Very good news, I think, on the climate change front. This is an excellent way to sidestep the political process and keep the necessary changes from getting bogged down in the politics:

The Obama administration will formally declare Monday that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to the public's health and welfare, a move that lays the groundwork for an economy-wide carbon cap even if Congress fails to enact climate legislation, sources familiar with the process said.

The move, which Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa P. Jackson will announce at an afternoon press conference, comes as the largest climate change conference in history gets underway in Copenhagen. It will finalize an initial "endangerment finding" by the government in April.

While an EPA spokeswoman declined to comment on the matter, the agency sent out a press advisory that Jackson will make "a significant climate announcement at a press briefing" at 1:15 p.m. at EPA headquarters. Jackson will also speak at the U.N.-sponsored climate conference Wednesday; her address is titled "Taking Action at Home." Obama, who will attend the end of the U.N. talks Dec. 18, has sent a series of recent signals to the international community that the United States will curb its carbon output as part of a new global climate deal.

The endangerment finding stems from a 2007 Supreme Court decision in which the court ordered the EPA to determine whether greenhouse gases qualify as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. It could trigger a series of federal regulations affecting polluters, from vehicles to coal-fired power plants.

Businesses argue that such a finding would mean even emitters as small as a mom-and-pop grocery store would be forced to comply with onerous greenhouse gas regulations. The administration has crafted rules that would exempt facilities that emit less than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide or its equivalent annually. But it remains unclear if that exemption would hold up in court.

"An endangerment finding from the EPA could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project," Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement. "The devil will be in the details, and we look forward to working with the government to ensure we don't stifle our economic recovery."

TrueSlant: Hire Rachel Maddow to fix Meet the Press.

The Zoo: A Question to Ask, with an interesting comment thread

Mad Kane: Bystander President

Kickstarter: A 'geekoid novel for smart people' seeks funding

Hot Chicks With Douchebags: I hope this is the most difficult decision I have to make today. Who is douchebag of the week (exceptin' Jon Kyl)?

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September 11, 2009 CNN

How stupidly, small-mindedly paranoid is this?

... deep inside an 86-page supplement to United States export regulations is a single sentence that bars U.S. exports of vaccines for avian bird flu and dozens of other viruses to five countries designated "state sponsors of terrorism."

The reason: Fear that they will be used for biological warfare.

Under this little-known policy, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria and Sudan may not get the vaccines unless they apply for special export licenses, which would be given or refused according to the discretion and timing of the U.S. Three of those nations — Iran, Cuba and Sudan — also are subject to a ban on all human pandemic influenza vaccines as part of a general U.S. embargo.

Even Bob Gates thinks it's "the nuttiest thing", when Indonesia does the same thing in reverse.

And the scientific community is not impressed.

Continue reading »

This is a very interesting battle:

The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority. The government seeks to reverse a lower court ruling that allowed Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef to conduct more comprehensive testing to satisfy demand from overseas customers in Japan and elsewhere.

But Creekstone attorney Russell Frye contended the Agriculture Department's regulations covering the treatment of domestic animals contain no prohibition against an individual company testing for mad cow disease, since the test is conducted only after a cow is slaughtered. He said the agency has no authority to prevent companies from using the test to reassure customers.

Larger meatpackers have opposed Creekstone's push to allow wider testing out of fear that consumer pressure would force them to begin testing all animals too. Increased testing would raise the price of meat by a few cents per pound....read on

With costs for food rising so much under Bush, I still think people wouldn't mind paying a few cents more to make sure they don't get Mad Cow from the meat they eat. (h/t Chris)

This is good news. We all took action and the results followed. C&L thanks Michael J. Klag for his handling of the situation on POPLINE so quickly.

Here's the letter posted on Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health:

I was informed this morning that the word "abortion" was blocked as a search term in the POPLINE family planning database administered by the Bloomberg School’s Center for Communication Programs. POPLINE provides evidence-based information on reproductive health and family planning and is the world’s largest database on these issues.

USAID, which funds POPLINE, found two items in the database related to abortion that did not fit POPLINE criteria. The agency then made an inquiry to POPLINE administrators. Following this inquiry, the POPLINE administrators at the Center for Communication Programs made the decision to restrict abortion as a search term.

I could not disagree more strongly with this decision, and I have directed that the POPLINE administrators restore "abortion" as a search term immediately. I will also launch an inquiry to determine why this change occurred.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge and not its restriction.

Sincerely,

Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH
Dean, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Why would anyone restrict the word 'abortion' on a government funded data base with thousands upon thousands of articles for research ? I'm very interested to see how that decision was reached. Yea, I know---I'll be nice for now,  but I'll keep on it....Many thanks to Women's Health News for the heads up and the many emails I received on this issue.

What a surprise:

An analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that studies of antidepressants that had positive results were more likely to be published in medical journals compared with those that had negative or questionable results. The findings showed that 94 percent of all published trials appeared to have positive results, while FDA reviews determined that 51 percent of all trials, both published and unpublished, had positive outcomes.

In the analysis, the researchers examined data for 74 antidepressant studies submitted to the FDA between 1987 and 2004. The results showed that 37 of the 38 trials the agency considered as having positive results were published, compared with 14 of the 36 trials that the FDA considered negative or questionable. Additionally, of the 14 negative or questionable studies that were published, 11 "conveyed a positive outcome" that was not justified by the FDA review, lead author Erick Turner stated...read on

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From Thursday's show, Jon Stewart looks at the logic-- or lack thereof -- behind Bush's veto of SCHIP.

No healthcare for poor kids? You know, I thought something like that was only done by cartoon villains. You're slowly going from Nixon to Mr. Burns.

[snip] 

BUSH: ...I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the healthcare system...

STEWART: Yes, I don't think there's an uninsured kid out there who wants to be suckered into some slippery slope socialized medicine scheme. These kids don't want the government telling them what they can or cannot die from. It's just wrong.