The inhumanity of this is just staggering to contemplate:

Picking through musty files in a Pennsylvania archive, a Wellesley College professor made a heart-stopping discovery: US government scientists in the 1940s deliberately infected hundreds of Guatemalans with syphilis and gonorrhea in experiments conducted without the subjects’ permission.

Medical historian Susan M. Reverby happened upon the documents four or five years ago while researching the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study and later shared her findings with US government officials.

The unethical research was not publicly disclosed until yesterday, when President Obama and two Cabinet secretaries apologized to Guatemala’s government and people and pledged to never repeat the mistakes of the past — an era when it was not uncommon for doctors to experiment on patients without their consent.

Even so, Reverby found in the files a story of almost singular exploitation and deception, conducted in a foreign land because, the nation’s surgeon general at the time acknowledged, it could not have been done in the United States.

“I was just completely blown away,’’ Reverby said in an interview. “I was floored.’’

In Tuskegee, scientists knew African-American sharecroppers had become infected with syphilis but withheld treatment, in the name of tracking the progression of the disease. In Guatemala, prisoners, soldiers, and inmates in mental asylums were willfully infected, sometimes by using prostitutes provided by the scientists, sometimes by pouring the germs onto skin abrasions the researchers caused.

The US scientists — who had received the blessings of Guatemalan health authorities — were among the leading lights in the field of sexually transmitted disease research. Flush with optimism in the dawning era of antibiotic treatment, they decided to expose vulnerable subjects to further their understanding of the effectiveness of the new drugs in treating sexually transmitted diseases. From 1946 to 1948, they tested their theories on about 1,500 Guatemalans; most who became infected received treatment, but at least one died.

Yesterday, Obama called President Álvaro Colom Caballeros of Guatemala to apologize, and Obama’s spokesman told reporters the experiment was “tragic, and the United States by all means apologizes to all those who were impacted by this.’’

Obviously, we know about the Tuskegee experiment, but with this revelation, it's hard not to wonder what other populations have been experimented on by the American government without their consent.

Yes, who ever could have guessed that conditions in this firm could lead to salmonella poisoning? What does it take to get the federal government to drop the hammer on these dirty, unsafe food food processors? Daniel DeGroot from Open Left has the details on the egg recall:

What does it take to get shut down in America? 380 million eggs have been recalled due to salmonella contamination. The contamination has been traced to a factory farm in Galt, Iowa called "Wright County Egg." Poking around, it turns out the farm is owned by the DeCoster family, a father-son industrial farm duo with a lengthy track record of environmental, labour, cruelty, safety andimmigration violations with plenty of lawsuits from Maine to Iowa. No way I can quote it all, but some highlights:

In 1980, the DeCoster operation was charged with employing five 11-year-olds and a 9-year-old by the Labor department.

Prior to 1993: Even before he built his first large-scale Iowa pig farming operation, Austin J. "Jack" DeCoster had already drawn the serious attention of environmental and labor law enforcement authorities. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection had brought a 14-count action against him for activities that were polluting both air and water. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had investigated DeCoster in connection with farm workers' reports that they had been exposed to lethal asbestos in DeCoster chicken houses. There had also been a federal suit brought against DeCoster under the Migrant Agricultural Workers Protection Act, based on workers' reports of unfit housing, and of illegal threats and harassment ongoing at DeCoster plants.

E-Coli conservativism continues:

In 1996, then-Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich proposed more than $3.6 million in penalties against DeCoster for numerous alleged egregious and willful violations of health and safety and wage and hour laws. In May 1997, the company settled the case by paying $2 million, agreeing to pay full restitution of back wages owed to workers and agreeing to third-party monitoring.

[...] "The conditions at this migrant farm site are as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop we have seen," Reich said at the time. "Fear and intimidation kept these workers in this unsafe, unhealthy atmosphere and living in totally unsanitary conditions."

Officials had been tipped off by an undercover video shot by a humane investigator for Mercy For Animals depicting live hens suffocating in garbage cans, twirled by their necks in incomplete euthanasia, kicked into manure pits to drown and hanging by their feet over conveyer belts. Footage even shows the investigator, hired as an employee, pointing out the suffering animals to DeCoster's son Jay who says to disregard it.

In 1996, federal investigators found DeCoster workers living in rat and cockroach infested housing and OSHA found their drinking water contaminated with faeces. Yum.

No one could have predicted a quality business like this would suffer salmonella contamination. Maybe someone in HHS, FDA, Ag or the DoJ could do something. Maybe all of them. The FDA did institute recent new egg safety rules, which is good, but my issue relates more to how an operation like this can continue to be in business at all?

Because it's capitalism, son, and owners have a God-given right to shave as many edges as they can with food safety, figuring that the occasional fine or lawsuit is well worth the savings!

As a member of the Professional Left, I'm sorry to say that my attitude toward the Gulf oil spill cleanup is that the glass is not even half-full. I'm sorry to say it, because it's an implied criticism of the administration and it will make poor Bobby Gibbs cry. I think it's got to be said, loudly and often: This seafood is not safe to eat.

From the Solve Climate blog:

HOPEDALE, LA.— In the small towns of coastal Louisiana, the widespread consensus is that the oil is far from gone.Fishermen return from working on cleanup crews or from recreational angling trips with stories of crabs whose lungs are black with oil, or of oysters with shells covered in sludge. They take photos and carry tarballs home like talismans to show what they have seen. They talk about their fears with anyone who will listen, and often their voices are tinged with panic.

Yet a government report released last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that 75 percent of the oil has been cleaned up, dispersed or otherwise contained. And the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that of all the samples of seafood that have been tested since the oil spill, none have shown evidence of contamination.

While some in the coastal seafood industry agree with these assessments, a majority seem to view the news with a sense of betrayal.

"The cleanup isn't even close to being done," said Karen Hopkins of Dean Blanchard Seafood, which accounts for about 11 percent of the U.S. shrimp supply, on the barrier island of Grand Isle.

"The last thing I want to do is scare anyone away from the seafood down here," said Dawn Nunez, standing at the counter of the shrimp wholesale business and deli she owns in the tiny fishing town of Hopedale. "But if I’m not eating it or feeding it to my children, I can’t advise anyone else to eat it either."

On their dock across the street, Dawn's husband Marty Nunez pulls a clump of oil-ridden marsh grass out of a plastic bag.

"There's people fishing where this is at – or worse than this," he said. "I can't understand how they say things are getting back to normal."

Nunez surreptitiously picked the grass while working as part of BP'sVessels of Opportunity cleanup operation on Monday. For him the oil-soaked grass is a symbol of a lurking threat. Like many other people living along the coast, Nunez is confident that vast quantities of oil remain in the environment, despite highly publicized announcements to the contrary.

"Our fishermen bring home grass and tarballs and then we watch the news and they say there is no sign of oil," said Dawn Nunez. "Where did it go? Where did millions of gallons of oil go if it's not in the Gulf?"

A widely held theory is that the 1.8 million gallons of dispersants that were sprayed during the cleanup operation caused the oil to sink to the bottom.

If nothing else, this small snippet of debate between Rush Limbaugh and Williams Shatner casts some light on how right wing lunatics look at health care:

SHATNER: Here’s my premise, and you agree with it or not. If you have money, you are going to get health care. If you don’t have money, it’s more difficult.

LIMBAUGH: If you have money you’re going to get a house on the beach. If you don’t have money, you’re going to live in a bungalow somewhere.

SHATNER: Right, but we’re talking about health care.

LIMBAUGH: What’s the difference?

SHATNER: The difference is we’re talking about health care, not a house or a bungalow.

LIMBAUGH: No. No. You’re assuming that there is some morally superior aspect to health care than there is to a house.

SHATNER: No, I’m not moral at all. I want to keep the subject, for the moment, on the health care thing.

There's a somewhat mind-numbing economic analysis here which undertakes to ask the question of whether the health care market is somehow different from any other market, while leaving moral questions aside.

Here's my problem: I don't see how you can leave moral questions aside. Health care is NOT some kind of free-wheeling profit-driven economic market. Or at least, it shouldn't be. Morals ARE a substantial part of the health care debate. Trying to create an argument for distribution of goods and/or services according to demand where the demand can only be met by those with the means to meet it is an exercise in intellectual floggery.

Of course Rush blathers on at the end about how this is his business, this argument about health care, and he has the knowledge to hold the high ground in the argument.

I wonder. Did he gain that knowledge from dabbling in the free oxycontin market or somewhere else?

While politicians play games, people live with the economic fallout of their cowardice. Because this was a predictable problem, and the health care reform bill should have included free prescription coverage for people in situations like this:

In 2009 and 2010, as the economic collapse shuddered across the globe, oncologists in California noticed a troubling trend: Three patients who had had serious tumors under control for as long as eight years reappeared in the clinic with massive cancer regrowth which, in one case, required emergency surgery. In retrospect, this downturn in fortunes should have been predictable: The economic recession had forced the patients to discontinue a life-extending medication.

"In all three cases, the patients developed new symptoms and came in after having missed an appointment or two without us knowing that they had stopped the drug," said Dr. Katie Kelley, co-author of a letter-to-the-editor in the Aug. 5 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, which describes the cases. Kelley is also assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

And there have been other such cases, both at UCSF and around the nation, either of patients stopping medications altogether or rationing in the hopes of making precious supplies last longer.

"Certainly we've seen an increase in affordability concerns," said Stephen Finan, senior policy director of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network in Washington, D.C. "Very definitely we've seen an upward trend in the last couple of years of people struggling with deductibles and cost sharing."

Got that? A lot of these people have insurance. They simply can't afford the deductibles. And that's what's going to happen when the new healthcare reform bill kicks in, too.

Medicare for all would have fixed this.

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be limited to senior citizens. Over the past couple of months, the Chamber of Commerce has taken great pains to misinform small businesses about what the Affordable Care Act does for them, too. But out of nearly 700 seniors quizzed about what health-care reform meant for them, not one was able to get all of the answers right.

A recent National Council on Aging poll conducted between July 9 - July 12, 2010 yielded some pretty startling statistics.

• 21% of respondents said they were "very familiar" with the law, and an additional 64% said they were "somewhat familiar" with it. Of those, 60% said they were satisfied that the information they received was accurate and reliable.
• Yet, when asked if the new law would result in future cuts to their basic medicare benefits, 55% of the "very familiar" group answered "Yes", as did 47% of the "somewhat familiar" group.
• 62% of the "very familiar" group said they believed the new law would increase the federal budget deficit over the next 10 years, with 57% of the "somewhat familiar" group concurring.
• Half of those "very familiar" with the law believes it does not improve the quality of care for beneficiaries with chronic illnesses, and 46% believe Medicare payments to doctors will be cut.
• Remarkably, only 52% of the seniors "very familiar" with the law agreed that uninsured Americans will be covered and younger people would have extra protections.

I would love to know how many of those claiming to be "very familiar" with the law watch Fox News. I would put money on it being more than half. Reading these results made me want to go out and scream from a tall building "This is why we can't have nice things!!!!".

Fortunately, NCOA is a little more measured than me. They've created materials to help seniors understand the law and what their benefits are under the law. Now we need to get out there and help them understand it, because seniors' health is as important a feature of the new law as coverage of the uninsured.

Oh, and maybe we should get them to turn off Fox News for awhile, too.

They didn't use those words, but that's what they're saying, nevertheless. There are two principles at stake here: First, that discrimination against sick people is a thing of the past; and second, that the days of cherry-picking insured groups are over.

Either insurance companies can get on board, or else they are begging for Lynn Woolsey's newly-revived public option to become the law of the land. They certainly appear to be crying out for one. Here are a couple of stories that prove the point:

Insurers stop writing policies for children

This story could likewise be headlined "Insurers throw hissy fit, kick and scream on the floor, choose those least able to defend themselves as targets."

Nothing screams public option like screwing kids. Via MSNBC:

Some major health insurance companies have stopped issuing certain types of policies for children, an unintended consequence of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law, state officials said Friday.

Continue reading »

Here's hoping that the storm doesn't carry the chemical dispersant over the mainland:

PENSACOLA, Fla. — Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen late Thursday ordered BP to begin evacuating the Deepwater Horizon oil spill site after the National Hurricane Center predicted that sustained winds of more than 55 miles per hour would reach the area perhaps as early as Saturday.

"Due to the risk that Tropical Storm Bonnie poses to the safety of the nearly 2,000 people responding to the BP oil spill at the well site, many of the vessels and rigs will be preparing to move out of harm's way beginning tonight," Allen said. "This includes the rig drilling the relief well that will ultimately kill the well, as well as other vessels needed for containment. Some of the vessels may be able to remain on site, but we will err on the side of safety."

Allen said he had directed BP to leave the well sealed during the evacuation and said that monitoring of the well, which has not leaked oil into the Gulf of Mexico for more than a week, would continue until the last possible moment. He said BP has been told to move ships guiding remotely operated vehicles providing a video feed from the capped well last and to return them to the area first.

"While these actions may delay the effort to kill the well for several days, the safety of the individuals at the well site is our highest concern," he said.

Federal and state oil cleanup workers had begun the process of battening down across the Gulf of Mexico for a weekend tropical storm, pulling out booms and calling vessels back to port from anti-contamination efforts in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

After overseeing a company that proposed rate hikes of 39% in the midst of the health care reform debate, Anthem Blue Cross President Leslie Margolin has resigned.

LA Times:

Leslie Margolin led the Woodland Hills-based insurer as it weathered intense criticism this year over planned rate increases of up to 39% for many of its nearly 800,000 individual policyholders. Anthem canceled the hikes after calculation errors were uncovered in its filing.

Anthem parent WellPoint Inc. would not comment on Margolin's departure, saying only in a written statement that she "played an integral role in collaborating with hospitals and providers across the state" and championed innovations to improve patient safety.

Despite WellPoint's denials, there's no question that they've been disappointed in their West Coast operation's failure to boost profits. Margolin has been president for two years, and in that time Anthem Blue Cross has seen profits dwindle, passage of the Affordable Care Act, and a strong movement afoot in California for statewide single payer health insurance.

I suspect Margolin is heading out of the corporate sector to the nonprofit sector to do battle against the rising tide of California OneCare's passage after Jerry Brown is elected Governor.

In a separate statement, Margolin said she was leaving Anthem to lead a private healthcare reform coalition, Transforming Health Care. That group is composed of hospitals, physician groups, health plans, employers and consumer advocates working to improve California's healthcare delivery system, Margolin said in a statement.

It sounds so nice and consumer-friendly, doesn't it? Their website isn't launched yet, but it has this nice transitional statement on a plain page:

TransformingHealthcare.com is a consortium of expertise to improve performance, change, and grow healthcare organizations. This strategic alliance of consulting firms offering complementary services in healthcare. These organizations, most headed by their founders, have small, elite staff with outstanding competence in their specialties. Consultants are selected to create the most appropriate team for the needs of each client.

The list is interesting. From computer consultants to specialists in Sarbanes-Oxley, it's certainly an eclectic bunch. And now they can add Margolin, former president of Anthem Blue Cross.

Not much, evidently, which is probably why idiots like Sarah Palin get traction in the first place. As much as I want to disbelieve this study, it explains a lot of our political discourse and thought these days:

If people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. If they are ignorant, facts will enlighten them. If they are mistaken, facts will set them straight.

In the end, truth will out. Won’t it?

Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

In light of this finding, consider the following statements:

• The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
• "I'm not saying [Obama] doesn't like white people, I'm saying he has a problem," Beck said. "This guy is, I believe, a racist."
• "You LIE!"

Continue reading »