ABC Network Tonight Vaccine-Autism Connection

Tonight's airing on ABC of it's new show Eli includes reference to a lawsuit claiming that vaccines caused a child's autism. The awareness of this issue in the last two decades has increased almost as exponentially as the incidence of childhood autism and the additiobal doages added onto the childhood vaccination schedule! Of course, the ongoing threats to the vaccine cash cow are enough to cause a huge uproar when the mass media gets involved.

Here's what Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center had to say in the start of her latest email newsletter:

I sighed with recognition when I learned that the leadership of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) had written a letter and issued a press release on Jan. 25 calling on ABC-TV to cancel tomorrow's premiere episode of a fictional drama about a family whose child regresses into autism after vaccination. On the same day, the American Medical Association (AMA) called on ABC to "mitigate the harm this episode may do" such as re-writing the script. The CDC-funded Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) also piled on ABC-TV, urging doctors to put pressure on the network to cancel the broadcast while seven former directors of the CDC maintained in a Jan. 29 March of Dimes press release that "The implication that vaccinations cause autism is irresponsible and counter productive."

Now click on the banner below to get the emmes:

Negative Drug Trials Unreported

That headline covered a story under "Briefly" in Monday's Los Angeles Times Health section. I thought it was a joke to see if I was paying attention to what I was reading. Days after the debacle over Zetia and Vytorin study results not being reported by Merck and Schering-Plough, it seemed too coincidental that more drug studies were either kept secret, or worse yet, fudged to cover up the deleterious effects of the drugs:

Nearly one-third of antidepressant drug studies are never published in the medical literature, and nearly all happen to show that the drug being tested did not work, researchers reported Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

And in some of the studies that are published, unfavorable results have been recast to make the medicine appear more effective than it really is, said the research team led by Erick Turner of the Oregon Health & Science University.

Even if not deliberate, they wrote in their report, "Selective publication can lead doctors to make inappropriate prescribing decisions that may not be in the best interest of their patients."

Yesterday and today Merck and Schering-Plough took out two-page ads in the Los Angeles Times touting the wonders of Zetia and Vytorin and recommending following the advice of physicians with the assumption that the almighty result of lowering ldl cholesterol was a sufficient end in itself, regardless of the unhappy build-up of the killer plaque in arteries was also caused by these drugs.

High cholesterol levels in the blood have been blamed through the years on higher cases of arterial disease based largely on statistical correlation. The exact mechanism of plaque build-up in arteries is still not completely understood. Systemic "inflammation" may be a culprit, as well as high cholesterol levels, and the statin drugs may also have an effect on this inflammation which is helpful along with the lowering of serum cholesterol levels. And just which element of the cholesterol picture--low density lipoproteins (ldl) or high-density lipoproteins (hdl) or very low density lipoproteins (vldl)--is the "good" or "bad" cholesterol is all based on educated theory, some empirical and some statistical.

The Zetia/Vytorin ads state unequivocally that the ldl cholesterol is "bad" cholesterol. While this is probably true, it would be beneficial to the consumer in order to be well-informed, to know of the theoretical essence of such a statement.

I have received some antagonistic emails in the past in response to my commentary on pharmaceutical companies' deceitful practices. They were not published because of their inflammatory nature and uninformed opinions. However, when media reports continue to grow about the greed and illegal activities of drug manufacturers, it seems specious to argue about how wonderful these products really are. The one thing that is for sure, is that the bottom line for big pharma is the big buck, not public health.

Everyone's Wrong, Right?

Did you ever have one of those days where nobody is doing anything right? Or at least, not the way you want them to do things? It started right away this morning when the local TV channel announced that a woman living in a house in Van Nuys, which is very nearby my house, was hosting a get-together in her backyard for Barack Obama this afternoon. I immediately wondered how close I could get to this event with my children in order for them possibly to see a candidate for president in person.

That was the beginning of everyone doing everything wrong. The anchor on TV said to check out the channel’s web site for more information on the Obama-in-Van Nuys story. There was nothing remotely oriented toward any news about any presidential candidate in California on that web site, even though with the state primary only weeks away, the candidates are swarming into several CA localities in the next few days.

I called the news desk of that channel to ask about any further info about this event, and they politely declined to tell me anything except that it was by invitation only, and for nebulous security reasons they were not giving the location or address beyond the fact that it was going to be in Van Nuys, as mentioned on the TV show. I figured I would just listen for the familiar choppers overhead and follow them—it works for honing in on the instant whereabouts of Britney Spears, who lives very nearby, at least as the helicopter flies…when she’s picking out produce at our market at the end of the block, the “Apocalypse-Now” sounding downdraft is deafening.

I called Obama’s headquarters and the press relations people answered. They had no idea about any individual events since that was not their responsibility—they transferred me to the field office, at which there was only a voice mail recording available and I needed to leave a message, which I didn’t.
So much for seeing Obama—here is the blurb from LAObserved, a blog about happenings in the area:

Democratic contender Barack Obama has scheduled a "roundtable on economic opportunity" at a private home in Van Nuys tomorrow afternoon. He's also got a fundraiser Wednesday night at the Pacific Palisades home of Marianna and David Fisher, with co-hosts including Tom Unterman, Zeb Rice, Ted Field and others. It's the usual $2,300 requested per person and $25,000 for the co-hosts.

What is interesting about the “roundtable” is that on the news show this morning with the interview of the woman hosting in Van Nuys, the back yard looked real grungy with spotty areas of grass, and she said she had to move the trash barrels at the request of the organizers in order to make room for some tables and a tent. Maybe I didn’t miss much after all.

The Palisades to-do is a little beyond my budgetary reach, although in reality anything beyond a $5 contribution to a politician seems to me to be taking good money out of the hands of real needy charities, like curing cancer, or vaccine awareness etc…

Speaking of politicians, the arguably-democratically-elected leader of the free world was smooching with the dictator Saudi Sheiks in an effort to bolster good will with Bush’s favorite kingdom in the Middle-East. One of my favorite columnists, formerly Los Angeles Times op-ed writer fired last year I think because he was too smart for the corporate-owned Tribune’s graces, Robert Scheer, has written a punch-by-punch piece about Bush and his mayhem-making actions in foreign policy—it seems our president can’t give enough arms to them or money to Israel to make anyone happy:

What more can this president do to curry favor with the Saudis? He forgave them for nurturing the Wahhabism that spawned al-Qaida, and he never embarrasses them with the fact that bin Laden and 15 of the19 hijackers who attacked America on 9/11 were born and raised in the kingdom. Nor did Bush let the inconvenient fact that the Saudi government had backed the Taliban until 9/11 intrude on his cozy relations with the royal family. That warmth, displayed at ranching cookouts in both countries, has now been reinforced by $20
billion in U.S. arms sales to the Saudis and their Persian Gulf allies,
officially announced by Bush on Monday.

At first, the Bush administration feared that some pro-Israel members of Congress might be able to derail the arms sale deal, but they solved that one by offering Israel $30 billion in new weapons. That’s a good deal for the Israelis and for U.S. arms manufacturers, although not for U.S. taxpayers stuck with the tab. No problem—neither the media nor Congress notices the cost to taxpayers of anything carrying the label of “national security.” Heck, Iraq’s defense minister was just in Washington with his shopping list for new weapons and didn’t cause much of a stir when he said the United States will have to defend Iraq for at least a decade more. So much for the impact of the $1 trillion already wasted on the Iraq debacle.

I never expected Bush to do anything “right” anyway.

Then came lunch, and a discussion with my wife’s cousin Rachel about grade school teaching, homework, and math. In this case no one in public school education administration does anything right. As belabored many times in this blog, the issue of homework being deleterious for the institution of the family, and unhelpful as a teaching prop; teaching math to students who may not want to be rocket scientists, and the curriculum in general stressing that all children be equally competent in all subjects—all are completely mishandled and improperly prioritized by state control of public education.

The subject arose in the first place because Rachel is visiting the Valley from Orange County (only relatives travel to visit relatives between these locales—no one does it on purpose otherwise—it’s too big a divide culturally) because she was “tapped” by a producer of a new game show about Bingo while she was playing black jack at an Indian Casino somewhere in the bowels of San Diego County several months ago. There is a potential to win a million bucks on this show, not to mention the fun of appearing on television. Who could resist? Anyone…anyone?

The caveat: it would be helpful to have a good acumen for trivia. For instance, Rachel was asked how many stomachs a cow has. I know a cow has four stomachs. Once I ever heard such an absurdly weird fact, I would be inclined never to forget it.

Rachel’s answer was, “How the f*** would I know how many stomachs a cow has and who cares? Why don’t they ask me where Britney Spears was born and raised?” about which fact Rachel knew nuanced details. I wondered silently why Britney Spears was becoming so much a part of my life.

My wife says I have a mind full of trivia. Actually, her description was that I know everything. That is clearly impossible; as much as I know, it is all important to me -- not trivial at all.

As for rocket scientists, the folks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory got a vote of confidence from another of my favorite writers, newly moved to the Los Angeles Times op-ed page from its entertainment section, Tim Rutten, who is truly gifted in catching the phrase that adds just the right tone and meaning to his position. So he saved the day for me from everyone doing everything wrong—his article, Inquisition at JPL, was just right:

Tim is put out by how a clearly misguided directive to attempt to assure safer government employees by increasing back ground checks got out of hand in one case:

…the government demanded that the scientists, in order to get the badges, fill out questionnaires on their personal lives and waive the privacy of their financial, medical and psychiatric records. The government also wanted permission to gather information about them by interviewing third parties.

In other words, as the price of keeping their jobs, many of America's finest space scientists were being asked to give the feds virtually blanket permission to snoop and spy and collect even malicious gossip about them from God knows who.

Investigators wanted license to seek information as to whether "there is any reason to question [applicants'] honesty or trustworthiness." At one point, JPL's internal website posted an "issue characterization chart" -- since taken down -- that indicated the snoops would be looking for "patterns of irresponsible behavior as reflected in credit history ... sodomy ... incest ... abusive language ... unlawful assembly ... homosexuality." (We'll leave it to others to explain a standard that links incest with unlawful assembly.)

It doesn’t get any sillier. Until you read that the Food and Drug Administration says that food from cloned animals is safe. The FDA is the government agency that allows, among others, the ubiquitous seasoning MSG (monosodium glutamate), known to cause physical and nerve issues in millions of people, to continue to be approved. This is not even to mention the reams of cases of FDA conflict of interest in drug and vaccine approvals due to the immense force of big pharma lobby money. When people actually start to eat cloned animals, “silly” may become a major understatement of the situation.

Finally, my favorite quote of the “doing things wrong” issue of today comes from the article about the cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin. That drug, and one of its components sold separately as well, Zetia, accounted for 5 billion dollars in sales last year. The other component of Vytorin, symvastatin, sold alone as a generic, costs a few dollars for a month’s supply. Zetia and Vytorin can cost over $100 for a month’s worth of pills.

The latest news is that a study shows that while simvastatin lowers cholesterol in the blood and has a concomitant effect on reducing the killer plaque in arterial walls, Zetia, which lowers blood levels of cholesterol, may actually account for a slight increase in plaque build-up. Confusing, no?

Here’s the quote I like:

Meanwhile, the results "raise some very interesting questions," said Dr. P.K. Shah, a cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center who was not involved in the study.

"Is the LDL hypothesis still alive and well after this?" he asked.
"Despite a 17-percentage-point reduction in LDL, [Vytorin] did not produce any changes better than the single drug alone. Many of us had not quite expected it to be that way."

I’ll bet! But even more telling than the pharmaceutical paradox of whether lowering LDL’s is good for you or not, is this blistering item:

Results of the two-year study had originally been scheduled to be released in 2006, but the companies delayed them, saying that the analysis was extremely complex. At one point, the firms said they were going to change the study's design to simplify analysis, but critics objected and the researchers returned to their original plans.

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce launched an investigation into why the results
had not been released sooner.

Critics had charged that the delays were the result of negative findings.

Ya think? $5 bil is at stake!

Tomorrow I’m going to wake up and to counterbalance today, everyone will do everything right—to start things off, I plan to skip my regular dose of Zetia tonight.

HIB Vaccine is Putrid

Funny story: I'm 57 years old. When I was a kid I was vaccinated according to the "modern" protocol of polio shots, oral polio vaccines, and Diphtheria, Pertusis, and Tetanus, among others. Kids are still getting these shots when they visit the pediatrician--my question is does anyone ever hear of a kid getting any of these "plagues" these days? Diphtheria is non existent and the shot only uses an anti-toxin in case of its presence anyway--waste of time and money. Google up tetanus and see how many cases of THAT awful disease plagued the US population last year--and pertusis, or more colloquially-known as "Whooping Cough,"--comes and goes as it pleases vaccines or not. Antibiotics curb it's incursion while the vaccine (DPT) has caused untold maladies and misfortunes among its recipients.

I am one--I received all those fashionable new life-saving vaccines in the 1950's, when I was a developing baby-boomer. I even remember to this day--fifty years later--the pain in my left arm and my inability to move it due to the pain, and my parents and everyone elese saying, "That means the shot is "taking,"" --Ignorant-speak for the vaccine is working that's why you feel the pain.

Years go by, and with the knowledge and understanding of the dreadful adverse effects of injecting toxins into an immature bloodstream, my mom and I discuss these reactions I had to the shots wya back when--turns out mom knew better! She was young and in those days you went along with educated authoritative thinking of the day--but she told me she thought I seizured after my second "booster" shot--the happy nomen in those days for a follow-up of the DPT vaccination. Today in the event of an adverse reaction to a shot, children are advised not to receive any more--as if that is followed through...

I was tested as a young student in the late 1950's and I was put in a "special class" for gifted children. The tests belied my inability to "pay attention," which back then was punished for lack of discipline, but which today is considered Attention Deficit Disorder--and only so designated due to the HUGE numbers of children handicapped by this problem. Are we all just bad students, unable to attend? Or have our bodies been so thoroughly assaulted by vaccines invented by drug company conglomerates with nothing to gain but money and more money that we cannot recover to our original potential?

The "new" medicine is to give infants a vaccine to prevent Hepatitis B virus. This disease comes from contact within an environment that an infant will NEVER encounter! But the last laugh is on one of the big-pharma biggest assholes in the business today--Merck--they told us Vioxx was a good thing while they knew (internal memos exist in court as proof) that it had the potential to kill without a decent "risk-reward" ratio. Now Merck is recalling the HIB vaccine because it is contaminated. Really?

Polio vaccines are created in the dead infected tissue of a monkey kidney in a third-world country you wouldn't want to vacation in. Now the doctor wants to stick this shit in your child's vein. Don't toss your 60 year old photos in my face of kids in "iron lung" machines when you don't have your facts straight--just because we were told they had polio, doesn't mean these poor children weren't afflicted with meningitis, and other respiratory and paralytic viruses, but we were told they had polio because it made the Salk vaccine all the more phenomenal in the media. Notice Salk and Sabin (live virus) never got along. Seemed like a "slam dunk" back then didn't it?

Protect yourselves, and your children, from the onslaught of patent drugs. The drug companies have nothing to gain but money--and a LOT of that for sure!!

Nickelodeon, Sumner and Boston

I peddled high school yearbook portrait contracts in New England for 4 years in another lifetime. It was my grandfather's business in which I was lucky enough to cut my teeth on sales experience. My territory covered eastern Massachusetts, from New Hampshire to Providence. I remember calling on every school in the area, whether it was one we had under contract or not. Boston Latin High School was one of them.

Years prior to my endeavors in the greater Boston area, a guy graduated Boston Latin, went to Harvard, and would up in the military in WWII and then went on to work in his father's business--movie theater exhibiting. After years of success in expanding that enterprise, Sumner Redstone acquired several companies which he turned into world-class conglomerates, and he still heads two of them: CBS and Viacom.

How's my connection in Boston with Sumner's entrepreneurial ubber-success? As a graduate of Boston University with a Master's Degree in film production, I was invited to a "Conversation with Sumner Redstone" tonight at Paramount Studios in Hollywood--the oldest and most successful movie studio and owned, of course, by Viacom--Sumner Redstone.

So there I went to hear what this utter success of risky ventures has to say about how it's done. In a state-of-the-art theater that holds 580 people, most seats were empty. I felt real privileged in an intimate sort of way, to hear what this self-made guy thought of about how to become self-made. He had nothing to offer about that. His concern was about copyright violations and digital piracy--at his age of 84, I thought he'd be more concerned about how best to digest his next restaurant meal. No--Sumner is into his business and loves everything about it. If only his billions could buy back a few years so he could continue to have the fun he is obviously enjoying.

And that's when I realized why I went to this affair--I thought I might promote my blog or my wife's book--no, I was intended to be present to hear the one thing Sumner said that resonates and will resonate for my whole life: anyone can follow his or her dreams in this country, and see them fulfilled, regardless of ethnicity, back ground, or anything. That was the real message, although I think Mr. Redstone wanted us all to concentrate more on anti-piracy.

Oh--Nickelodeon along with MTV are huge world-wide entities--Mr. Redstone said when he bought Viacom he was told by "Wall Street" they were a flash in the pan. As was Viacom itself. MTV is watched by 1 billion people worldwide, and Nickelodeon is one of the top networks....

I am inspired to follow my dreams--how about you?

Writers Strike/Iraq War-Get Me the Numbers

Numbers are a funny thing. A headline recently indicated that the universe weighs less than was thought:

Revised calculations indicate the universe contains less normal and dark matter than previously thought, resulting in a "weight loss" of 10 to 20 percent.

I can't really comprehend what that means--I took my family on a whale-watch boat off Dana point, California last year, and we saw Blue Whales, the largest animal on the planet, which were over 100 feet long and weighed hundreds of tons--I couldn't tangibly grasp that concept, how am I going to do the whole universe?

As I try to get a grip on thse numbers, I read tonight that Jay Leno and David Letterman are giving up huge sums of income because they are not getting paid during the Writer's Guild Strike against the AMPTP:

The TV writers' strike is costing David Letterman and Jay Leno more than $100,000 a night each.
Because the late-night stars have stayed off the job since the walkout began last week, CBS and NBC have stopped paying them, according to TV-industry sources who asked not to be identified and are close to both hosts.

I made $100,000 over several years once, when I was younger and smarter. Most people don't make what these guys make in a year, in a lifetime. While the actions of Leno and Letterman are admirable in favor of the writers who, after all, provide the CONTENT of everything we watch on TV and at the movies, the "numbers" of dollars in actuality are hard on which to get a reality grip...

Forget about everything you have read so far--universe weight included--there are no human brains big enough to wrap around the numbers of Chris Dickey's latest foray into costs of the US incursion in Iraq:

As calculated by the Democratic side of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress and released Tuesday, the direct costs of the Iraq war from 2003 through 2008 will be $607 billion. If you add indirect costs ranging from interest payments and deferred investments, oil prices and medical care for thousands of veterans who've lost their health, limbs, faces, eyes and, in some cases, their minds, you're talking about roughly $1.3 trillion over the same six-year span.

In an effort to make those figures comprehensible, the committee tells us that for "the $432 million we spend in Iraq every day"—note, that is $432 million a day, per diem, seven days a three-billion-dollar week, or, looking at it another way, $18 million an hour, $300,000 a minute, $5,000 a second, and so on, ad nauseam—we could enroll 58,000 children in Head Start, hire 9,300 more teachers, or provide health insurance for 513,000 low-income kids. But … why would we want to do any of that? Sounds too much like "tax and spend" and "soft on security." Social responsibility doesn't sell at the polls or on the Hill.

OK. For the price of one day in the death of Iraq, according to the committee's calculations, we could hire 10,700 Border Patrol agents or 14,200 police officers in the United States. But would our Congress and our president ever pass such bills? Would the American people vote for such programs? Nah. Hard to imagine. The Bush administration has bet that most Americans feel pretty comfortable, and pretty safe, just the way they are, and so far it's been right.

The Joint Economic Committee and its Democratic chairman, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, tell us that the first half-decade of the Iraq war is costing each American family of four $16,500. If the politicians had really wanted to make an impression, they should have appealed to our selfishness. With that kind of money, Mr. and Ms. Average and their kids could put a flat-screen TV, or two, in every room of the house, or buy that third or fourth car they've been wanting. Maybe that would get a rise out of the American public. Clearly the loss of 4,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq hasn't had that much of an impact.

And you thought the universe was heavy!!

Waterboarding & Injustice in Public Schools

Couple of items today seem totally unconnected to me are right on the front burner one-and-the-same:

I my former congressional district in Orange County, which is so hugely overrun with republicans, there lives a courageous, or maybe foolhardy, or even fun-loving, democratic opposition candidate without a prayer of being elected to the US House of Representatives--and because of this "hopeless" dream, and his drive and determination and commitment--he probably will be!

Steve Young sent an email today describing the incumbent's stand on the AG nomination and waterboarding:

Today my Republican opponent made a statement on waterboarding that I felt you need to see. The Daily Pilot, a local insert in the Los Angeles Times has a weekly feature entitled "That's Debatable." The feature poses a question and asks John Campbell [R,Ca-48] to answer. Today's question was:

"Michael B. Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, has been criticized for his views on interrogation techniques, specifically his comments on waterboarding. But Mukasey has said he would enforce a law banning waterboarding if Congress approved it. Do you think if he is confirmed as the next attorney general Congress should move swiftly to approve a law banning waterboarding, and would you vote for such a law?"

Of course Campbell did not answer the question whether he would vote to ban waterboarding, but his dancing in a buffalo heard answer is even more revealing:

"Waterboarding is a psychological interrogation technique that does not inflict physical pain or permanent damage. Nonetheless, it is reserved only for the worst terrorists who have information that could save dozens, hundreds or thousands of American lives. I do not think it is an excessive response to the threats that we face in the world today. John Campbell Congressman (R-Newport Beach)"

I doubt that Campbell would vote to ban a "psychological interrogation technique" he sees as so important and that does not inflict pain nor risk of death. Campbell is wrong.

Waterboarding induces panic and suffering by forcing a person to inhale water into the sinuses, pharynx, larynx, trachea, and lungs. The head is tilted back and water is poured into the upturned mouth or nose. Eventually the subject cannot exhale more air or cough out more water, the lungs are collapsed, and the sinuses and trachea are filled with water. The subject is drowned from the inside, filling with water from the head down. The chest and lungs are kept higher than the head so that coughing draws water up and into the lungs while avoiding total suffocation. "His suffering must be that of a man who is drowning, but cannot drown."

Mr. Campbell, if waterboarding does not inflict pain or death, why is it effective? If it does not inflict pain or death why was a Texas sheriff convicted under Governor George Bush of using waterboarding? Mr. Campbell, if waterboarding is not painful, and does not threaten death, will you Mr. Campbell agree to be waterboarded so we know you are not mistaken?

I can see why I wouldn't want to have this torture done to me! Now let me tell you about my 10 year old daughter who got in my car when I picked her up from public school today crying. She is in an advanced class for gifted children (not our choice--it's state-mandated based on testing) and has one teacher in the morning, and a different one from 11:30 til dismissal at 2:34 PM. (Seems like a long day to me for pre-teens, although we all went through it didn't we...)

The morning teacher has issues and is not a happy person, and this reflects on the children. The late-morning afternoon teacher is completely the opposite and the children also relate to that. Today, the MORNING teacher was there for the entire day. She set up rules for the mis-behaving students who would not "settle down" so that the whole class had to forfeit recess time, lunch time, and had to stay AFTER closing time, even those students who were not "talking out of turn," or otherwise disrupting the order-at-hand.

My daughter was upset about this seeming injustice--even the disruptive students should not have to lose precious recess minutes and lunch time etc. So she was in tears about this when I picked her up.

I have read a few books about the US public school system, written by experts on education and learning, rather than by school administrators. It has become clear to me that our public school system and curriculum is outdated and arcane compared to what experts know about how to teach. There are even books written about the harmful effects of homework on young children and why they should be allowed to play with their friends rather than be sequestered in their homes doing repetitive math exercises.

I dropped my daughter at home and drove back to the school and confronted her teacher as she was leaving. I told her that my daughter was excited to get to school early today, as every day, and wound up in tears because of her teacher's actions. This teacher told me I had to explain to my daughter about the "real world," and consequences etc I can't go on...

This teacher and I had a difference of opinion, but the teacher is also pretty burnt out and even admitted it. I told her I could not do the job she has chosen, and I respected what her goals and challenges are.

Waterboarding and children in school--while the media reports on the interesting and obnoxious controversy over whether it's OK for US foreign intel to torture possible anti-American antagonists, and while the definition of torture is up-for-grabs even though I think yelling at your children is a form of torture--aren't we all jerking ourselves off with these pandering news issues while the real problems of American society run downhill like water from a broken dam: arcane public school curricula, health care for everyone, bigotry and racism every day, homeless fellow citizens in the richest country in the world, forays in the middle east and elsewhere not backed by the American voter/taxpayer?

How convenient for the sponsored media to have waterboarding to distract and entertain us in order to sell soap and cereal. Waterboarding as torture is not acceptable, but instead of interrogating the appointee for US Attorney General in congress, and showing this spectacle on TV for hours, we the people should concern oursleves with the issues affecting our lives, and our children's future! Now!

Frank Rich's "Good Germans"

Frank Rich writes another trenchant, well-researched and beautifully synthesized piece on the Bush cabal rubber-stamping torture as policy. Rich's premise, in his New York Times column, is that only through the passive acceptance of this policy by the American citizens, who have been informed repeatedly through the media and congressional hearings, can this disgusting policy continue. It started with the uncovering of the Abu Graib prisoner torture scandal, and now rocks on with Blackwater and more.

Thus Rich refers to the "Good German" of post Nazi Germany when the common citizens of Hitler's dictatorship claimed they really knew nothing of the holocaust atrocities committed in their midst. They were just good patriots going along with the country's laws and minding their own business.

If Rich's modern-day "Good Germans" are the Americans who choose not to raise a stink about torturing alleged enemies behind closed doors, then I propose another "Good German" analogy about my fellow citizens: the pervasive bigotry that oozes throughout our daily lives is constantly ignored by people even when it's shoved in their faces. How many times has the reader of this blog over-heard or been confronted with defaming remarks about an ethnic group, or a sexist statement, or anti-gay or lesbians on any given day, and not reacted by saying out loud you won't stand for that kind of language?

This country is full of people who acquiesce before racism and bigotry even when they are abhored by it. I appreciate Frank Rich's discussion of Bush getting away with illegal actions because the American voter is complacent and uncaring. I also see the bigger issue and ultimate dilemma in our society of ongoing racism, xenophobia, and bigotry and the allowance and even ignorance of them by Americans as the downfall of us all if we don't stop being "Good Germans" and raise our voices now.

Coulter Friend of the Jews

Ann Coulter may have done a big favor for the cause of tolerance in our society with her latest bigotted outburst. This intelligent, educated, yet bigotted and rabble-rousing right-wing author has stated in a TV interview that Jews need to be "perfected." In other words, Christians are perfect Jews, and Jews fall short.

What's the favor she's done for anti-bigotry? Her remarks have created a minor media firestorm and hopefully have reached the ears and brains of the youth of the country who may not have heard about the Holocaust, Hitler, WWII etc. Her inane inflamatory need for publicity at any cost, may have made more people aware that anti-Semitism, and bigotry in general, is alive and prospering in our great society. So many insulated fellow-citizens believe that whole thing is a thing of the past. It's not!

Tim Rutten, who writes a media column for the Los Angeles Times every week, made Coulter's contribution very clear:

..."supersessionism," the theological notion that Christianity "completes" or "perfects" Judaism is, along with the deicide libel, anti-Semitism's major theological underpinning. Indeed, in Central and Western Europe between the world wars, there was a substantial body of purportedly "respectable" intellectual opinion that held "supersessionism" made possible a "reasonable" theological anti-Semitism that was entirely licit, as opposed to the Nazis' and fascists' illicit, "racially based" anti-Semitism. It is fair to say that the rails leading to Auschwitz were greased by precisely the opinion Coulter expressed on American television this week.

So thank you Ms. Coulter, for bringing to the front burner the issue of bigotry that needs to be discussed, especially with the coming generations, in this great country of ours.

Polio Vaccine Goes Haywire in Environment

It was only a matter of time--like a scene out of the movie Andromeda Strain, vaccine makers have unleashed a virulent strain of polio that is causing polio outbreaks.

The latest email from Barbara Loe Fisher, President of the National Vaccine Information Center, refers to articles stating that the World Health organization and the Center for Disease Control have deliberately withheld information about this dilemma from the US public--here is an excerpt from that email:

Mutated Live Vaccine Polioviruses Pollute Water, Paralyze

by Barbara Loe Fisher

In yet another stunning example of arrogant and immoral behavior, doctors at the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) admitted last week that they deliberately did not tell "the public" that neurovirulent mutated vaccine strain live polio viruses are polluting world water supplies and are responsible for polio outbreaks among children in Nigeria and other countries. Dr. David Heymann, a leader in WHO's polio eradication effort, reportedly explained that WHO "considered the [Nigerian] outbreak to be a problem for scientists and not something that would change global vaccination practices" so WHO didn't share the information with the public until now. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ ap/20071005/ap_on_he_me/nigeria_polio_paradoxThere is a lot of information that WHO and CDC officials have not shared with the public about what forcing worldwide use of a live oral polio for 40 years has done. The Sabin live polio vaccine - which is the public health community's main claim to fame and fortune in the 20th century - may not only have unleashed the most feared autoimmune disorder to plague man in two centuries( http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n07/hoop01_.html ) as well as caused increases in brain, bone and lung cancers ( http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/jnci% 3b94/3/229-a.pdf) but also has created mutant paralytic viruses that could cripple many more humans than would have been crippled if the live virus polio vaccine had never been used at all. The US abandoned the Sabin live polio vaccine in 1999 and switched to the inactivated Salk vaccine that cannot cause vaccine strain polio. So why are billions of dollars being spent to pour the risky live virus polio vaccine into the mouths of the poorest babies in the most underprivileged countries in the world where sanitation and water supplies are already compromised?The worst part of this deception is that WHO and CDC spin doctors are trying to convince parents in Africa, India and elsewhere that it is the "unvaccinated" who are causing vaccine strain polio outbreaks even though many of these children are getting 9 or 10 polio vaccinations http://vaccineawakening.blogspot.c om/search?q=India%2C+polio+vaccine Although public health officials are trying to blame polio outbreaks on the 'unvaccinated," the medical literature documents that assertion to be false.

Any reader interested in more information can email this blog (lasercodbg@gmail.com) and I will forward the entire email from the NVIC.

Jenny McCarthy, Vaccine-Autism and the TRUTH

When you know how "Mississippi" is spelled and you tell your grade-school genius child for her homework, and she says, "I don't think that's right," what goes through your mind? The good news is, she's thinking about it. The other "news" is that there are certain rock solid truths in this universe, and the above correct spelling of that certain southern state is one of them.

Therefore when Jenny McCarthy appears on TV and claims her son became autistic from vaccine injury, I know this is a fact as much as I know how to spell a lot of different things. What is striking is the coincidence of McCarthy's book publishing and talk-show tour, with a new study featured as the number-one story currently on MSNBC. The very seriously-authoritative and scientific study done by the CDC (Center for Disease Control)--a federal entity designed to pretty much smooth over our consumer concerns that a drug approved for marketing is not dangerous after all (at least that's what I think their basic purpose is)--shows that thimerosol, the mercury preservative widely used until a few years ago to lengthen the shelf-life of vaccines, was not actually harmful to children who received the shots.

The key ingredient to the story is that the vaccine-autism connection was not part of this study, and not an issue. I don't consider mercury a culprit in the vaccine-autism cause and effect anyway. It is the toxin, or germ, contained in the shot itself that causes the adverse affects on the immune system.

Dead-virus, or live-virus vaccine etc...who cares? The cultures for polio vaccines are grown in the kidney tissue of dead monkeys in third-world countries with little or no controls and the virulent pustule toxin is put in vaccines to be shot into you little kid's arm. I wouldn't go into a room where that putrid stuff is, let alone inject it into my blood stream! Would you?

The coincidence remains, however--there is this very visible, known, and attractive, entertainment personality who can get headlines with a story about her child and autism, which is happening right now--and this study comes out today. And Jenny is on Larry King Live tonight!

When Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center wrote her email newsletter commending Oprah Winfrey for finally having a show dedicated to the vaccine issue, and for Jenny McCarthy for talking about it, she gave credit where credit is due to another mother years ago who found the problem, and the answer, and started a movement of parents to take a stand:

Jenny McCarthy gave a star turn on Oprah when she clearly, simply and passionately described what happened to her son after vaccination and how she was empowered by information she found on the Internet to find ways to cure his vaccine-associated regressive autism. She listened to her mother's instinct and pursued a course of treatment that involved nutrition and other alternative therapies. It is a story of a mother's love and determination to heal her son after he was given the diagnosis of autism, a neuroimmune disorder that so many pediatricians are taught is untreatable.

In the early 1990's, a mother in California, Cindy Goldenberg, was the first Mom to cure her son of regressive autism by listening to her mother's instincts and doing her own research into vaccine-induced neuroimmune dysfunction. Her son experienced regressive autism after receiving MMR vaccine. Cindy sought out IVIG therapy as well as nutritional and probiotic therapies that she said "healed his gut." Her son was soon in a regular classroom and this year he graduated from high school.

Two years ago, at the last Defeat Autism Now (DAN) conference attended by the late amazing Dr. Bernard Rimland, founder of the Autism Research Society, Jennie met this young man who addressed an audience of 1,000 attendees and press, and who indeed defeated autism because of his mother, Bernie, and the truth.

Inspiration and hope are undefeatable, even by the CDC and big pharma vaccine-makers who can't spell "Mississippi."

More info here: VaccineRisksReport.com

Circumcision is Painful

I'm not as pissed as much as I'm amazed: there is more interest in OJ Simpson's latest court predicament, and Dan Rather suing CBS for money he doesn't need and with which they don't wanna part, than what's really important tome, to my family, and to you.

For instance, if a young white girl were held down and her clitoris were cut off, it would probably make big news in this great country of ours. Yet this very event takes place all the time with little girls in Africa because of some cultural tradition that has more to do with sadism than religion. I am more up in arms about this calamity for children in a foreign country than I am about any "problem" of traffic congestion or weather inaccuracies which flood our local media. Somehow, their plight, the epidemic of AIDS in Africans, and the problems of genocide etc, seem more immediate to me than what appears as headlines to me every day.

The problem with American perceptions of what's important and what needs attention is the dropping-of-the-ball of the so-called "4th estate," -- the press, the media, TV news etc. Now that the "powers-that-be" conglomerates really own the mode of us citizens getting the true news--the "emmes," as my Jewish elder friends would call it--there is no end to the comforting lies we can be told. Orwell pictured a Big Brother society that only doled out what the "party" wanted the people to know. He would have laughed to know that the people are the ones who are content to only hear the party line.

And here we are--wake me up when you want to talk about the real issues.

Bad Ads; Iraqi Dead; OJ in Trouble

There are 3 headlines which all caught my eye today--right up there with the latest earthquake in Indonesia. Let's sort out the priorities:

1. Betray-Us = Petraeus. Moveon.org, of which I am a member, has used this clever and cute play on words to indicate that we, the people, are being played like a fiddle when it comes to the truth of what is happening in Iraq.

I, happily, am not a ploy to this volleyball, because of my inside track with my closest friend, Christopher Dickey. He is the resident terrorist expert at Newsweek Magazine, as well as Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East correspondent. He's been to Baghdad and knows the players more than I can count, or want to. This whole Iraq occupation from day 1 was bad news, per Chris.

2. Los Angeles Times article says that death toll could be 1 million Iraqis since US incursion began:

According to the ORB poll, a survey of 1,461 adults suggested that the
total number slain during more than four years of war was more than 1.2 million.

This number is not hard to believe because the loss of life is always higher among civilians than military in an occupied situation.

3. OJ Simpson is accused of "stealing" back his old memorabilia in an armed robbery in Las Vegas. This story was up there with the previous two headlines.

How are we, the people, supposed to be taken seriously when we apeal to our elected representatives to concoct legislation to make our lives better, if we equate 1 million dead people with a politically provocative advertisement and a long-gone celebrity whose only claim to fame is that he got away with murder?

Seems like we deserve what we get. Here's some advice for those of us who crave a more appropriate priority list:

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.

--Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797) Irish orator, philosopher, & politician

Bush is addressing the nation on Rosh Hashanah. I can't watch him speak, but I've read he is assuring his fellow Americans of withdrawing some US troops from Iraq at some point as long as we put up with the current "surge:"

"The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home."

Ya gotta hand it to him--he's proof that nuts can run a nuthouse.

Not surprising when I am surrounded by news and issues that are more and more outlandish, yet they are more and more being accepted by an acquiescent and overwhelmed public.

For instance, my wife had a routine yearly mammogram in April which is one of the only few items covered and paid for up front by our Blue Cross policy. We are privileged to pay $715 per month for a "preferred provider" plan which means we can go to any M.D. contracted with Blue Cross, and we pay $5,000 deductible out of pocket before dollar-1 is paid by Blue Cross.--Except for yearly pap smears, mammograms, and office visits and a couple of other items. Drugs have a $750 deductible per year per person.

Anyway, Cindy briefly mentioned a twenty-year-old long-term issue to our Dr., who put it on his orders for the "routine" mammogram, so Blue Cross would not pay the "routine" payment, and instead applied $600+ to our deductible--in other words, we have to pay $600 for a procedure for which we normally pay $50.

I'm not done--after MONTHS of communications with a VERY compassionate credit lady at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, CA, and some not-so-successful attempts to reach the physician regarding his "coding" of the mammogram order--which by the way was not needed since Cindy was due for a "routine" yearly mammogram anyway--the Dr. FINALLY changed his coding for the procedure order as "ROUTINE!"

Then the compassionate lady in credit at Mission Hospital phoned me to explain that Blue Cross no longer covers ANY mammograms at Mission Hospital as "routine" because of some red-tape story that I can't even remember to repeat here -- and I'm pretty good at repeating details. Something to do with the hospital taking over the imaging facility and without an "office visit" charge the facility can't be considered "routine." etc and whatever.

So now that we won--the Dr. changed the order to satisfy Blue Cross--we're still gonna owe $600 for a $50 mammogram. And if I miss one monthly payment I'll be sent to collections.

And I wonder why we the people put up with Bush's nonsense??

At least he could have waited until after the first day of Rosh Hashanah to try to save his legacy again...Yom Kippur is the "Day of Atonement."

In 6 9/11's We've Learned Nothing

Nostalgic media reports today on the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, and the dissections and recollections are too numbing to intake. What have we Americans learned in six years since 9/11? Exactly nothing new.

1. The US government--the President, congress, and by extrapolation, American voters--continue military occupation of Iraq with a huge force of soldiers and ongoing murder and mayhem of those soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians.

2. Non-Muslim Americans are increasingly bigoted and suspicious of their fellow Americans--Muslims--because of the irrational association of their ethnic and religious backgrounds with the 19 killers who caused the deaths on 9/11/07.

3. Americans are afraid of terrorist attacks--this fear is pandered to by the media, and exploited for the sake of civil-liberty-restrictive laws by the government.

These three items prove that the education of the public based on events and their aftermath, with respect to 9/11/07, is non-existent and perhaps wilfully so on the part of both the media and the government.

1. Very simply, the invasion and occupation of Iraq as a means to quash events such as 9/11 was and is a complete waste of money and lives. Repeatedly we Americans have been assured by all facets and factions of the media and government that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with, and was not responsible, for events caused by the Bin-Laden headed group of Al Qaeda.

US presence in Iraq is a throwback to the colonial ambitions of the British Empire of the 19th century, which if it were effective, would have brought cheap gas to the US voter--which has not happened. Instead, US military presence in Iraq has brought ruination on the effectiveness of American foreign policy through diplomacy world wide, as well as untold injury and death to thousands of Americans and Iraqis.

2. Americans enjoy a bigoted society. NIMBY, the acronym for "Not in my back yard," has become so well known it is part of a George Carlin joke. Its meaning runs on several levels--I like [whatever ethnic-religious group] but I don't want one of that [whatever ethnic-religious group] living in my neighborhood.

There is nothing new about this bigotry--since the events of 9/11 and the association of the perpetrators with the religion of Islam, the old Joe McCarthy red-baiting cry of fear of communism and "guilt by association" has made the understanding of Muslim Americans totally murky.

19 hooligans, associated with Islam, hijacking planes and killing thousands of people in New York--those were 19 of a larger group of maybe a few hundred in a world of over 1 billion people who follow the religion of Islam. Yet the word I hear on the street from the average American is the same knee-jerk reaction as from a white guy running into an black guy on a dark street corner at night--fear and danger--regardless of the black guy's character, background or intent. Prejudice runs in the blood, not the brain.

The lesson of 9/11 should be one of tolerance and understanding--why are so many people in the world upset with American presence and policy? Instead, Americans learned that not only are African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics a problem, now so are Middle-Eastern-looking people. And you don't have to be white to be prejudiced: there's a stereotype for any group. And if you're not a member of that group, chances are you put the label on them anyway--Mexicans are lazy, African Americans are criminals, and Asians don't know how to drive. And Jews are cheap.

3. Everyone's afraid of being killed by a terrorist act. I am really happy to close with this non-lesson-learned from 9/11, because it really is the envelop for the other two items.

It doesn't take much to disabuse the reader of this irrational attitude--statistics can be "bent" to serve a purpose, but in this case the facts are overwhelming: [from Sixwise.com]

A poll in Conde Nast Traveler in February 2003 found that one-third of respondents feared a terrorist attack. What are your real odds of dying this way? Historically speaking, it's a one in 9.3 million chance--which is a slightly greater risk than you have of dying in an avalanche.

Media efforts to "sell newspapers," or get TV ratings, or just to keep a presence in your face, are what shapes our societal point of view, and therefore how we react to situations, even how we vote and who winds up in charge of our government.

So in the case of us all remaining ignorant, pliant, and sheep to be led by any kind of tyrannical despot with delusions of personal glory and grandeur--or cash for that matter--beyond our wildest dreams of public service and representation, we're keeping our part of the agreement.

Trouble is, we really need to get off our asses and cry "foul!" That is the lesson learned from 9/11!