It is a fact that petroleum leaks out of the seafloor and into the ocean on a constant, naturally-occurring basis. It has for centuries – as best as we can tell, it’s actually been millennia. Oil is present in seawater, in other words, and always has been. When massive quantities of the stuff gets released at once, however, it represents an unsafe condition. We don’t want to be immersed in the stuff nor do we want to be ingesting it, either directly with the water or indirectly by consuming seafood that’s been over contaminated. But if oil is always in the seawater, then the seafood we eat is always in contact with it. It is scientifically impossible to get seafood from the open ocean that hasn’t been in contact with petroleum at some level or another.
Ah, but what level is considered unsafe versus safe? That’s what we’ve done research to figure out and what we developed tests to determine. Given the fact that it’s an absolute certainty that there’s some level of these substances present in any seafood we catch, up to what level can we feel secure in seeing and still consider it safe to eat? Since 1970 we’ve had an agency of the federal government around to look at these matters: the EPA. Along with the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), the EPA has set levels that cannot be exceeded and still have a given food store permitted into the food supply. Operating under those guidelines, officials tasked with the responsibility to monitor and report on the safety of seafood coming out of the gulf after the BP oil spill are testing the gulf catch and either opening or closing areas of the gulf for fishing. They are confident their testing methods and abilities are sufficient to make that determination.
Some of the fisherman are reportedly not in agreement:
“We are not here to listen to your protocols,” [fisherman Danny] Ross said. “We have questions and there has been a breakdown in the pipeline since this whole thing started.
“Everybody that works these waters is seeing strange things out there and you cannot tell me that with that much oil and dispersant something did not get contaminated.”
So, if the testing we’re doing and the fact that they’re coming up with a “safe” determination “can’t tell him” that a given area isn’t showing contamination, what is he looking for? He says he doesn’t want to “listen to your protocols” but it’s those protocols that are describing the testing being done. If no amount of testing will do the trick, then how does he suggest we proceed? Ban seafood from the gulf permanently?
I also note that there were no examples given of the “strange things” “everybody” is seeing out there that’s convincing them the area’s contaminated. And I think it’s not unreasonable for people to ask for him and his “everybody” to be able to provide those examples in hard evidence. Of course, if we’re going to hold him to the same standard that he’s using, I’m unsure how he plans on getting the hard evidence. No testing is good enough, remember?
Perhaps there were other questions raised at the meeting that just didn’t get reported but I certainly hope there’s more to it than asking “who’s responsible if someone gets sick.” That’s not a question about how to determine safety, that’s a question about who’s going to pay the jury-awarded penalty to the people who get sick. That’s a legal question, not a scientific one, and if the fisherman want that one answered they should address it to the right people in the right venue. These guys are scientists and lab geeks; they talk tests and data.
To simply dismiss the possibility that seafood from a given area might be safe in the face of the best scientific evidence we can muster isn’t rational and the people who have concerns – rightly, I might add – need to understand that. If they have an issue with the process of determining safety they need to lay their cards on the table and explain themselves. They also need to be ready to help us figure out what would be required to allay their fears.
August 29th, 2010
Posted by
ricjames |
Environment, Human Interest, Medicine, Politics, Science, Technology |
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The White House has apparently come clean about something critics of ObamaCare reported weeks ago. Last Friday the NYT reported that the WH is going to attempt to defend its authority to implement ObamaCare against the various lawsuits filed against it by arguing that it falls within the federal government’s power to tax. There’s a couple of problems with that, as Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air has pointed out. First, he notes that the issue was already covered 3 months ago when Randy Barnett wrote in the Wall Street Journal:
This switch in constitutional theories is a tell: Defenders of the bill lack confidence in their commerce power theory. The switch also comes too late. When the mandate’s constitutionality comes up for review as part of the state attorneys general lawsuit, the Supreme Court will not consider the penalty enforcing the mandate to be a tax because, in the provision that actually defines and imposes the mandate and penalty, Congress did not call it a tax and did not treat it as a tax.
…
This shift won’t work. The Supreme Court will not allow staffers and lawyers to change the statutory cards that Congress already dealt when it adopted the Senate language.
In the 1920s, when Congress wanted to prohibit activity that was then deemed to be solely within the police power of states, it tried to penalize the activity using its tax power. In Bailey v. Drexel Furniture (1922) the Supreme Court struck down such a penalty saying, “there comes a time in the extension of the penalizing features of the so-called tax when it loses its character as such and becomes a mere penalty with the characteristics of regulation and punishment.”
It might also be somewhat difficult to press the case that ObamaCare is a tax considering the plethora of examples of Democratic leadership from Congress to the White House vehemently insisting that this isn’t a tax. Have a look at the link to Morrissey’s post for video examples of those events, most famously the interview of Obama by George Stephanopoulos where Obama gets downright testy about the dictionary definition of “tax.”
The federal government lacks the Constitutional authority to do any such thing remotely like ObamaCare and that fact is becoming very clear to this administration, hence the change-up in justification strategy. Should be interesting.
July 20th, 2010
Posted by
ricjames |
Medicine, Politics |
one comment
This sounds like an incredibly dangerous program to liberty:
Last week, with little fanfare, among the ever deteriorating oil spill crisis, the White House quietly noted the issuance of an executive order “Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council”, in which the president, citing the “authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America” is now actively engaging in “lifestyle behavior modification” for American citizens that do not exhibit “healthy behavior.” At least initially, the 8 main verticals of focus will include: smoking cessation; proper nutrition; appropriate exercise; mental health; behavioral health; sedentary behavior; substance-use disorder; and domestic violence screenings. Eventually we fully anticipate that the program will also target such wholesome activities as screening for precious metal holdings, monthly minimum usage of available revolving credit (and a minimum threshold thereto) and the susceptibility of an individual to stay current on one’s mortgage. Additionally, the president will establish yet another Advisory Group, composed of “experts” picked from the public health field, and one which tracks the successful uptake by the US population of the precepts for a better functioning society that the president deems important.
I suggest you read the linked post for details but here’s one of the duties of the Council the President just created:
(b) develop, after obtaining input from relevant stakeholders, a national prevention, health promotion, public health, and integrative health-care strategy that incorporates the most effective and achievable means of improving the health status of Americans and reducing the incidence of preventable illness and disability in the United States, as further described in section 5 of this order
Emphasis mine. Improving the “health status of Americans” as defined by…? And if the most effective method of improving the health status is to mandate a diet such as will result in a BMI in the “Normal” range how will that be accomplished? Or, perhaps, they could make the recommendation that personal ownership of automobiles represents to great a risk to the health status of Americans and should, therefore, be outlawed?
Don’t tell me they’d never consider it. 20 years ago you’d have never gotten me to believe the US government would take over automobile manufacturers, either. Or that localities would be trying to ban this or that food, you know, “for the good of Americans.” And how, specifically, are people assigned to be on this advisory board? Do we citizens get a say?
June 15th, 2010
Posted by
ricjames |
Law, Medicine, Politics |
2 comments
Another item from the world of medicine came up today as a drug researched by Pfizer is performing well in early testing. This one is a lung cancer treatment:
It’s way too soon to declare success, but an experimental drug for lung cancer patients with a certain gene showed extraordinary promise in early testing, doctors reported at a cancer conference on Saturday.
More than 90 percent of the 82 patients in a study saw their tumors shrink after two months on the drug, Pfizer Inc.’s crizotinib (crih-ZAH-tin-ib), researchers reported.
Doctors had expected only about 10 percent of these very sick patients to respond to the drug, according to one of the study’s leaders, Dr. Yung-Jue Bang of the Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea.
These were people with advanced disease, including some whose cancers had spread to the brain. They had already tried an average of three other drugs. Responses to crizotinib have lasted up to 15 months so far, and the drug has been rushed into late-stage testing, Bang said.
Good, we need to move the really promising drugs forward as quickly as science will allow.
June 5th, 2010
Posted by
ricjames |
Human Interest, Medicine, Science, Technology |
no comments
Ebola. The name conjures visions of a hideous death, far too gruesome and far too slow. And with a 90% mortality rate, it’s as close to certain death to contract it as most of us can conceive.
Until now, possibly:
After decades of unsuccessful research, a collaboration based out of the Army’s labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland has devised an experimental injection that cures the Ebola virus by targeting its genetic material.
The injection uses a novel technique, called RNA interference, to stop viral cells from replicating. Scientists packaged RNA snippets into particles that were then injected into four rhesus monkeys, who’d been infected with a dose of Ebola that was 30,000 times more potent than the virus’ most lethal strain, which already has a measly 10 percent survival rate. The snippets latched onto key viral proteins, and cured all four monkeys after a week of daily injections.
Outstanding news, for a couple of reasons. Obviously, when we find a way to cure a deadly disease, that’s reason enough to celebrate. Moreover, this technique might lend itself to treatments for other, more common diseases. The real killer of an H1N1 epidemic wouldn’t be that virus directly, it’d be the parasitic infections that follow, most commonly viral pneumonia. Aside from treating the symptoms there’s just not a whole lot medicine can do for that disease, yet. Perhaps this technique could change that as well?
Anyway, it’s good news and I hope to be hearing lots more about it in the future.
June 5th, 2010
Posted by
ricjames |
Human Interest, Medicine, Military, Science, Technology |
no comments
Finally, the Loudoun Board of Supervisors has approved the building of a 2nd major hospital in Loudoun County. At Tuesday’s meeting, the board voted for the approval 9-0 making it unanimous. That’s good. I was keeping an eye open toward any resistance to this after all of the complaints raised about how this location was so much better than the Broadlands project. After all of that vitriol, no one who brought up an issue with this project was going to have a leg to stand on but I’ve seen stupider things done around here.
The vote’s complete, the approval is granted. Enough with everything else, just get the building started so we can finally have the additional capacity and operational diversity that’s been missing for so long. This matter is closed.
May 13th, 2010
Posted by
ricjames |
Medicine, Politics, Virginia Politics |
no comments
Remember how Obamacare was supposed to “bend the cost curve down”? That it was going to produce a savings of just over $100 billion? Well the CBO released the latest estimates today and they show it’s actually going to cost $115 billion more than previously thought.
Congressional Budget Office estimates released Tuesday predict the health care overhaul will likely cost about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections.
The additional spending — if approved over the years by Congress — would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to over $1 trillion.
Republicans pounced on the news, which they called another sign that the Obama administration makes promises it cannot deliver.
“The American people wanted one thing above all from health care reform: lower costs, which Washington Democrats promised, but they did not deliver,” said House Minority Leader John A Boehner (R-Ohio). “It was clearly irresponsible for Washington Democrats to force this legislation through Congress without being truthful about its full impact on the nation’s finances. Republicans are fighting to repeal this job-killing health care law and replace it with reforms focused first on lowering costs and protecting American jobs.”
So much for those savings they promised. As Allahpundit over at HotAir said, “Who could have seen that coming, except everyone?” Indeed. Virtually everyone who was being honest about the matter knew full well that it wouldn’t drop costs and that was without even considering the scope manipulation that went on when Congress forced the CBO to only consider 6 years of outlays but 10 full years of revenues. As Republicans have been saying since this whole thing started, there were – and are – ways to reform the system without driving it into government control that will produce the savings everyone’s supposedly looking for. If the Dems would actually bring some of those ideas to open discussion instead of trying to ram everything through while hiding as much as possible we might actually get some reform that’ll do some good.
May 12th, 2010
Posted by
ricjames |
Economy, Medicine, Politics |
no comments
Excellent, the vote was 9-0. Now it’s the Board of Supervisors’ turn. Based on all the previous talk by the Board, especially from those who fought against the Broadlands location, there should be a very quick vote and equally unanimous approval. Let’s see if they were serious.
Thanks to The Loudoun Scoop for the heads-up.
May 3rd, 2010
Posted by
ricjames |
Medicine, Politics, Virginia Politics |
no comments
Immediately following the passage of Obamacare into law, several companies reported major hits to their finances that were going to come as a result of the new law. Henry Waxman and other Democrats responded quickly, condemning the companies and accusing them of misreporting in order to make the new law look bad. Now comes a report – from the Democrats’ own staff – that the companies were not only correct in their assessment but that current accounting practices required them to make those reports.
Representative Henry A. Waxman of California and Bart Stupak of Michigan, both Democrats, opened an investigation and demanded that four companies — AT&T, Caterpillar, Deere and Verizon — supply documents analyzing the “impact of health care reform,” together with an explanation of their accounting methods.
The documents — hundreds of pages of e-mail messages and financial worksheets — include large amounts of data that substantiate the companies’ concerns. They have reignited a battle over the law in Congress.
Representative Joe L. Barton of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said, “From a financial standpoint, from a purely economic standpoint, many companies would be better off discontinuing health care as a fringe benefit, paying the penalty and pocketing the savings.”
In a memorandum summarizing its investigation, the Democratic staff of the committee said, “The companies acted properly and in accordance with accounting standards in submitting filings to the S.E.C. in March and April.”
Waxman, Stupak, and the others who were demanding the CEO’s of those companies appear before them to explain are now canceling those hearings and are trying to spin the whole thing away. The fact of the matter is that the companies were completely correct in their accounting. Which raises a couple of questions.
First, the numbers now make clear that the criticism raised by Republicans that the law would incentivize companies to simply drop their employees’ health benefits all together was on the money. The reports submitted by the companies in question show that they are – for now – spending far more on employees’ insurance than they would pay in penalties if they were to stop providing it completely. From a shareholder’s view – and let us not forget that a lot of Americans are shareholders through their retirement plans – continuing to provide health insurance is a larger expense and, therefore, a larger impact to company profits. Since the bottom line is, well, the bottom line what responsible Board of Directors and CEO would opt to continue to offer the insurance under those conditions?
Second, the fact that Waxman, et al., was outrageously outraged by the initial reports tells you all you need to know about how well they understood the bill they fought tooth and nail to pass. The idea that companies would be better off, financially, to pay the penalties than offer insurance is also something they clearly didn’t get before, in spite of being warned about that explicitly. What about the other complaints raised by Republicans during this whole debacle? The fact that Obamacare wouldn’t “bend the spending curve down” has been confirmed by Obama’s own HHS actuarial department and now this report confirms the financial hits companies are taking, as predicted by Republicans. Perhaps the GOP got quite a bit more about this disastrous legislation, too.
April 27th, 2010
Posted by
ricjames |
Economy, Medicine, Politics |
no comments
Obamacare was passed explicitly to “cover the uninsured” and reduce the costs of healthcare in America. Great goals, as we on the right have been saying all along, but the Obamacare package passed by Congressional Dems over the top of the American public’s majority opposition won’t do any of that. It will raise costs and those promises that you can keep your insurance plan and doctor if you like them were all just hot air. We said this. We were ridiculed – we just didn’t understand or just didn’t want to help people, the accusations went.
How’s that story coming now?
Not one of its major programs has gotten started, and already the wheels are starting to come off of Obamacare. The administration’s own actuary reported on Thursday that millions of people could lose their health insurance, that health-care costs will rise faster than they would have if the law hadn’t passed, and that the overhaul will mean that people will have a harder and harder time finding physicians to see them.
The White House is trying to spin the new report from Medicare’s chief actuary Richard Foster as only half bad because it concludes that, while costs will increase, only 23 million people will remain uninsured (instead of 24 million previously estimated).
But looking at the details of Foster’s report shows the many, many danger signs for Obamacare and how many of its promises will be broken:
The report referenced is by Richard S. Foster, Chief Actuary of the Department of Health & Human Services. He’s basically the top actuary for the Obama Administration’s medical care department. In other words, he knows what he’s talking about and has access to all of the pertinent data. He’s an expert – the administration’s top expert, you might say – in the matters of how the Obamacare numbers are working out and will work out in the future.
His assessment, in a nutshell, is that healthcare costs are going to go up, much higher and faster than if no Obamacare had been passed, millions of people are going to lose their coverage and be shoved into Medicaid, medical services, drugs and devices will all be more expensive for the consumer, and there will still be 23 million people uncovered by the program by 2019. Sounds an awful lot like what we were saying was going to happen.
The big reasons given that this law had to be passed even though the majority of Americans wanted no such thing from their representatives to the federal government, I might add, was to cover all of those uninsured people out there and to “bend the medical cost curve down.” As to the latter, it never made any sense that increasing the number of people covered by federal dollars for their healthcare would reduce the cost. Now that the actuaries have actually looked at it, the numbers are showing that it most certainly won’t. Over the course of the next 10 years, spending on national health services will rise by $311 billion, a bend upward of a net $251 billion over that time period. That’s right – it’s going to cost more, not less like we were told.
As to the former, the Obama administration is trying to put a happy face on this report by saying that having 23 million uninsured by 2019 is better than they expected to have. Well, first off – Huh? The big deal, here, was to cover everyone. Now it’s a good thing that only 23 million people won’t be covered. More importantly, the supporters of this monstrosity continue to conveniently gloss over the fact that there’s a huge difference between insurance coverage and getting medical care. You can be covered all you like, but if you can’t get in to the doctor, what good is it?
One of the primary methods of “realizing savings” in the Medicare program is to simply reduce the amount being paid to doctors for providing services to Medicare patients. According to the report, an estimated 15% of providers (hospitals, doctors, etc.) would not be able to cover their own costs of providing those services at the payment rates being given. In short, this plan only works if those providers voluntarily operate at a loss. Clearly, providers cannot do that and so it’s extremely likely that that 15% would either halt participation in Medicare – something many are already doing – or would simply close their doors entirely. Think about that: a loss of 15% of the Medicare providers at a time when Obamacare is dumping millions of people into Medicare to demand services. It doesn’t take an actuary to realize that that’s going to result in people not seeing the doctors they need to see for longer periods of time. Access to medical care and technology will start taking longer and longer.
Unless, of course, you’re wealthy enough to afford it on your own. Which, I thought, was something this legislation was going to avoid.
Elections have consequences, folks. Putting Obama and the Democrats in office is what allowed them to thumb their collective noses at the will of the American people and put us into this position to begin with. There’s only 1 acceptable way to handle that, and that’s to replace them with people who will 1) recognize the folly of attempting to spend your way to cost reduction and 2) recall that their mandate is to represent the people, not just do things their way and expect their constituents to like it. November is coming. Plan now to cast your vote to curtail the ability of these people to run roughshod over us. Obamacare is the law but we have time to stop it. We just have to act to get it done.
April 26th, 2010
Posted by
ricjames |
Economy, Human Interest, Medicine, Politics |
no comments
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