Cheryl Seal writes: "Two months before 9/11, a report by an independent panel of experts found that the viability of developing and using vaccines to protect soldiers from anthrax, smallpox, and other bioweapons was impractical, poorly conceived, and doomed to failure. But, then 9/11 came and Bush used fear - his prime cattle prod of the American people, especially of Congress - to sweep aside any second thoughts about selling out not just civil liberties, but the well being of our troops. He also used the disaster as a springboard for handing out huge chunks of cash to the pharmaceutical industry - and not just the pharmaceutical industry at large, but preferentially to a select few with ties to the administration. Project Bioshield, decried by most real bioweapons experts as at best ineffective, at worst ridiculous, pumps $6-10 billion in biotech research over the next 10 years, focusing on projects with the least likelihood of protecting Americans against a real attack."

Here's the "State Version" via AP: " Bush signed legislation to develop and stockpile vaccines and other antidotes to chemical and germ attacks, saying the measure [Project Bioshield] will "rally the great promise of American science and innovation to confront the greatest danger of our time." Now read the real story: "What it may ultimately amount to is one of the hugest corporate giveaways in US history. Many biomedical researchers say that the directives of Project BioShield are so grandiose and vague that they cannot be implemented -not even begun, in fact- until the research infrastructure is greatly expanded. This means the construction of new labs, office centers and research clinics, to the tune of billions of dollars.Guess who would be handed the keys to all these nice new taxpayer-funded Project BioShield facilities? Pfizer, BioPort, Bayer, and the other pharmaceutical pigs already circling the bioterrorism trough, that's who."

Look at this thinly veiled pitch for the drug barons from Forbes: "Americans get fatter every year, and drug companies are racing to treat the resulting health problems--but first they have to prove to the U.S. FDA that their anti-fat drugs don't cause cancer.' [gee, what a hardship]. "That hurdle is delaying the development of a particularly promising group of drugs for treating obesity-related health problems. These drugs are the PPAR agonists, which aim to trip master switches in the cell that control the absorption of fat and sugar in the bloodstream." Every single major drug company is racing ahead with PPAR drugs and now using the media to try to create a public demand to force them through the FDA "pipeline." But under Bush, the number of drugs "rushed thru" only to be recalled after causing serious problems. And now the Bush HHS wants to declare obesity a "disease" to enable fed. $ to go to these treatments.

The Guardian reports: "Cancer groups in London yesterday demanded that basic life-saving cancer drugs be made available to poor children who they said were suffering and dying because of lack of funds. Each year, of the 250,000 children diagnosed with the disease worldwide, up to 80% die because treatments are not available, or affordable, in poor countries. Cancer charities and patient groups said one way to help would be to put basic cancer drugs on the World Health Organisation essential drug list so they can be given to children who need them. 'The same sort of model that is being used for Aids drugs should apply to these,' said Tim Eden, president of the International Society of Paediatric Oncology, referring to moves to reduce prices of anti-Aids drugs. 'There is an assumption that treating cancer is expensive, but it doesn't have to be.'"

"US drug lobbyists were peddling misinformation about Australia's medicine subsidy scheme to secure a better deal under a free trade agreement, federal Health Minister Tony Abbott warned a delegation from Washington yesterday," reports The Australian. "Abbott accused drug lobbyists of waging a dishonest campaign against [Australia's Prescription Benefit Scheme].'Misleading information is being peddled in Washington...The PBS is not a rationing system but a subsidy system. The PBS does not deny access to US drugs but treats them exactly the same as drugs made in Australia or elsewhere.' " The trouble, of course, is that US drug barons, as always, want to ram their inflated-priced products down consumer throats by cutting out the competition. Drug industry liars named by Abbott include Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Gordon Smith (R-O).

"Hundreds of articles in medical journals claiming to be written by academics or doctors have been penned by ghostwriters in the pay of drug companies, an Observer inquiry reveals. The journals...have huge influence on which drugs doctors prescribe and the treatment hospitals provide...many articles written by so-called independent academics may have been penned by writers working for agencies which receive huge sums from drug companies to plug their products. Estimates suggest that almost half of all articles published in journals are by ghostwriters. These papers endorsing certain drugs are paraded in front of GPs as independent research to persuade them to prescribe the drugs."

Cheryl Seal writes: "Donald Rumsfeld was, until 2001, Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, Inc. Since 2001, Gilead's profits have nearly quadrupled. How did they do it? By having more than a few strings pulled for them. Like including Gilead's drug Cidofovir in the short list of anti-bioweapon drugs for Bush's $6-10 billion pork barrel known as Project Bioshield - overriding the serious concerns of several experts, including Donald Henderson, head of the Office of Public Health Preparedness. Henderson spoke out against the proposed use of Cidofovir in the spring of 2002. Shortly afterward, he was removed form his office, while Cidofovir was added to the list of Project Bioshield's preferred drugs."

"A senior executive with Britain's biggest drugs company has admitted that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them. Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them. It is an open secret within the drugs industry that most of its products are ineffective in most patients but this is the first time that such a senior drugs boss has gone public." Yet Bush continues to shower cash on the pharmaceutical industry!

LA Times: "Dual roles - federal research leader and drug company consultant - are increasingly common at the National Institutes for Health, an agency once known for independent scientific inquiry on behalf of a single client: the public. Two decades ago, the NIH was so distinct from industry that Margaret Heckler, secretary of Health and Human Services in the Reagan administration, could describe it as 'an island of objective and pristine research, untainted by the influences of commercialization.' Today, with its senior scientists collecting paychecks and stock options from biomedical companies, the NIH is no longer an island... Increasingly, outside payments to NIH scientists are being hidden from public view. Relying in part on a 1998 legal opinion, NIH officials now allow more than 94% of the agency's top-paid employees to keep their consulting income confidential."

Right now, as the worst flu season in decades is already hitting many states, there is a shortage of vaccines. In fact, there is a shortage of ALL childhood immunization vaccines. Why? Because Bush has made it much more profitable for the pharmaceutical industry to devote resources to developing 'anti-bioterrorism' treatments, by peddling their wares to a captive audience - vaccines and medicines to US troops, or sucking up plentiful Bush biotech research dollars. As a result, too few companies are bothering with real and immediate needs of Americans. Just like Bush. What a nice follow-up "present" to the Medifraud Bill.

Nature Magazine reports that major drug companies are pulling out of antibiotic development right when drug-resistant infections are reaching epidemic proportions. Why? The companies want to concentrate on chronic illnesses that require constant, pricey pill popping and porky Bush-funded "biodefense" research. But, says Nature, "The need for new drugs has never been greater. Resistance to antibiotics is growing - 20% of infections in US hospitals involve multidrug-resistant bacteria." The drug company Pharmacia reports that 58,000 Americans die of hospital-acquired infections each year, making it the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S. "The pipeline of new antibiotics is running dry, the FDA has approved just two this year. 'There's unequivocal evidence that antimicrobial research is on a steep downward slope," said John Edwards, head of policy at the Infectious Diseases Society of America.'"

NY Times reports: "The Bush administration threatened today to take legal action against health plans and insurance companies that help people import low-cost prescription drugs from Canada. In addition, William K. Hubbard, associate commissioner of the agency, said that anyone who facilitates such imports faced potential 'civil and criminal liability.' Thus, Mr. Hubbard said, insurance companies and health plans that pay for prescription drugs bought outside the United States may be violating the law."

One of the biggest windfalls to come down the pike for the drug industry (Bush's best buddies) is the smallpox 'scare.' Bush is handing them the chance to make a killing with virtually no overhead by selling off vaccines that have been gathering dust in storage since 1972. When you're talking millions of doses, that's a pretty sweet deal, eh? Other companies are hoping to cash in by rushing inadequately tested "new" smallpox vaccines to market, while others are trying to make even more money by diluting the old vaccines up to fivefold - without knowing if it will confer protection or not. As always, the Bush administration cares about the health of the pharmaceutical companies' wallets more than the health of millions of Americans - whose lives he will place at risk for the benefit of the former.

Sen. Barbara Boxer writes, "In the dead of the night, the Republicans rewarded one of their biggest campaign contributors - the pharmaceutical companies - by adding a provision to the Homeland Security bill that has nothing to do with homeland security.. This provision will create insecurity in our homeland by sending a message to thousands and thousands of families that their children's health takes a distant second place to large corporations. In my state of California, autism - a haunting and mysterious brain disorder - has increased an astonishing 273% among children over the last decade. Dr. Neil Halsey, a respected pediatrician and scholar, says there is 'some real risk to children' from vaccines that contain mercury. So what provision do Republicans put into this bill? A provision that holds harmless any company that produces mercury-based preservatives for vaccines. And what does this mean to families with autistic children? They will be left with the short end of the stick."

The NY Times writes, "With high drug prices becoming an acrimonious part of the health care debate, attention has justifiably focused on the devious tactics used by some pharmaceutical companies to extend the patents of their best-selling drugs, forestalling competition from cheaper generics. These underhanded tactics must be stopped. The issue arises because some drug companies have resorted to clever legal stratagems to extend the effective life of their patents beyond the 20 years originally granted to allow them to recoup the huge costs of developing a drug and make a reasonable profit. Some of these maneuvers take advantage of existing loopholes in the law; others appear downright fraudulent." No surprise here - that's what happens when Republicans are in charge. Defeat ALL Republicans!

One of the arguments that the pharmaceutical industry loves to use to convince Congress that regulation of drug prices is not necessary is that they already have programs that provide the uninsured with medicine for free. However, access to these freebie programs are made nearly impossible - on purpose - by not publicizing them, burying them at obscure sites, etc. The idea, of course, is for the Drug Barons to scoop up on the political/public relations benefits of the scheme without ever having to actually shell out for it! That's the corporate (and Bush Administration) way! Well, we have uncovered one of their programs. Let's help force the drug companies to put their money where their mouths are! Pass this on to every appropriate outlet you know! You'll be doing a public service, and forcing the drug barons to make good on promises intended to be hollow! Then, sit back and listen to 'em scream!

This week, the editors of 13 leading medical journals joined forces to expose the unethical practices used by the pharmaceutical industry to report favorable results in drug trials. Such schemes permit ineffective drugs or worse yet, drugs with dangerous side effects to be hustled to market. So has the network news made this important revelation its main story? Of course not! Here we show how the drug companies operate hand in glove with universities and network news to screw - or even kill - the consumer.

This week, the editors of 13 leading medical journals joined forces to expose the unethical practices used by the pharmaceutical industry to report favorable results in drug trials. Such schemes permit ineffective drugs or worse yet, drugs with dangerous side effects to be hustled to market. So has the network news made this important revelation its main story? Of course not! Here we show how the drug companies operate hand in glove with universities and network news to screw - or even kill - the consumer.

The world's leading medical journals are stepping in where mainstream media has failed the public miserably and going after drug companies who fake research results in order to push treatments to market. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the Lancet (the UK equivalent), and the New England Journal of Medicine are just three of 13 journals that have joined forces to confront the drug barons. They now reveal that pharmaceutical giants routinely use financial blackmail against universities to extort results that will ensure a drug makes it quickly to market. In some cases, the researchers are blocked from gaining access to data that would show if the drug really worked or if it had side effects. In others, researchers are railroaded into trial designs aimed at skewing the results. These are the same corporations that continue to hold the American healthcare system - and our spineless pResident - in thrall.

"The pharmaceutical industry is asking a lot of the American public," writes Marcia Angell, MD in the "American Prospect," "Even as it reaps its huge profits, it is being heavily subsidized by taxpayers through research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), government-granted patents, and extraordinary tax breaks. The largest drug companies now pocket about 30 percent of their revenues in profits, while spending well under 20 percent for research and development--which many critics believe includes marketing research." Meanwhile, the drug barons spend TWICE as much on ad campaigns and executive salaries as they do on research. Yet they want patients to foot ever more of their bills.

We believe Bush is engineering the stem cell funding system in a way that will channel huge sums (both now in fed money and later through mega patents) to research facilities that are already tied to pharmaceutical/biotech corporations. Case in point: Geron. Geron funded stem cell research for the U. Wisconsin (Tommy Thompson's home state) in 1998, then, once cells were successfully derived, formed a commercial research insitute called WiCell. Now, Bush has bent the ethics rules in a way that will give WiCell, in essence, a huge corner on the US stem cell market (only 6 lines are believed to exist in the US). As a result, treatment costs will ultimately be huge, rather than accessible to all. We find it extremely interesting that a day or so BEFORE Bush's announcement, Geron stock suddenly soared. Btw: We think the claim of 60 eligible cell lines is just a smokescreen to hide Bush's channeling of fed money to a few corporations, including Geron.

Bush's stem cell decision was, on the surface, a great piece of diplomacy, giving the medical field some hope, while placating conservatives. Below the surface (there's ALWAYS a "below the surface" with Bush) the decision was a desperate effort to help his richest supporter, the pharmaceutical industry - which stands to gain immensely by new treatments - while APPEARING not to depart from his supposed conservative Christian beliefs. The decision was a non-decision, so fraught with ambiguity (for example, just what will the "federal regulators" role be?) that it doesn't solve anything, and will likely make things worse. By withholding federal money from research, more money - and thus more control - will come from the pharmaceutical industry. Just try to hold THEM to a moral standard! In short, Bush's copout on making an honest ethical decision has opened the door to greater ethical problems, as well as regulations (by a Bush-picked panel) that will be far more arbitrary.

It seems the drug industry pulls as many "wonder drugs" off the shelf as it puts on. Now the popular cholesterol-lowering medicine Baycol from Bayer Pharmaceutical is being yanked because it is linked to at least 31 deaths. Earlier, Gleevec (by Novartis), which was touted to all but cure chronic myeloid leukemia, was found to induce RESISTANCE in the cancer (see second story at http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=3987). What is happening is that the industry is making billions by gambling with human life. Even 31 lawsuit settlements will barely make a dent in the profits gained by rushing a drug to market, pumping it up on the nightly news (first as "news," then as endless commercials), then raking in the cash quickly before anything happens. We demand that massive refunds to consumers be the penalty for failed drugs to end the "rush it to market, kill a few desperate patients, and hope for the best."

Rosemary Morgan has no qualms about breaking the law to save $330 a month on her prescription drugs. In fact, she sees no reason why all seniors don't do it. ``When it comes to the high cost of prescription drugs, I feel it's time for some civil disobedience,'' the 66-year-old breast cancer patient. ``There's legality and then there's morality.'' Morgan pays $43 for a 100-day supply of tamoxifen when she gets the drug over the Internet from CanadaRX, a mail-order pharmacist based in Canada. If she bought the medication in the United States, she'd pay $372 for the same amount``This is chutzpah spelled G-R-E-E-D,'' said Isaac Ben Ezra, a board member of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council and activist for lower drug prices. ``What the drug companies are doing makes the robber barons of the 19th century look like they're Boy Scouts.

No wonder the drug industry is out of control. Last year, it spent $262 million to buy political influence, keeping 625 different lobbyists schmoozing in style. Half of these lobbyists, were former members of Congress. 33 served as Chief of Staff to congresspersons, 11 worked for the House Ways and Means Committee (which oversees a Medicare drug bill), 8 worked for the Senate Judiciary Commttee (where drug patent law is crafted), 6 worked for Bush, Sr., 5 for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; 4 for former Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch; 5 for current Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Ted Kennedy; 4 for ex-Senate Majority leader Trent Lott. $625,000 was spent just on inaugural "thankyou parties" for their man, Bush. Read this report carefully, then post EVERYWHERE! The public needs to see this and NOW.

If you think the pharmaceutical industry isn't behind Shrubcheney's efforts to trash the Biological Weapons Convention, then check this site out. For years, the industry has been tracking the BWC's progress - eager to make sure it DOESN'T progress. These are sophisticated folks, good at making the outrageous look "reasonable" (like explaining why they can charge $100 for a drug with a generic value of $4). Their biggest gripe with the BWC is the required on-site inspections to insure no bio-war organisms are being produced. Their arguments are ridiculous, no matter how slickly presented and boil down to this: 1. Terrorists could figure out a way to use kitchen germs as a weapon, so why inspect government-protected drug plants (huh!?) and 2. Since the industry NEVER misuses its facilities, inspections are unwarranted (gee, that's what Saddam Hussein always says). Bottom line - the industry is in cahoots with Cheney and about half the new administration and its Congressional toadies.

Bush has refused to accept a plan to enforce a 1972 treaty banning biological weapons - weapons that could inflict anthrax, bubonic plague, encephalitis, and other epidemics on innocent civilians - and they are all horrible ways to go. Although the Administration has not admitted it, our resident science journal abstractor tells us that enforcement means routine inspections of pharmaceutical plants by an international task force. US drug cos have lobbied against because of the extremely remote chance that an inspector might snoop on new products (that's the excuse, anyway - we say, what are they hiding?). So once again, Shrub is compromising the safety of YOU and YOUR CHILDREN to protect corporate interests. Is this the world we want?

At the same time the big drug companies are being investigated for price gouging and rebuked for withholding affordable AIDS medicines from Africa, one of them is preparing to exploit native Africans to rake more cash into its already-bloated coffers. Pfizer wants to plunder the bush country (NOT as in George W.) in southern Africa for a cactus vital to the survival of the bushmen. Why? There's evidence a compound in the Hoodia cactus is a "cure" for obesity. Millions have changed hands (Pfizer bought the rights for $21 million) the exploiters took the bushmen into account. Their excuse: they thought the bushmen (who number around 100,000 across southerhn Africa) were extinct. We have a better cure for obesity -- have all overweight Americans and Europeans eat less and send the money they save to an African AIDS fund!