selectively. Either use it in all cases where it is appropriate or not at all.

Breaking: Paul McNutly To Resign

Wolf Blitzer on CNN is reporting that Paul McNutly is resigning. I don't see this up on their website, yet, so no link.

However, Think Progress has an AP link.

Waning Mammograms

Today's WaPo issues this report that fewer women are getting mammograms.

After rising steadily for decades, the proportion of U.S. women getting mammograms to screen for breast cancer has dropped for the first time, federal researchers are reporting today.

The overall rate at which women are undergoing regular mammograms fell 4 percent between 2000 and 2005, marking the first significant decline since use of the breast X-rays started expanding rapidly in 1987, the study by the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

The reasons remain unclear, but researchers speculated that it could be due to factors such as increasingly long waiting times to get appointments, waning fears about breast cancer, the drop in hormone use after menopause, and the ongoing debate over the benefits and risks of the exams.

What this doesn't account for are women getting other types of imaging of their breasts. Like MRI's or ultrasounds. Isn't it just a wee bit interesting that not long after new recommendations for MRI's was released, mammography is being pushed.

Another reason not discussed is insurance coverage. Many (all???) states have passed laws that require insurance companies to cover mammograms, but how good is that coverage? Nor does this article even address the multitudes of women that do not have insurance, and that are being denied screening under the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Act.

Also, earlier this year, (January 26,2007) the CDC found the decline was just under 2%, a far smaller number than is being reported in today's WaPo. So, which is the correct number?

I have very mixed feelings about mammography, particularly when the false positives and false negatives are so high, and wish that there was other alternatives that are more reliable, and less painful.

One Reason For Caps

Every other country does this -- puts a cap on how much pharmaceuticals can charge for their drugs. It keeps costs down, and there aren't emerging controversy's like we are currently seeing with the red blood cell boosters aranasp, epogen, and procrit.

The NY Times editors have thrown out a bandaid,

The explosion in the use of three anti-anemia drugs to treat cancer and kidney patients illustrates much that is wrong in the American pharmaceutical marketplace. Thanks to big payoffs to doctors, and reckless promotional ads permitted by lax regulators, the drugs have reached blockbuster status. Now we learn that the dosage levels routinely injected or given intravenously in doctors’ offices and dialysis centers may be harmful to patients.

As Alex Berenson and Andrew Pollack laid bare in The Times on May 9, wide use of the medicines — Aranesp and Epogen, from Amgen; and Procrit, from Johnson & Johnson — has been propelled by the two companies paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in so-called rebates. Doctors typically buy the drugs from the companies, get reimbursed for much of the cost by Medicare and private insurers, and on top of that get these rebates based on the amount they have purchased.


I do agree with is getting rid of the Direct to Consumer marketing. A pill for everything and everything has a pill.

Representation

I was scanning the online news outlets this morning, when I hopped over to Women's e-news. I took a look at the commentoon, which struck me. 10 white men make up the field for the GOP presidential candidates.

Some of us might think that awfully strange, if we look at the actual gender demographics of our society. And, for the time being, the 10 white men vying for the GOP presidential nomination will be beat to death. It seriously falls short of being representative of our society.

But, let's face facts, the Democratic field is hardly any better.

A bunch of white men, a black man and a woman.

This is representative of our society?

The Fool On the Farm

I'm reading this Seattle Times article on the FDA finding one of the melamine-producing factories in China already closed, bulldozed by it's owner, when I came across this paragraph.

Melamine producers in China have said that melamine scrap, a cheaper form of the chemical, has been widely sold to entrepreneurs who use it to fool farmers into thinking that they were getting higher-nutrient animal feeds.

Wow! Greed takes precedence over honesty and responsibility.

Exit, Stage Left

Another long and busy day, today.

But, as I was scanning the news, this NYTimes editorial caught my eye.

The really important question now facing Washington is the one Mr. Bush still refuses to address: how, while there is still some time left, to design an exit strategy that contains the chaos in Iraq and minimizes the damage to United States interests when American troops inevitably leave.

It's a pretty basic question. Why isn't there an exit strategy? I mean, when you plan an operation like this there is supposed to be an exit strategy, the people that designed this war can't be that stupid...wellllllll, I better leave that line alone.

There was something else that caught my eye in the NYTimes. that Nancy Pelosi as able to force Bush into conceding workers rights into a trade bill.

Now, it seems to me that if Nancy can push for workers rights and win, she can push for troop withdrawal and win that concession from Bush.

Anyway, as I said above, today is another long and busy day. Do check out the blogs that are listed in the right-hand column. And if I have the energy this evening, I'll address this. I was given aranasp shots while on chemo, about 10 days after the chemo treatment. For 14 years, no one followed Procrit to see what the long-term effects might be. And now it appears the risks may outweigh the benefits. Let me know what you think.

Who Wants a Timetable for Iraqi Withdrawl?

Not just the majority of Americans, but the majority of the Iraqi Parliament want the US to leave Iraq.

A majority of Iraqi lawmakers endorsed a draft bill calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops and demanding a freeze on the number already in the country, lawmakers said Thursday.

The legislation was being discussed even as U.S. lawmakers were locked in a dispute with the White House over their call to start reducing the size of the U.S. force in the coming months.

Why the hell would we continue to send our loved ones to a country that doesn't want us there? This should dissolve any idea Bush may have of keeping our troops in Iraq until the end of his term (or however long he thinks he can keep them there).

There should be no compromising on any legislation dealing with this war. Bush must bow to the wishes of Congress and the people, now of two countries, to start withdrawing from Iraq.

Corporate Drug Dealers

It's about damn time that our society starts punishing corporate drug dealers, like these executives (former and current) of Purdue Pharma, who lied about the addictiveness of Oxycontin.

The company that makes the narcotic painkiller OxyContin and three current and former executives pleaded guilty today in federal court here to criminal charges that they misled regulators, doctors and patients about the drug’s risk of addiction and its potential to be abused.

To resolve criminal and civil charges related to the drug’s “misbranding,” the parent of Purdue Pharma, the company that markets OxyContin, agreed to pay some $600 million in fines and other payments, one of the largest amounts ever paid by a drug company in such a case.

Also, in a rare move, three executives of Purdue Pharma, including its president and its top lawyer, pleaded guilty today as individuals to misbranding, a criminal violation. They agreed to pay a total of $34.5 million in fines.

[...]Federal officials said that internal Purdue Pharma documents show that company officials recognized even before the drug was marketed that they would face stiff resistance from doctors who were concerned about the potential of a high-powered narcotic like OxyContin to be abused by patients or cause addiction.

As a result, company officials developed a fraudulent marketing campaign designed to promote OxyContin as a time-released drug that was less prone to such problems. The crucial ingredient in OxyContin is oxycodone, a narcotic that has been used for many years. But unlike other medications like Percocet that contain oxycodone along with other ingredients, OxyContin is pure oxycodone, with a large amount in each tablet because of the time-release design.

When greed is god, anything goes, and that is intolerable.

Update: And Giuliani should be facing the Jailhouse music as well.

Melamine-Tainted Feed Fed to Poultry

It keeps getting worse. First our pets were endangered (and still are) and there was not one, but three recalls on dog and cat food. Then we found that this melamine was in hog feed, which was bought in eight states. And now, poultry feed is found to be tainted, and has been already fed to chickens.

At least 2.5 million broiler chickens from an Indiana producer were fed pet food scraps contaminated with the chemical melamine and subsequently sold for human consumption, federal health officials reported yesterday.

Hundreds of other producers may have similarly sold an unknown amount of contaminated poultry in recent months, they added, painting a picture of much broader consumption of contaminated feed and food than had previously been acknowledged in the widening pet food scandal.

This has spread to our food supply, and we have absolutely no idea how far reaching this will be. But, to assuage your fears, the FDA, which dropped the ball, and has also refused to name the company responsible, is telling you that this won't affect you.

Toxicologists monitoring the American food supply for traces of melamine after it was found in imported ingredients in the contaminated pet food that has killed at least 16 dogs and cats and sickened thousands of others said yesterday that even if there were small amounts of it in the American food supply, it would be unlikely to pose much of a threat to humans.

The interesting thing in this NYTimes article, the overwhelming sense that we shouldn't view this as being so bad.

How the chemical — found in wheat gluten imported from China — could have poisoned cats and dogs remains something of a mystery, scientists said, because tests done decades ago on rats concluded that it was not very toxic. “Even when rats were loaded up with quite a lot, it caused stones or tumors over time, not acute kidney failure,” said John T. Groves, a Princeton University chemistry professor.

Other chemists speculated that the melamine could have been changed by the cooking of the pet food, by metabolism by bacteria or through combination with other, still unknown chemicals.

“I’m convinced that melamine can’t do it by itself,” said Richard Goldstein of Cornell University’s veterinary college. Toxicity trials, he said, were done with pure melamine, not manufacturing scrap, which could also contain cyanuric acid or other compounds.

Also, said Jack D. Henion, a retired professor of toxicology and veterinary medicine at Cornell, cats — the first animals whose deaths from pet food were noticed — are unusually sensitive to kidney and urinary problems.

My reaction when I read this, is I feel like I'm being set up to lower my expectations to the safety of my pets, and then, eventually me. And I don't like that, not one bit. That cats are "unusually sensitive" should be viewed as a canary in the mine syndrome. And to look at tests of toxicity of pure melamine is retarded at the very least. Why hasn't anyone gotten samples of the manufactured scrap melamine to test?

I am, without a doubt, disgusted by this whole thing. And I'm not the only one.