The average family with health insurance in 2008 paid a "hidden health tax" of $1,017

Group Tallies Families' 'Hidden Health Tax' - WSJ.com | By PATRICK YOEST

WASHINGTON -- The average family with health insurance in 2008 paid a "hidden health tax" of $1,017 to cover the health-care costs of the uninsured, according to a report released Thursday by advocacy group Families USA.

The report by the group, which promotes universal health insurance, found that a total of $42.7 billion in care for those without insurance was passed on to health insurers. The insurers, in turn, passed on the costs through higher premiums, the report said. ...

U.S. Hospitals Slow to Adopt E-Records - WSJ.com

U.S. Hospitals Slow to Adopt E-Records - WSJ.com | By JACOB GOLDSTEIN

Only 9% of U.S. hospitals have electronic health records, according to a new survey that reveals the gap between the present state of American health care and a high-tech future envisioned by policy makers.

"We are at a very early stage in adoption, a very low stage compared to other countries," said David Blumenthal, a Harvard professor and an author of the survey. Last week, the Obama administration named Dr. Blumenthal National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

...

Only 1.5% of hospitals have adopted what the survey's authors define as a comprehensive, hospital-wide system. Another 7.6% of hospitals have adopted basic systems in at least one unit of the hospital, according to a less-rigorous definition that includes electronic physician notes, but not certain other features. ...

OpEdNews � Insurance Industry is Simply a Parasite Feeding on the US Health System

OpEdNews � Insurance Industry is Simply a Parasite Feeding on the US Health System
...

Health insurance companies add zero value to the delivery of health care. Indeed, they are a significant cost factor that sucks up, according to some estimates such as one by the organization Physicians for a National Health Program, as much as 31 percent of every dollar spent on medical services (a percentage that has been rising steadily year after year).

Insurance companies are damaging in more ways than simply cost, though.

... They also actively interfere in the delivery of quality medical care, as anyone who has had to battle with some “nurse” on the phone at an insurance company to get required pre-authorization for needed procedure can attest....

... Insurance companies have managed to stay profitable and at least somewhat affordable to the private employers and workers who, together, have to pay for them, by denying care not just to policy holders, who are denied certain tests and treatments but especially to those who have known ailments, who are simply denied coverage altogether.

... Medicare is efficient (only 3.6% of Medicare’s budget goes to administrative costs, compared to 31% for health care delivered through private insurance plans), its clients like it, and doctors and hospitals accept it.

The ailing economy is making people sicker - The Boston Globe

The ailing economy is making people sicker - The Boston Globe:
...
"The chief of outpatient medicine at Boston Medical estimates that financial turmoil figures into at least half of all patient visits, and at one of the nation's premier psychiatric hospitals, McLean in Belmont, 31 percent more patients were admitted last month than in December 2007.

'I've been stunned by how pervasive the impact of the current economic downturn is on the health of my brood,' said Dr. Stephen Hoffmann, whose medical practice in Framingham has nearly 3,000 patients.

The economic crisis is far too fresh for any government agency or professional organization to have quantified the health consequences. But during previous recessions, researchers linked spikes in unemployment in the United States and Europe to increases in deaths from heart disease, cancer, and psychiatric disorders."

Health-Care Crisis Endangers Economy

Health-Care Crisis Endangers Economy | By Jason Leopold, Consortium News. Posted July 6, 2008.

A new report urges policymakers to find a solution to the health-care crisis; long-term fiscal problems may develop if the issue is not addressed.

If the United States does not act soon to address health-care costs, federal and state governments as well as American businesses could face a cascading fiscal crisis with devastating long-term consequences, says a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

In the report entitled, "Long Term Federal Fiscal Challenge Driven Primarily by Health Care," the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, said an immediate "multi-pronged solution" must be pursued before the "window of opportunity" to address the issue closes.

"Rapidly rising health-care costs are not simply a federal budget problem," said the report, prepared by Gene Dodaro, acting U.S. Comptroller General. "Growth in health-related spending is the primary driver of the fiscal challenges facing state and local governments as well.

"Unsustainable growth in health-care spending also threatens to erode the ability of employers to provide coverage to their workers and undercuts their ability to compete in a global marketplace." ...

Walgreens Pill-Flipping Scheme Costs Taxpayers Millions

Walgreens Pill-Flipping Scheme Costs Taxpayers Millions

Thanks to an anonymous whistle-blower, a Walgreens pill-flipping scheme has been blown wide open, according to CBS. "Pill-flipping" refers the practice of pharmacies that purposefully switch Medicaid patients to more expensive versions of certain drugs for the sole reason of collecting more money from the government. Naturally, when this happens, taxpayers pick up the bill. Athough, Walgreen's officially denies any wrongdoing they have agreed to pay the government more than $35 million. Details, inside...

CBS explains the scheme,

To save taxpayer dollars, Medicaid limits how much it pays for popular forms of drugs. But it doesn't bother to set price-ceilings on rarely-used versions.

Take generic Zantac, or ranitidine, for example. The antacid is a huge seller in tablet form. Medicaid limits payment to 34 cents apiece.

The same drug as capsules has no price-ceiling because it was so rarely-prescribed. Medicaid pays $1.25 each. Walgreens figured it could pocket millions by switching patients from tablets to capsules.
...
And they're not the only ones. CVS and Omnicare quietly settled similar cases coughing up $86 million more. The whole pill-flipping episode proves just how imperfect some drugstore chains can be. ...

20-29 unisured up again: 30 percent of the uninsured: 53 percent of Hispanics uninsured in age range

Number of uninsured U.S. young adults grows | Fri May 30, 2008 | By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of uninsured U.S. young adults, who already represent a major chunk of the American population without health coverage, rose again in 2006, according to a study released on Friday.

Based on census data, 13.7 million people aged 19 to 29 had no health insurance, either public or private, in 2006, up from 13.3 million in 2005, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that researches health policy.

Men and women in this age group accounted for 17 percent of the under-65 U.S. population, but made up almost 30 percent of the uninsured, according to the report.
...
Hispanic and black young adults were at greater risk of being uninsured than whites, the report showed. While 23 percent of whites ages 19 to 29 lacked insurance, the figure was 36 percent of blacks and 53 percent of Hispanics. ...

An immigrant women from Honduras - with legal documentation - faces deportation because her insurance does not cover long-term care

Hospital Attempts Deportation of Woman With Inadequate Insurance | Posted by Cara , Feministe at 3:23 PM on May 19, 2008.

An immigrant woman from Honduras who has very recently awakened from a coma is being threatened with what can effectively be called deportation, because she does not have the insurance needed to cover her medical bills. (Don’t read the comments in these articles unless you want to lose your lunch.) But here is the real kicker: while it would be repulsive and incredibly inhumane to deport an uninsured/under-insured person with a serious medical condition because of their undocumented status, despite the lack of adequate facilities for their care in their nations of citizenship, it isn’t even the case here. Sonia del Cid Iscoa has a current visa and in the U.S. legally. (All emphasis in quoted text is mine.)

A gravely ill woman at risk of being removed from the country for lack of adequate insurance coverage awoke from a coma Tuesday.

The hospital has been seeking to return her to her native Honduras; her family took the hospital to court.

[. . .]

Iscoa, 34, has a valid visa and has lived in the United States for more than 17 years. She has no family in Honduras.

But St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center sought to have her sent to Honduras when she went into a coma April 20 after giving birth to a daughter about 8 weeks premature. Iscoa has an amended version of Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System coverage that does not cover long-term care, Curtin said. But her family worried that the move would seriously harm her, or, at the very least, prevent her from ever returning to the United States.

Iscoa’s mother, Joaquina del Cid Plasecea, obtained a temporary restraining order to keep her from being moved. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Carey Hyatt also ordered that the family post a $20,000 bond by Tuesday to cover St. Joseph’s costs of postponing the transfer. ...

Stressed Moms May Give Birth to Asthmatic or Allergic Kids

Stressed Moms May Give Birth to Asthmatic or Allergic KidsBy Anna Boyd | 16:46, May 19th 2008

Women should avoid being stressed during pregnancy, as recent research warns that stress may raise the risk of their child developing asthma or other allergies.

The findings by researchers from Harvard Medical School were presented Sunday at the American Thoracic Society’s 2008 International Conference in Toronto. They were based on the study of 387 babies enrolled in the Asthma Coalition on Community, Environment and Social project in Boston.

According to the study, mothers who were the most distressed during pregnancy were most likely to give birth to infants with higher levels of Immunoglobulin E or IgE, an immune system chemical linked to allergic responses. For example, a mom having three or more negative events would have a 12 percent increased risk of having a baby with elevated cord blood IgE.

“While predisposition to asthma may be, in part, set at birth, the factors that may determine this are not strictly genetic. This research supports the notion that stress can be thought of as a social pollutant that, when ‘breathed’ into the body, may influence the immune response, similar to the effects of physical pollutants like allergens,” Dr. Rosalind Wright, of Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, said in a news release, according to Reuters. ...

$200 billion in higher drug prices buys $25B in drug research ... huge markups created by patent monopolies are an invitation to corruption.

Firefighters and Prescription Drugs | Monday 02 June 2008 |
by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
...
The drugs we need for our health or our lives are almost invariably cheap to produce, just as the firefighters might be able to easily stage the rescue once they have arrived at the fire. But the drug companies, like the firefighters on the scene, have a virtual monopoly on their services at the critical moment. Therefore, they are quite likely to get their price.
...
The United States is currently spending almost $250 billion a year for prescription drugs. If drugs were sold in a competitive market, without government-imposed patent monopolies, we could save close to $200 billion a year. The $200 billion in higher drug prices buys a bit less than $25 billion a year in pharmaceutical research, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Paying $8 in higher drug prices for $1 in research does not seem like a very good deal.

Furthermore, as economists who don't work for the drug companies will tell you, the huge markups created by patent monopolies are an invitation to corruption. When a drug company can sell a drug for $500 that costs it $4 to manufacture and distribute, it has an enormous incentive to mislead doctors and the public about the safety and effectiveness of the drug. And, when the drug company performs the research on the drug, and controls the dissemination of research findings, they also have the ability to act on this incentive.

Under the current system, we should not be surprised to find drug companies conceal evidence that their drugs might be ineffective or even harmful. Given the structure of the incentives that the government has created, we should be surprised if drug companies are not dishonest.

There are many different alternatives to patent monopolies for financing drug research. In fact, the US government already spends $30 billion a year on biomedical research through the National Institutes of Health. Virtually everyone, including the drug companies, agrees this government-funded research has been extremely valuable.

Would it make sense to double the level of public funding to pay the full cost of developing drugs, and then let all drugs be sold at $4 a prescription in a competitive market? We could more than cover the cost to the government by the savings each year on drugs purchased through Medicare and Medicaid. If the drug companies did not own our politicians, we would be having this debate. ...
We should be having a serious national debate on the relative efficiency of the current patent system and various alternative mechanisms for financing drug research. Unfortunately, the drug companies are so powerful that few politicians are even willing to consider alternatives. In fact, the drug companies are so powerful that few media outlets would even print a column suggesting alternatives. In fact, the drug companies are so powerful that few economists would ever consider researching alternative mechanisms. ...

Depleted Uranium has Destroyed the Genetic Future of Iraq

Depleted Uranium has Destroyed the Genetic Future of Iraq | markthshark, Daily Kos | May 30, 2008

It’s not just the U.S. military, and it's not just Iraq. The U.K. has also used depleted uranium in both Iraq and Afghanistan; NATO forces have used it in Kosovo, and Israel allegedly used it in Lebanon and on the Palestinians.

A waste product from the enrichment of uranium, DU, contains nearly one-third the radioactive isotopes of uranium that occurs naturally. DU is generally used in armor-piercing ammunition; despite its classification as a weapon of mass destruction, and subsequent banning by the United Nations.

Incidental inhalation or ingestion of DU particles is very toxic and can remain so forever. To give you an idea of just how toxic: at the end of the first Gulf War, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority estimated that 50 tons remained in Iraq, and that amount could be responsible for 500,000 cancer deaths by the year 2000. Now, it’s not clear whether that prediction came true or not, but to date, an estimated 2,000 tons of DU dust have been generated in the Middle East in general. ...
...
Since George H.W. Bush’s first Gulf War, birth defects and childhood cancer rates have increased seven fold in Iraq. And, our troops have paid a heavy price as well. More than 35 percent (251,000) of U.S. Gulf War veterans are dead or on permanent medical disability, compared with only 400 who were killed during the conflict. ...

Survey of Medical Schools Is Critical of Perks - "sales reps in clinics with free lunches and marketing paraphernalia"

Survey of Medical Schools Is Critical of Perks - NYTimes.comBy GARDINER HARRIS | Published: June 3, 2008

Most medical schools in the United States fail to police adequately the money, gifts and free drug samples that pharmaceutical companies routinely shower on doctors and trainees, according to a ranking by the American Medical Student Association.

Only 7 of the 150 medical schools included in the rankings received a grade of A while 14 were given a B. Sixty got a failing grade, and the student association found that 28 schools, or nearly one in five, were in the midst of revising their conflict-of-interest policies.
...
Gabriel Silverman, a medical student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine who oversaw the grading, said medical students were increasingly put off by school policies that allowed drug companies to market their products to doctors and faculty members.

“We see all these pharma sales reps in clinics with free lunches and marketing paraphernalia giving us the hard sell,” Mr. Silverman said. ...

Pharmaceutical Payola — complemented by a host of tactics that in other circumstances might be called bribes.

Pharmaceutical Payola — Drug Marketing to Doctors - CommonDreams.orgSaturday, May 17, 2008 by Robert Weissman
...
Among industrialized countries, only the United States and New Zealand permit drug companies to market directly to consumers. It’s a bad idea, it drives bad medicine, and it should be banned.

But although it has the highest profile, direct-to-consumer advertising is a small part of Pharma’s marketing machine. Researchers Marc-André Gagnon and Joel Lexchin conclude in a recent issue of the journal PLOS Medicine that direct-to-consumer ads make up less than a tenth of industry marketing expenditures ($4 billion of $57.5 billion in 2004). And Gagnon and Lexchin’s estimate of $57.5 billion on marketing excludes many industry expenditures that are really driven by marketing, including clinical trials conducted for marketing purposes.

The bulk of the industry marketing effort — more than 70 percent by Gagnon and Lexchin’s calculation — is directed at doctors.

Why?

Because it works.

The companies spend huge amounts paying firms that carefully track what doctors prescribe, and then they use the information to tailor messages to doctors, distribute samples and develop continuing medical education programs.

Gagnon and Lexchin report that Pharma spends more than $20 billion a year on “detailers” — the pharma reps that knock on doctor doors, ply the staff with free coffee and lunches, distribute samples ($16 billion worth), and prod docs to prescribe their drugs.

This is complemented by a host of tactics that in other circumstances might be called bribes.

“Virtually all physicians in America take cash or gifts from the drug companies,” says Melody Petersen, author of Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs, and a former New York Times reporter. “A recent survey said 94 percent of physicians took something of value from the drug companies. Some doctors take hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from these companies, and there’s no law that says they can’t.”
...
The drug companies weave these diverse strategems into an elaborate tapestry — not infrequently to push drugs for inappropriate purposes. One eye-opening case that Petersen details in Our Daily Meds concerns Neurontin, a mediocre drug for epilepsy that Warner-Lambert illegally peddled as an unapproved treatment for bipolar disorder, migraines, attention deficit disorder in children and other conditions. The drug does not work for most of these conditions. Many persons were injured by taking excessive doses of Neurontin, and many others wasted money and emotional energy on hopeless Neurontin treatment strategies. Warner-Lambert ultimately paid $430 million to settle criminal and civil charges related to Neurontin marketing, but Petersen says that, even so, the illegal marketing scheme was clearly profitable for Warner-Lambert (and Pfizer, which acquired Warner-Lambert in 2000). ...

Post-Traumatic Stress Soars in US Troops ... Longer, Multiple Combat Tours

Post-Traumatic Stress Soars in US Troops | Tuesday 27 May 2008 | by: David Morgan, Reuters

Washington - Newly diagnosed cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan surged 46.4 percent in 2007, bringing the five-year total to nearly 40,000, according to U.S. military data released on Tuesday.
...
Army officials said the larger number of PTSD diagnoses in recent years partly reflects greater awareness and tracking of the disorder by the U.S. military.

Longer, Multiple Combat Tours

"But we're also exposing more people to combat," Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, told reporters.

Experts also say PTSD symptoms increase as soldiers return to combat for multiple tours of duty. ...

deductibles and co-payments are growing so big that insured patients also have trouble paying hospitals

Ralph Nader: America's Pay-or-Die Health Care SystemMay 6, 2008 | The Story of Lisa Kelly
...
Advised by her physician to go to M.D. Anderson for urgent treatment of her leukemia, Mrs. Lisa Kelly was told she had to pay $105,000 up front before being admitted. The hospital declared her limited insurance unacceptable.

Sitting in the business office with seriously advanced cancer, she asked herself – “Are they going to send me home?” “Am I going to die?”

Time out from her torment for a moment. M.D. Anderson started this upfront payment demand in 2005 because of a spike in its bad debt load.

The Wall Street Journal explains – “The bad debt is driven by a larger number of Americans who are uninsured or who don’t have enough insurance to cover costs if catastrophe strikes. Even among those with adequate insurance, deductibles and co-payments are growing so big that insured patients also have trouble paying hospitals.”

It isn’t as if non-profit hospitals like M.D. Anderson are hurting. Look at this finding in an Ohio State University study: net income per bed at non-profit hospitals tripled to $146,273 in 2005 from $50,669 in 2000. And you also may have noticed the huge pay packages awarded hospital executives.

M.D. Anderson, exempt from taxation, recipient of funds from large government programs and research grants has cash, investments and endowment totaling $1.9 billion, with net income of $310 million last year, the Journal reports.

Back to the 52 year old, Lisa Kelly. She and her husband returned with a check for $45,000. After a blood test and biopsy, the hospital oncologist urged admittance quickly. Then the hospital demanded an additional $60,000-$45,000 just for the lab tests and $15,000 for part of the cost of the treatment.

To shorten the story, she received chemotherapy for over a year. Often her appointment was “blocked” until she made another payment.

In a particularly grotesque incident, she was hooked up to a chemotherapy pump, but the nurses were not allowed to change the chemo bag until Mr. Kelly made another payment. ...

Health care workers sue state over pay-cut plan - San Jose Mercury News

Health care workers sue state over pay-cut plan - San Jose Mercury NewsBy Shaya Tayefe Mohajer | Associated Press | Article Launched: 05/06/2008 01:37:48 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES - A coalition of health care groups sued the state Monday to prevent pay cuts to doctors, dentists, pharmacists and others who treat the poor, elderly and disabled.

The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of California health care providers seeks an injunction to halt 10 percent cuts to Medi-Cal and Denti-Cal reimbursements scheduled to take effect July 1. ...

Getting married for health insurance - 25% keep or change jobs for health insurance ...

Getting married for health insurance - Los Angeles Times
| By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer | April 29, 2008

Seven percent of Americans say they or someone in their household decided to tie the knot in the last year so they could receive healthcare benefits, a poll finds.
...
"It's a small number but a powerful result, because it shows how paying for healthcare is reflected not only in family budgets but in life decisions," said Drew E. Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which commissioned the survey as part of its regular polling on healthcare.
...
On a broader scale, the survey found that healthcare costs outranked housing costs, rising food prices and credit card bills as a source of concern. ...
...
But with employer-based health insurance averaging $12,000 for family coverage and $4,500 for individuals, the public concern with costs is understandable. Nearly a fourth of Americans said they had decided to keep or change jobs in the last year because of health insurance. ...

(28 percent) report that the recent economic downturn has caused "serious problems" paying for medical care and insurance ...

April 29, 2008 | Ouch! Health costs rise as the economy falters | Chicago Tribune
...
Slightly more than 1 in 4 Americans (28 percent) report that the recent economic downturn has caused "serious problems" paying for medical care and insurance, according to a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a California policy group.

It’s the third most frequent type of problem people are encountering, behind problems paying for gas (44 percent) and getting a raise or a good paying job (29 percent).

Research shows what happens when people get caught in this kind of economic squeeze – they stop writing checks for insurance premiums or they stop taking medications (even $10 per prescription can add up) or going to the doctor (avoiding those $10 or $15 co-pays for each visit).

The new survey confirms this is happening: 29 percent of people said they or a family member have postponed getting needed care; 24 percent went without a recommended medical test or treatment; 23 percent didn’t fill a prescription; and another 19 percent cut pills in half or skipped medication doses. ...

median income flat ... but family portion of health insurance jumps 25%

April 29, 2008 | 660,000 Illinois jobs lose medical benefits | Chicago Tribune
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Here’s the latest data: the number of jobs in Illinois with medical benefits plunged by 660,000 between 2001 and 2005, according to a study released today by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
...
Driving the trend are soaring medical costs – a consequence of more medical services and more expensive technologies -- that make health insurance ever more expensive for workers and employers.
...
While median income for Illinois families was essentially flat between 2001 and 2005, the portion that they paid for health insurance provided by employers jumped 25 percent this five-year period. ...

“We have a deficit and a war.” ... NIH loses 2 per cent of funding every year for 7 years ....

Too few funds to fight cancer in U.S. | By Robert Weiner and Patricia Berg | April 18, 2008

With more than 500,000 cancer deaths in the United States each year, the underlying buzz all around the just concluded San Diego meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, with 17,000 scientists from throughout the nation and the world, was, “Where is the federal government?"
...
Despite fear of the torturous physical slide of cancer – people's No. 1 health fear – federal funds for research into early diagnosis, treatment and cures are plummeting. The National Institutes of Health has lost 2 percent of its budget to inflation in real dollars every year for the last seven years, a 14 percent decline, points out leukemia researcher Michael Sheard of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Ellen Sigal, chairwoman of Friends of Cancer Research in Arlington, Va., and the chair of a forum at AACR on alternative funding mechanisms, confirmed Sheard's numbers.

When we asked Sigal why there is the drop in federal funds, she responded, “We have a deficit and a war.” If funding potential disease cures is part of the price of Iraq, it is no wonder that 70 percent of Americans oppose the war and want its cost to end in the scheme of priorities. ...
...
NCI now funds fewer than 10 percent of requested research projects, down from 25 percent a decade ago. President Clinton had doubled NIH's budget – explaining many of the amazing recent breakthroughs – but now, with the budget dropping, private organizations are desperately trying to pick up the pieces so that innovative science can continue. ...
...
The bar is now impossibly high for many new discoveries. At NCI, researchers “must show real leads, not discovery,” says Barker. ...

Heparin Contamination Reveals Dirty Secret: Their Pills are Made in China! ... [but] FDA warned Americans not to buy drugs from Canada

Heparin Contamination Fiasco Reveals Dirty Secret of Drug Industry: Their Pills are Made in China!Thursday, May 01, 2008 by: Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) Remember a couple of years ago how the FDA warned Americans not to buy prescription drugs from Canada because they might be "contaminated by terrorists?" I'm not making that up: That was the official announcement of an FDA spokesperson, and it was part of their fear strategy for enforcing a monopoly on U.S. consumers so that Big Pharma could continue engaging in rampant price fixing.

The implication in that warning is that drugs purchased in the United States are therefore safer, correct? What the FDA didn't tell anyone, however, is that most pharmaceuticals purchased in the United States are manufactured outside the U.S.; many from China or Puerto Rico. So they're not even made in the U.S. anyway, and drug companies are simply importing them from other countries just like a consumer might do if she drove across the border and bought her medications in Canada or Mexico.
...
Enter the blood-thinning drug Heparin. This blood-thinning drug, made by Baxter International, was recently discovered by consumers to have been manufactured in China. Worse yet, the quality controls in China were so low that this FDA approved, brand-name prescription drug was apparently deliberately contaminated with an adulterated chemical that has now resulted in the death of dozens of consumers in the United States. Sound familiar? It's precisely the scenario dreamed up by the FDA to warn consumers away from pharmaceuticals purchased in Canada, Mexico or elsewhere. But guess what? It turns out that brand-name, FDA-approved prescription drugs sold at monopoly prices right here in the United States are adulterated too!

Three astonishing facts about brand-name pharmaceuticals

So far, then, there are three astonishing facts that have come out of this recent news about Heparin:

Fact #1: Most U.S. prescription drugs aren't even made in the U.S.

Fact #2: Many U.S. prescription drugs are made in China, a country widely known to have the lowest quality control standards in the world.

Fact #3: U.S. drug companies don't even run quality control checks on the drugs they import from China!

That third fact should send a chill up your spine. What it means is that U.S. drug companies contract with cheap, low-end Chinese chemical factories to manufacture their drugs at something like two cents a pill (which they can mark up to $20 a pill or more...), and then they import these Chinese-made pills and don't even test them before selling them to U.S. consumers!

If it wasn't for the fact that so many Americans have now died from this, the whole thing would be quite hilarious. Why? Because the FDA and Big Pharma are always running around touting how "safe" their products are while screaming about how dangerous herbs and supplements are. And yet nutritional supplement companies test their ingredients for contaminants with far greater frequency than drug companies. ...

Merck - Vioxx Is Accused of Deception ... moving slowly to warn of possible hazards .. dressnig up studies

Maker of Vioxx Is Accused of Deception | By David Brown | Washington Post Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 16, 2008; Page A01

Two teams of researchers with access to thousands of documents gathered for lawsuits over the painkiller Vioxx allege that Merck waged a campaign of deception to promote its drug, moving slowly to warn of possible hazards while at the same time dressing up in-house studies as the work of independent academic researchers.

The reports in today's Journal of the American Medical Association in effect accuse one of the world's biggest pharmaceutical makers of various forms of scientific fraud.

One study alleges that Merck gave the Food and Drug Administration an incomplete accounting of deaths in a clinical trial of Vioxx in people with mild dementia. Federal regulators eventually received the data, which added to growing evidence that Vioxx increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Simultaneously, Merck was using what the JAMA authors call "guest authorship and ghostwriting" to make it appear that research done by its employees or contractors was the work of scientists at medical schools and universities. That presumably gave the findings more credibility when they were published, in medical journals, boosting Vioxx's profile in the crowded painkiller market.
...
Since then, Merck has been named in 26,500 lawsuits by people who say the drug harmed them. Last fall, the company created a $4.85 billion fund to settle the claims while not admitting that Vioxx caused heart attacks, strokes or deaths.

The two JAMA papers -- which were based on access to company documents made public through the lawsuits -- say they provide a look at widespread practices in the pharmaceutical industry. This view was endorsed in an editorial signed by Catherine D. DeAngelis, the journal's editor, who wrote: "But make no mistake -- the manipulation of study results, authors, editors, and reviewers is not the sole purview of one company." ...

FDA Raises Estimate of Deaths Linked to Blood Thinner - ingredients from China

FDA Raises Estimate of Deaths Linked to Blood Thinner - washingtonpost.comBy Marc Kaufman | Washington Post | Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 9, 2008; Page A03

The Food and Drug Administration yesterday raised from 19 to 62 its estimate of the number of people who may have died after having allergic reactions to contaminated Chinese-produced batches of the blood thinner heparin.
...
In previous statements, the agency said it did not know whether the cheaper contaminant -- which may have come from pig cartilage -- was deliberately added to the crude heparin or was the result of a production problem.

China is now the world's largest producer of the raw ingredients in heparin. The contaminated batches of the drug have increased concerns among lawmakers and the public about the globalization of drug-manufacturing in lightly regulated nations. ...

creating jobs and managing the nation's finances, Democratic presidents demonstrate success while Republican presidents show failure

David Fiderer: The Simple Arithmetic of Republican Failure - Business on The Huffington PostApril 20, 2008 | David Fiderer
...
When it comes to creating jobs and managing the nation's finances, Democratic presidents demonstrate success while Republican presidents show failure.

Job Creation

Jimmy Carter, 1977-1980: 10.5 million new jobs
Bill Clinton, 1993-1996: 11.6 million new jobs
Bill Clinton, 1997-2000: 12.4 million new jobs
Total: 33.6 million jobs created over 12 years, or 2.8 million jobs per year

Ronald Reagan 1981-1984: 5.2 million new jobs
Ronald Reagan 1985-1988: 10.8 million new jobs
George H.W. Bush 1989-1992: 2.6 million new jobs
George W. Bush 2001-2004: 0.2 million fewer jobs
George W. Bush 2005-2007: 5.5 million new jobs
Total: 24 million jobs created over 19 years, or 1.3 million jobs per year

Government Spending

How much did the government spend for every dollar of revenue?
Jimmy Carter, 1977-1980: $ 1.16
Bill Clinton, 1993-1996: $1.25
Bill Clinton, 1997-2000: $1.01
Democratic Average: $1.16

Ronald Reagan 1981-1984: $1.31
Ronald Reagan 1985-1988: $1.38
George H.W. Bush 1989-1992: $1.34
George W. Bush 2001-2004: $1.27
George W. Bush 2005-2007: $1.24
Republican Average: $1.29

The difference between $1.16 and $1.29 may not seem like a lot, but the impact on the national debt is huge, especially when you consider that $1.29 applies to 19 years, and the budgets under this president are so much larger.

Increases in Government Debt

Growth In Debt Held By the Public [$US trillions]
Jimmy Carter, 1977-1980: 0.2
Bill Clinton, 1993-1996: 0.7
Bill Clinton, 1997-2000: -0.3
Democratic Total: 0.6

Ronald Reagan 1981-1984: 0.6
Ronald Reagan 1985-1988: 0.7
George H.W. Bush 1989-1992: 0.9
George W. Bush 2001-2004: 0.9
George W. Bush 2005-2007: 1.1
Republican Total: 4.3 ...

reventable diseases and lagging public health care ...Life Expectancy Slips in Poor Parts of America

Life Expectancy Slips in Poor Parts of America | April 22, 2008

New Study Shows Drop in Life Expectancy in Deep South, Parts of Midwest, Texas and Appalachia, Particularly for Women

"One out of five American women have had their health either getting worse or at best not getting better," said Dr. Majid Ezzati of the Harvard School of Public Health.

The joint Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Washington study found that 4 percent of the male population and 19 percent of the female population experienced either decline or stagnation in mortality beginning in the 1980s.

Researchers say it comes down to preventable diseases and lagging public health care. The downward trend of life expectancy was most pronounced in just a few parts of the country, including the deep South, the southern portion of the Midwest, parts of Texas and Appalachia.

In these parts of the country, doctors say they're finding alarming increases in cancer, diabetes, heart and lung disease.
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