Columnist Wendell Potter Robin Holland In his quest to win the Republican presidential nomination, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is perpetuating a convincing hoax: that implementing Texas-style tort reform would go a long way toward curing what ails the U.S. health care system. Like his fellow GOP contenders, Perry consistently denounces “Obamacare” as “a budget-busting, government […]
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Posted inHealth
Mexican tobacco growers: Economically shunned by industry, still used as lobbyists
About this project: Smoke Screen II By Ricardo Sandoval Palos May 30, 2011 In October, in chaotic Mexico City, a small army of protestors, sporting placards and shouting into bullhorns, worsened the usual traffic snarl around San Lazaro, the nation’s congressional office complex. Television news accounts showed screaming-mad tobacco farmers, some of whom had boarded […]
Posted inHealth, Wendell Potter commentary
A single-payer plan for Vermont
Do you approve of Vermont’s single-payer health care plan? Analysis by Wendell Potter: A single payer system for Vermont By Jasmine Norwood and Emma Schwartz May 19, 2011 For 18 years, Wendell Potter worked in the health insurance industry. Now’s he’s writing about it. In this video column, Potter looks at how Vermont is trying […]
Posted inHealth
Analysis – Ryan’s Medicare plan would be a windfall for insurance companies
After banned from Medicare, podiatrist bills $1M for fake care, including double-amputee’s feet By Ben Wieder July 13, 2011 Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare would accelerate a trend started several years ago by corporate CEOs and their political allies to shift ever-increasing amounts of risk from Big Business and the government to workers […]
Posted inHealth, Wendell Potter commentary
Analysis — A Canadian-style single-payer health system in Vermont?
MONTPELIER, Vt. — Chances are you’ve never heard of Peter Shumlin, who last month was sworn in as the 81st governor or Vermont. That’s about to change. If Shumlin makes good on a signature campaign promise, he might end up as well-known and beloved in the United States as Tommy Douglas is in Canada. OK, […]
Posted inHealth
Medicare: An entitlement out of control
If Congress had known in 1965 how expensive Medicare would become, it might not have approved the program in the first place. So Lyndon Johnson made sure it didn’t know. He railed against his budget advisers for trying to predict the long-term costs. “The fools had to go projecting it down the road five or […]
Posted inHealth
The Abstinence Lobby’s Lone Wolf
Most rich people hoping to influence federal policy are content to write checks to fund political campaigns or shuffle cash to advocacy groups that lobby for their causes. But not Raymond Ruddy. Ruddy, a 66-year-old retired businessman who runs a pro-life charity in suburban Natick, Massachusetts, is the premier benefactor of the abstinence-only sexual education […]
Posted inHealth, Public Health, Tobacco, Tobacco Underground
China’s Marlboro Country
On first approach, Yunxiao seems like any other Chinese backwater caught in uneasy industrial transition. Faded advertisements line the streets downtown, where motorcyclists wearing bamboo-frond hats determinedly vie for passengers in a riot of honking. A cheerful red banner in the city center exhorts citizens to develop the local economy — and yet the message […]
Posted inHealth, Public Health, Tobacco, Tobacco Underground
The Montenegro connection
“My little cat … I’m going crazy without you …. You have repeatedly betrayed me, I think …. Little cat, when are you coming? … I love you, little cat.” On Jan. 4, 2001, Dusanka Pesic Jeknic, representative of the Montenegrin trade mission in Milan, Italy, was speaking on the phone at her home in […]
Posted inHealth
Painkiller trial raises questions for FDA, Pfizer
In February 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) called a three-day hearing to review the risks of three painkillers known as COX-2 inhibitors. From its inception, the hearing — conducted by an FDA advisory panel — was beset by controversy. One of the COX-2 drugs, Vioxx, had recently been withdrawn from the market […]
Posted inHealth
Did the FDA miss signals on a troubled heart drug?
It has been a rough eight months for the drug maker Actavis, Inc. and its powerful heart drug, Digitek. Following repeated Food and Drug Administration (FDA) criticisms of its manufacturing processes, Actavis Totowa, a subsidiary of Actavis, issued a recall of Digitek on April 25, after discovering that some of the tablets were twice as […]
Posted inHealth, Public Health, Tobacco, Tobacco Underground
Made to be smuggled
Europe is being flooded by smuggled Russian-made cigarettes worth at least $1 billion a year, an international investigation has discovered. A network of factories and routes has been put together across Europe since 2004, following large-scale smuggling routes previously supplied by major multinational tobacco companies. The new underground smoking trade involves only one brand, Jin […]
Posted inHealth, Public Health, Tobacco, Tobacco Underground
How to get away with smuggling
The investigations had gone on for so long that most Canadians probably wrote them off as another victory for big corporations. Then suddenly on July 31, after a year of secret negotiations, Canada’s two largest tobacco companies — Imperial Tobacco Canada and Rothmans Inc. — pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting tobacco smuggling from 1989 […]
Posted inDivine Intervention, Health
South Africa
Background South Africa occupies the entire southern tip of Africa. The 25th-largest country in the world, South Africa borders Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland, and it surrounds the kingdom of Lesotho. South Africa has a diverse population and a rich yet controversial history. It was first colonized by the Dutch; Great Britain took control […]
Posted inDivine Intervention, Health
Botswana
Botswana General informationTotal population: 1,765,000 Gross national income per capita: US$5,180 Life expectancy, male: 40 years Life expectancy, female: 40 years HIV/AIDS informationPeople living with HIV: 270,000 AIDS-related deaths in 2005: 18,000 HIV prevalence rate among adults 15-49: 24.1% Fiscal 2005 PEPFAR funding: $51.8 million Fiscal 2006 PEPFAR funding: $54.9 million Sources: Gross national income […]
Posted inHealth, Pushing Prescriptions
States see importation as solution to high drug costs
Deep pockets contribute to success By M. Asif Ismail April 6, 2006 FDA staff travels on drug industry dollars By Alexander Cohen March 30, 2006 Pursuing average savings of 25 percent to 50 percent below U.S. prices, many states have defied the federal government and turned to countries such as Canada for access to affordable […]
Posted inHealth, Pushing Prescriptions
Drug lobby second to none
FDA: A shell of its former self By M. Asif Ismail July 7, 2005 The pharmaceutical and health products industry has spent more than $800 million in federal lobbying and campaign donations at the federal and state levels in the past seven years, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found. Its lobbying operation, on […]
Posted inHealth, Pushing Prescriptions
Surrogates for their agenda
FDA: A shell of its former self By M. Asif Ismail July 7, 2005 Checkbook politics By Victoria Kreha July 7, 2005 Chances are, the commercial is familiar, seen more often than not at dinnertime: a middle-aged woman begins a discussion by saying, “I can’t even believe I’m talking about this.” The “this” in question […]
Posted inGenetics, Health
A human rights issue
The 45-member Council of Europe, the oldest multilateral political organization on the continent, outlawed “[a]ny intervention seeking to create a human being genetically identical to another human being” by amending its Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine. The additional protocol to the treaty noted that such an action was necessitated by “scientific developments in the […]
Posted inFinance, Inequality
Charities supporting AT&T’s buyout of T-Mobile have financial incentive
The AT&T Michigan headquarters building in Detroit. Paul Sancya/AP Charitable aid — with a catch? AT&T is getting support from some unusual sources in its bid to buy T-Mobile USA. These charities asked the Federal Communications Commission to approve the $39 billion buyout after receiving contributions from the telecommunications giant. Several groups list AT&T as […]
Posted inInequality
Bank-backed House lawmakers try to kill IRS plan to identify $1 trillion in foreign accounts
Two U.S. House members who collected large campaign donations from the financial industry are pushing legislation to block an Internal Revenue Service plan to discourage foreign tax evaders and money launderers from stashing money in U.S. banks. Legislation sponsored by Democrat Gregory Meeks of New York and Republican Bill Posey of Florida would stop the […]
Posted inFinance, Inequality
Bankers, consumer groups clash over IRS plan to crack down on foreign tax cheats
Imagine a coming wave of human and financial disasters: Kidnappings in Latin America. Bank failures in Florida. Millions of jobs lost across the United States. What could cause such chaos? According to American bankers and their allies, a little-noticed proposed change in U.S. tax regulations. These critics were out in force Wednesday at a public […]
Posted inInequality
As IRS crusades against Americans hiding money offshore, Latin American tax cheats flock to U.S. banks
Teams of private bankers working for powerful banks court wealthy people from distant shores with this sales pitch: Move your cash to our country. We will keep it safe and secret. That was the modus operandi of UBS, the Swiss banking giant that was forced to admit holding billions of dollars in covert accounts for […]
Posted inFinance, Inequality
San Francisco bank linked to laundering probe at Bank of New York
From all outward appearances, Boris Avramovich Goldstein is a model immigrant, a successful businessman in the San Francisco Bay area, where he lives in a $1.2 million home and where he founded a variety of firms. But all is not well. In 1994, Goldstein also invested in a local bank. In five short years at […]
Posted inAccountability, Global Muckraking
Interpol’s Red Notices used by some to pursue political dissenters, opponents
Behind the story: Can Interpol avoid politics in its work? By Jasmine Norwood and Emma Schwartz July 18, 2011 Editor Ricardo Sandoval Palos speaks with reporter Libby Lewis about her investigation of Interpol. She found that politics in member countries sometimes influences Interpol’s work. About this story Over five months, the International Consortium of Investigative […]
Posted inAccountability
U.S. lawmakers frustrated by lack of answers about Google Street View Wi-spying
Energy secretary visits Google to talk green energy By Josh Israel and Aaron Mehta October 28, 2010 Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama speaks at Google headquarters in November 2007. Jeff Chiu/The Associated Press Perhaps you’ve seen them trundling past your house — those ruby-red Google Street View compact cars, with a tripod camera mounted on […]
Posted inAccountability
Badly flawed background check system fails to contain firearms sales
Editor’s note, September 19, 2013: The tragic shootings this week at the Washington Navy Yard have rekindled debate over what more might be done to keep firearms from the hands of troubled individuals. Gunman Aaron Alexis had apparently struggled with a variety of mental health issues, but none serious enough to trigger the federal Brady […]
Posted inAccountability
Fact Check: Obama releases long-form birth certificate to try to satisfy critics
President Barack Obama released the long-form version of his birth certificate, yet another piece of concrete evidence that shows he was born in the United States. The White House said he received a special exemption from the Hawaii Department of Health, which keeps the long-form documents confidential. The pdf version of the document can be […]
Posted inAccountability
Daily Watchdog: Deteriorating conditions in Central America pose security threat
Rising violence in Central America may pose an even greater threat to the United States than the turmoil in neighboring Mexico. U.S. backed anti-drug efforts in Colombia and Mexico forced drug trafficking organizations into Central American countries with weak governments and fewer resources to combat criminal activity. As a result, the higher rate of drug […]
Posted inAccountability
Commerce Department has no security monitoring program
The Department of Commerce requires companies to get special export licenses if a foreign worker will have access to certain types of technology, in order to prevent foreign governments or terrorists from acquiring cutting-edge civilian technology to upgrade military capabilities. A review by the Government Accountability Office reveals Commerce has no way to ensure companies […]
