At a ceremony at the White House on Tuesday, First Lady Michelle Obama announced the launch of the ‘Let’s Move’ campaign to end childhood obesity in the United States, an epidemic she said is costly and a threat to national security.
“A recent study put the health care cost of obesity-related diseases at $147 billion a year,” Mrs. Obama said. “This epidemic also impacts the nation’s security, as obesity is now one of the most common disqualifiers for military service.”
The ceremony, attended by many officials of President Barack Obama’s cabinet, followed the signing earlier in the day of a presidential memorandum establishing a task force to study the problem and make recommendations after 90 days.
Obama announced a long list of goals she said she hopes the “Let’s Move” campaign will accomplish, including many that can be done “in a generation.”
“This isn’t like a disease where we’re still waiting for a cure to be discovered – we know the cure for this,” Obama said. “This isn’t like putting a man on the moon or inventing the Internet. It doesn’t take some stroke of genius or feat of technology.
“We have everything we need, right now, to help our kids lead healthy lives,” Obama said.
Some of the goals include ending what Obama referred to as “food deserts” with a $400 million a year “Healthy Food Financing Initiative,” which will bring grocery stores to low-income neighborhoods and “help places like convenience stores carry healthier food options.”
Obama called for overhauling many federal laws and guidelines, including adding $10 billion over the next decade to “update” the Childhood Nutrition Act, which feeds 31 million children at school and would add funding to feed more children.
The federal food pyramid would also get a makeover through the campaign, and there would be new efforts to get manufacturers to add “family friendly front-of-package labeling” that discloses a product’s nutritional value.
The First Lady said a broad coalition of groups interested in children’s health are coming together to form the Partnership for a Healthier America, which will use professional athletes, members of the media, and state and local dignitaries to promote the “Let’s Move” campaign and its goals around the country.
Obama used anecdotal details from her own life to explain the challenges faced by overworked parents and children who spend too much time watching TV or playing video games because their neighborhoods are unsafe for playing outside.
“So many parents desperately want to do the right thing, but they feel like the deck is stacked against them,” Obama said. “They know their kids’ health is their responsibility but they feel like it’s out of their control.
“They are bombarded by contradictory information at every turn, and they don’t know who to believe,” she said.
Obama said before she lived in the White House she struggled to balance the demands of working and being a mother, and occasionally fed her two daughters fast food or “less healthy microwavable options.”
“And one day,” she said, “my pediatrician pulled me aside and told me, ‘You might want to think about doing things a little bit differently.’”
She said it was a wake-up call and that the nation should see childhood obesity as a wake-up call, including the fact that children are victims of the epidemic.
“Our kids did not do this to themselves,” Obama said. “Our kids don’t decide what’s served to them at school or whether there’s time for gym classes or recess. Our kids don’t choose to make food products with tons of sugar and sodium in super-sized portions, and then to have those products marketed to them everywhere they turn.”
“And no matter how much they beg for pizza, fries and candy, ultimately, they are not, and should not, be the ones calling the shots at dinnertime,” she said.
A new Web site has also been launched in conjunction with the campaign, www.letsmove.gov.
So many US women have difficulty becoming pregnant that the fertility industry has become a huge business, raking in between three and five billion dollars a year. Now a new study published in the journalEnvironmental Health Perspectives raises the possibility that a lot of women who can’t have babies could have flame retardant chemicals to blame — specifically,polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), which are commonly found in an alarming number of household consumer products.
In a study involving over 200 women, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley) discovered that women with higher blood concentrations of PBDEs took far longer to become pregnant than those with low amounts of the chemicals in their blood. In fact, for every ten-fold increase in blood levels of four PBDE chemicals tested, there was a 30 percent decrease in the odds a woman would conceive a child during a month.
“There have been numerous animal studies that have found a range of health effects from exposure to PBDEs, but very little research has been done in humans. This latest paper is the first to address the impact on human fertility, and the results are surprisingly strong. These findings need to be replicated, but they have important implications for regulators,” the study’s lead author, Kim Harley, said in a statement to the media. Harley is an adjunct assistant professor of maternal and child health and associate director of the Center for Children’s Environmental Health Research at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health.
PBDEs are a class of organobromine compounds found in foam furniture, electronics, fabrics, carpets, plastics and other common household items. They were commonly added to these and other products as flame retardants after the 1970s when new fire safety standards were implemented in the US.
So how big is the problem of homes contaminated by PBDEs? Unfortunately, it appears to be huge. The chemicals are known to leach out into the environment and accumulate in human fat cells. Previous studies have suggested that 97 percent of U.S. residents have detectable levels of PBDEs in their blood and that the levels in Americans are 20 times higher than in their counterparts in Europe.
The most prevalent form of PBDEs found in the blood of women participating in the UC Berkeley study were from a specific formulation known as a pentaBDE mixture. Both this kind of PBDE and another type, octaBDE, have been banned for use in several states — but they are still widely found in products manufactured before 2004.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally got around to addressing the danger of PBDEs at the end of 2009. Did the agency issue an urgent alarm about products containing the chemicals — even ban them outright to protect consumers? No. Instead, the EPA quietly announced an agreement with three major manufacturers of some forms of PBDEs to phase out production by 2013. Unfortunately, this is clearly too little too late to protect countless Americans from the potential danger of these contaminants.
“Although several types of PBDEs are being phased out in the United States, our exposure to the flame retardants is likely to continue for many years,” said the study’s principal investigator, Brenda Eskenazi, UC Berkeley professor of epidemiology and of maternal and child health at the School of Public Health. “PBDEs are present in many consumer products, and we know they leach out into our homes. In our research, we have found that low-income children in California are exposed to very high levels of PBDEs, and this has us concerned about the next generation of Californians.”
What’s more, the scientists pointed out in the press statement that there’s reason to be concerned about additional chemical contaminants in the immediate future. True, PBDEs are being phased out from consumer products — but they are being replaced with other potentially toxic compounds. “We know even less about the newer flame retardant chemicals that are coming out,” said Dr. Harley. “We just don’t have the human studies yet to show that they are safe.”
Is the H1N1 swine flu vaccine causing miscarriages? Is the vaccine safe for pregnant women to take? Those are questions that thousands upon thousands of pregnant women have wrestled with over the past couple of months as they have decided what to do about the swine flu. The WHO and U.S health authorities insisted that the H1N1 swine flu vaccine was perfectly safe for pregnant women and pushed them to the front of the line. So thousands of women did run out and get themselves injected with the vaccine. Now reports are pouring in from all over the United States of women who have lost their babies very quickly after receiving the H1N1 vaccine. Many of these women are overcome with pain and a feeling of loss and are looking for answers. They end up on sites like this one because the mainstream media won’t touch this story with a ten foot pole (lest they offend the pharmaceutical giants and their millions of dollars in ad money). Fortunately there are alternatives to the mainstream media now. The following are stories from 9 of our readers who have lost their babies very soon after getting the H1N1 swine flu vaccine. We challenge anyone who still believes in the safety of this vaccine to read all of the following stories and then to explain to the rest of us why we should not be concerned.
The truth is that the H1N1 swine flu vaccine is NOT safe for pregnant women. The following are unedited personal testimonies left as comments by readers of this site…..
#1) Kelly:
If you haven’t had a miscarriage, you shouldn’t comment about someone that has. This is my second miscarriage. I know my first miscarriage had absolutely nothing to do with the H1N1 shot (because it was in 2003), however, this time I believe there definitely could be a connection. I had 3 healthy babies after my first miscarriage. When I went to have my H1N1 shot (which was HIGHLY recommended by the Health Office workers since I WAS pregnant and I higher risk of H1N1), I was around 5 weeks pregnant. When I went in for my next ob appointment, I had an ultrasound that showed I was only 5 week and 2 days, although by that point I was almost 9 weeks pregnant. I never had any symptoms. The baby just died. Instead of reading about how pregnant women shouldn’t get the shot, the ONLY thing I read about pregnant women and the H1N1 shot is that they were top priority for the shot and should have it done as soon as possible. My doctor thought I may have just miscalculated and waited another few weeks to test levels (once a week) until we knew for sure what was going on. Three weeks later (should have been 12 weeks pregnant), I was told that the ultrasound was still showing 5 weeks and 2 days and that the baby was no longer living. I had to have a D&C. Not only was the physical pain traumatizing but the emotional pain was beyond bearable. Something needs to be done. PLEASE, take all of this into consideration before deciding if you are going to get the shot. I wish I wouldn’t have… There seems to be WAY too many stories for this to be a coincidence. If this is what our country is coming to, God, please help us all!
#2) Amy:
I got the H1N1 vacc. when I was 4 and a half weeks pregnanat. I started bleeding 2 weeks later and went to the doctor and was tol my pregnancy looked perfect for a 4 and a half week pregnanacy! Sounds like to me that everything was perfect until I got the vacc. We were completely devistated and I wish I knew the risks before I got it, but the docs will tell you miscarriages happen everyday, but that is not good enough for me.
#3) Canada Also:
We were in our 6 month of pregnancy, and we also got the vaccine, We also lost our baby, within 10 days of taking the vaccine. We also asked our Dr what could of caused this, they gave us many reasons, then we brought up H1N1 Vaccine, and before we could get the INE out in vaccine, they dismissed it as possible cause. I asked how could it be everthing else, and this is not even considered and dismissed immediately, I think if they did a study and found out that it does cause miscarriages, they entire health system would be under scrutiny and law suits.
It was our second child of which we do not have history of miscarriages or any medical or health issues. Upon delivery the baby looked pefect and no ambilical chord around its neck.
#4) e.Kirylo:
Last month on Nov.16th I had my son premature at 22 weeks along in my pregnancy he lived 5 hrs and then died of heart failure. About a week prior I recieved the H1N1 Flu vaccine. I began cramping in my lower abdomin and bleeding heavily on thursday night and after 75 hrs of labor trying to keep my son inside me as long as posible I delivered him on monday morning. After reading many of these storys I am convinced that I would still be pregnant if I would have denied the vaccine!
#5) Lucy:
I should be 11 weeks and two days pregnant today. I had an appointment with my OB/GYN today and was told (from info of ultrasound) that my baby stopped growing on the exact day I had my H1N1 vaccine! This is a very sad day for my family and I. This would have been our first baby. I have submitted a report of my “adverse event” on the following site: https://vaers.hhs.gov/esub/index
To all those that have had problems with the vaccine I would suggest to report your event as well so the government can track this.
After researching the H1N1 vaccine (which I WISH I would have done before I took the vaccine), I cannot believe that all these officials and medical professional would think for a minute that injecting a drug that may contain mercury, formaldehyde, polysorbate 80 (associated with infertility), triton X100 (a strong detergent), phenoxyethanol (antifreeze) and many other toxic ingredients would be SAFE!
It seems as if there is a hidden agenda out there. Just think of the billions of dollars these pharmaceutical companies are making! Could THAT be the agenda??? I wonder…. HOW can the Pharmaceutical companies get away with giving vaccines that can cause death?! To anyone else that would be a crime!
I think we ALL need to join together and try to change the law so that we can protect this from happening to others. We should all push for legislature that will protect ourselves AND our unborn from this crime.
#6) Amanda:
I have a healthy 1yr old boy no complication or history of miscarriages. I got the H1N1 vaccine to protect me and the baby at 7weeks pregnant. I lost the baby a week and a half after
#7) Carolyn:
I was 4 1/2 weeks pregnant when I got the H1N1 shot. I started spotting 2 days later, then a 2 weeks later lost my baby. I have 2 kids, with no history of miscarriage. If I could take back getting it I would because I think it caused my miscarriage. My doctor does not believe it does.
#8) Mandy:
I was 5 weeks pregnant when my doctor suggested I get the H1N1 vaccine. I received the shot on a Thursday and was very sore and achy on Friday. I miscarried my baby on Sunday, just 3 days after receiving the shot. This was my first pregnancy and I thought I was doing the best thing for myself and my baby by getting the shot. I was encouraged to get the shot by my doctor and was not told that I should wait until I was further along. Also, I was not warned of any side affects accept for a sore arm where I got the shot. I was given the Novartis shot.
#9) Paula:
i was 14 wweks pregnant almost and took the H1N1 shot because my dr. said to and a few minutes afterwards i had severe headaches and shortness of breath,i called everywhere but no one would tell me nothing, then a couple of days after that i started spotting blood and had to be taken to the emergency room for a threatened misscarriage,then 4 days later i went to the OBGYN for an ultrasound my baby was fine until a couple of days later when i went back for an ultrasound and my baby had died it was a missed miscarriage ihad to wait 2 days for them to do a dnc. I had my baby and placenta sent to the lab for testing ,the results came back my baby was healthy,my choromasones were fine everything was fine,even the sex ,she was a little baby girl!my baby girl! and i think we have all been misinformed by our doctors, and i think the H1N1 shot killed my baby! and i will fight to get the answers because i want justice for my baby!
Conservative radio host Neal Boortz stirred up controversy on Monday with a Twitter posting saying, “ObamaCare will do more damage than a successful terrorist bombing of an airliner …and kill more people as well.”
Great things are expected of terahertz waves, the radiation that fills the slot in the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and the infrared. Terahertz waves pass through non-conducting materials such as clothes , paper, wood and brick and so cameras sensitive to them can peer inside envelopes, into living rooms and “frisk” people at distance.
The way terahertz waves are absorbed and emitted can also be used to determine the chemical composition of a material. And even though they don’t travel far inside the body, there is great hope that the waves can be used to spot tumours near the surface of the skin.
With all that potential, it’s no wonder that research on terahertz waves has exploded in the last ten years or so.
But what of the health effects of terahertz waves? At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss any notion that they can be damaging. Terahertz photons are not energetic enough to break chemical bonds or ionise atoms or molecules, the chief reasons why higher energy photons such as x-rays and UV rays are so bad for us. But could there be another mechanism at work?
It was a holiday miracle for one family in Colorado Springs. Tracy Hermanstorfer’s water broke at 5:00am on Christmas Eve, several weeks early. She and her husband Mike were planning a natural birth, but things quickly changed when she went into cardiac arrest.
Tracy’s heart stopped, and she underwent an emergency c-section, with no time for anesthesia. Mike was in the room, in complete shock. He tells NEWSCHANNEL13 he was in complete shock after seeing one of the worst things manageable happen before his eyes.
According to doctors at Memorial Hospital, this type of complication during birth is rare, but when it does happen, there is hardly ever a positive out come. Once both Mom and Baby were stable, doctors examined Tracy to try and determine what went wrong, and how both she and her baby pulled through, but they were unable to find a reason.
The Hermanstorfer’s new miracle baby is named Coltyn Mikel. He weighs 7lbs 4 ounces, and is 19 inches long.
The family has two other boys at home, an 11-year-old and a 3-year-old. They say they now plan to go home and enjoy their second chance.
Did America slip into a semiliterate, polarized, pre-fascist state over the past decade or so, allowing greedy oligarchs and corporate elites to run the government? Two books I recently read offer reasonably persuasive evidence and arguments that the country did, and a third suggests that dictatorial mindsets could besiege Americans, with an assist from the Internet, if they don’t come to their more deliberative senses. Each of the books offers an informed diagnosis of the dangers that widespread ignorance and ideological polarization pose for American democracy, though none offers a comprehensive treatment for the malaise.
I read the three books in less than two weeks; friends ask how that was possible. The trick is to avoid not only Facebook and Twitter but also: celebrity news, cable news, Oprah, Jerry Springer, American Idol, The Swan, other reality-TV shows, professional wrestling, violent pornography, positive psychology and right-wing Christian fundamentalism.
The latter list includes some of the spectacularly mind-numbing American pursuits that Chris Hedges examines in Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. Hedges submits that while they mesmerized large portions of the American citizenry, CEOs being paid millions of dollars a year to run companies that feed on taxpayer money usurped our government — with the help of elected officials bought by campaign contributions and tens of thousands of corporate lobbyists who now write many of the nation’s laws.
“Those captivated by the cult of celebrity do not examine voting records or compare verbal claims with written and published facts and reports,” Hedges writes. “The reality of their world is whatever the latest cable news show, political leader, advertiser, or loan officer says is reality. The illiterate, semiliterate, and those who live as though they are illiterate are effectively cut off from the past. They live in an eternal present. They do not understand the predatory loan deals that drive them into foreclosure and bankruptcy. They cannot decipher the fine print on credit card agreements that plunge them into unmanageable debt. They repeat thought-terminating clichés and slogans. They seek refuge in familiar brands and labels. … Life is a state of permanent amnesia, a world in search of new forms of escapism and quick, sensual gratification.”
Of course, they did not get into this clueless state by themselves. They were manipulated by “agents, publicists, marketing departments, promoters, script writers, television and movie producers, advertisers, video technicians, photographers, bodyguards, wardrobe consultants, fitness trainers, pollsters, public announcers, and television news personalities who create the vast stage for illusion,” Hedges continues. “They are the puppet masters. … The techniques of theater have leeched into politics, religion, education, literature, news, commerce, warfare, and crime.”
I know those fools are out there — many millions of them. I might even be one. But what is absolutely maddening about this book is Hedges’ penchant for stating sweeping, generalized claims as absolutes. And yet this master of divinity turned New York Times war correspondent become sociological scholar often bolsters his summations with just enough research, statistical data and anecdotal evidence to make them plausible. The book takes readers to Madison Square Garden for an exegesis of professional wrestling; to the Adult Video News Expo in Las Vegas for lengthy interviews with porn actors and producers and an inflatable doll vendor; and to Claremont Graduate University in California for a seminar on positive psychology, which Hedges terms a “quack science” that “is to the corporate state what eugenics was for the Nazis.”
As a resident of Miami Beach, where the pornographic sensibility is a way of life, I wasn’t shocked to read that annual porn sales in the United States “are estimated at $10 billion or higher” or that DIRECTV distributes “more than 40 million streams of porn into American homes every month.” But I shuddered when Hedges documented not just a growing appetite for violent forms of porn in America but their remarkable visual similarity to photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. “Porn reflects the endemic cruelty of our society,” he writes. “The violence, cruelty, and degradation of porn are expressions of a society that has lost the capacity for empathy. … The Abu Ghraib images that were released, and the hundreds more disturbing images that remain classified, could be stills from porn films.”
Unfortunately, Empire of Illusion won’t enlighten or offend the large swaths of functionally illiterate Americans transfixed by smut, pro wrestling, reality TV or celebrity gossip, because those people won’t read the book. But this scholarly 193-page diatribe, which draws from a 100-author bibliography ranging from the late neo-Marxist Frankfurt School icon Theodor Adorno(The Culture Industry) to Princeton professor emeritus Sheldon Wolin (Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism), would surely madden many proud affiliates and alumni of America’s elite university system.
Hedges, who attended New England prep schools, Colgate and Harvard as a young man, and later taught at Princeton, Columbia and New York University, asserts in Chapter 3, “The Illusion of Wisdom,” that Harvard, Yale, Princeton and most elite schools “do only a mediocre job of teaching students to question and think.” Elite universities are in the business of producing “hordes of competent systems managers” not critical thinkers. Those statements strike me as generally accurate. But I’d expect some fierce academic blowback from this notion: “The elite universities disdain honest intellectual inquiry, which is by its nature distrustful of authority, fiercely independent, and often subversive.” And Hedges suggests that these high-end schools “refuse to question a self-justifying system” in which “organization, technology, self-advancement, and information systems are the only things that matter.”
Hedges not only blames the elite universities for our mortgage-fueled financial crisis but is sure their alumni on Wall Street and in Washington have no capacity to really fix the economic system. “Indeed, they’ll make it worse,” he predicts, exchanging his reportorial register for the absolutist. “They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of how to replace a failed system with a new one.” (He includes George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Obama’s “degree-laden” cabinet members in this group.)
If Hedges knows how to fix the system, he doesn’t tell us inEmpire of Illusion. I hope that’ll be the subject of his next book, because in the meantime, “powerful corporate entities, fearful of losing their influence and wealth” are waiting for “a national crisis that will allow them, in the name of national security and moral renewal, to take complete control,” he warns, without citing verifiable evidence for his dire prediction.
What if PBS, Fox and YouTube organized a national debate featuring Chris Hedges, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, his predecessor Hank Paulson, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Christian Coalition president Roberta Combs and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? That panel is a little far-fetched, but it’s the sort of cross-ideological forum that Cass Sunsteinprescribes in Republic.com 2.0 as a way of preventing the nation from sliding into factional, perhaps even violent strife.
Sunstein is a law professor, author and perennial all-star in the world of public intellectuals; he took leave from Harvard Law School to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget. “The American constitutional order was designed to create a republic, as opposed to a monarch or direct democracy,” he writes. “Representatives would be accountable to the public at large. But there was also supposed to be a large degree of reflection and debate, both within the citizenry and within government itself.”
Of course, the Founding Fathers knew public debate could get ugly. Sunstein notes Alexander Hamilton’s belief that the “jarring of parties” was a good thing because it would engender deliberation and, over time, a “republic of reasons.”
Are we one today? Not as much as we could be, Sunstein thinks. His fundamental concern in Republic.com 2.0 is the Internet’s potential for impeding deliberation between groups with opposing viewpoints, eventually increasing ideological rigidity and polarization to a point of no return. It’s vastly easier to join like-minded Internet “enclaves” across the world than to drive across town for a meeting in which someone might challenge one’s pre-established beliefs and positions. Sunstein walks readers through behavioral studies finding that when groups of like-minded individuals are isolated from different viewpoints, they tend toward consensus on the most extreme position held within the group.
At worst, Sunstein says, Internet-induced polarization could lead to social instability. “The danger is that through the mechanisms of persuasive arguments, social comparisons, and corroboration, members will move to positions that lack merit,” he writes. “It is impossible to say, in the abstract, that those who sort themselves into enclaves will generally move in a direction that is desirable for society at large or even for its own members. It is easy to think of examples to the contrary, as, for example, Nazism, hate groups, terrorists, and cults of various sorts.”
Clearly, the Internet has potential to create political good. Citizens have access to vast amounts of information and commentary. Even like-minded enclave proliferation can be good: The more there are, the greater the potential for inter-enclave discussion.
But a study of 1,400 liberal and conservative blogs found the vast majority of bloggers link only to like-minded blogs. Worse, another study showed that when “liberal” bloggers comment on “conservative” blog posts, and vice-versa, a plurality of comments simply cast contempt on opposing views. “Only a quarter of cross-ideological posts involve genuine substantive discussion. In this way, real deliberation is often occurring within established points of view, but only infrequently across them,” Sunstein reports.
One cure for Internet-driven polarization lies with “general interest intermediaries.” By that terminology, Sunstein means media outlets like The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, current affairs magazines, PBS, NPR and old-fashioned network news broadcasts: “People who rely on such intermediaries have a range of chance encounters, involving shared experiences with diverse others, and also exposure to materials and topics that they did not seek out in advance.”
Of course, these are the media that are in decline because of the Internet. Sunstein imagines a greater role for private and public institutions, including the federal government, in ensuring enough general-interest intermediaries exist to make the republic’s communications system “a help rather than a hindrance to democratic self-government” and a counterbalance to the echo chambers of the Web.
For the most part, Thom Hartmann’s Threshold: Crisis of Western Civilization functions as a general-interest intermediary in book form. Still, readers can be forgiven for wondering, at times, whether they are in a no-conservatives zone. Hartmann is host of the Thom Hartmann Show, a nationally syndicated “progressive” radio talk show.
Just the same, Threshold is so geographically and temporally sprawling that it offers material even progressive readers might not have chosen in advance: a refugee camp in contemporary Darfur in southern Sudan (Lesson: Famine leads to war and more suffering.); ancient New Zealand, where the Maoris exterminated the moa birds, forcing them to become cannibals (Don’t repeat this mistake.); contemporary Denmark, where people happily send 30 to 60 percent of their income to the government in exchange for free health care, free university tuition, yearlong maternity leave, ample unemployment coverage and more (Americans should consider this.); Caral in ancient Peru, where anthropologists have found no evidence of weaponry (”Maybe peace is the natural state of things.”); the Iroquois people, who made certain decisions based on how they would affect tribe members seven generations hence. (If only the rest of us Americans would do that.)
In sum, Threshold is 262 pages of scientific and historical anecdote suggesting that unregulated markets, undemocratic behavior and unecological practices lead to catastrophe. If you haven’t already read a good overview of topsoil depletion, the marine fisheries crisis, rain forest destruction, the democratic behavior of red deer, the 1888 Supreme Court decision that defined corporations as “persons,” the $15 million that 30,000 corporate lobbyists spend weekly when Congress is in session, President Eisenhower’s premonition of a military-industrial complex with “unwarranted influence,” the 2004 computerized voting machines controversy, the $1 trillion in tax dollars the U.S. government spent on war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not on infrastructure and schools, and the subprime loan/toxic securities debacle — you can find one in Threshold. Hartmann’s common-sense remedies include “recovering a culture of democracy,” “balancing the power of men and women,” “reuniting with nature,” “creating an economy modeled on biology” and “influencing people by helping them rather than bombing them.” His book offers few specifics on how these ends might be accomplished in the real world.
So are we drifting along in a pre-fascist state? Has our democratic system really fallen under the control of corporate America? Hartmann’s take obviously starts and stays (far) to the left of center, and we’ll just have to stay tuned and see whether future events support the dire view he and Hedges have of America’s political direction. Meanwhile, I’ll be on the lookout for a persuasive book telling me how it isn’t exactly so, and why America can escape from the economic and ecological spectacle it has made itself.
Democrats win the vote 60-39 over Republican objections. It must be reconciled with the House’s legislation in the New Year before President Obama can sign off on his top domestic priority.
Reporting from Washington – Senate Democrats this morning passed a sweeping healthcare overhaul bill, setting the stage for reconciliation early next year with similarly historic legislation passed by the House last month.
The vote was 60-39. It came after months of bitter partisan warfare, culminating in a series of votes this week that thwarted a threatened Republican filibuster.
The bill, which is President Obama’s top domestic priority, would extend insurance to about 30 million people who now lack it, expand the reach of Medicaid for the poor, and impose new rules on health insurance companies. It would cost about $871 billion over 10 years, but raise more than that in new taxes and fees and cuts in Medicare.
Democrats were triumphant but weary as they passed the bill and ended a long, eventful year of legislating under the Obama presidency. “This is a victory for the American people,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said after the vote. “We affirm the ability to live a healthy life . . . is a right and not a privilege.”
But Republicans, whose delaying tactics and demand for extended debate forced Democrats to postpone the Senate vote until Christmas Eve, vowed to keep fighting the bill as it heads into House-Senate negotiations that will craft the final bill.
“This fight is long from over,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “My colleagues and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law.”
Underscoring the drama of the vote, Vice President Joe Biden presided over the roll call from the chair. Senators cast their votes from their desks of the Senate floor, a custom reserved for the most momentous occasions. Only Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) was absent.
Watching from the public gallery were others soldiers in the long fight for the healthcare bill – senior aides to Obama; Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), dean of the House and lead sponsor of the House bill; and Victoria Kennedy, widow of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the lifelong champion of healthcare reform who died earlier this year.
“This is for my friend Ted Kennedy,” declared the ailing, 92-year-old Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) before casting his vote.
New York Autopsies Show 2009 H1N1 Influenza Virus Damages Entire Airway
In fatal cases of 2009 H1N1 influenza, the virus can damage cells throughout the respiratory airway, much like the viruses that caused the 1918 and 1957 influenza pandemics, report researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. The scientists reviewed autopsy reports, hospital records and other clinical data from 34 people who died of 2009 H1N1 influenza infection between May 15 and July 9, 2009. All but two of the deaths occurred in New York City. A microscopic examination of tissues throughout the airways revealed that the virus caused damage primarily to the upper airway — the trachea and bronchial tubes — but tissue damage in the lower airway, including deep in the lungs, was present as well. Evidence of secondary bacterial infection was seen in more than half of the victims.
The team was led by James R. Gill, M.D., of the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner and New York University School of Medicine, and Jeffery K. Taubenberger, M.D., Ph.D., of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at NIH. The findings are reported in the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, now available online and scheduled to appear in the February 2010 print issue.
“This study provides clinicians with a clear and detailed picture of the disease caused by 2009 H1N1 influenza virus that will help inform patient management,” says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.”In fatal cases of 2009 H1N1 influenza, it appears the novel pandemic influenza virus produces pulmonary damage that looks very much like that seen in earlier influenza pandemics.” The new report also underscores the impact 2009 H1N1 influenza is having on younger people. While most deaths from seasonal influenza occur in adults over 65 years old, deaths from 2009 H1N1 influenza occur predominately among younger people. The majority of deaths (62 percent) in the 34 cases studied were among those 25 to 49 years old; two infants were also among the fatal cases.
Ninety-one percent of those autopsied had underlying medical conditions, such as heart disease or respiratory disease, including asthma, before becoming ill with 2009 H1N1 influenza. Seventy-two percent of the adults and adolescents who died were obese. This finding agrees with earlier reports, based on hospital records, linking obesity with an increased risk of death from 2009 H1N1 influenza.
The researchers examined tissue samples from the 34 deceased individuals to assess how 2009 H1N1 influenza virus damaged various parts of the respiratory system. “We saw a spectrum of damage to tissue in both the upper and lower respiratory tracts,” says Dr. Taubenberger. In all cases, the uppermost regions of the respiratory tract — the trachea and bronchial tubes — were inflamed, with severe damage in some cases. In 18 cases, evidence of damage lower down in the finer branches of the bronchial tubes, or bronchioles, was noted. In 25 cases, the researchers found damage to the small globular air sacs, or alveoli, of the lungs.
“This pattern of pathology in the airway tissues is similar to that reported in autopsy findings of victims of both the 1918 and 1957 influenza pandemics,” notes Dr. Taubenberger.
The researchers also examined 33 of the 34 cases for evidence of pulmonary bacterial infections. Of these cases, 18 (55 percent) were positive for such infections. Not all of those individuals who had bacterial pneumonia along with 2009 H1N1 virus infection had been hospitalized, however, indicating that some had acquired their bacterial infections outside of a health-care setting. This raises the possibility, say the authors, that community-acquired bacterial pneumonia is playing a role in the current pandemic. “Even in an era of widespread and early antibiotic use,” write the authors, “bacterial pneumonia remains an important factor for severe or fatal influenza.”
Computerized tomography (CT) lung images were available in four cases of pulmonary bacterial infection. In all four cases, the CT scans showed an abnormality known as ground-glass opacity, which are patches of rounded haze not seen in normal lung images. It is not known, say the researchers, whether the abnormalities detected by CT in the four cases also occur in people who have milder H1N1 infections. They call for additional investigation into the utility of CT scans as a tool to help clinicians identify and better treat severe H1N1 infections.
Visit www.flu.gov for one-stop access to U.S. government information on avian and pandemic influenza. Also, visit NIAID’s flu Web portal at http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/Flu/.
NIAID conducts and supports research — at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide—to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation’s Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov. Reference: JR Gill et al. Pulmonary pathological findings of fatal 2009 pandemic influenza A/H1N1 viral infections. Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine. Published online Dec. 7, 2009. {Note: Full text of the paper is available at www.archivesofpathology.org}
