Gary Null's Blog, page 31
August 21, 2012
Kristen Gwynne -- Why Drug Dealers Are Now Competing with Doctors to Help Addicts
Twenty-three-year-old Joe*, a publicist living in New York City, doesn’t want to be buying his prescription drugs on the black market. It’s just that he doesn’t really have another choice.
As a recovering drug addict, Joe has spent almost three years successfully managing his former oxycontin addiction with suboxone, a prescription medication that reduces cravings and withdrawal symptoms for drugs like heroin and prescription painkillers. He first began suboxone when he was in college and was able to receive free treatment and prescriptions. But since graduation, the cost of obtaining his treatment legally has become unaffordable—largely because of the American health care system.
“Recently, I paid $100 for 20 [dissolveable suboxone] strips. That will last me over a year,” said Joe, “Now, if I were to go to a doctor, it would cost $300 cash just to walk in and see the doctor for the first time. If you can use your insurance, you can get it a little cheaper, but a lot of insurances don’t cover it,” he said. Legally, each strip can cost a whopping $15 dollars without coverage.
Forced to choose between obtaining his treatment illegally and seeing an expensive doctor, Joe is buying on the black market. And he isn’t alone. Addiction is so taboo in this society that even the medical establishment shies away from it. Few physicians are willing to prescribe suboxone and regulations have significantly limited the patients that those few physicians are allowed to prescribe. The social stigma of addiction has helped create a thriving black market for the drug—one that poses real dangers for addicts trying to stay clean.
Suboxone is a life-saver for opioid addicts risking the overdose associated with shifting heroin purity, or, typically, mixing prescription drugs with alcohol. Buprenorphine (a generic name for suboxone) binds to opioid receptors and only partially activates them, while naloxone blocks some opioid receptors from activation and reduces the chances of overdose. Suboxone patients can without heroin or oxys, and at the same time minimize or avoid withdrawal symptoms that include physical pain, severe nausea and vomiting.
Read more.. http://www.alternet.org/health-care-disaster-why-drug-dealers-are-now-competing-doctors-help-addicts
August 14, 2012
Dr. Brian Moench - Mitt Romney: Gold Medal in Dishonesty
Even as Mitt and Ann Romney were going for a gold medal with their dressage horse, Rafalca, in the London Summer Olympics, Mitt already - in my opinion - had a gold medal wrapped up. Maybe not for horse dancing, but for mental gymnastics, and by that I mean lying. And not just for lying about his Bain Capital tenure, or being deliberately deceitful about Obama. I think a serious fundamental defect in Mitt has been on display for a long time.
In 1969, at age 19, I went on a Mormon mission just like Mitt. I eventually supervised about 200 other missionaries. A few years later, while living in Boston during my medical residency, I also attended the same church as Mitt and Ann Romney. Mitt had several high callings from the Mormon Church hierarchy during his time in Boston, eventually supervising the ecclesiastic affairs of about 4,000 Boston Mormons, much like a shepherd watching over his flock. Ann and my wife shared positions of responsibility in our local "ward," and in that capacity, Ann was in our home several times.
My wife and I both thought highly of Ann and liked her as a friend and a fellow church member. We liked Mitt as well, in that he was married to Ann. Mitt would offer a firm, robotic handshake on Sunday mornings, but he managed to make his "Good morning, it's great to see you," feel condescending and superficial.
Mitt was distinctly impersonal and it seemed his interest in me was only to the degree that I could further his career, which I couldn't - I had no pedigree to enhance the value of my Harvard appointment. He was nakedly ambitious and it was widely assumed by fellow church members that he would eventually run for president.
Mitt climbed quickly up the Mormon Church ladder, becoming a "Stake President" at a very young age, while simultaneously laying the foundation of his high-profile political career. Within the Mormon faithful his ascendancy to the doorstep of the presidency is viewed with almost as much anticipation as the Second Coming of Jesus. They look to a Mitt presidency as validation of their belief system and a golden opportunity to disseminate it worldwide. To them, Mitt embodies simultaneous theological and political triumph.
Read more...
http://truth-out.org/news/item/10481-mitt-romney-gold-medal-in-dishonesty
Bankster Fraud Has Driven 100 Million Into Poverty, Killing Many
Fraud caused the Great Depression and the current financial crisis, and the economy will never recover until fraud is prosecuted.
Fraud is the business model adopted by the giant banks. See this.
The Obama administration has made it official policy not to prosecute fraud. Indeed, the “watchdogs” in D.C. are so corrupt that they are as easily bribed as a policeman in a third world banana republic.
The mouthpieces in Wall Street and D.C. pretend that financial fraud (like Libor) is a “victimless crime“.
But the World Bank notes that the financial crisis – you know, the one caused by financial fraud – has driven between 64 and 100 million people into destitution.
Some estimate the figure to be much higher. For example, one 2009 study estimated that 140 million people would be driven into poverty in Asia alone.
This is not just a matter of having less money for entertainment or luxury goods. Increased poverty leads to earlier deaths.
As the Los Angeles times notes:
Poverty appears to trump smoking, obesity and education as a health burden, potentially causing a loss of 8.2 years of perfect health.
This is not an abstract concept. A lot of kids will die due to Wall Street fraud:
The global financial crisis sweeping through Wall Street and the European banking sector will touch the lives of the world’s most vulnerable, pushing millions into deeper poverty and leading to the deaths of thousands of children, according to a new United Nations study.
Read More:
Graham Peebles - Incarcerated Inside Israel Palestinians Tortured And Isolated
Detention without trial, the presumption of guilt, denial of family visits, solitary confinement, torture, violent interrogation, and denial of access to appropriate health care, such is the Israeli judicial system and prison confinement experienced by Palestinian men, women and indeed children.
Currently there are, according to B'T selem “4,484 Palestinians – security detainees, confined in Israeli prisons.” Family contact is virtually impossible for prisoners, most of who are held inside Israel . This contravenes international law in the form of the universally trumpeted Fourth Geneva Convention (Article's 49 & 76), consistently violated and disregarded by Israel .
International laws – legally binding upon Israel , who are not above the rule of law, must be respected and enforced. Richard Falk UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, in the UN news 2/5/12 called “on the international community to ensure that Israel complies with international human rights laws and norms in its treatment of Palestinian prisoners.” The UN makes its feelings clear in the ‘Question of Palestine Administrative Detention' report (UNQAP) when it says, Israel “has historically ratified international agreements regarding human rights protection, whilst at the same time refusing to apply the agreements within the Occupied Palestinian Territory , attempting to create legal justifications for its illegal actions.” A comprehensive list of international legally binding agreements dutifully signed, ratified and consequently disregarded by various Israeli governments are cited by the UN, which sits hands tied, impotent it seems in the face of Israel's illegal and violent occupation (a fact that cannot be stated often or loudly enough), submissive to the imperialist Godfather. America .
Since the six-day war in 1967 an estimated 750,000 Palestinians have been incarcerated in Israeli prisons, including 23,000 women and 25,000 children. This constitutes, Richard Falk states “approximately 20 per cent of the total Palestinian population in the occupied territory or 40 per cent of the Palestinian male population there.” Staggering figures of those personally imprisoned, whist a whole nation is held captive intimidated by an illegal occupying power upon their homeland.
Read more...
Brad Johnson - Meet Paul Ryan: Climate Denier, Conspiracy Theorist, Koch Acolyte
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick, is a virulent denier of climate science, with a voting record to match.
A favorite of the Koch brothers, Ryan has accused scientists of engaging in conspiracy to “intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.” He has implied that snow invalidates global warming.
Ryan has voted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from limiting greenhouse pollution, to eliminate White House climate advisers, to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture from preparing for climate disasters like the drought devastating his home state, and to eliminatethe Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E):
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David Korten - America’s Deficit Attention Disorder
The political debate in the United States and Europe has focused attention on public financial deficits and how best to resolve them. Tragically, the debate largely ignores the deficits that most endanger our future.
In the United States, as Republican deficit hawks tell the story, “America is broke. We must cut government spending on social programs we cannot afford. And we must lower taxes on Wall Street job creators so they can invest to get the economy growing, create new jobs, increase total tax revenues, and eliminate the deficit.”
Democrats respond, “Yes, we’re pretty broke, but the answer is to raise taxes on Wall Street looters to pay for government spending that primes the economic pump by putting people to work building critical infrastructure and performing essential public services. This puts money in people’s pockets to spend on private sector goods and services and is our best hope to grow the economy.”
Democrats have the better side of the argument, but both sides have it wrong on two key points.
First, both focus on growing GDP, ignoring the reality that under the regime of Wall Street rule, the benefits of GDP growth over the past several decades have gone almost exclusively to the 1 percent—with dire consequences for democracy and the health of the social and natural capital on which true prosperity depends.
Second, both focus on financial deficits, which can be resolved with relative ease if we are truly serious about it; and ignore far more dangerous and difficult-to-resolve social and environmental deficits. I call it a case of deficit attention disorder.
To achieve the ideal of a world that secures health and prosperity for all people for generations to come, we must reframe the public debate about the choices we face as a nation and as a species. We must measure economic performance against the outcomes we really want, give life priority over money, and recognize that money is a means, not an end.
Read more...
http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/david-korten/americas-deficit-attention-disorder
Jose L. Gómez del Prado - The Role of Private Military and Security Companies in Modern Warfare Impacts on Human Rights
Private military and security companies (PMSC) have been involved in grave human rights violations that have attracted international attention and debate over the legitimacy of PMSCs, the norms under which they should operate, and how to monitor their activities. These companies pose a real problem to human rights, to the foundations of the democratic modern state, and to the rule of law[1].
The widespread outsourcing of military and security functions has been a major phenomenon in recent years[2].The new industry that has developed is transnational in nature and has grown very rapidly with the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the U.S.S.R., military and security functions, previously considered inherently state functions, have been increasingly contracted out to the private sector. This important change with regard to the monopoly on the legitimate use of force[3] has been primarily implemented in western countries in the context of the anarchical globalization of the world economy. The private military and security industry has taken advantage of the reduction of national armies and the globalization of the economy to find a profitable niche and grow it into a powerful global phenomenon estimated at over $100 billion yearly[4].It has benefitted from the insecurity and fear that followed the terrorist attacks of the early 2000s and within the context of countering terrorism reinvigorated by “the global war on terror”.
The availability of experienced security and military personnel for hire has enabled governments, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations to circumvent political constraints on the use of force[5]. PMSCs operate in zones of low-intensity armed conflict such as Afghanistan– and post conflict environments-such as Iraq and Colombia. These companies also provide services for extractive industries and multinational corporations operating in unstable environments[6].
The new export security industry expanded primarily, though not exclusively, in Western Europe and North America. The growth has been particularly pronounced in the United States and United Kingdom, where 70 percent of the companies of this new security industry are registered[7]. Parallel to this privatization of warfare, there has also been increased demand for private security at the international level and for protection of property at the domestic level in states all over the world. In many countries, the number of private security personnel is greater than the number of active state police[8].
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Michael Carmichael - The Romney- Ryan Ticket: Running the Radical Republican Right-Wing
Shocked by the latest poll numbers showing that he trails Obama by 7 points and stunned by the fact that the American people demand to see his tax returns for multiple zero tax years, Mitt Romney needed to come up with something fast to distract the incessant media barrage besieging his faltering campaign for president.
After a devastating trip abroad that led to a Niagara of negative ink about a lengthy concatenation of diplomatic blunders from London to Jerusalem to Poland, Romney has tried just about everything his puny mind can conceive to distract the public from his business record, his taxes and Bain Capital.
However, the month of August presented Romney with two tactical opportunities to evade (at least momentarily) the insatiable onslaught of the probing media.
First and foremost, Romney had the option of naming his Vice Presidential running mate. Secondly, Romney will be featured as the Guest of Honor at what promises to be one of the most dreadful spectacles the world has ever seen: the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida later this month. With Romney’s luck, this convention will be tantamount to a public lynching, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
To erect a shield to provide a partial screen of defense from the ceaseless media attacks bombarding him and his frazzled staff, Romney finally selected a running mate whose economic views uncannily mirror his own for the privatization of government. In order to re-enforce his core philosophy of the divine right of corporate and plutocratic financial supremacy, Romney has turned to Paul Ryan of Wisconsin’s 1st District that encompasses the swish metropolitan areas of Kenosha, Racine, Muskego and the Congressman’s hometown of Janesville.
On the 29th of January 1970, Paul Davis Ryan was born the youngest of four children of his Irish-German Roman Catholic parents. In his youth, Ryan enjoyed the out-of-doors activities of skiing, hiking and camping in the Colorado Rockies. While attending Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Ryan worked as a counselor at a summer camp until he landed the prestigious position as a “Hotdogger” for the Oscar Mayer Wiener Company, a job that permitted him to wheel around Ohio and Wisconsin in the now world famous Wienermobile promoting the sales of hot dogs, bacon and over twenty-five kinds of ‘lunchable’ meats including: bologna (aka: “baloney”).
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Wendell Potter - "Path to Prosperity?" For Many Senior Citizens, VP Pick Ryan's Plan Would Be Path to the Poorhouse
If Americans who are embracing Rep. Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" -- and that now includes Mitt Romney -- spent a few minutes reviewing a few recent research reports, they just might conclude that the Wisconsin Republican's plan to reduce the deficit might better be renamed the "Path to the Poorhouse" because of what it would mean to the Medicare program and many senior citizens.
Ryan's proposal, which will get new scrutiny now that Romney has made him his running mate, would end the current Medicare program for everyone born after 1956. It would replace Medicare with a system in which beneficiaries would receive a set amount of money from the government every year to buy coverage from private insurers. That money would go straight into insurance companies' bank accounts, which would make them far richer and even more in control of our health care system than they already are.
While the amount of money beneficiaries would receive would depend on their health status, the average 65-year-old would get $8,000 under the Ryan plan in 2022, the year it would take effect. That's the amount the current Medicare program is expected to spend on the average 65-year-old that year. After 2022, the annual increase in the "premium support" payments would be based on the consumer price index (CPI). And therein lies one of the biggest problems for anyone hoping to live long enough to enroll in Medicare and stay alive for a few years.
Last month the government reported that the consumer price index had increased 1.7 percent between June 2011 and June 2012, meaning we've been paying on average 1.7 percent more this year than last year for goods and services. The cost of medical care, however, shot up 4.3 percent -- more than two and a half times the CPI. And that was not an aberration. The cost of medical care has been rising faster than the cost of just about everything else in this country for years. That's one of the reasons why private health insurance premiums have been increasing so rapidly. That and the fact that insurance corporations have to report a big enough profit every quarter to satisfy their shareholders and Wall Street analysts.
Read more...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendell-potter/path-to-prosperity-for-ma_b_1767573.html
Stephen Lendman - War Without Mercy in Syria
If wars had labels, Syria's conflict would be called Made in America.
Paul Wolfowitz and other Project for the New American Century (PNAC) ideologues planned it years ago. They also targeted half a dozen or more other countries.
PNAC's Statement of Principles called for "shap(ing) a new century favorable to American principles and interests." Doing so it said requires:
"increase(ing) defense spending significantly;"
"challeng(ing) regimes hostile to our interests and values;" and
"accept(ing) responsibility for American's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles."
PNAC effectively declared war. Independent nations were targeted. Implementing policy required a "catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor."
False flags provide pretexts for militarism, wars, occupations, domestic repression, national security state extremism, and other policies antithetical to free and open societies. PNAC members got what they wanted.
They comprise a rogues gallery of hardcore neocon extremists. Charter members included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Jeb Bush, and others.
In 2009, PNAC reinvented itself as the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI). Policies remain unchanged. Regime change in Syria is prioritized. Direct intervention is urged.
Obama is criticized for inaction. "What is clear," it says, is that America "sent a horrible message to tyrants elsewhere about the (non-existent) costs of mass killings of innocents."
FPI knows Washington bears full responsibility. It's not enough. FPI wants full-scale war initiated.
Read more...
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2012/08/war-without-mercy-in-syria.html
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