Day: August 26, 2009

Liberal U.K. Tamiflu Policy Could Lead to Resistant Flu Worldwide

Buck Banks

Date: Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009
Source: The Guardian [edited]

The [U.K.] government rejected advice from its expert advisers on swine flu [influenza pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus], who said there was no need for the widespread use of Tamiflu and suggested that the public should simply be told to take paracetamol. An independent panel set up by the Department of Health warned ministers that plans to make the stockpiled drug widely available could do more harm than good, by helping the flu virus to develop resistance to the drug. But ministers pressed ahead with a policy of mass prescription, fearing the public would not tolerate being told that the millions of doses of Tamiflu held by the state could not be used during a pandemic, one of the committee members has told the Guardian [newspaper]. “It was felt … it would simply be unacceptable to the UK population to tell them we had a huge stockpile of drugs but they were not going to be made available,” Professor Robert Dingwall, a member of the Committee on Ethical Aspects of Pandemic Influenza, said. Today [16 Aug 2009] one of the country’s foremost flu experts called for the national helpline to be shut down to stop hundreds of thousands of doses of Tamiflu going out in an unregulated way, which could render it useless when a more dominant strain returns in the autumn.

[…]

Poll: 86% Want Universal Coverage; 79% Want Government Option

Jon Ponder

Despite the carefully contrived optics — the cell-phone videos of deranged Tea-Baggers, Birthers and Deathers disrupting town hall meetings; the armed “right wing terrorists” posing menacingly outside the meeting halls; and signs depicting Pres. Obama as Hitler — and in spite of Republican propaganda about death panels and the rest, a new poll finds that huge majorities of American voters of all ages* remain solidly behind the Democrats’ two primary goals for health-insurance reform: insuring everyone and offering the public access to the same coverage available to elected officials, federal employees, the military and veterans:

Nearly 8 in 10 Americans support a federal health insurance plan for those who can’t afford or can’t get private insurance, but only 37 percent define “public option” correctly, a new national poll found.

The majority of people polled — 86 percent — say insurance should be available to everyone regardless of health history.

And:

…79 percent say they believe a federal government health insurance option should be available for people to buy.

*  Update: To be clear, the survey was paid for by AARP but the survey group of 1,000 Democratic, Republican and independent voters was not limited to AARP members. According to this pdf, the age range of those polled was 61 percent 49 years old and younger, and 39 percent 50 years old and older.

[…]

Grassley Lets Call for Violence Against ‘Little Hitler’ and ‘Washington’ Stand

Jon Ponder

During the public comment period of a town hall in Iowa this week led by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, an elderly veteran took the microphone and called for violence against the president and the United States government:

“The president of the United States, that’s who you should be concerned about. Because he’s acting like a little Hitler,” said Tom Eisenhower, a World War II veteran. “I’d take a gun to Washington if enough of you would go with me.”

Grassley — whose oath of office includes swearing fealty to the Constitution and thus the government, and who lives in Washington — pointedly did not disassociate himself from Eisenhower’s call to arms against the government. Instead, the senator responded with faint praise of Pres. Obama followed by a long, rambling spin through RNC talking points that included a laundry list of wrongs the president has perpetrated on the country in the scant seven months he’s been in office.

Among these complaints, a good many were actually perpetrated by Obama’s predecessor. In particular, it is rich that Grassley decried the “Federal Reserve dropping money out of airplanes,” when it was the Bush Administration that, in 2003, shrink-wrapped $100 bills in bundles and then flew 281 million notes weighing 363 tons — $12 billion — into Iraq, where it disappeared forever.

Sen. Grassley was the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee at the time, and never lifted a finger to investigate what is likely the biggest single-shot intra-government heist in world history.

But Grassley’s failure to distance himself from a call for destruction of the government is practically statesmanlike compared to the praise Rep. Wally Herger (R-Calif.) heaped upon a man at a town hall meeting last week who described himself as a “right-wing terrorist.”

“God bless you,” Herger responded. “There goes a great American.” Through a spokesperson, Herger has refused to apologize for endorsing terrorism.

These and other Republican pols are playing with fire. Their silence in response to calls of violence by extremists in their base is de facto assent to the threats — and their assent is now in the public record.