Bush's FDA Chief Seeks to Panic America . Warnings of Terrorist Drug Tampering
By James Boyne
In one more example of how the Bush administration is trying to play to America's fears about terrorism, FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford announced (with absolutely no proof) that terrorists are looking to contaminate our food and drug supply, particularly the imported drugs that seniors so desperately rely on, and that the Bush Administration has been trying to outlaw at the behest of the greedy American pharmaceutical industry lobby.
There are billions of dollars at stake. Revenue and profits of the American pharmaceutical industry depend on bilking the health care insurance industry, the Federal Government, and private patients out of hundreds of billions of dollars by charging astronomical prices. Markups on drugs can often be well over 1000% of what it costs to research and manufacture the pills.
The more Americans can be scared into going down to their local pharmacy and paying double and triple what they would pay for American drugs from Canada, the more the pharmaceutical companies can extort billions of dollars from desperate Americans especially low income, elderly, frail seniors. Right now Americans can purchase identical drugs, made by the exact same drug manufacturers, with the exact same ingredients, in the exact same packaging at a fraction of the cost from Canada .
Canada has one of the strictest, most modern, and most stringent government run drug regulatory systems in the world. It is often way ahead of the American FDA in terms of heading off harmful drugs that are being marketed by American manufacturers here in America . In the 1950's Canada pulled Thalidomide (which caused birth defects) off the Canadian market almost a full year before the FDA finally acceded to the danger, acted, and did the same. Another drug, Serzone, which is used to treat depression, has already been pulled off the market in Canada and all of Western Europe because of possible liver damage side affects. It continues to be marketed (under its generic equivalent) here in the U.S. with full FDA approval.
The Bush Administration is under tremendous pressure to stop the flow of drugs from Canada because it sucks billions of dollars of profit from the all-powerful American pharmaceutical industry. All of Western Europe , Canada , and much of the world has government controlled drug prices in order to protect the health and well being of its citizens from the extortionist drug pricing policies that the pharmaceutical industry would otherwise gravitate to---not America .
Vermont , Michigan and Massachusetts as well as many American municipal governments are all trying to make importation of American drugs from Canada a reality because it can save the state and city governments tens of millions of dollars if they can provide identical drugs at half the price to their employees covered under their insurance plans. No one knows how many Americans would be far sicker, would suffer continuing ill health and deteriorating medical problems if they were cut off from their ability to buy identical drugs at a fair price from our Canadian neighbor.
The FDA's approach to cutting off this vital supply that so many Americans depend upon seems to be, well, there is more than one way to skin a cat, as they say. If the Bush administration and the FDA can't ram through Congress and the Senate legislation that would put an outright ban on purchasing American drugs from Canada then they will just try to play the terrorist card and scare the heebie-jeebies out of the American public.
So, that's exactly what the strategy of the Bush administration is. Whatever the policy initiative is---whether it be the importation of American drugs from Canada; or dismantling our clean air environmental regulations that assure us of breathable air free from industrial airborne contaminants; or watering down the laws that guarantee fresh, clean water that is not contaminated by industrial pollutants; or ramming through Congress new laws that permit irresponsible oil drilling, strip mining, and "free-for-all" plundering of our forests when lumber prices have doubled in the past twelve months---whatever the policy initiative, if the terrorism card it played, the Bush administration will get it done.
The Associated Press yesterday released an article entitled FDA Warns of Terrorist Drug Tampering. On the exact same day the Homeland Security Department contradicted the FDA by saying they had "no specific information" on such a threat.
The article date 8/12 reported, "cues from chatter gathered around the world are raising concerns that terrorists might try to attack the domestic food and drug supply, particularly illegally imported prescription drugs, acting FDA Commissioner Lester M. Crawford says." Crawford said he had been briefed about al-Qaida plans uncovered during recent arrests, and raids, but declined further comment about any possible threats.
The AP article went on to report "Crawford said the possibility of such an attack was the most serious of his concerns about the increase in states and municipalities trying to import drugs from Canada to save money".
Apparently, Crawford based this scare tactic assumption on the 22-year-old Tylenol tampering case from 1982, which was never solved by the FDA or by our Federal regulators, to this day. In a further effort to scare Americans from purchasing American drugs from Canada Crawford said "I would think that's something they (the terrorists) would be looking at"..nothing like that has happened, but it's a source of continuing concern".
Nothing like giving the terrorists ideas----right from the mouth of our chief FDA Commissioner. Maybe Bush should convene a full Cabinet meeting and have each Cabinet member and Department Commissioner announce to the world what we are most afraid of, where we are most vulnerable, and how we are totally unprepared to deal with it. It baffles me as to why politicians, bureaucrats, Bush's Cabinet members, and Bush himself keep announcing to the world of terrorists where we are most vulnerable and what the scariest targets are for us as Americans. Are our leaders nuts?
No, they are not nuts. They are cagey, manipulative, deceptive and deceitful. They have realized that Americans, in the name of being good patriotic citizens, will give up their constitutional rights, will go to war regardless of the reason, will let the Federal Government spend us into oblivion, and will let the full conservative, right wing legislative agenda be heaped upon us. Whether it be moral issues, religious issues, budget issues, or corporate special interests----the Bush administration has realized that if they can scare the heebie-jeebies out of most Americans with the terrorism issue they can steamroll their legislative agenda through Congress and once and for all form a permanent bond between corporate special interests and the Federal laws at the expense of consumers and taxpayers.
So, the FDA chief announces to the world and to the terrorists that we as Americans are scared as hell about terrorists contaminating our food and our drug supply. And in the next breath he says and the Homeland Security Department says that there is no proof that what the FDA chief says is true. They just think its true, because it would be such a good idea from the viewpoint of a terrorist.
In a similar move to infringe on the rights of Americans to prescription drugs and medical care that are safe and effective, the Bush administration sent its chief litigator to try to squash the rights of the sick, the elderly, the ill, and the injured from seeking court awarded damages. A Federal Court , at the behest of the chief Bush FDA trial lawyer, won a victory for corporate special interests by having it declared that the FDA was infallible (see my previous article) Bush Seeks To Crush Rights of Patients and Consumers. FDA Declared Infallible. The theory put forth was that the FDA can not possibly make a mistake so how can one possibly bring litigation against a defective product that can't possibly be defective. Tell that to the 195,000 Americans that died in hospitals last year as a direct result of inadequate, inferior, ineffective and negligent products, services and drugs.
The grand prize of all, of course, is this November's election. As we get closer to Election Day we will undoubtedly be bombarded with political TV commercials with the common theme of how only Bush and the Republicans can save up from terrorism and the potential annihilation that they say will undoubtedly come if Bush isn't re-elected.
This strategy is designed to lull us into the false sense that there aren't 18 million Americans unemployed; that there aren't over 50 million Americans with no health insurance; that there weren't 6 million personal bankruptcies in the last four years; that the Federal Budget deficit isn't really $450 billion dollars; that there aren't 140,000 troops in Iraq with no set date to come home; that we never found any weapons of mass destruction; that the price of gas isn't $2 a gallon; that the price of oil isn't $44 a barrel and predicted to be possibly $55 or $60 a barrel by years end (Wow!); and that President Bush has ushered in an economic policy with job creation that would have made Herbert Hoover look good.
That's the strategy. Terrorism. Scare tactics. Anxiety. Apprehension. Terrorism. Talk of Terrorism. Thoughts of Terrorism. Security. Heightened Security. More scare tactics. Patriotism. Yellow Alerts. Orange Alerts. TV commercials about terrorism with American flags waving in the background with George and Laura sitting holding hands looking solemn and somber. Announcements from the FBI, the CIA and yes, the FDA about threats of terrorism. And to boot, millionaire Republicans contributing and supporting Ralph Nader's candidacy so Nader will draw 5% of the vote away from John Kerry and leave Bush with another so called victory and another four years to drive the final nail into the coffin of our economy.
Americans better wake up. Our economy is about to tank. The stock market is ready for free fall. Oil prices, drug prices, and health care insurance premiums are headed for the stratosphere---and Bush is going to have a field day with our constitutional rights and the full right wing agenda if he is elected again.
James Boyne
For a list of more than twenty articles by James Boyne on opednews.com click on the following link
