Evelyn Pringle November 2004
Bush Family $$$ Signs
After Dick Cheney's tenure at the Pentagon ended in 1993, he spent much of the next two years deciding whether to run for President. He formed a political-action committee, and crossed the country making speeches and raising money. (Contact Sport, The New Yorker, 2/16/04).
Records from the FEC show that Cheney's PAC contributors included executives of the companies that have since won the largest contracts in Iraq. Among them were Thomas Cruikshank, Halliburton's CEO at the time; Stephen Bechtel, whose family's firm now has a contract in Iraq worth as much as $2.8 billion; and Duane Andrews, then senior VP of Science Applications International Corporation, which has won seven contracts in Iraq.
However, while Cheney and his pals may well be the most blatant profiteers in Iraq, they are by no means the only ones involved in this grand war profiteering scheme commonly referred to as the "War on Terror." The #1 spot on the list belongs to the First Family.
War Is Family Business
Here's where the web of deceit really gets complicated. There are so many ties between the Bush family, the defense industry, and the global arms trade, that it’s almost impossible to keep track of them all. But yet the widespread ties are hardly ever even mentioned in the mainstream media. Or a revelation might show up for a day or two and then it's like oh well, what's new.
Lets Start At The Top - The First President Bush
When Jr. took office, Bush (Sr.) was a member of the Carlyle Group. The firm is almost entirely made up of ex-government officials and it is said to be the world's most politically connected private equity firm.
The complaints about the Bush family connections with the Carlyle Group began long before 9/11. As early as March 3, 2001, shortly after Bush Jr.’s inauguration, Judicial Watch issued a press release that said:
"Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm that investigates and prosecutes government abuse and corruption, called on former President George Herbert Walker Bush to resign immediately from the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm, while his son President George W. Bush is in office. Today's New York Times reported that the elder Bush is an "ambassador" for the $12 billion private investment firm and last year traveled to the Middle East on its behalf. The former president also helped the firm in South Korea.
The New York Times reported that as compensation, the elder Bush is allowed to buy a stake in the Carlyle Group's investments, which include ownership in at least 164 companies throughout the world (thereby by giving the current president an indirect benefit). James Baker, the former Secretary of State who served as President George W. Bush's point man in Florida's election dispute, is a partner in the firm. The firm also gave George W. Bush help in the early 1990's when it placed him on one of its subsidiary's board of directors.
This is simply inappropriate. Former President Bush should immediately resign from the Carlyle Group because it is an obvious conflict of interest. Any foreign government or foreign investor trying to curry favor with the current Bush Administration is sure to throw business to the Carlyle Group. And with the former President Bush promoting the firm's investments abroad, foreign nationals could understandably confuse the Carlyle Group's interests with the interests of the United States government," stated Larry Klayman, Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel.
"Questions are now bound to be raised if the recent Bush Administration change in policy towards Iraq has the fingerprints of the Carlyle Group, which is trying to gain investments from other Arab countries who [sic] would presumably benefit from the new policy," stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
As a rule, I'm not a major fan of Judicial Watch; however in this case their comments are almost prophetic.
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, it became known that Bush Sr. was financially linked to the bin Laden family. The September 28, 2001 Wall Street Journal reported that, "George H.W. Bush, the father of President Bush, works for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, an international consulting firm."
When Sr. hooked up with the Carlyle Group, his special area of influence was the Middle East, and especially Saudi Arabia investors. One of the investors that he brought to Carlyle was the Bin Laden Group, a construction company owned by the family of none other than future US #1 enemy Osama bin Laden.
According to an investigation by the WSJ, Sr. convinced Osama's brother, Shafiq bin Laden, to invest $2 million of Bin Laden Group money with Carlyle.
"The senior Bush had met with the bin Laden family at least twice in the last three years -- 1998 and 2000 -- as a representative of Carlyle, seeking to expand business dealings with one of the wealthiest Saudi families which, some experts argue, has never fully severed its ties with black sheep Osama in spite of current reports in a mainstream press that is afraid of offending the current administration," the Journal reported.
I'm no expert, but I even knew that 6 months prior to 9/11, Osama appeared in a video taken at his son's wedding, along with his mother, his son, and his son's new wife. I guess the family must have got into a tiff after the wedding.
The WSJ went on to outline the details of the family's investment. The bin Laden firm invested $2 million in Carlyle Partners II Fund, which raised a total of $1.3 billion overall. The fund purchased several aerospace companies among 29 deals. "So far, the family has received $1.3 million back in completed investments and should ultimately realize a 40% annualized rate of return," a Carlyle executive told the WSJ.
On September 27, the WSJ said it confirmed that a meeting took place between Sr. and the bin Laden family through Sr's Chief of Staff Jean Becker, but only after the WSJ showed Becker a personal thank you note that Bush Sr. sent to the bin Ladens after the meeting.
Here's a little known fact that may bring goose bumps to some. On 9/11, Shafiq bin Laden was at a meeting in the office of the Carlyle Group, and stood watching TV as the WTC was destroyed under the instruction of his brother.
So in a nutshell, Osama's attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, which led to a massive increase in defense spending, most likely made the Bush family a great deal of money. And the real kicker is that the attack may have even enriched his own family.
How Does Carlyle Make Its Money?
It's been estimated that Carlyle has investments in over 300 companies, and the majority of them derive revenues from military and security contracts. In fact, Carlyle is the country’s 11th largest defense contractor. In 2002, it received $677 million in government contracts, and in 2003, it was awarded contracts worth another $2.1 billion.
Business has definitely improved for the firm since Jr. took office. For example, one of its subsidiaries, Vought Aircraft, now holds over $1 billion in defense contracts. Prior to 2001, the company's future was iffy at best. Right before 9/11, it had actually laid off 20% of its workforce. But low and behold, business picked right back up with the air strikes on Afghanistan and the war in Iraq.
Carlyle's ties go directly into the Oval Office. In fact, a list of past employees has Jr.'s name on it. He was actually employed by Carlyle at on point in his life. According to a story in Harper's Magazine, Jr. held a position as a corporate director on the board of the Carlyle subsidiary, Caterair. Until he was politely told to hit the road because he didn't have anything to offer the company.
In addition, in March 1995, while Jr. was governor of Texas governor and a senior Trustee of the University of Texas, the University of Texas Endowment placed $10 million in investments with the Carlyle Group. Who knows how much of that investment money benefited the bin Ladens.
Side-Kick James Baker
Sr.'s top sidekick, James Baker, is also a player with the Carlyle Group. He joined the firm immediately after his stint as Sr.'s Secretary of State ended, bringing a briefcase packed full of global connections to the firm. Carlyle's revenues tripled after Baker came on board
Much like Bush Sr., Baker's main duty was to manage the firm's relationships with Saudi clients. He not only handled investment deals, it was also his job to look after the key interests of Saudi investors. For instance, when the Justice Department began an investigation into the financial dealings of Saudi Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, guess who the prince turned to for help? You got it, Baker.
And get this, Baker is currently defending the prince in a trillion dollar lawsuit brought by the families of the victims of the 9/11. The suit accuses the prince of using Islamic charities to funnel millions of dollars to known terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda.
Carlyle is also cashing in on the Homeland Security front and the enactment of the Patriot Act. Two Carlyle companies, Federal Data Systems and US Investigations Services, hold multi-billion dollar contracts to provide background checks for airlines, the Pentagon, the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. USIS used to be a federal agency, until it was privatized in 1996 and snatched up by Carlyle. Needless to say, it's now making money hand over fist.
Baker and Carlyle Hard At It
Baker and Carlyle have been hard at it behind the scenes, profiting in ways so blatant that a secret deal revealed by The Nation magazine (and since reported in most major newspapers) gives a whole new meaning to the term war profiteering.
As most people know, Bush Jr. appointed Baker to be his special envoy on Iraq's debt. His mission was to meet with presidents and prime ministers around the world and ask them to forgive Iraq's debt in the name of the reparation needs of the country.
When Baker was appointed, questions about conflict of interest were raised because of his ties to the Carlyle Group, which has extensive business interests in the Middle East. His law firm, Baker Botts, was also brought up because both firms have strong links to the Saudi Royal Family, which happens to hold a great deal of Iraq's debt.
In fact, the New York Times published an editorial upon the announcement of Baker being appointed special envoy that called for Baker to resign from both Carlyle because he was a partner, and Baker Botts.
In response to the editorial, Jr. said he doesn't read editorials, but assured the world that Baker was a man of high integrity. Carlyle submitted a signed statement that said: "Carlyle does not engage in lobbying or consulting," and "Carlyle does not have any investment in Iraqi public or private debt."
Well that was then and this now. According to confidential documents obtained by The Nation, including a 65-page proposal to the Kuwaiti government, Carlyle has sought to secure a $1 billion investment from Kuwait using Baker's influence as debt envoy. The secret deal involved a plan to transfer ownership of up to $57 billion in unpaid Iraqi debts owed to Kuwait. The debts would be assigned to a foundation created by a consortium in which the key players are the Carlyle Group and the Albright Group, headed by former secretary of state Madeline Albright, along with several other well-connected firms.
So it boils down to this, the Carlyle Group was engaged in lobbying to secure Iraq's debt at the same time that Baker was asking the world to forgive those debts. Under the deal, Kuwait would give the consortium $2 billion up front to invest in a private equity fund, with half of it going to Carlyle.
The Nation showed the documents to Jerome Levinson, an international lawyer and expert on political and corporate corruption at American University. He called it "one of the greatest cons of all time. The consortium is saying to the Kuwaiti government, 'Through us, you have the only chance to realize a substantial part of the debt. Why? Because of who we are and who we know.' It's influence peddling of the crassest kind."
Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University and a leading expert on government ethics and regulations, told The Nation that this means Baker is in a "classic conflict of interest. Baker is on two sides of this transaction: He is supposed to be representing the interests of the United States, but he is also a senior counselor at Carlyle, and Carlyle wants to get paid to help Kuwait recover its debts from Iraq," she said. "Carlyle and the other companies are exploiting Baker's current position to try to land a deal with Kuwait that would undermine the interests of the US government."
Just listen how they described The Carlyle Group, "a private equity team, has earned its reputation by successfully consummating deals at the intersection of politics and finance, with its roster of political stars, including, among others, former US Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, former British Prime Minister John Major, and until recently, former US President George Bush."
I like that "stars." Is that kind of like Hollywood stars except they are from Washington?
The document goes on to state: "The extent to which these individuals can plan an instrumental rule in fashioning strategies is now more limited ... due to the recent appointment of Secretary Baker as the President's envoy on international debt, and the need to avoid an apparent conflict of interest."
Yet it goes on to say that this will soon change: "We believe that with Secretary Baker's retirement from his temporary position, that Carlyle and those leading individuals associated with Carlyle will then once again be free to play a more decisive role..." according to The Nation.
I wonder if this means we're going to lose our special envoy. Retirement?
The proposal goes on to tell Kuwait that in the near future, 40 state-owned Iraqi enterprises will be available for leasing and management contracts. Is that kind of like privatizing public utilities? 40 of them, huh? You mean we are going to do all that for Iraq? Does that mean that the Iraqis might have clean water, and not have raw sewage in their streets anytime soon? I suppose that would be a good thing.
Now where in the world did the Iraqis ever get the idea that we wanted to take over their country? I've never been able to figure out why they would ever think that.
For those readers wondering about how much progress Baker has made in the 10 months in his position as special envoy, I'd have to say not much. The negotiations apparently are kind of stalled.
Senator Joe Biden recently asked Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq, about the status of the international negotiations to get other countries to forgive Iraq's debts. He asked, "Has a single nation in the G8 ... formally said or requested of their parliaments to forgive Iraqi debt?"
"Not yet. No sir," Schlicher answered.
According to The Nation: "Not only has Baker failed to deliver any firm commitments for debt forgiveness; at the annual meeting of the International Fund on October 2, it emerged that France had done an end run around Washington and was pushing a debt-relief deal of its own. ... a plan to cancel only 50% of Iraq's debts -- a far cry from the 90-95 % cancellation Washington had been demanding. Yet Baker was nowhere to be found."
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Bush Doing Corporate Bidding While On The Clock
Evelyn Pringle November 5, 2005
Among Latin Americans, polls show George W Bush to be the most unpopular American president in history. On November 3, 2005, the Argentine daily reported the results of a poll that showed 6 out of ten Argentines opposed Bush’s presence in their country.
In the same poll, 75% of those surveyed said they welcomed a visit by Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, Bush's staunchest opponent in his up-ill battle to win passage of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
The FTAA, with the exception of Cuba, would include all Caribbean and Latin American countries. If passed, some experts predict that it will be the largest free trade agreement in history, with an expected combined GDP of over $9 trillion, and a market of more than 750 million people.
The FTAA agreement was designed to bring 34 countries into a single market but it missed its deadline for enactment on January 1, 2005. Earlier this year, 10-year drive toward passage of FTAA was derailed completely after talks broke down when Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil made it clear that they were unwilling to accept the terms set forth by the Bush administration.
In the meantime, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was signed in August 2005, to extend the policies of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), to Central American countries to include Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, with a side agreement with the Dominican Republic (DR-CAFTA).
Overall, the FTAA faces widespread opposition in Latin America and for good reason. 20 years of NAFTA's so-called economic reforms have resulted in widespread poverty, high unemployment, massive debt, and a series of other economic crises.
Bush is hoping to get the deal back on track while attending the summit, but his prospects look grim. Protests against his visit were already underway in Argentina, 3 days before he got there, with the blocking of bridges and streets in the capital of Buenos Aires, and posters bearing the slogans "Stop Bush" and "Fuera Bush," some of which were superimposed over graphic pictures of wounded children in Iraqi.
Argentine Nobel Prize winner, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, recently told a radio audience that Bush is "a torturer, violator of human rights, an assassin, a violator of United Nations resolutions, of international treaties and of the sovereignty of peoples, as has happened in Iraq."
There were even attempts to obtain a court order to bar Bush from entering the county and back in July 2005, Daniel Katz, the mayor of Mar del Plata, described Bush as the "most unpleasant guy in the world."
Same Old GOP Tactics To Pass CAFTA
"Though constituents widely opposed CAFTA, the agreement passed Congress through the use of bribery, threats, and deception," according to the article, Vote-buying and Arm-twisting, by William F Jasper on August 22, 2005.
The Senate and House set new lows for political prostitution, corruption, and betrayal, with the White House and Republican leaders openly propositioning members in the halls of Congress with billions of dollars in federal projects, along with promises of special trade concessions, Jasper maintains, "all to win passage of a misbegotten agreement that will cost America hundreds of thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in foreign aid, additional waves of illegal aliens, and further entanglement in sovereignty-destroying international regulatory regimes," he wrote.
Congressman, Ron Paul (R-Texas), one of the 27 Republicans who voted against CAFTA, said the vote-buying price tag may end up being $50 billion or more. "Most of the bribery is hidden away in projects funded by the massive energy and transportation appropriation bills," he told Jasper.
The truth is, CAFTA will do nothing to improve the US economy. In an August 30, 2005 letter to the Forum, Rep Earl Pomeroy (D-ND), tells how "the economies of the CAFTA countries is smaller than that of the state of Connecticut, just two-thirds that of Minneapolis-St. Paul. The idea that we are instantly going to be sending trucks and ships full of American products – high-quality commodities and goods – to the citizens of these countries, where 40 percent of workers earn less than $2 a day, is simply a myth."
In per capita terms, "the countries range from Nicaragua with a GNI per capita of $730, which the World Bank classifies as a low-income country, to Costa Rica with per capita income of $4,280, which is classified as an upper middle income country. The rest of the countries are classified as lower middle-income countries by the World Bank," according to an August 4, 2005 CRS Report for Congress.
The economies of the countries in Central America are so poor that they cannot afford to buy a significant quantity of any product from the US. "With a combined national income of about $84 billion, the Gross National Incomes (GNI) of the countries range from $5.5 billion for Nicaragua to $23.5 billion for Guatemala," according to the CRS Report.
But then the true goal of CAFTA has never been about making money off these tiny countries. Three years ago the Bush administration admitted that the purpose of CAFTA was to instigate a drive for the passage of FTAA, in a January 16, 2002 press release upon opening of negotiations for CAFTA: "This negotiation will complement the United States’ goal of completing the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) no later than January 2005 by increasing the momentum in the hemisphere toward lowering barriers," it said.
According to, Protectionism And Free Trade, by Harley Shaiken, "the DR-CAFTA is more a pleading of special interests than a free-trade deal. It manages simultaneously to fleece the people of six poor countries and to put U.S. workers in harm's way," in Tom Paine, on May 31, 2005.
Bush Lobbies For Pharma
By now, the records of the House ethics committee confirm that the Bush administration and its puppets in Congress, do little more than provide a trolley for private gain. I for one am getting tired of watching these lobbyists doing their bidding while on the clock, in addition to tax payers having to foot the bill for all expense paid trips to foreign countries.
While pursuing these trade agreements, Bush is doing the bidding for Pharma, his party's top campaign contributor. CAFTA was clearly designed to protect the interests of large drug companies in Central America. Drug makers currently invested in Costa Rica include Abbott, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly and Bristol-Meyers Squibb. See Department of Commerce, US Commercial Service, Costa Rica Country Commercial Guide 2002.
CAFTA includes intellectual property rights for pharma, that extend the time a drug maker may keep test data secret which will result in an extension of monopolies because impoverished countries cannot afford to conduct their own clinical studies.
"For American drug companies," Harley Shaiken says, "this agreement extends the time period during which brand-name pharmaceuticals have exclusive access to markets, postponing the entry of generic drugs and thus limiting competition."
"The Bush Administration's trade negotiators have repeatedly pressured the developing countries to forgo their rights ... and to adopt intellectual property standards that impede access to essential medications," says a report by Rep Henry Waxman, (D-CA).
"For Central Americans, the cost of drugs will soar, straining budgets and gutting health care," Shaiken writes, "The result may be a death sentence for many." Four of the 6 Latin American countries with the highest rate of HIV are in Central America. Hundreds of thousands of HIV patients could die as a direct result of CAFTA.
"In effect, the President's trade representatives have elevated the protection of pharmaceutical patents above the pressing health needs of developing countries," according to, Big Pharma's Free Ride, in Salon Magazine on August 12, 2005
War On The Supplement Industry
The dietary supplement industry has become a real threat to pharma as the number of people who stay healthy grows as a result of taking dietary supplements. In response to the threat, pharma has launched an undeclared all-out--global-war against the supplement industry.
The industry has already paid huge fines for illegal conduct aimed at supplement makers. Over the years, the US Department of Justice has brought actions against industry giants, Hoffman La Roche, Merck and others, for conspiring to fix prices of raw materials used to manufacture supplements, in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
In the case of LaRoche, the company was fined a record setting $540,000,000 for price fixing by creating a false shortage of raw materials for vitamin B3, in order to increase sales of their anti-cholesterol drugs.
Considering the fine, it does not require much of an imagination to recognize the financial motives behind the war. The customer base that pharma is after is enormous. Recent polls show that 60 to 70% of North Americans now use complementary medicines and dietary supplements.
In addition to those already discussed above, another gift to pharma is buried in the language of CAFTA in Section 6, which requires that all member countries form a Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) committee for the purpose of insuring ongoing harmonization under the terms of the SPS Agreement in the WTO, according to the July 2, 2005, Urgent Alert Health Freedom Is Being Threatened, by Paul Anthony Tayler.
The World Trade Organization's SPS Agreement reads in part: "To harmonize sanitary and phytosanitary measures on as wide a basis as possible, Members shall base their food safety measures on international standards, guidelines or recommendations."
The Codex Alimentarius Commission is the international body charged with setting global food standards. It holds an annual gathering of delegates in Europe each year, many of them trans-national pharmaceutical corporations, who are primarily focused on increasing their market share, by pushing their desired and arbitrary regulatory "standards" into a global standard and forcing it onto the smaller local supplement industry, all in the name of "international regulatory excellence," according to Eve Hillary in "Codex - The Sickness Indu$try's Last Stand, April 23, 2005.
The Codex subcommittee that specifically deals with supplements is the Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses, which meets in Bonn, Germany each November. This committee establishes guidelines to govern international trade in supplements. In essence, it has the authority to decide whether or not consumers can have vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, in what dosage, and who will be permitted to manufacture and sell the products.
Under CAFTA, the US government must not only harmonize federal laws, it must also force state and local governments to conform their laws with the standards. Many believe there is a real danger that guidelines for supplements could be forced on the US because if it refuses to harmonize, the WTO can apply pressure by withdrawing trade privileges and imposing trade sanctions.
Such sanctions could amount to billions of dollars in tariffs that the WTO could authorize nations to levee on US exports, and not just supplement exports. This sanction would make US goods grossly overpriced and hard to sell. Under such pressure, Congress would likely adopt the anti-supplement regulations. It has already given in on past WTO disputes, to avoid crippling trade sanctions. See Dietary Supplements Under Imminent Threat, James South M.A, January 26, 2005.
A Major Battle At Home And Abroad
Convincing Latin American countries to adopt the FTAA, may be the least of the administration's worries. Considering how much political capital was waged on passing CAFTA, an even greater battle lies ahead in trying to get Congress to pass a plan that would encompass the entire Western Hemisphere.
One need only consider what has occurred in the this country since NAFTA, to recognize the uphill battle Bush is facing. The year before NAFTA was adopted, the US trade deficit with its partners was $9 billion. Last year the deficit hit $111 billion, over ten times what it was before NAFTA.
The Economic Policy Institute determined that the trade deficit has cost US workers nearly 900,000 jobs, and job opportunities, through 2002, and the deficit has grown higher since then. Robert Scott, "The High Price of 'Free Trade," Briefing Paper, November 2003.
And life after NAFTA is even worse for our partners. NAFTA promised to raise living standards in Mexico and reduce the flow of illegal immigrants to the US. But in fact, the opposite has happened. Real wages in Mexico today are actually lower than when NAFTA began, the poverty rate is higher, and illegal immigration to the US has soared.
More than a million small farmers have lost their land to floods of agricultural imports and are forced to seek work in factories along the border or in the US, Economist Mark Levinson told the Senate Finance Committee, on April 13, 2005.
Our trade relationship with Canada is not looking that great either. Ottawa, Washington's oldest and largest free trade partner, is close to giving up hope of reaching a fair settlement of its softwood lumber dispute with the US, according to the September 12, 2005, Toronto Star.
Canadian negotiators are refusing to return to the table, to indicate to the world, the ineffectiveness of trying to negotiate with the Bush administration. "The American position is absolutely untenable," said Prime Minister Paul Martin. "We've got to step up with retaliation, in my view," Industry Minister David Emerson told the Star.
The latest flare-up occurred in August 2005, when a final-appeal panel "ruled that the U.S. had no right to impose a 27 per cent levy on Canadian lumber imports. U.S. Trade Representative, Rob Portman, said the US government disagreed with the decision and would disregard it, according to the Star.
"Canadians shook their heads in disbelief," the paper wrote, while "the rest of the world, Latin America in particular, got a vicarious taste of free trade with the US."
It appears that a trade relationship with the US is no longer a sought after prize. According to the Star, "a growing number of countries regard it as a dubious asset."
Among Latin Americans, polls show George W Bush to be the most unpopular American president in history. On November 3, 2005, the Argentine daily reported the results of a poll that showed 6 out of ten Argentines opposed Bush’s presence in their country.
In the same poll, 75% of those surveyed said they welcomed a visit by Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, Bush's staunchest opponent in his up-ill battle to win passage of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
The FTAA, with the exception of Cuba, would include all Caribbean and Latin American countries. If passed, some experts predict that it will be the largest free trade agreement in history, with an expected combined GDP of over $9 trillion, and a market of more than 750 million people.
The FTAA agreement was designed to bring 34 countries into a single market but it missed its deadline for enactment on January 1, 2005. Earlier this year, 10-year drive toward passage of FTAA was derailed completely after talks broke down when Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil made it clear that they were unwilling to accept the terms set forth by the Bush administration.
In the meantime, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was signed in August 2005, to extend the policies of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), to Central American countries to include Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, with a side agreement with the Dominican Republic (DR-CAFTA).
Overall, the FTAA faces widespread opposition in Latin America and for good reason. 20 years of NAFTA's so-called economic reforms have resulted in widespread poverty, high unemployment, massive debt, and a series of other economic crises.
Bush is hoping to get the deal back on track while attending the summit, but his prospects look grim. Protests against his visit were already underway in Argentina, 3 days before he got there, with the blocking of bridges and streets in the capital of Buenos Aires, and posters bearing the slogans "Stop Bush" and "Fuera Bush," some of which were superimposed over graphic pictures of wounded children in Iraqi.
Argentine Nobel Prize winner, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, recently told a radio audience that Bush is "a torturer, violator of human rights, an assassin, a violator of United Nations resolutions, of international treaties and of the sovereignty of peoples, as has happened in Iraq."
There were even attempts to obtain a court order to bar Bush from entering the county and back in July 2005, Daniel Katz, the mayor of Mar del Plata, described Bush as the "most unpleasant guy in the world."
Same Old GOP Tactics To Pass CAFTA
"Though constituents widely opposed CAFTA, the agreement passed Congress through the use of bribery, threats, and deception," according to the article, Vote-buying and Arm-twisting, by William F Jasper on August 22, 2005.
The Senate and House set new lows for political prostitution, corruption, and betrayal, with the White House and Republican leaders openly propositioning members in the halls of Congress with billions of dollars in federal projects, along with promises of special trade concessions, Jasper maintains, "all to win passage of a misbegotten agreement that will cost America hundreds of thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in foreign aid, additional waves of illegal aliens, and further entanglement in sovereignty-destroying international regulatory regimes," he wrote.
Congressman, Ron Paul (R-Texas), one of the 27 Republicans who voted against CAFTA, said the vote-buying price tag may end up being $50 billion or more. "Most of the bribery is hidden away in projects funded by the massive energy and transportation appropriation bills," he told Jasper.
The truth is, CAFTA will do nothing to improve the US economy. In an August 30, 2005 letter to the Forum, Rep Earl Pomeroy (D-ND), tells how "the economies of the CAFTA countries is smaller than that of the state of Connecticut, just two-thirds that of Minneapolis-St. Paul. The idea that we are instantly going to be sending trucks and ships full of American products – high-quality commodities and goods – to the citizens of these countries, where 40 percent of workers earn less than $2 a day, is simply a myth."
In per capita terms, "the countries range from Nicaragua with a GNI per capita of $730, which the World Bank classifies as a low-income country, to Costa Rica with per capita income of $4,280, which is classified as an upper middle income country. The rest of the countries are classified as lower middle-income countries by the World Bank," according to an August 4, 2005 CRS Report for Congress.
The economies of the countries in Central America are so poor that they cannot afford to buy a significant quantity of any product from the US. "With a combined national income of about $84 billion, the Gross National Incomes (GNI) of the countries range from $5.5 billion for Nicaragua to $23.5 billion for Guatemala," according to the CRS Report.
But then the true goal of CAFTA has never been about making money off these tiny countries. Three years ago the Bush administration admitted that the purpose of CAFTA was to instigate a drive for the passage of FTAA, in a January 16, 2002 press release upon opening of negotiations for CAFTA: "This negotiation will complement the United States’ goal of completing the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) no later than January 2005 by increasing the momentum in the hemisphere toward lowering barriers," it said.
According to, Protectionism And Free Trade, by Harley Shaiken, "the DR-CAFTA is more a pleading of special interests than a free-trade deal. It manages simultaneously to fleece the people of six poor countries and to put U.S. workers in harm's way," in Tom Paine, on May 31, 2005.
Bush Lobbies For Pharma
By now, the records of the House ethics committee confirm that the Bush administration and its puppets in Congress, do little more than provide a trolley for private gain. I for one am getting tired of watching these lobbyists doing their bidding while on the clock, in addition to tax payers having to foot the bill for all expense paid trips to foreign countries.
While pursuing these trade agreements, Bush is doing the bidding for Pharma, his party's top campaign contributor. CAFTA was clearly designed to protect the interests of large drug companies in Central America. Drug makers currently invested in Costa Rica include Abbott, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly and Bristol-Meyers Squibb. See Department of Commerce, US Commercial Service, Costa Rica Country Commercial Guide 2002.
CAFTA includes intellectual property rights for pharma, that extend the time a drug maker may keep test data secret which will result in an extension of monopolies because impoverished countries cannot afford to conduct their own clinical studies.
"For American drug companies," Harley Shaiken says, "this agreement extends the time period during which brand-name pharmaceuticals have exclusive access to markets, postponing the entry of generic drugs and thus limiting competition."
"The Bush Administration's trade negotiators have repeatedly pressured the developing countries to forgo their rights ... and to adopt intellectual property standards that impede access to essential medications," says a report by Rep Henry Waxman, (D-CA).
"For Central Americans, the cost of drugs will soar, straining budgets and gutting health care," Shaiken writes, "The result may be a death sentence for many." Four of the 6 Latin American countries with the highest rate of HIV are in Central America. Hundreds of thousands of HIV patients could die as a direct result of CAFTA.
"In effect, the President's trade representatives have elevated the protection of pharmaceutical patents above the pressing health needs of developing countries," according to, Big Pharma's Free Ride, in Salon Magazine on August 12, 2005
War On The Supplement Industry
The dietary supplement industry has become a real threat to pharma as the number of people who stay healthy grows as a result of taking dietary supplements. In response to the threat, pharma has launched an undeclared all-out--global-war against the supplement industry.
The industry has already paid huge fines for illegal conduct aimed at supplement makers. Over the years, the US Department of Justice has brought actions against industry giants, Hoffman La Roche, Merck and others, for conspiring to fix prices of raw materials used to manufacture supplements, in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
In the case of LaRoche, the company was fined a record setting $540,000,000 for price fixing by creating a false shortage of raw materials for vitamin B3, in order to increase sales of their anti-cholesterol drugs.
Considering the fine, it does not require much of an imagination to recognize the financial motives behind the war. The customer base that pharma is after is enormous. Recent polls show that 60 to 70% of North Americans now use complementary medicines and dietary supplements.
In addition to those already discussed above, another gift to pharma is buried in the language of CAFTA in Section 6, which requires that all member countries form a Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) committee for the purpose of insuring ongoing harmonization under the terms of the SPS Agreement in the WTO, according to the July 2, 2005, Urgent Alert Health Freedom Is Being Threatened, by Paul Anthony Tayler.
The World Trade Organization's SPS Agreement reads in part: "To harmonize sanitary and phytosanitary measures on as wide a basis as possible, Members shall base their food safety measures on international standards, guidelines or recommendations."
The Codex Alimentarius Commission is the international body charged with setting global food standards. It holds an annual gathering of delegates in Europe each year, many of them trans-national pharmaceutical corporations, who are primarily focused on increasing their market share, by pushing their desired and arbitrary regulatory "standards" into a global standard and forcing it onto the smaller local supplement industry, all in the name of "international regulatory excellence," according to Eve Hillary in "Codex - The Sickness Indu$try's Last Stand, April 23, 2005.
The Codex subcommittee that specifically deals with supplements is the Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses, which meets in Bonn, Germany each November. This committee establishes guidelines to govern international trade in supplements. In essence, it has the authority to decide whether or not consumers can have vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, in what dosage, and who will be permitted to manufacture and sell the products.
Under CAFTA, the US government must not only harmonize federal laws, it must also force state and local governments to conform their laws with the standards. Many believe there is a real danger that guidelines for supplements could be forced on the US because if it refuses to harmonize, the WTO can apply pressure by withdrawing trade privileges and imposing trade sanctions.
Such sanctions could amount to billions of dollars in tariffs that the WTO could authorize nations to levee on US exports, and not just supplement exports. This sanction would make US goods grossly overpriced and hard to sell. Under such pressure, Congress would likely adopt the anti-supplement regulations. It has already given in on past WTO disputes, to avoid crippling trade sanctions. See Dietary Supplements Under Imminent Threat, James South M.A, January 26, 2005.
A Major Battle At Home And Abroad
Convincing Latin American countries to adopt the FTAA, may be the least of the administration's worries. Considering how much political capital was waged on passing CAFTA, an even greater battle lies ahead in trying to get Congress to pass a plan that would encompass the entire Western Hemisphere.
One need only consider what has occurred in the this country since NAFTA, to recognize the uphill battle Bush is facing. The year before NAFTA was adopted, the US trade deficit with its partners was $9 billion. Last year the deficit hit $111 billion, over ten times what it was before NAFTA.
The Economic Policy Institute determined that the trade deficit has cost US workers nearly 900,000 jobs, and job opportunities, through 2002, and the deficit has grown higher since then. Robert Scott, "The High Price of 'Free Trade," Briefing Paper, November 2003.
And life after NAFTA is even worse for our partners. NAFTA promised to raise living standards in Mexico and reduce the flow of illegal immigrants to the US. But in fact, the opposite has happened. Real wages in Mexico today are actually lower than when NAFTA began, the poverty rate is higher, and illegal immigration to the US has soared.
More than a million small farmers have lost their land to floods of agricultural imports and are forced to seek work in factories along the border or in the US, Economist Mark Levinson told the Senate Finance Committee, on April 13, 2005.
Our trade relationship with Canada is not looking that great either. Ottawa, Washington's oldest and largest free trade partner, is close to giving up hope of reaching a fair settlement of its softwood lumber dispute with the US, according to the September 12, 2005, Toronto Star.
Canadian negotiators are refusing to return to the table, to indicate to the world, the ineffectiveness of trying to negotiate with the Bush administration. "The American position is absolutely untenable," said Prime Minister Paul Martin. "We've got to step up with retaliation, in my view," Industry Minister David Emerson told the Star.
The latest flare-up occurred in August 2005, when a final-appeal panel "ruled that the U.S. had no right to impose a 27 per cent levy on Canadian lumber imports. U.S. Trade Representative, Rob Portman, said the US government disagreed with the decision and would disregard it, according to the Star.
"Canadians shook their heads in disbelief," the paper wrote, while "the rest of the world, Latin America in particular, got a vicarious taste of free trade with the US."
It appears that a trade relationship with the US is no longer a sought after prize. According to the Star, "a growing number of countries regard it as a dubious asset."
FDA Officials Sued Over Conflicts of Interests Part I
Evelyn Pringle October 1, 2007
A lawsuit recently filed in a federal court in Ohio against FDA officials on behalf of terminal cancer patients provides a rare window into the inner workings of an agency hijacked by pharmaceutical industry giants and stacked with insiders by President George Bush to guard against any threat to the profits of his top campaign contributors.
The lawsuit's complaint describes a conspiracy orchestrated by top FDA officials to basically drive a small company, Dendreon, out of business with the obvious goal of eliminating competition in what has become a thriving new industry involving the treatment of men with prostate cancer.
The complaint gives the details of a step-by-step plot to sabotage the FDA approval process of Provenge, the first-of-a-kind vaccine that can prolong the lives of men with late-stage cancer.
Prostate cancer patients have been waiting for the approval of Provenge for years. The New York Times first reported on a study back on October 29, 2004, the day after Dendreon announced the results that showed that "an experimental vaccine extended the lives of men with advanced prostate cancer."
The findings also were discussed by Dr Eric Small of the University of California at San Francisco in February 2005, at a meeting in Florida that was co-sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Here, he presented the study in which Provenge was given to a group of 82 men whose cancer had progressed after surgery and radiation treatment, and a similar group of 45 men who had received a placebo.
After 36 months, the study showed that 34% of the men who received Provenge were still alive compared to only 11% of the group who received a placebo, or a 23% difference.
On February 17, 2005, the Times reported that the 4.5-month increase in survival that was achieved by Provenge is greater than the roughly 2.5-month benefit shown in clinical trials of Taxotere, a drug from Sanofi-Aventis.
"Taxotere is the only approved chemotherapy for patients, like those in the Provenge trial, whose cancer has spread beyond the prostate gland and is no longer being controlled by hormonal therapy," the article said.
Dr Small told the Times that Provenge improved survival for all patients, not just those with less aggressive cancers, and said "the treatment was much less toxic than chemotherapy, with the main side effects being flu-like symptoms that last a short time."
The list of plaintiffs in the lawsuit, first and foremost, includes dying cancer victims, along with their family members and doctors, who are collectively suing as members of a non-profit corporation called CareToLive (CTL).
The plaintiffs allege that "prostate cancer patients are living and dying in Ohio and families and doctors in Ohio want this treatment for their family, friends and patients."
According to the complaint, one doctor has 12 patients waiting for treatment and a John Doe plaintiff "is one of several Ohio prostate cancer patients who may die before he can receive Provenge."
The named defendants in the case include the current FDA Commissioner, Dr Andrew von Eschenbach, and Mike Leavitt, in his supervisory capacity over the FDA as Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
And let it be noted that the lead defendant, Dr von Eschenbach, became the FDA Commissioner following a two-month stint by Dr Lester Crawford, only because Lester was booted out of office and found guilty of charges that he failed to disclose his own financial ties to companies regulated by the FDA.
The two other named defendants in the CTL lawsuit are Dr Richard Pazdur, the head of the FDA's Office of Oncologic Drug Division, and Dr Howard Scher, chosen by Dr Pazdur to serve on the advisory panel convened to consider the approval of Provenge.
According to the complaint, Dr Pazdur "intentionally violated Federal Regulations" by improperly controlling the make up of the advisory committee and by "applying improper pressure" on panel members and other FDA employees "in an effort to achieve a predetermined outcome of his choosing."
The plaintiffs allege that when Dr Scher was chosen to serve on the panel, he failed to disclose all conflicts of interest and his own personal interests in urging a decision that Provenge not be approved for men dying of cancer and that Dr Scher acted in "a manner that has callously deprived cancer patients access to a safe and effective immunotherapy."
It also should be noted that the legal filings show one lone attorney, Kerry Donahue, of the Dublin, Ohio Bellinger & Donahue law firm, up against a "dream team" of attorneys with unlimited access to tax dollars and the full force of the federal government, which includes US Attorney Gregory Lockhart, Assistant US Attorneys Mark D'Alessandro and John Stark, the Director of the Office of Consumer Litigation, Eugene M. Thirolf, along with Andrew Clarke and Daniel Crane-Hirsch, Trial Attorneys from the Office of Consumer Litigation in the US Department of Justice.
According to the lawsuit, the FDA indicated that there were sufficient data submitted from the clinical trials of Provenge to immediately evaluate the product, so Dendreon filed a Biologics License Application in December 2006, which was granted fast track approval designation in January 2007, establishing May 15, 2007 as the date for an FDA decision.
Congress established the fast track approval program to expedite the approval of drugs for terminally ill patients.
In a blatant attempt to corrupt the Provenge advisory panel, Dr Scher was granted a waiver even though he is the chief of genitourinary oncology services of the Center for Prostate Cancer, at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the Center has a received a grant for a study from a competing company valued at $100,000-$300,000 and he owns stock valued at between $5,000 and $100,000 in a company that competes with Dendreon.
He also serves as an advisory board member to the venture capital fund ProQuest Investments LP. A 1998 document, entitled "The Opportunity in Cancer: Goldberg's Variation" says "Prostate cancer will be the focus of the ProQuest Investment LP, a new venture fund founded by Jeremy Goldberg", and "ProQuest raised $40.5 million in its first closing."
Dr Scher also is listed on some documents as an officer and member of the board of directors of ProQuest.
However, a later May 2000 document discusses the "Start-Up" issue and says, "ProQuest Investments is a $100 million oncology-focused investment fund, partnered by Jeremy Goldberg and Jay Moorin."
Under "Companies", the report lists Dr Scher's "Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center", among many others, but Dendreon is not one of them.
According to May 15, 2006, SEC filings, ProQuest and its principals have a major stake in Novacea. For instance, at the time of the filing, ProQuest Investments II, LP held 1,779,767 shares, ProQuest Investments II Advisors Fund, LP was listed with 75,508 shares, ProQuest Associates II LLC held 1,855,275 shares, and Jay Moorin was listed with 1,910,988 shares.
Dr Scher also is on a scientific advisory board for Novacea and is the co-lead investigator of the company's Asentar Phase III clinical trial of patients in the same stage of prostate cancer as patients who would be treated with Provenge.
Another conflicted panel member chosen by Dr Pazdur, Dr Maha Hussain, a professor at the University of Michigan, was granted a waiver even though she is the principle investigator for a study funded by a competing company and her husband owns stock valued at between $15,000 and $300,000 in three competing companies.
Under Faculty Disclosure Declarations, Dr Hussain is listed as being a consultant to, and an advisory board member of, Novacea and receiving research funding from Sanofi-Aventis, the maker of the chemotherapy drug Taxotere, the only product on the market FDA approved for the treatment of the cancer patients who would benefit from the approval of Provenge.
Dr Scher is also the lead investigator on a clinical trial investigating Taxotere in treating early-stage prostate cancer - a trial that some experts say would be adversely affected by the approval of Provenge.
Another conflicted member, Dr Savio Lau-Ching Woo, a professor of gene and cell medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, was granted a waiver even though an affected company has patented a gene therapy technology that he invented which is being studied in prostate and other cancers and in the last 12 months Dr Woo has received an amount less than $15,000 from the patent.
Although in the end, the industry plants failed to corrupt the decision of the advisory panel, because the committee said Provenge was safe and that the data submitted show "substantial evidence" of efficacy, the efforts to derail its approval continued and on May 8, 2007, the FDA refused to approve the vaccine.
Instead of approval, the agency issued a Complete Response letter that required Dendreon to provide additional data that could take up to 2 years to accumulate. During that time, as many as 60,000 men will die from prostate cancer - many of whom could have benefited from Provenge.
The most blatant evidence of the conspiracy alleged in the lawsuit emerged in a May 30, 2007 press release, when Novacea and industry giant Schering-Plough announced that they had entered into an exclusive worldwide license agreement for the development and commercialization of Asentar and noted that Novacea was currently conducting a large international Phase 3 trial evaluating Asentar in 900 patients with androgen-independent prostate cancer.
Under the terms of the agreement, all total Novacea will receive close to a half a billion dollars.
A lawsuit recently filed in a federal court in Ohio against FDA officials on behalf of terminal cancer patients provides a rare window into the inner workings of an agency hijacked by pharmaceutical industry giants and stacked with insiders by President George Bush to guard against any threat to the profits of his top campaign contributors.
The lawsuit's complaint describes a conspiracy orchestrated by top FDA officials to basically drive a small company, Dendreon, out of business with the obvious goal of eliminating competition in what has become a thriving new industry involving the treatment of men with prostate cancer.
The complaint gives the details of a step-by-step plot to sabotage the FDA approval process of Provenge, the first-of-a-kind vaccine that can prolong the lives of men with late-stage cancer.
Prostate cancer patients have been waiting for the approval of Provenge for years. The New York Times first reported on a study back on October 29, 2004, the day after Dendreon announced the results that showed that "an experimental vaccine extended the lives of men with advanced prostate cancer."
The findings also were discussed by Dr Eric Small of the University of California at San Francisco in February 2005, at a meeting in Florida that was co-sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Here, he presented the study in which Provenge was given to a group of 82 men whose cancer had progressed after surgery and radiation treatment, and a similar group of 45 men who had received a placebo.
After 36 months, the study showed that 34% of the men who received Provenge were still alive compared to only 11% of the group who received a placebo, or a 23% difference.
On February 17, 2005, the Times reported that the 4.5-month increase in survival that was achieved by Provenge is greater than the roughly 2.5-month benefit shown in clinical trials of Taxotere, a drug from Sanofi-Aventis.
"Taxotere is the only approved chemotherapy for patients, like those in the Provenge trial, whose cancer has spread beyond the prostate gland and is no longer being controlled by hormonal therapy," the article said.
Dr Small told the Times that Provenge improved survival for all patients, not just those with less aggressive cancers, and said "the treatment was much less toxic than chemotherapy, with the main side effects being flu-like symptoms that last a short time."
The list of plaintiffs in the lawsuit, first and foremost, includes dying cancer victims, along with their family members and doctors, who are collectively suing as members of a non-profit corporation called CareToLive (CTL).
The plaintiffs allege that "prostate cancer patients are living and dying in Ohio and families and doctors in Ohio want this treatment for their family, friends and patients."
According to the complaint, one doctor has 12 patients waiting for treatment and a John Doe plaintiff "is one of several Ohio prostate cancer patients who may die before he can receive Provenge."
The named defendants in the case include the current FDA Commissioner, Dr Andrew von Eschenbach, and Mike Leavitt, in his supervisory capacity over the FDA as Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
And let it be noted that the lead defendant, Dr von Eschenbach, became the FDA Commissioner following a two-month stint by Dr Lester Crawford, only because Lester was booted out of office and found guilty of charges that he failed to disclose his own financial ties to companies regulated by the FDA.
The two other named defendants in the CTL lawsuit are Dr Richard Pazdur, the head of the FDA's Office of Oncologic Drug Division, and Dr Howard Scher, chosen by Dr Pazdur to serve on the advisory panel convened to consider the approval of Provenge.
According to the complaint, Dr Pazdur "intentionally violated Federal Regulations" by improperly controlling the make up of the advisory committee and by "applying improper pressure" on panel members and other FDA employees "in an effort to achieve a predetermined outcome of his choosing."
The plaintiffs allege that when Dr Scher was chosen to serve on the panel, he failed to disclose all conflicts of interest and his own personal interests in urging a decision that Provenge not be approved for men dying of cancer and that Dr Scher acted in "a manner that has callously deprived cancer patients access to a safe and effective immunotherapy."
It also should be noted that the legal filings show one lone attorney, Kerry Donahue, of the Dublin, Ohio Bellinger & Donahue law firm, up against a "dream team" of attorneys with unlimited access to tax dollars and the full force of the federal government, which includes US Attorney Gregory Lockhart, Assistant US Attorneys Mark D'Alessandro and John Stark, the Director of the Office of Consumer Litigation, Eugene M. Thirolf, along with Andrew Clarke and Daniel Crane-Hirsch, Trial Attorneys from the Office of Consumer Litigation in the US Department of Justice.
According to the lawsuit, the FDA indicated that there were sufficient data submitted from the clinical trials of Provenge to immediately evaluate the product, so Dendreon filed a Biologics License Application in December 2006, which was granted fast track approval designation in January 2007, establishing May 15, 2007 as the date for an FDA decision.
Congress established the fast track approval program to expedite the approval of drugs for terminally ill patients.
In a blatant attempt to corrupt the Provenge advisory panel, Dr Scher was granted a waiver even though he is the chief of genitourinary oncology services of the Center for Prostate Cancer, at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the Center has a received a grant for a study from a competing company valued at $100,000-$300,000 and he owns stock valued at between $5,000 and $100,000 in a company that competes with Dendreon.
He also serves as an advisory board member to the venture capital fund ProQuest Investments LP. A 1998 document, entitled "The Opportunity in Cancer: Goldberg's Variation" says "Prostate cancer will be the focus of the ProQuest Investment LP, a new venture fund founded by Jeremy Goldberg", and "ProQuest raised $40.5 million in its first closing."
Dr Scher also is listed on some documents as an officer and member of the board of directors of ProQuest.
However, a later May 2000 document discusses the "Start-Up" issue and says, "ProQuest Investments is a $100 million oncology-focused investment fund, partnered by Jeremy Goldberg and Jay Moorin."
Under "Companies", the report lists Dr Scher's "Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center", among many others, but Dendreon is not one of them.
According to May 15, 2006, SEC filings, ProQuest and its principals have a major stake in Novacea. For instance, at the time of the filing, ProQuest Investments II, LP held 1,779,767 shares, ProQuest Investments II Advisors Fund, LP was listed with 75,508 shares, ProQuest Associates II LLC held 1,855,275 shares, and Jay Moorin was listed with 1,910,988 shares.
Dr Scher also is on a scientific advisory board for Novacea and is the co-lead investigator of the company's Asentar Phase III clinical trial of patients in the same stage of prostate cancer as patients who would be treated with Provenge.
Another conflicted panel member chosen by Dr Pazdur, Dr Maha Hussain, a professor at the University of Michigan, was granted a waiver even though she is the principle investigator for a study funded by a competing company and her husband owns stock valued at between $15,000 and $300,000 in three competing companies.
Under Faculty Disclosure Declarations, Dr Hussain is listed as being a consultant to, and an advisory board member of, Novacea and receiving research funding from Sanofi-Aventis, the maker of the chemotherapy drug Taxotere, the only product on the market FDA approved for the treatment of the cancer patients who would benefit from the approval of Provenge.
Dr Scher is also the lead investigator on a clinical trial investigating Taxotere in treating early-stage prostate cancer - a trial that some experts say would be adversely affected by the approval of Provenge.
Another conflicted member, Dr Savio Lau-Ching Woo, a professor of gene and cell medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, was granted a waiver even though an affected company has patented a gene therapy technology that he invented which is being studied in prostate and other cancers and in the last 12 months Dr Woo has received an amount less than $15,000 from the patent.
Although in the end, the industry plants failed to corrupt the decision of the advisory panel, because the committee said Provenge was safe and that the data submitted show "substantial evidence" of efficacy, the efforts to derail its approval continued and on May 8, 2007, the FDA refused to approve the vaccine.
Instead of approval, the agency issued a Complete Response letter that required Dendreon to provide additional data that could take up to 2 years to accumulate. During that time, as many as 60,000 men will die from prostate cancer - many of whom could have benefited from Provenge.
The most blatant evidence of the conspiracy alleged in the lawsuit emerged in a May 30, 2007 press release, when Novacea and industry giant Schering-Plough announced that they had entered into an exclusive worldwide license agreement for the development and commercialization of Asentar and noted that Novacea was currently conducting a large international Phase 3 trial evaluating Asentar in 900 patients with androgen-independent prostate cancer.
Under the terms of the agreement, all total Novacea will receive close to a half a billion dollars.
FDA Officials Sued Over Conflict of Interest Part II
Evelyn Pringle October 2, 2007
The lawsuit filed on behalf of dying cancer victims against FDA officials that describes the intentional rigging of the advisory committee that met to review the application for the approval of Provenge, a cancer vaccine, on March 29, 2007, clearly proves that the industry-controlled FDA is never going to clean up its act.
The defendants in the lawsuit include the FDA Commissioner, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, his boss Mike Leavitt, Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Dr Richard Pazdur, head of the FDA's Office of Oncologic Drug Division, and Dr Howard Scher, hand-picked by Dr Pazdur to serve on the advisory committee.
Other conflicted panel members include Dr Maha Hussain, a professor at the University of Michigan, and Dr Savio Lau-Ching Woo, a professor of gene and cell medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
A law was passed back in November 2005, that required members of committees to disclose all financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry and the categories for disclosure were broken down into dollar amounts with time frames, such as less than $10,000 a year or between $10,000 and $50,000 a year.
However, as usual, a major loophole remains where FDA officials are permitted to grant waivers to panel members even when they do have extensive financial ties to drug companies. Six month after the law went into effect, on April 21, 2006, the Boston Globe reported on the actual effects of the law and determined that the FDA had granted close to 100 waivers in less than 6 months.
Apparently, Provenge (known technically as Sipuleucel-T) is but one of many cell and immune-based therapies that have been under development over the past decade. However, the Seattle-based Dendreon is the first to seek FDA approval for a product in this new class of immunotherapy for the treatment for androgen-independent (hormone-refractory) metastatic prostate cancer (AIPC).
The immune system defends the body against infections and diseases, and the Provenge vaccine is designed to stimulate the patient's immune system to attack cancer cells in the same way that it attacks bacteria or viruses. The entire course of treatment involves 3 donations of blood over a brief period of time, each of which is processed by Dendreon and then sent back for infusion into the patient.
A study submitted by Dendreon to back the approval of the vaccine showed that after 36 months, 34% of the men who received Provenge were still alive as compared to only 11% of the group who received a placebo, or a 23% difference.
Currently, the chemotherapy drug Taxotere (docetaxel), made by Sanofi-Aventis, is the only FDA approved drug for the treatment of AIPC.
Many patients and patient advocates testified at the March 29, 2007, hearing, and some literally begged the FDA to approve Provenge. Joel Nowak, 56, traveled from Brooklyn to testify as a patient and a as representative of the advocacy groups "Raise a Voice" and "MaleCare," for which he serves as the program director for advanced prostate cancer.
Mr Nowak was diagnosed with recurrent advanced prostate cancer in December 2005, and said, according to the National Cancer Institute, the expected mortality rate for advanced prostate cancer is over 50% within 36 months of diagnosis.
"If you take the statistical next step," he told the panel, "since I've already exhausted 16 of those months, which means I may have only but 20 months left to be on this Earth."
He noted that treatment choices are fairly non-existent. "Those of us who suffer with advanced prostate cancer have already gone through the mill of barbaric treatments," he told the panel.
"We've had our prostates removed or radiated, often leaving us with varying degrees of incontinence and impotence," he said, "and then 30 percent of us suffer a recurrence."
Mr Nowak explained that this signals the beginning of the clock's final countdown and described the desperate attempts by cancer victims to stay alive and stated:
"We try to buy a little more time. We try salvage radiation or surgery. We start a hormone blockade that leaves us as physical and chemical eunuchs.
"We lose the little sexual ability that we may have managed to cobble together and trade it for hot flashes, loss of muscle mass, loss of bone density, peripheral neuropathy, mood swings, and a host of other ailments.
"Despite the suffering that we endure, our cancer continues to march on. Now our only option to survive a little longer as it exists today is chemotherapy, where we have to introduce into our bodies chemicals that will hopefully kill the cancer, but will also kill us."
He acknowledged that Provenge will not cure his disease, but said, "it does offer an opportunity to extend my life."
Alvin Chin spoke on behalf of the Virginia Prostate Cancer Coalition and pointed out that Taxotere was approved when it extended life by only a couple months compared to a placebo. "Provenge extends life more than twice as long without the pain," he noted.
"The loss of hair, fingernails, vitality, your dignity is something you don't lose with Provenge," he pointed out.
Mr Chin told the panel that men will gladly trade the side effects of hormonal and chemotherapy treatments for the few and transient side effects of Provenge and gain more life in the process.
No one wants to die a hopeless and painful death, and worst of all no one gladly accepts chemotherapy, the only treatment available to men with hormone-resistant prostate cancer, he said.
He explained that the side effects of chemo are so bad that men refuse treatment because they want to have an improved quality-of-life in their final years. "By recommending approval you will give up to 50,000 waiting men, maybe more, new hope and new life with an alternative treatment that works," he said.
The customer base up for grabs in the prostate cancer industry is huge. According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 220,000 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed in the US in this year alone and about 27,000 men face death from prostate cancer each year.
On March 29, 2007, after listening to all the presentations and testimony of cancer treatment advocates, in a unanimous vote, the committee determined that Provenge was safe, and that there was substantial evidence that the product works in treating late stage prostate cancer that no longer responds to hormone treatment by a 13-4 vote.
However, the meeting transcript reveals a calculated attempt by the conspirators to elicit the desired "no" response from committee on whether Provenge was effective, with a question that asked: "Does the submitted data establish the efficacy of Sipuleucel-T (APC-8015) in the intended population?"
This obvious stunt was quickly recognized by some panel members and the question was then rephrased to conform with the.law that requires the question to ask does the data submitted show "substantial evidence."
After the question was rephrased, the first expert to vote, Dr Richard Alexander, changed his "no" vote to "yes" and stated: "I mean the issue is -- yes, there is substantial evidence. I mean, the 150-some patients, they're substantial evidence."
Dr Jeffrey Chamberlain followed Dr Alexander and said: "I vote yes, there is substantial evidence."
And after him, Dr Larry Kwak said, "Yes, substantial evidence."
Dr Kurt Gunter voted yes and stated: "I do think it both meets the measure of substantial evidence, and I also believe that it's pretty definitive."
"And I think that these data," he stated, "even though they're complex, can be presented by oncologists to patients in a way that they can understand and make reasonable choices."
"So I definitely support that this is an effective therapy," he stated.
Once the question was changed, Dr Hussain stated, "to me "substantial" and "establish" are the same, and no to either. So no to both."
When Dr Woo was asked to vote, he stated in part: "Does it rise to the level of substantial evidence that it is effective? I don't think so, not even near."
The sudden change in the question seemed to throw Dr Scher off kilter and when the vote got to him he stated: "We have two questions. I would say yes to one, no to the second. The first question as posed, as established, I say no."
The panel chairman, Dr James Mule clarified that the question was "substantial evidence," and Dr Scher replied, "I will say no."
During the meeting, Dr Ke Liu, the FDA's clinical reviewer of the Provenge application, explained the advantage of using overall survival rates, as noted in the draft guidance document entitled, Clinical Trial Endpoints for the Approval of Cancer Drugs in Biologics. "Overall survival," he said, "is the most reliable cancer endpoints, usually the preferred endpoint, and the studies can be conducted to adequately to assess it."
"Demonstration of a statistical significant improvement in overall survival," he told the panel, "has supported new drug approvals."
Dr Liu also said an improvement in survival is a clinical benefit, and that the endpoint is precise and easy to measure because it can be documented by the date of death.
During the meeting, no doubt by accident, Dr Sher even acknowledged that "there's no argument that overall survial is a definitive endpoint, and that's what we're all seeking to achieve with our treatments."
However, on May 8, 2007, the FDA made history when for the first time, it denied the approval of a cancer drug despite the recommendations of its own advisory committee and despite the pleas from dying cancer victims during the advisory panel hearing.
By filing their lawsuit against FDA officials, the plaintiffs "seek to immediately enjoin the Defendants from denying, for even one more day, the distribution of Provenge to them."
The lawsuit filed on behalf of dying cancer victims against FDA officials that describes the intentional rigging of the advisory committee that met to review the application for the approval of Provenge, a cancer vaccine, on March 29, 2007, clearly proves that the industry-controlled FDA is never going to clean up its act.
The defendants in the lawsuit include the FDA Commissioner, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, his boss Mike Leavitt, Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Dr Richard Pazdur, head of the FDA's Office of Oncologic Drug Division, and Dr Howard Scher, hand-picked by Dr Pazdur to serve on the advisory committee.
Other conflicted panel members include Dr Maha Hussain, a professor at the University of Michigan, and Dr Savio Lau-Ching Woo, a professor of gene and cell medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
A law was passed back in November 2005, that required members of committees to disclose all financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry and the categories for disclosure were broken down into dollar amounts with time frames, such as less than $10,000 a year or between $10,000 and $50,000 a year.
However, as usual, a major loophole remains where FDA officials are permitted to grant waivers to panel members even when they do have extensive financial ties to drug companies. Six month after the law went into effect, on April 21, 2006, the Boston Globe reported on the actual effects of the law and determined that the FDA had granted close to 100 waivers in less than 6 months.
Apparently, Provenge (known technically as Sipuleucel-T) is but one of many cell and immune-based therapies that have been under development over the past decade. However, the Seattle-based Dendreon is the first to seek FDA approval for a product in this new class of immunotherapy for the treatment for androgen-independent (hormone-refractory) metastatic prostate cancer (AIPC).
The immune system defends the body against infections and diseases, and the Provenge vaccine is designed to stimulate the patient's immune system to attack cancer cells in the same way that it attacks bacteria or viruses. The entire course of treatment involves 3 donations of blood over a brief period of time, each of which is processed by Dendreon and then sent back for infusion into the patient.
A study submitted by Dendreon to back the approval of the vaccine showed that after 36 months, 34% of the men who received Provenge were still alive as compared to only 11% of the group who received a placebo, or a 23% difference.
Currently, the chemotherapy drug Taxotere (docetaxel), made by Sanofi-Aventis, is the only FDA approved drug for the treatment of AIPC.
Many patients and patient advocates testified at the March 29, 2007, hearing, and some literally begged the FDA to approve Provenge. Joel Nowak, 56, traveled from Brooklyn to testify as a patient and a as representative of the advocacy groups "Raise a Voice" and "MaleCare," for which he serves as the program director for advanced prostate cancer.
Mr Nowak was diagnosed with recurrent advanced prostate cancer in December 2005, and said, according to the National Cancer Institute, the expected mortality rate for advanced prostate cancer is over 50% within 36 months of diagnosis.
"If you take the statistical next step," he told the panel, "since I've already exhausted 16 of those months, which means I may have only but 20 months left to be on this Earth."
He noted that treatment choices are fairly non-existent. "Those of us who suffer with advanced prostate cancer have already gone through the mill of barbaric treatments," he told the panel.
"We've had our prostates removed or radiated, often leaving us with varying degrees of incontinence and impotence," he said, "and then 30 percent of us suffer a recurrence."
Mr Nowak explained that this signals the beginning of the clock's final countdown and described the desperate attempts by cancer victims to stay alive and stated:
"We try to buy a little more time. We try salvage radiation or surgery. We start a hormone blockade that leaves us as physical and chemical eunuchs.
"We lose the little sexual ability that we may have managed to cobble together and trade it for hot flashes, loss of muscle mass, loss of bone density, peripheral neuropathy, mood swings, and a host of other ailments.
"Despite the suffering that we endure, our cancer continues to march on. Now our only option to survive a little longer as it exists today is chemotherapy, where we have to introduce into our bodies chemicals that will hopefully kill the cancer, but will also kill us."
He acknowledged that Provenge will not cure his disease, but said, "it does offer an opportunity to extend my life."
Alvin Chin spoke on behalf of the Virginia Prostate Cancer Coalition and pointed out that Taxotere was approved when it extended life by only a couple months compared to a placebo. "Provenge extends life more than twice as long without the pain," he noted.
"The loss of hair, fingernails, vitality, your dignity is something you don't lose with Provenge," he pointed out.
Mr Chin told the panel that men will gladly trade the side effects of hormonal and chemotherapy treatments for the few and transient side effects of Provenge and gain more life in the process.
No one wants to die a hopeless and painful death, and worst of all no one gladly accepts chemotherapy, the only treatment available to men with hormone-resistant prostate cancer, he said.
He explained that the side effects of chemo are so bad that men refuse treatment because they want to have an improved quality-of-life in their final years. "By recommending approval you will give up to 50,000 waiting men, maybe more, new hope and new life with an alternative treatment that works," he said.
The customer base up for grabs in the prostate cancer industry is huge. According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 220,000 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed in the US in this year alone and about 27,000 men face death from prostate cancer each year.
On March 29, 2007, after listening to all the presentations and testimony of cancer treatment advocates, in a unanimous vote, the committee determined that Provenge was safe, and that there was substantial evidence that the product works in treating late stage prostate cancer that no longer responds to hormone treatment by a 13-4 vote.
However, the meeting transcript reveals a calculated attempt by the conspirators to elicit the desired "no" response from committee on whether Provenge was effective, with a question that asked: "Does the submitted data establish the efficacy of Sipuleucel-T (APC-8015) in the intended population?"
This obvious stunt was quickly recognized by some panel members and the question was then rephrased to conform with the.law that requires the question to ask does the data submitted show "substantial evidence."
After the question was rephrased, the first expert to vote, Dr Richard Alexander, changed his "no" vote to "yes" and stated: "I mean the issue is -- yes, there is substantial evidence. I mean, the 150-some patients, they're substantial evidence."
Dr Jeffrey Chamberlain followed Dr Alexander and said: "I vote yes, there is substantial evidence."
And after him, Dr Larry Kwak said, "Yes, substantial evidence."
Dr Kurt Gunter voted yes and stated: "I do think it both meets the measure of substantial evidence, and I also believe that it's pretty definitive."
"And I think that these data," he stated, "even though they're complex, can be presented by oncologists to patients in a way that they can understand and make reasonable choices."
"So I definitely support that this is an effective therapy," he stated.
Once the question was changed, Dr Hussain stated, "to me "substantial" and "establish" are the same, and no to either. So no to both."
When Dr Woo was asked to vote, he stated in part: "Does it rise to the level of substantial evidence that it is effective? I don't think so, not even near."
The sudden change in the question seemed to throw Dr Scher off kilter and when the vote got to him he stated: "We have two questions. I would say yes to one, no to the second. The first question as posed, as established, I say no."
The panel chairman, Dr James Mule clarified that the question was "substantial evidence," and Dr Scher replied, "I will say no."
During the meeting, Dr Ke Liu, the FDA's clinical reviewer of the Provenge application, explained the advantage of using overall survival rates, as noted in the draft guidance document entitled, Clinical Trial Endpoints for the Approval of Cancer Drugs in Biologics. "Overall survival," he said, "is the most reliable cancer endpoints, usually the preferred endpoint, and the studies can be conducted to adequately to assess it."
"Demonstration of a statistical significant improvement in overall survival," he told the panel, "has supported new drug approvals."
Dr Liu also said an improvement in survival is a clinical benefit, and that the endpoint is precise and easy to measure because it can be documented by the date of death.
During the meeting, no doubt by accident, Dr Sher even acknowledged that "there's no argument that overall survial is a definitive endpoint, and that's what we're all seeking to achieve with our treatments."
However, on May 8, 2007, the FDA made history when for the first time, it denied the approval of a cancer drug despite the recommendations of its own advisory committee and despite the pleas from dying cancer victims during the advisory panel hearing.
By filing their lawsuit against FDA officials, the plaintiffs "seek to immediately enjoin the Defendants from denying, for even one more day, the distribution of Provenge to them."
No Bush Left Behind Act - Uncle Bucky Bush
Evelyn Pringle January 26, 2005
Wherever there’s a buck to be made by scamming tax payers, a member of the Bush family is sure be close at hand. Many Bush relatives are benefiting financially from the war in Iraq, and according to regulatory filings, Uncle William (Bucky) Bush has not been left behind.
In 2000, while nephew George W Bush was running for president, Bucky fell into good fortune and joined the board of directors of Engineered Support Systems (ESS), which just happened to be a major military contractor.
Uncle Bucky is also a Bush "Pioneer" in good standing, which means he raised over $100,000 for Jr's campaigns in the year 2000 and 2004 elections, according to Margie Burns on Information ClearingHouse (2/22/04).
Bucky came on board at ESS at exactly the right time. Since the 2000 election and September 11, 2001, ESS's revenues have greatly increased and its stock prices have soared, according an article by Burns, in the Jan 13, 2003 Prince William George's Journal.
As luck would have it, as a director of the company, Bucky not only receives a monthly consulting fee, he also holds stock options. And he has exercised those options. In January 2003, prior to the Iraq war, Bucky only owned 33,750 shares of stock, but as of January 2004, he owned 56, 251 shares, according to ICH. Not a bad haul for one year.
By 2003, ESS held contracts with every branch of the military. In fact, according George's Journal, the company did so well that it made it onto the Department of Defense's list of the top 100 contractors. In 2001, it held $330 million in government contracts. And it just kept getting better and better. In 2002 ESS held $380 million in contracts, and in 2003 it was awarded close to $400 million.
In another stroke of luck (the Bush's are the luckiest family to ever hit Washington), ESS just happened to manufacture Field Deployable Environmental Control Units (Says Russ Mitchell, in Smart Money), and on January 17, 2003, the company announced that it had a large order for these units, complete with Nuclear Biological Chemical Kits, to be used in the hunt for (as we know now) the non-existent WMDs.
On January 28, 2003, Jr gave his State of the Union address, including his now famous bogus allegation that Saddam was actively seeking nuclear weapon materials from Africa. In hindsight, maybe that was an advertisement for Bucky's products.
Come to think about it, how many tax dollars did we waste on that wild goose chase?
On March 25, 2003, Bush asked Congress for supplemental funding "to cover military operations, relief and reconstruction activities in Iraq, and ongoing operations in the global war on terrorism."
And low and behold in another coincidence, the very next day ESS announced that it had received a very large order of its Chemical Biological Protected Shelter systems from the Army.
And the good luck didn't end there. ICH says that on May 1, 2003, ESS announced that it had acquired the subsidiary, TAMSCO, coincidentally again I'm sure, on the exact same day that Jr made his TV flight-suit appearance on the aircraft carrier and declared "mission accomplished."
The very next week, TAMSCO revealed that it had begun technology support for US Army logistics operations in the Middle East, noted Burns.
I'll tell you right now, if I was as lucky as Bucky I'd spend every day at a bingo hall.
More than ever, it looks like Bush planned to invade Iraq before he won the White House, and one thing is indisputable, the war is filling the family coffers and will continue to do so for many years to come.
The documented track record of ESS and Uncle Bucky is only a symbol of the larger pattern in which Bush family members and close associates are sharing the financial benefits generated by Jr's grand war profiteering scheme.
What I find amazing, is that after droning on endlessly about Whitewater (a failed land deal involving $150,000), for 8 years during the Clinton years, now that Jr and his gang are ripping tax payers off for $100s of billions at a crack, the average person doesn't even realize it because the media isn't doing it's job of educating Americans about what is going on in our government.
I think the citizens deserve know which politicians in the Republican controlled Congress participated in passing the "Leave No Bush Behind Act of 2001," by turning a blind eye and playing deaf and dumb for the last 4 years.
Wherever there’s a buck to be made by scamming tax payers, a member of the Bush family is sure be close at hand. Many Bush relatives are benefiting financially from the war in Iraq, and according to regulatory filings, Uncle William (Bucky) Bush has not been left behind.
In 2000, while nephew George W Bush was running for president, Bucky fell into good fortune and joined the board of directors of Engineered Support Systems (ESS), which just happened to be a major military contractor.
Uncle Bucky is also a Bush "Pioneer" in good standing, which means he raised over $100,000 for Jr's campaigns in the year 2000 and 2004 elections, according to Margie Burns on Information ClearingHouse (2/22/04).
Bucky came on board at ESS at exactly the right time. Since the 2000 election and September 11, 2001, ESS's revenues have greatly increased and its stock prices have soared, according an article by Burns, in the Jan 13, 2003 Prince William George's Journal.
As luck would have it, as a director of the company, Bucky not only receives a monthly consulting fee, he also holds stock options. And he has exercised those options. In January 2003, prior to the Iraq war, Bucky only owned 33,750 shares of stock, but as of January 2004, he owned 56, 251 shares, according to ICH. Not a bad haul for one year.
By 2003, ESS held contracts with every branch of the military. In fact, according George's Journal, the company did so well that it made it onto the Department of Defense's list of the top 100 contractors. In 2001, it held $330 million in government contracts. And it just kept getting better and better. In 2002 ESS held $380 million in contracts, and in 2003 it was awarded close to $400 million.
In another stroke of luck (the Bush's are the luckiest family to ever hit Washington), ESS just happened to manufacture Field Deployable Environmental Control Units (Says Russ Mitchell, in Smart Money), and on January 17, 2003, the company announced that it had a large order for these units, complete with Nuclear Biological Chemical Kits, to be used in the hunt for (as we know now) the non-existent WMDs.
On January 28, 2003, Jr gave his State of the Union address, including his now famous bogus allegation that Saddam was actively seeking nuclear weapon materials from Africa. In hindsight, maybe that was an advertisement for Bucky's products.
Come to think about it, how many tax dollars did we waste on that wild goose chase?
On March 25, 2003, Bush asked Congress for supplemental funding "to cover military operations, relief and reconstruction activities in Iraq, and ongoing operations in the global war on terrorism."
And low and behold in another coincidence, the very next day ESS announced that it had received a very large order of its Chemical Biological Protected Shelter systems from the Army.
And the good luck didn't end there. ICH says that on May 1, 2003, ESS announced that it had acquired the subsidiary, TAMSCO, coincidentally again I'm sure, on the exact same day that Jr made his TV flight-suit appearance on the aircraft carrier and declared "mission accomplished."
The very next week, TAMSCO revealed that it had begun technology support for US Army logistics operations in the Middle East, noted Burns.
I'll tell you right now, if I was as lucky as Bucky I'd spend every day at a bingo hall.
More than ever, it looks like Bush planned to invade Iraq before he won the White House, and one thing is indisputable, the war is filling the family coffers and will continue to do so for many years to come.
The documented track record of ESS and Uncle Bucky is only a symbol of the larger pattern in which Bush family members and close associates are sharing the financial benefits generated by Jr's grand war profiteering scheme.
What I find amazing, is that after droning on endlessly about Whitewater (a failed land deal involving $150,000), for 8 years during the Clinton years, now that Jr and his gang are ripping tax payers off for $100s of billions at a crack, the average person doesn't even realize it because the media isn't doing it's job of educating Americans about what is going on in our government.
I think the citizens deserve know which politicians in the Republican controlled Congress participated in passing the "Leave No Bush Behind Act of 2001," by turning a blind eye and playing deaf and dumb for the last 4 years.
Bush Crony Full-Employment Act of 2003
Evelyn Pringle January 25, 2005
Josh Marshall writes a column for The Hill, a Congressional newspaper. Josh says that every big new piece of legislation needs a catchy title to set it apart, and he came up with a good title for the $87 billion allocated for rebuilding Iraq. ''The Bush Crony Full-Employment Act of 2003.'' I like that, its very fitting.
Who is Joe Allbaugh?
Anybody remember Joe Allbaugh? He was part of the inner circle in Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, along with Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. In January 2001, when Bush took over the White House, he put Allbaugh in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which dispenses disaster money and loans after hurricanes, floods and fires.
I think Joe missed his calling. He should be a fortune teller, because somehow he knew a couple of weeks before Bush declared war on Iraq, that he should quit his government job and go into the business of helping wealthy clients secure Iraqi reconstruction contracts.
Of course Joe didn't say that at the time. When he announced his resignation from FEMA on March 1, 2003 he said, "Now I am going to take the opportunity to spend some time with my wife and children." Well his family could not have enjoyed too much quality with Joe because in a matter of weeks he opened a new firm called New Bridge Strategies.
True to form, with the press seemingly unwilling to publicize the war profiteering aspects of the war in Iraq, the formation of New Bridge basically went unnoticed by the American public and only briefly showed up in the headlines.
It deserved public attention because of the Republican heavyweights on its board that were linked to one or the other Bush administrations or to the family itself. The members not only included Allbaugh, but also Ed Rogers and Lanny Griffith, former George H W Bush aids.
The president of the company is John Howland, and Jamal Daniel, (business partners of first brother Neil Bush), is a principal.
Josh Marshall says New Bridge is actually an outgrowth of Haley Barbour’s lobbying firm, Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR). Josh says he came to this conclusion after he learned that both firms were located in the same office space. And also because Griffith is the CEO of New Bridge and Rogers is the vice president. Sounds to me like he reached the right conclusion.
Others agree. "The bottom line on New Bridge is that it appears to be very closely linked to BGR, which has many overlapping ties to the highest levels of the Republican Party," said Thomas Ferguson, a campaign finance expert at the University of Massachusetts, the Oct 15, 2004 Village Voice reports.
So here's the setup. Bush’s main man Joe, quits FEMA to spend time with his family, right before the bombs start falling in Iraq. He then moves into the offices of one of the biggest and most politically connected GOP lobbying firms in Washington and starts advertising services to clients who want to win reconstruction contracts in Iraq. How could it possibly get any sweeter than this?
Allbaugh Has A Big Heart
According to the Oct 6, 2003 New York Times, Allbaugh "is here to tell you that his new company, which advises clients on how to get business in Iraq, is not trading on his White House connections. The Iraqis need assistance ... and he can help."
Although its connections to the administration may not have received much attention in the media, the company itself was not shy about advertising its contacts. Its web site as much as brags about the company's links to Bush, by specifically pointing out that Allbaugh was "chief of staff to then-Gov. Bush of Texas and was the national campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign."
It says New Bridge is "a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq." I'm surprised that the site doesn't have a blinking neon sign saying AKA war profiteering.
Initially, it said, "the opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington, D.C., and on the ground in Iraq." But someone must have warned Allbaugh that that particular sentence was a little over the top because that particular phrasing has since been changed on the web site.
Allbaugh himself, didn't seem to give his ties to the administration a second thought. According to a Sept 30, 2003 article in Mother Jones, he claimed, "It's beneficial to clients that I know who the players are and I know who the decision makers are." Apparently he forgot to mention that because of all these friends in high places, he has insider knowledge of how much money the government will spend and when it will become available.
Middle East specialist, Richard Murphy, claims Iraqis will view the situation differently, and was quick to point out that the Bush ties to New Bridge would only validate what was already suspected. "In the Middle East, it will be received as confirming the weary cynicism prevailing in the area about US intentions in launching the attack on Iraq in the first place," said Murphy.
Allbaugh denied having any improper motives. "The stories I've seen have been couched as if people are trying to game the system, and that's not what we're about," he said. "We are trying to help Iraq become a capitalist country, and a leader throughout the Middle East. Iraqis themselves are asking for help," wrote the New York Times.
That's funny, I thought the Iraqis said they wanted us to get the hell out of their country and leave them alone. I wonder why I never knew that they had asked Joe to help.
Joe seems baffled that anyone would question his assertion about wanting to help the poor Iraqis. "We fought a war, we displaced a horrible, horrible regime, and as a part of that we have an obligation to help Iraqis," he said. "We can't just leave in the middle of the night."
He gets downright defensive if you question his business practices. On Oct 6, 2003, he told a New York Times reporter, "Because my friend is president of the United States, I'm supposed to check out of life?"
To that I would say no, of course you don't have to check out of life Joe. But you also don't quit your government job before the president even admits he's taking the country to war, set up shop and start advertising to get contracts for work in a country that you somehow know we're about to destroy.
Another Funnel - Diligence Security Company
It's clear that BGR was instrumental in bringing other companies into New Bridge's fold, including Diligence, a security firm set up by former US and British intelligence officers.
On Oct 6, 2003, Allbaugh told the NYTs, that "As part of his package for clients ... he offered security in the form of yet another new company, Diligence Iraq, which worked hand-in-hand with New Bridge. New Bridge is a minority partner in Diligence Iraq, which is just opening up in Baghdad. Mike Baker, the head of Diligence Iraq, serves as an advisory board member of New Bridge."
In other words, explained the Times, "if your company wants to send over three people from New York to investigate business opportunities in Baghdad, Mr. Baker will secure the way in: a three-car convoy of armed S.U.V.'s driving 90 miles an hour, to avoid bandits, in an eight-hour-plus streak across the desert from the border of Jordan or Kuwait," it said.
BGR provided the initial funding for Diligence, according to Nick Day, a co-founder of the firm. Like New Bridge, it was given office space at BGR's Washington office. BGR also provided the firm's advisory board. Many of the names on the Diligence board, including the Carlyle Group's Ed Mathias, match the names on the board of New Bridge.
And with a closer look, the web of this grand war profiteering scheme just keeps getting more and more entwined. In return for finding an investor for Diligence in Iraq, New Bridge got a minority shareholding in the firm.
According to a June 22, 2004 article on Corporate Watch, Diligence, is now headed by Richard Burt, former US Ambassador to Germany and a consultant in the Carlyle Group (which also has George Bush Sr, John Major and James Baker on its payroll). Whitley Bruner, formerly head of the CIA Baghdad station, is now director of the Iraq branch of Diligence.
And guess what? The deputy chairman of Diligence is none other than Joe Allbaugh.
Objections to Cronyism and Privatization
Is it any wonder that critics are questioning the propriety of the reconstruction effort? "I'm appalled that the war is being used by people close to the Bush Administration to make money for themselves," Democratic Rep Henry Waxman said. "At a time when we're asking young men and women to make perhaps the ultimate sacrifice, it's just unseemly."
On Sept 30, 2003, while the reconstruction bill was being debated in the Senate, Sen John Edwards explained why he was against giving Bush the $87 billion. "This is an administration of the insiders, for the insiders, and by the insiders. Learning that George Bush's campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh, has started his own consulting firm to profit from the war in Iraq proves this point,” Edwards said. “First, Vice President Cheney's Halliburton receives more than $2 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts and now this.”
Edwards said, “It is an outrage and disrespectful to the young men and women who are serving in Iraq today. President Bush should start addressing this credibility gap by calling on Joe Allbaugh and his friends to stop using their influence to secure government contracts in Iraq, and by agreeing to an independent oversight panel to ensure that contracts in Iraq are administered fairly.”
"In this enormously expensive mission, the American people ought to be assured that any dollar we spend there is for the rebuilding of Iraq, and not just the building of profit for the president's friends and political supporters," he said.
On Oct 14, 2003, Edwards said he would vote against $87 billion because Bush had failed to outline a credible long-term plan for rebuilding the country, failed to persuade allies to help shoulder the costs, and failed to stop sweetheart deals for politically-connected companies.
"We used to talk about this money as a blank check. Well, now we know it's not really a blank check. We know the president is writing it out to Joe Allbaugh and Halliburton, and it's all endorsed by Vice President Cheney," Edwards said.
Always Close By - Bush Family Funnel
True to form, if there's a tax dollar to be skimmed off a business deal a Bush family funnel will be there to grab it. This time its First Brother Neil Bush. On Dec 11, 2003, The Financial Times of London reported that, "Two businessmen instrumental in setting up New Bridge Strategies, a well-connected Washington firm designed to help clients win contracts in Iraq, have previously used an association with Neil, the younger brother of President Bush, to seek business in the Middle East."
That would be New Bridge president John Howland and Jamal Daniel, a principal. As it turns out, Neil landed a $60,000 a year consultant contract, for which according to his testimony in a divorce deposition, he is required to take phone messages for about 3 hours a week.
However, Neil is being far too modest about his consultant work. According to the Times, he is doing much more than answering phones. Three people contacted by the Financial Times said they have seen letters written by Neil that recommend business ventures promoted by New Bridges in the Middle East. So in a nutshell, Neil is being paid an annual fee to "help companies secure contracts in Iraq," the Times reports.
Bush Sends Bremer To Privatize Iraq
According to a Sept 2004 article in Harper's Magazine by Naomi Klein, "before the fires from the “shock and awe” military onslaught were even extinguished, Bremer unleashed his shock therapy, pushing through more wrenching changes in one sweltering summer than the International Monetary Fund has managed to enact over three decades in Latin America.”
In his first major act on the job, Bremer "fired 500,000 state workers, most of them soldiers, but also doctors, nurses, teachers, publishers, and printers. Next, he flung open the country’s borders to absolutely unrestricted imports: no tariffs, no duties, no inspections, no taxes. Iraq, Bremer declared was “open for business,” says Harper.
Before the war, Iraq’s non-oil-related economy consisted of 200 state-owned companies, that produced everything from cement to paper to washing machines. In June, Bremer attended an economic summit in Jordan and announced that the firms would be privatized immediately. “Getting inefficient state enterprises into private hands,” he said, “is essential for Iraq’s economic recovery," according to Harpers.
In September, to entice investors to buy the state-owned companies, Bremer enacted a new set of laws. For example, Order 37 lowered Iraq’s corporate tax rate from roughly 40% to a flat 15%. Order 39 allowed foreign companies to own 100% of Iraqi assets outside of the natural-resource sector.
Investors could take 100% of the profits they made in Iraq out of the country. They would not be required to reinvest and would not be taxed. Under Order 39, they could sign leases and contracts that would last for forty years. Order 40 welcomed foreign banks to Iraq under the same favorable terms, said Harpers.
At first, privatization seemed likely. For as Harper's notes, "Iraqis, reeling from violence both military and economic, were far too busy staying alive to mount a political response to Bremer’s campaign. Worrying about the privatization of the sewage system was an unimaginable luxury with half the population lacking access to clean drinking water; the debate over the flat tax would have to wait until the lights were back on," it said.
By fall, rebuilding trade shows were being held all over the place. The Economist described Iraq under Bremer as “a capitalist dream,” and a flurry of new consulting firms were launched promising to help companies get access to the Iraqi market, their boards of directors stacked with well-connected Republicans, Harper's said.
The most prominent was New Bridge and it was absolutely jubilant over the potential opportunities in Iraq. “Getting the rights to distribute Procter & Gamble products can be a gold mine,” one of the company’s partners enthused. “One well-stocked 7-Eleven could knock out thirty Iraqi stores; a Wal-Mart could take over the country,” Harper quoted.
Iraq seemed like a gold mine. There were rumors that a McDonald’s would be opening, funding was almost in place for a Starwood luxury hotel, and General Motors was planning to build a factory. On the financial side, HSBC would have branches all over the country, Citigroup was preparing to offer loans guaranteed against future sales of Iraqi oil, and the bell was going to ring on a New York style stock exchange in Baghdad any day, said Harpers.
However none of that came to pass. For good reason. Klein explained that Bremer's illegal changes to Iraqi law may have made the country the most friendly in the world to corporations, but they were the least useful to Iraqi workers suffering an unemployment rate over 60%.
During the past year and a half, the whole world has watched as the Iraqis refused to hand over their country to Bremer and the plan for privatization went right down the tubes.
Bush cronies who drooled at the prospect of making mega-bucks in Iraq are no longer drooling. According to Harper's, "New Bridge Strategies, the company that had gushed about how “a Wal-Mart could take over the country,” is sounding distinctly humbled. “McDonald’s is not opening anytime soon,” company partner Ed Rogers told the Washington Post. Neither is Wal-Mart."
What Happens To Iraq Now?
God only knows what will happen to Iraq now. The Financial Times has called it “the most dangerous place in the world in which to do business.” Harper's described the mess created by the Bush gang: "It’s quite an accomplishment: in trying to design the best place in the world to do business, the neocons have managed to create the worst, the most eloquent indictment yet of the guiding logic behind deregulated free markets."
But don't worry about old Joe. Things may not have went as planned in Iraq, but he's branching out and finding other ways to cash in on the war. According to the Sept 30, 2004 Fairfield County Weekly, Allbaugh started yet another consulting company with Andrew Lundquist, the former director of Dick Cheney's secretive energy policy task force. The firm's first client? Lockheed Martin, one of the country's largest defense contractors.
Never fear, if there's an opportunity for profiteering, a Bush funnel will be there.
Josh Marshall writes a column for The Hill, a Congressional newspaper. Josh says that every big new piece of legislation needs a catchy title to set it apart, and he came up with a good title for the $87 billion allocated for rebuilding Iraq. ''The Bush Crony Full-Employment Act of 2003.'' I like that, its very fitting.
Who is Joe Allbaugh?
Anybody remember Joe Allbaugh? He was part of the inner circle in Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, along with Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. In January 2001, when Bush took over the White House, he put Allbaugh in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which dispenses disaster money and loans after hurricanes, floods and fires.
I think Joe missed his calling. He should be a fortune teller, because somehow he knew a couple of weeks before Bush declared war on Iraq, that he should quit his government job and go into the business of helping wealthy clients secure Iraqi reconstruction contracts.
Of course Joe didn't say that at the time. When he announced his resignation from FEMA on March 1, 2003 he said, "Now I am going to take the opportunity to spend some time with my wife and children." Well his family could not have enjoyed too much quality with Joe because in a matter of weeks he opened a new firm called New Bridge Strategies.
True to form, with the press seemingly unwilling to publicize the war profiteering aspects of the war in Iraq, the formation of New Bridge basically went unnoticed by the American public and only briefly showed up in the headlines.
It deserved public attention because of the Republican heavyweights on its board that were linked to one or the other Bush administrations or to the family itself. The members not only included Allbaugh, but also Ed Rogers and Lanny Griffith, former George H W Bush aids.
The president of the company is John Howland, and Jamal Daniel, (business partners of first brother Neil Bush), is a principal.
Josh Marshall says New Bridge is actually an outgrowth of Haley Barbour’s lobbying firm, Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR). Josh says he came to this conclusion after he learned that both firms were located in the same office space. And also because Griffith is the CEO of New Bridge and Rogers is the vice president. Sounds to me like he reached the right conclusion.
Others agree. "The bottom line on New Bridge is that it appears to be very closely linked to BGR, which has many overlapping ties to the highest levels of the Republican Party," said Thomas Ferguson, a campaign finance expert at the University of Massachusetts, the Oct 15, 2004 Village Voice reports.
So here's the setup. Bush’s main man Joe, quits FEMA to spend time with his family, right before the bombs start falling in Iraq. He then moves into the offices of one of the biggest and most politically connected GOP lobbying firms in Washington and starts advertising services to clients who want to win reconstruction contracts in Iraq. How could it possibly get any sweeter than this?
Allbaugh Has A Big Heart
According to the Oct 6, 2003 New York Times, Allbaugh "is here to tell you that his new company, which advises clients on how to get business in Iraq, is not trading on his White House connections. The Iraqis need assistance ... and he can help."
Although its connections to the administration may not have received much attention in the media, the company itself was not shy about advertising its contacts. Its web site as much as brags about the company's links to Bush, by specifically pointing out that Allbaugh was "chief of staff to then-Gov. Bush of Texas and was the national campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign."
It says New Bridge is "a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq." I'm surprised that the site doesn't have a blinking neon sign saying AKA war profiteering.
Initially, it said, "the opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington, D.C., and on the ground in Iraq." But someone must have warned Allbaugh that that particular sentence was a little over the top because that particular phrasing has since been changed on the web site.
Allbaugh himself, didn't seem to give his ties to the administration a second thought. According to a Sept 30, 2003 article in Mother Jones, he claimed, "It's beneficial to clients that I know who the players are and I know who the decision makers are." Apparently he forgot to mention that because of all these friends in high places, he has insider knowledge of how much money the government will spend and when it will become available.
Middle East specialist, Richard Murphy, claims Iraqis will view the situation differently, and was quick to point out that the Bush ties to New Bridge would only validate what was already suspected. "In the Middle East, it will be received as confirming the weary cynicism prevailing in the area about US intentions in launching the attack on Iraq in the first place," said Murphy.
Allbaugh denied having any improper motives. "The stories I've seen have been couched as if people are trying to game the system, and that's not what we're about," he said. "We are trying to help Iraq become a capitalist country, and a leader throughout the Middle East. Iraqis themselves are asking for help," wrote the New York Times.
That's funny, I thought the Iraqis said they wanted us to get the hell out of their country and leave them alone. I wonder why I never knew that they had asked Joe to help.
Joe seems baffled that anyone would question his assertion about wanting to help the poor Iraqis. "We fought a war, we displaced a horrible, horrible regime, and as a part of that we have an obligation to help Iraqis," he said. "We can't just leave in the middle of the night."
He gets downright defensive if you question his business practices. On Oct 6, 2003, he told a New York Times reporter, "Because my friend is president of the United States, I'm supposed to check out of life?"
To that I would say no, of course you don't have to check out of life Joe. But you also don't quit your government job before the president even admits he's taking the country to war, set up shop and start advertising to get contracts for work in a country that you somehow know we're about to destroy.
Another Funnel - Diligence Security Company
It's clear that BGR was instrumental in bringing other companies into New Bridge's fold, including Diligence, a security firm set up by former US and British intelligence officers.
On Oct 6, 2003, Allbaugh told the NYTs, that "As part of his package for clients ... he offered security in the form of yet another new company, Diligence Iraq, which worked hand-in-hand with New Bridge. New Bridge is a minority partner in Diligence Iraq, which is just opening up in Baghdad. Mike Baker, the head of Diligence Iraq, serves as an advisory board member of New Bridge."
In other words, explained the Times, "if your company wants to send over three people from New York to investigate business opportunities in Baghdad, Mr. Baker will secure the way in: a three-car convoy of armed S.U.V.'s driving 90 miles an hour, to avoid bandits, in an eight-hour-plus streak across the desert from the border of Jordan or Kuwait," it said.
BGR provided the initial funding for Diligence, according to Nick Day, a co-founder of the firm. Like New Bridge, it was given office space at BGR's Washington office. BGR also provided the firm's advisory board. Many of the names on the Diligence board, including the Carlyle Group's Ed Mathias, match the names on the board of New Bridge.
And with a closer look, the web of this grand war profiteering scheme just keeps getting more and more entwined. In return for finding an investor for Diligence in Iraq, New Bridge got a minority shareholding in the firm.
According to a June 22, 2004 article on Corporate Watch, Diligence, is now headed by Richard Burt, former US Ambassador to Germany and a consultant in the Carlyle Group (which also has George Bush Sr, John Major and James Baker on its payroll). Whitley Bruner, formerly head of the CIA Baghdad station, is now director of the Iraq branch of Diligence.
And guess what? The deputy chairman of Diligence is none other than Joe Allbaugh.
Objections to Cronyism and Privatization
Is it any wonder that critics are questioning the propriety of the reconstruction effort? "I'm appalled that the war is being used by people close to the Bush Administration to make money for themselves," Democratic Rep Henry Waxman said. "At a time when we're asking young men and women to make perhaps the ultimate sacrifice, it's just unseemly."
On Sept 30, 2003, while the reconstruction bill was being debated in the Senate, Sen John Edwards explained why he was against giving Bush the $87 billion. "This is an administration of the insiders, for the insiders, and by the insiders. Learning that George Bush's campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh, has started his own consulting firm to profit from the war in Iraq proves this point,” Edwards said. “First, Vice President Cheney's Halliburton receives more than $2 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts and now this.”
Edwards said, “It is an outrage and disrespectful to the young men and women who are serving in Iraq today. President Bush should start addressing this credibility gap by calling on Joe Allbaugh and his friends to stop using their influence to secure government contracts in Iraq, and by agreeing to an independent oversight panel to ensure that contracts in Iraq are administered fairly.”
"In this enormously expensive mission, the American people ought to be assured that any dollar we spend there is for the rebuilding of Iraq, and not just the building of profit for the president's friends and political supporters," he said.
On Oct 14, 2003, Edwards said he would vote against $87 billion because Bush had failed to outline a credible long-term plan for rebuilding the country, failed to persuade allies to help shoulder the costs, and failed to stop sweetheart deals for politically-connected companies.
"We used to talk about this money as a blank check. Well, now we know it's not really a blank check. We know the president is writing it out to Joe Allbaugh and Halliburton, and it's all endorsed by Vice President Cheney," Edwards said.
Always Close By - Bush Family Funnel
True to form, if there's a tax dollar to be skimmed off a business deal a Bush family funnel will be there to grab it. This time its First Brother Neil Bush. On Dec 11, 2003, The Financial Times of London reported that, "Two businessmen instrumental in setting up New Bridge Strategies, a well-connected Washington firm designed to help clients win contracts in Iraq, have previously used an association with Neil, the younger brother of President Bush, to seek business in the Middle East."
That would be New Bridge president John Howland and Jamal Daniel, a principal. As it turns out, Neil landed a $60,000 a year consultant contract, for which according to his testimony in a divorce deposition, he is required to take phone messages for about 3 hours a week.
However, Neil is being far too modest about his consultant work. According to the Times, he is doing much more than answering phones. Three people contacted by the Financial Times said they have seen letters written by Neil that recommend business ventures promoted by New Bridges in the Middle East. So in a nutshell, Neil is being paid an annual fee to "help companies secure contracts in Iraq," the Times reports.
Bush Sends Bremer To Privatize Iraq
According to a Sept 2004 article in Harper's Magazine by Naomi Klein, "before the fires from the “shock and awe” military onslaught were even extinguished, Bremer unleashed his shock therapy, pushing through more wrenching changes in one sweltering summer than the International Monetary Fund has managed to enact over three decades in Latin America.”
In his first major act on the job, Bremer "fired 500,000 state workers, most of them soldiers, but also doctors, nurses, teachers, publishers, and printers. Next, he flung open the country’s borders to absolutely unrestricted imports: no tariffs, no duties, no inspections, no taxes. Iraq, Bremer declared was “open for business,” says Harper.
Before the war, Iraq’s non-oil-related economy consisted of 200 state-owned companies, that produced everything from cement to paper to washing machines. In June, Bremer attended an economic summit in Jordan and announced that the firms would be privatized immediately. “Getting inefficient state enterprises into private hands,” he said, “is essential for Iraq’s economic recovery," according to Harpers.
In September, to entice investors to buy the state-owned companies, Bremer enacted a new set of laws. For example, Order 37 lowered Iraq’s corporate tax rate from roughly 40% to a flat 15%. Order 39 allowed foreign companies to own 100% of Iraqi assets outside of the natural-resource sector.
Investors could take 100% of the profits they made in Iraq out of the country. They would not be required to reinvest and would not be taxed. Under Order 39, they could sign leases and contracts that would last for forty years. Order 40 welcomed foreign banks to Iraq under the same favorable terms, said Harpers.
At first, privatization seemed likely. For as Harper's notes, "Iraqis, reeling from violence both military and economic, were far too busy staying alive to mount a political response to Bremer’s campaign. Worrying about the privatization of the sewage system was an unimaginable luxury with half the population lacking access to clean drinking water; the debate over the flat tax would have to wait until the lights were back on," it said.
By fall, rebuilding trade shows were being held all over the place. The Economist described Iraq under Bremer as “a capitalist dream,” and a flurry of new consulting firms were launched promising to help companies get access to the Iraqi market, their boards of directors stacked with well-connected Republicans, Harper's said.
The most prominent was New Bridge and it was absolutely jubilant over the potential opportunities in Iraq. “Getting the rights to distribute Procter & Gamble products can be a gold mine,” one of the company’s partners enthused. “One well-stocked 7-Eleven could knock out thirty Iraqi stores; a Wal-Mart could take over the country,” Harper quoted.
Iraq seemed like a gold mine. There were rumors that a McDonald’s would be opening, funding was almost in place for a Starwood luxury hotel, and General Motors was planning to build a factory. On the financial side, HSBC would have branches all over the country, Citigroup was preparing to offer loans guaranteed against future sales of Iraqi oil, and the bell was going to ring on a New York style stock exchange in Baghdad any day, said Harpers.
However none of that came to pass. For good reason. Klein explained that Bremer's illegal changes to Iraqi law may have made the country the most friendly in the world to corporations, but they were the least useful to Iraqi workers suffering an unemployment rate over 60%.
During the past year and a half, the whole world has watched as the Iraqis refused to hand over their country to Bremer and the plan for privatization went right down the tubes.
Bush cronies who drooled at the prospect of making mega-bucks in Iraq are no longer drooling. According to Harper's, "New Bridge Strategies, the company that had gushed about how “a Wal-Mart could take over the country,” is sounding distinctly humbled. “McDonald’s is not opening anytime soon,” company partner Ed Rogers told the Washington Post. Neither is Wal-Mart."
What Happens To Iraq Now?
God only knows what will happen to Iraq now. The Financial Times has called it “the most dangerous place in the world in which to do business.” Harper's described the mess created by the Bush gang: "It’s quite an accomplishment: in trying to design the best place in the world to do business, the neocons have managed to create the worst, the most eloquent indictment yet of the guiding logic behind deregulated free markets."
But don't worry about old Joe. Things may not have went as planned in Iraq, but he's branching out and finding other ways to cash in on the war. According to the Sept 30, 2004 Fairfield County Weekly, Allbaugh started yet another consulting company with Andrew Lundquist, the former director of Dick Cheney's secretive energy policy task force. The firm's first client? Lockheed Martin, one of the country's largest defense contractors.
Never fear, if there's an opportunity for profiteering, a Bush funnel will be there.
Bush Needs Funnels - Any Senior Citizens Will Do
Evelyn Pringle October 2004
Bush and his cronies in the drug and insurance industries have a major problem. Although they developed and implemented a brilliant Medicare profiteering scheme by which they could funnel billions of tax dollars to themselves, they cannot get their hands on the money because they can't get enough seniors to sign up for the prescription drug discount card program.
They are in dire need of senior funnels.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had projected that about 7 million senior citizens, out of the 41 million Medicare beneficiaries, would sign up for cards. However, much to the Bush gang's dismay, that has not happened.
In order to get Congress to pass the underlying bill that contains the scheme, Bush, the industry, and their allies in Congress went to great lengths. They lobbied, lied, coerced members of Congress, and threatened a Medicare Actuary with termination if he told Congress the true cost of the bill, before it passed. And in the end, the bill was passed.
That's why I think it's so funny that they now find themselves in desperate need of seniors willing to sign up for the program to act as funnels. I guess they really thought that elderly people were so gullible that they wouldn't figure out what they were up to, and that mistake is turning out to be their worst miscalculation.
Although the Bush gang will accept applications from all seniors, they are particularly interested in getting the poorest seniors into the program; because those seniors can get an automatic $1200 subsidy between now and 2006 that can be funneled back to the crooks with no questions asked.
The Lobbying, Lies, And Coercion
In order to ensure the passage of their favored version of the Medicare prescription drug bill, Bush said it would only cost $395 billion, because he was warned by Republicans that it would not pass a vote in Congress if it went over $400 billion.
As far back as 5 months before the vote, Bush knew that the top Medicare Actuary, Richard Foster, estimated it would cost as much as $551 billion. He knew that Foster said the bill would actually boost payments to private health plans by $46 billion, more than 3 times the $14 billion estimate given to Congress. He also knew that Foster determined that drugmakers would receive $100 billion more than the estimate provided to Congress while lawmakers were debating whether or not to pass the bill.
Plain and simple, Bush not only deceived seniors and members of Congress, he lied to the American tax payers and ripped off $170 billion.
Only after the bill was passed, did we find out that the thugs threatened to fire Foster, if he told lawmakers about the true cost of the bill. And only after it was passed, did tax payers find out about its $534 billion price tag.
On top of all that, this month we found out that the cost of the bill has gone up another $42 billion.
Bottom line. As a result of Bush's Medicare scam, the drug and insurance industries will receive an additional $139.2 billion in profits over the next eight years with 61% of it going for prescription drugs and $14 billion going to HMOs. (Alan Sager, Boston University School of Public Health, 4/12/04)
It's Not So Easy To Con Seniors
I can see why the Bush gang thought it could make a bundle off this scheme. About 7 million low-income Medicare beneficiaries are eligible to enroll in the prescription drug discount card program and receive the accompanying $600 annual subsidy, according to the AP/Omaha World-Herald, 9/23.
However, it looks like seniors have refused to be conned because very few signed up. While Bush stuck to his part of the bargain and spent millions of tax dollars to promote the new bill, attempts by insurance providers to lure low-income recipients into the trap with a cash subsidy even failed to increase enrollment.
So far, only 4.3 million seniors have enrolled in the program since enrollment began on June 1, according to Peter Ashkenaz of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). But even that number is deceiving because only 25% of those 4.3 million enrolled in the program voluntarily. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, determined that millions of people were automatically enrolled because they are participants in HMO-style Medicare plans or state pharmacy assistance programs.
Missouri Democratic candidate for Congress, Jim Newberry, says seniors aren't signing up because the program provides no savings and its too confusing. "Talk to seniors. They'll tell you," he said. "The drug companies don't have to negotiate or compete. Seniors have to choose a card. It's harder than choosing a cell-phone plan."
He calls the program "corporate welfare for pharmaceutical companies rather than financial help for seniors."
He's right, millions of seniors are confused, and for good reason. Peter Rost is my designated expert on the subject of prescription drugs (unbeknownst to him). He has 20 years of experience marketing drugs.
Rost told Independent Media why the program is not working, "the system we have today to provide discounted or free drugs to seniors and low-income families is a patch-work, that not even a highly educated person can easily master," he said.
Rost thinks the applications may be too difficult to fill out. "According to press reports some drug firms require applications that are longer than a tax return. And our government implements a system for discount cards that is so complex that very few sign up for this," he noted.
New York Congressman Joseph Crowley agrees. "Most people in my district are not signed up for a discount drug card because they do not see a value to the plan," he says.
"The (Medicare) reform bill has done zero to lower the cost of prescription drugs for American seniors and has in fact raised premiums and created a confusing system of Medicare drug discount cards," Crowly said. "This bill was passed by the pharmaceutical industry."
Sen Edward Kennedy has weighed in with his opinion of the Bush discount card scam. "Only in this administration would the words `discount card' mean seniors get the card while corporations get the discounts,'' he said.
This Escalating Cost Of Drugs
Two separate reports from Families USA and AARP, have determined that price increases for prescription drugs over the past year have offset any savings that may have been gained from drug card program.
Seniors had better not count on saving money by signing up for the program. A report released by Crowley, called "Medicare Prescription Drug Cards," analyzed the 33 discount cards available in his district in mid-August, 2004 and the prices charged for the 10 top brand-name drugs used by seniors.
The report's findings were detailed in the Howard Beach Times.com on 9/23/04. The study calculated the cost of 10 drugs using the cards and then compared it with the prices of the same drugs from three other sources: a popular online pharmacy Web site, the market rate in Canada and the price negotiated by the US Department of Veterans' Affairs.
According to the report, card prices "are significantly higher than prices for the same drugs in Canada." In fact, the average prices were 62% higher using the cards than if they were purchased in Canada. For example, a 30-day supply of the arthritis drug Celebrex was $38.69 in Canada, but $74.14 or more with a card.
The report also found card prices much higher than the prices negotiated by the Dept for Veterans Affairs. In comparison, drugs with the cards were 64% higher.
And the card prices were nearly identical to prices charged by the internet pharmacy Drugstore.com. The report even found that some prices with the cards were comparable to the prices offered to Medicare beneficiaries without the cards.
Bush Decides To Force Seniors To Enter The Program
As it gets closer to the election, Bush knows he needs to get this show on the road. So due to his dire need of funnels, he apparently has decided to try and force low-income seniors into the program.
On Sepember 23, 2004, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson announced that federal officials will mail Medicare prescription drug discount cards to about 1.8 million low-income seniors who already receive some government assistance with Medicare expenses, the New York Times reports.
The NYTs says beneficiaries who receive the cards will be assigned to one of the 17 companies that have agreed to issue drug discount cards to low-income beneficiaries.
I wonder which companies agreed to "help" these poor soles. Let's see now, for starters, how much is 1.8 million times $1,200? And then we have to divide that amount by 17. So how much money can each company count on from the get-go?
Another funny story is that card providers initially planned to charge seniors $30 for a card as part of the scam. How much is 7 million times $30? That money's lost. They tried to make mega bucks off our elderly from every angle. Too bad their house of cards is collapsing (no pun intended). When I think about it, this is just too funny.
Besides, there is still another little problem with trying to force low-income seniors into the program. To receive the subsidy, seniors must call a toll-free number and confirm their eligibility by answering questions about existing prescription drug coverage and annual income levels, according to the New York Times.
I know that this may be incomprehensible to the profiteers in this scheme, but some seniors not only do not have phones, many can't even use one due to any number of health problems. I wonder if Bush will sit there himself waiting for calls from seniors?
In this instance, I love being the bearer of bad news. I don't think the Bush gang is going to get enough funnels signed up for the card program before Bush is hit with an eviction notice at the White House on November 2.
Industry Was Drooling Over Long Term Profits
The primary groups that offer the cards are HMOs, pharmaceutical benefits managers (PBMs), insurance companies, and groups of insurers and drug companies combined.
According to a July 5, 2004 article in Business Week, players of every description are scrambling to get a foothold in the new business created when the prescription drug law was passed. "Insurance companies, drugstores, drugmakers, and distribution middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) have all jumped in."
Business Week points out that the focus is on 2006, when the card is due to expire. At that point, it will be replaced by the more lucrative drug insurance that Congress agreed to fund, which will pay a set proportion of seniors' drug costs. "The key is for card sponsors to position themselves for '06," says Vicki Gottlisch, a lawyer at the nonprofit Center for Medicare Advocacy.
Business Week, says companies are aiming at 2006 and beyond. It details how "First Health Services Corp ... runs six state programs that already provide discount drugs for low-income people. Because Congress agreed to pay for $600 in free drugs through the Medicare card for many of these same seniors, First Health is offering its card to more than 250,000 elderly in three of those states -- Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania.
"The payoff: The Medicare law allows these low-income seniors to be automatically enrolled in a card -- and First Health has negotiated to sponsor it. That will help position First Health with these customers for 2006," says First Health CEO Teresa DiMarco.
When Kerry takes over the White House the industry won't have to worry about what will happen in 2006, because I suspect that one of his first moves in office will be to find a way to dismantle Bush's Medicare profiteering scheme.
What Are Lawmakers Doing To Help?
Currently, between 1 and 2 million Americans are breaking the law by using the Internet to buy drugs from Canadian pharmacies, and many more would like to. According to a poll done by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University School of Public Health, about 80% of Americans support importing drugs from Canada.
And who can blame them? In 2002, Americans paid 67% more than Canadians for prescription drugs and in 2004, it's estimated that US consumers will spend $210 billion.
John Kerry has said that under his health care proposal, "all Americans will be able to buy less expensive prescription drugs from countries like Canada."
Under pressure from voters, many governors and state officials are ignoring Bush's ban on importing drugs, and are creating websites that link consumers to Canadian pharmacies. For instance, New Hampshire has a link to Canadadrugs.com on its website, which is supported by its Republican Governor Craig Benson. The FDA has not moved to shut the sites down so far.
Minnesota Republican Gov Tim Pawlenty, also set up a state web site and explained, "We search the world market for the best deal for American consumers and I don't think we should carve out and make an exception for prescription drugs."
Illinois and Wisconsin recently launched "I-Saverk," the first state-sponsored program to help people buy cheaper drugs from both Europe and Canada. Some 24 other states are said to be considering legislation that would permit importation from other countries. Connecticut, West Virginia and Vermont have already enacted pro-importation laws.
However, I've always known that drug makers wouldn't sit back and allow this to go on for too long. They are already starting to cut shipments sent to Canada when the orders appear to exceed local needs.
When asked about this situation, Pawlenty said, "We'll have to look at other opportunities in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, and other countries we know are potential safe providers of prescription medicines. In the end they (U.S. drug makers ) can't suffocate the supply to the rest of the developed world."
I really like Gov Pawlenty's attitude (even if he is a Republican).
Peter Rost blames most of the problem on politics. "The objective does not appear to be to provide drugs, but to score political and public relations victories," he says. "We need comprehensive healthcare reform. Reimportation of drugs is a first step on the right way."
Along with importation, some lawmakers are trying to pass legislation that would allow the government to negotiate for lower prices like the Dept of Veteran's Affairs does. Rost believes a law should be enacted immediately.
He told Independent Media: "I'm very concerned about the fact that Medicare will not be allowed to negotiate drug prices. I think this is Un-American. This is the country in which we believe we have a God given right to clip coupons and get low grocery prices, haggle with car dealers and buy clothes only on sale," he noted.
"To forbid us from negotiating drug prices will raise taxes which is even more Un-American. And this is done to us by a Republican president! I'm shocked," he said.
For whatever its worth, I agree with Rost 100%.
Cut To The Chase - How Much Will Seniors Have To Pay In 2006?
In January 2006, Medicare Part D will offer seniors enrolled in a managed care program prescription drug coverage that will include premiums, co-payments, and a donut hole, or a gap in coverage between certain levels of drug expenses.
How much will seniors have to pay in 2006? To begin with, they will pay a premium of $35 a month ($420 a year), and for the first $250 in drug costs. For the next $2,000 in costs they will pay 25% and Medicare will cover the other 75%.
Once the drug costs reach $2,250, coverage will completely stop. Seniors then have to pay for the next $2,850 in drug expenses on their own (the doughnut hole). Coverage does not begin again until the total costs reach $5,100. Once drug expenses reach that level, Medicare will pay for 95% of the cost for the rest of the year.
Then in 2007, the process begins all over again, but with the likely possibility that both the deductible and the gap in coverage will increase, depending on how much the price of drugs go up. That is not good news because we all know how fast drug prices can rise in 12 months.
For example, Families USA did a study and found that, "Among the top 30 brand-name drugs, prices, on average, rose by 4.3 times the rate of inflation from January 2003 to January 2004," ("Sticker Shock" June, 2004)
In light of this report, I think we can safely assume that the rising drug prices will probably negate any savings that may result from the prescription drug bill in 2007.
I agree with Sen Kennedy, and I think as president, Kerry should follow his advice. "The Bush administration's drug discount card program has been a monumental failure," said Kennedy. "It's time to scrap and replace the administration's whole flawed Medicare bill with a program designed to meet the needs of seniors instead of designed to fatten the profits of drug companies and HMOs."
Seniors Will Give Bush The Boot
The group of voters with the highest prescription drug costs is made up of Americans over the age of 65. Seniors make up 13% of the population. This group also happens have the best record for voter participation. 72% of its members cast ballots in
2000.
Although its more than obvious that Bush is not the sharpest tool in the shed, one of his many minions should have forced him to at least consider these statistics before he tried to con the elderly. Mark my word, pay-backs are hell. On Nov 2, seniors are going to show up to vote in record numbers and cause Bush to lose the election.
Bush and his cronies in the drug and insurance industries have a major problem. Although they developed and implemented a brilliant Medicare profiteering scheme by which they could funnel billions of tax dollars to themselves, they cannot get their hands on the money because they can't get enough seniors to sign up for the prescription drug discount card program.
They are in dire need of senior funnels.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had projected that about 7 million senior citizens, out of the 41 million Medicare beneficiaries, would sign up for cards. However, much to the Bush gang's dismay, that has not happened.
In order to get Congress to pass the underlying bill that contains the scheme, Bush, the industry, and their allies in Congress went to great lengths. They lobbied, lied, coerced members of Congress, and threatened a Medicare Actuary with termination if he told Congress the true cost of the bill, before it passed. And in the end, the bill was passed.
That's why I think it's so funny that they now find themselves in desperate need of seniors willing to sign up for the program to act as funnels. I guess they really thought that elderly people were so gullible that they wouldn't figure out what they were up to, and that mistake is turning out to be their worst miscalculation.
Although the Bush gang will accept applications from all seniors, they are particularly interested in getting the poorest seniors into the program; because those seniors can get an automatic $1200 subsidy between now and 2006 that can be funneled back to the crooks with no questions asked.
The Lobbying, Lies, And Coercion
In order to ensure the passage of their favored version of the Medicare prescription drug bill, Bush said it would only cost $395 billion, because he was warned by Republicans that it would not pass a vote in Congress if it went over $400 billion.
As far back as 5 months before the vote, Bush knew that the top Medicare Actuary, Richard Foster, estimated it would cost as much as $551 billion. He knew that Foster said the bill would actually boost payments to private health plans by $46 billion, more than 3 times the $14 billion estimate given to Congress. He also knew that Foster determined that drugmakers would receive $100 billion more than the estimate provided to Congress while lawmakers were debating whether or not to pass the bill.
Plain and simple, Bush not only deceived seniors and members of Congress, he lied to the American tax payers and ripped off $170 billion.
Only after the bill was passed, did we find out that the thugs threatened to fire Foster, if he told lawmakers about the true cost of the bill. And only after it was passed, did tax payers find out about its $534 billion price tag.
On top of all that, this month we found out that the cost of the bill has gone up another $42 billion.
Bottom line. As a result of Bush's Medicare scam, the drug and insurance industries will receive an additional $139.2 billion in profits over the next eight years with 61% of it going for prescription drugs and $14 billion going to HMOs. (Alan Sager, Boston University School of Public Health, 4/12/04)
It's Not So Easy To Con Seniors
I can see why the Bush gang thought it could make a bundle off this scheme. About 7 million low-income Medicare beneficiaries are eligible to enroll in the prescription drug discount card program and receive the accompanying $600 annual subsidy, according to the AP/Omaha World-Herald, 9/23.
However, it looks like seniors have refused to be conned because very few signed up. While Bush stuck to his part of the bargain and spent millions of tax dollars to promote the new bill, attempts by insurance providers to lure low-income recipients into the trap with a cash subsidy even failed to increase enrollment.
So far, only 4.3 million seniors have enrolled in the program since enrollment began on June 1, according to Peter Ashkenaz of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). But even that number is deceiving because only 25% of those 4.3 million enrolled in the program voluntarily. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, determined that millions of people were automatically enrolled because they are participants in HMO-style Medicare plans or state pharmacy assistance programs.
Missouri Democratic candidate for Congress, Jim Newberry, says seniors aren't signing up because the program provides no savings and its too confusing. "Talk to seniors. They'll tell you," he said. "The drug companies don't have to negotiate or compete. Seniors have to choose a card. It's harder than choosing a cell-phone plan."
He calls the program "corporate welfare for pharmaceutical companies rather than financial help for seniors."
He's right, millions of seniors are confused, and for good reason. Peter Rost is my designated expert on the subject of prescription drugs (unbeknownst to him). He has 20 years of experience marketing drugs.
Rost told Independent Media why the program is not working, "the system we have today to provide discounted or free drugs to seniors and low-income families is a patch-work, that not even a highly educated person can easily master," he said.
Rost thinks the applications may be too difficult to fill out. "According to press reports some drug firms require applications that are longer than a tax return. And our government implements a system for discount cards that is so complex that very few sign up for this," he noted.
New York Congressman Joseph Crowley agrees. "Most people in my district are not signed up for a discount drug card because they do not see a value to the plan," he says.
"The (Medicare) reform bill has done zero to lower the cost of prescription drugs for American seniors and has in fact raised premiums and created a confusing system of Medicare drug discount cards," Crowly said. "This bill was passed by the pharmaceutical industry."
Sen Edward Kennedy has weighed in with his opinion of the Bush discount card scam. "Only in this administration would the words `discount card' mean seniors get the card while corporations get the discounts,'' he said.
This Escalating Cost Of Drugs
Two separate reports from Families USA and AARP, have determined that price increases for prescription drugs over the past year have offset any savings that may have been gained from drug card program.
Seniors had better not count on saving money by signing up for the program. A report released by Crowley, called "Medicare Prescription Drug Cards," analyzed the 33 discount cards available in his district in mid-August, 2004 and the prices charged for the 10 top brand-name drugs used by seniors.
The report's findings were detailed in the Howard Beach Times.com on 9/23/04. The study calculated the cost of 10 drugs using the cards and then compared it with the prices of the same drugs from three other sources: a popular online pharmacy Web site, the market rate in Canada and the price negotiated by the US Department of Veterans' Affairs.
According to the report, card prices "are significantly higher than prices for the same drugs in Canada." In fact, the average prices were 62% higher using the cards than if they were purchased in Canada. For example, a 30-day supply of the arthritis drug Celebrex was $38.69 in Canada, but $74.14 or more with a card.
The report also found card prices much higher than the prices negotiated by the Dept for Veterans Affairs. In comparison, drugs with the cards were 64% higher.
And the card prices were nearly identical to prices charged by the internet pharmacy Drugstore.com. The report even found that some prices with the cards were comparable to the prices offered to Medicare beneficiaries without the cards.
Bush Decides To Force Seniors To Enter The Program
As it gets closer to the election, Bush knows he needs to get this show on the road. So due to his dire need of funnels, he apparently has decided to try and force low-income seniors into the program.
On Sepember 23, 2004, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson announced that federal officials will mail Medicare prescription drug discount cards to about 1.8 million low-income seniors who already receive some government assistance with Medicare expenses, the New York Times reports.
The NYTs says beneficiaries who receive the cards will be assigned to one of the 17 companies that have agreed to issue drug discount cards to low-income beneficiaries.
I wonder which companies agreed to "help" these poor soles. Let's see now, for starters, how much is 1.8 million times $1,200? And then we have to divide that amount by 17. So how much money can each company count on from the get-go?
Another funny story is that card providers initially planned to charge seniors $30 for a card as part of the scam. How much is 7 million times $30? That money's lost. They tried to make mega bucks off our elderly from every angle. Too bad their house of cards is collapsing (no pun intended). When I think about it, this is just too funny.
Besides, there is still another little problem with trying to force low-income seniors into the program. To receive the subsidy, seniors must call a toll-free number and confirm their eligibility by answering questions about existing prescription drug coverage and annual income levels, according to the New York Times.
I know that this may be incomprehensible to the profiteers in this scheme, but some seniors not only do not have phones, many can't even use one due to any number of health problems. I wonder if Bush will sit there himself waiting for calls from seniors?
In this instance, I love being the bearer of bad news. I don't think the Bush gang is going to get enough funnels signed up for the card program before Bush is hit with an eviction notice at the White House on November 2.
Industry Was Drooling Over Long Term Profits
The primary groups that offer the cards are HMOs, pharmaceutical benefits managers (PBMs), insurance companies, and groups of insurers and drug companies combined.
According to a July 5, 2004 article in Business Week, players of every description are scrambling to get a foothold in the new business created when the prescription drug law was passed. "Insurance companies, drugstores, drugmakers, and distribution middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) have all jumped in."
Business Week points out that the focus is on 2006, when the card is due to expire. At that point, it will be replaced by the more lucrative drug insurance that Congress agreed to fund, which will pay a set proportion of seniors' drug costs. "The key is for card sponsors to position themselves for '06," says Vicki Gottlisch, a lawyer at the nonprofit Center for Medicare Advocacy.
Business Week, says companies are aiming at 2006 and beyond. It details how "First Health Services Corp ... runs six state programs that already provide discount drugs for low-income people. Because Congress agreed to pay for $600 in free drugs through the Medicare card for many of these same seniors, First Health is offering its card to more than 250,000 elderly in three of those states -- Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania.
"The payoff: The Medicare law allows these low-income seniors to be automatically enrolled in a card -- and First Health has negotiated to sponsor it. That will help position First Health with these customers for 2006," says First Health CEO Teresa DiMarco.
When Kerry takes over the White House the industry won't have to worry about what will happen in 2006, because I suspect that one of his first moves in office will be to find a way to dismantle Bush's Medicare profiteering scheme.
What Are Lawmakers Doing To Help?
Currently, between 1 and 2 million Americans are breaking the law by using the Internet to buy drugs from Canadian pharmacies, and many more would like to. According to a poll done by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University School of Public Health, about 80% of Americans support importing drugs from Canada.
And who can blame them? In 2002, Americans paid 67% more than Canadians for prescription drugs and in 2004, it's estimated that US consumers will spend $210 billion.
John Kerry has said that under his health care proposal, "all Americans will be able to buy less expensive prescription drugs from countries like Canada."
Under pressure from voters, many governors and state officials are ignoring Bush's ban on importing drugs, and are creating websites that link consumers to Canadian pharmacies. For instance, New Hampshire has a link to Canadadrugs.com on its website, which is supported by its Republican Governor Craig Benson. The FDA has not moved to shut the sites down so far.
Minnesota Republican Gov Tim Pawlenty, also set up a state web site and explained, "We search the world market for the best deal for American consumers and I don't think we should carve out and make an exception for prescription drugs."
Illinois and Wisconsin recently launched "I-Saverk," the first state-sponsored program to help people buy cheaper drugs from both Europe and Canada. Some 24 other states are said to be considering legislation that would permit importation from other countries. Connecticut, West Virginia and Vermont have already enacted pro-importation laws.
However, I've always known that drug makers wouldn't sit back and allow this to go on for too long. They are already starting to cut shipments sent to Canada when the orders appear to exceed local needs.
When asked about this situation, Pawlenty said, "We'll have to look at other opportunities in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, and other countries we know are potential safe providers of prescription medicines. In the end they (U.S. drug makers ) can't suffocate the supply to the rest of the developed world."
I really like Gov Pawlenty's attitude (even if he is a Republican).
Peter Rost blames most of the problem on politics. "The objective does not appear to be to provide drugs, but to score political and public relations victories," he says. "We need comprehensive healthcare reform. Reimportation of drugs is a first step on the right way."
Along with importation, some lawmakers are trying to pass legislation that would allow the government to negotiate for lower prices like the Dept of Veteran's Affairs does. Rost believes a law should be enacted immediately.
He told Independent Media: "I'm very concerned about the fact that Medicare will not be allowed to negotiate drug prices. I think this is Un-American. This is the country in which we believe we have a God given right to clip coupons and get low grocery prices, haggle with car dealers and buy clothes only on sale," he noted.
"To forbid us from negotiating drug prices will raise taxes which is even more Un-American. And this is done to us by a Republican president! I'm shocked," he said.
For whatever its worth, I agree with Rost 100%.
Cut To The Chase - How Much Will Seniors Have To Pay In 2006?
In January 2006, Medicare Part D will offer seniors enrolled in a managed care program prescription drug coverage that will include premiums, co-payments, and a donut hole, or a gap in coverage between certain levels of drug expenses.
How much will seniors have to pay in 2006? To begin with, they will pay a premium of $35 a month ($420 a year), and for the first $250 in drug costs. For the next $2,000 in costs they will pay 25% and Medicare will cover the other 75%.
Once the drug costs reach $2,250, coverage will completely stop. Seniors then have to pay for the next $2,850 in drug expenses on their own (the doughnut hole). Coverage does not begin again until the total costs reach $5,100. Once drug expenses reach that level, Medicare will pay for 95% of the cost for the rest of the year.
Then in 2007, the process begins all over again, but with the likely possibility that both the deductible and the gap in coverage will increase, depending on how much the price of drugs go up. That is not good news because we all know how fast drug prices can rise in 12 months.
For example, Families USA did a study and found that, "Among the top 30 brand-name drugs, prices, on average, rose by 4.3 times the rate of inflation from January 2003 to January 2004," ("Sticker Shock" June, 2004)
In light of this report, I think we can safely assume that the rising drug prices will probably negate any savings that may result from the prescription drug bill in 2007.
I agree with Sen Kennedy, and I think as president, Kerry should follow his advice. "The Bush administration's drug discount card program has been a monumental failure," said Kennedy. "It's time to scrap and replace the administration's whole flawed Medicare bill with a program designed to meet the needs of seniors instead of designed to fatten the profits of drug companies and HMOs."
Seniors Will Give Bush The Boot
The group of voters with the highest prescription drug costs is made up of Americans over the age of 65. Seniors make up 13% of the population. This group also happens have the best record for voter participation. 72% of its members cast ballots in
2000.
Although its more than obvious that Bush is not the sharpest tool in the shed, one of his many minions should have forced him to at least consider these statistics before he tried to con the elderly. Mark my word, pay-backs are hell. On Nov 2, seniors are going to show up to vote in record numbers and cause Bush to lose the election.
Medicare Prescription Drug Scam Jumps From $400 Billion To Over $1 Trillion
Evelyn Pringle February 21, 2005
In December 2003, the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act was passed. Many seniors expected the new law to provide relief for the ever-rising prescription drug costs but they were sadly mistaken.
We recently learned that instead of costing tax payers $400 billion, the bill is going to cost more than $1.3 Trillion, over the next 10 years, and the only ones benefiting from it are the pharmaceutical companies and HMOs.
The new law will not save tax payers any money because it specifically bars Medicare from negotiating for better drug prices like the Department of Veterans Affairs does, and it bans the importation of cheaper drugs from neighboring Canada and other countries. The notion that the bill will provide any meaningful savings for seniors is unlikely.
Due to its insider knowledge about the pending Medicare prescription bills in Congress, and the amount of money up for grabs, the pharmaceutical industry lobbied non-stop in 2002, to make sure that its favored version of the bill got passed. It spent a record breaking $91.4 million on lobbying, and 24 separate companies and trade groups spent over $1 million each. The top 10 drug companies and trade associations together, spent an estimated $55.8 million on lobbying.
However, what's $55 million compared to the $35.9 billion in profits that were realized by the same 10 companies in 2002. Since Bush took office, pharmaceutical industry profits have soared past all other business sectors, at a rate of more than 5 times greater than all other industries in the Fortune 500.
Prohibits Medicare From Negotiating For Lower-Priced Drugs
According to Senator Edward Kennedy, "The single most irresponsible provision in the Medicare bill is the prohibition that prevents Medicare from negotiating lower-priced prescription drugs."
Prescriptions bought by the VA cost at least 24% less than the average retail price, said Steve Thomas, director of the program. For many drugs, the VA negotiated price is on average 40% less that what most consumers pay, Thomas said.
When Bush was asked why he barred Medicare from bargaining for lower prices on behalf of its beneficiaries, he offered the feeble excuse that he was concerned that if Medicare negotiated with drug makers, it would amount to a government monopoly and a form of price controls.
That excuse is ridiculous. Although Medicare might be a major player in the market, being recipients are expected to buy over $1.5 trillion worth of drugs over the next 10 years, it could hardly be considered a monopoly in a market projected to earn about $4.6 trillion.
During the debate on the Medicare bill, the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General said, "Medicare and its beneficiaries would save $1.6 billion a year if 24 drugs were reimbursed at amounts available to the VA." As an example of the possible savings, he listed the price of the asthma treatment drug, Albuterol, that was being sold for 47 cents, while the VA was paying only 5 cents.
Comptroller General, David Walker, of the General Accounting Office (GAO), has been recommending that Medicare should follow the VA model for years but Bush refuses to take the advice of our government experts.
Discount Drug Card Scam
Shortly after signing the new Medicare bill, Bush announced a plan for a drug discount card program. To enroll in the program seniors had to pick one of Bush's approved providers. A card could cost up to $30, and once chosen, seniors had to remain with the same provider for a year. No discounts were guaranteed, drug prices could change at any time, and drugs offered could also change at any time.
The card program in itself, is a scam. There are over 40 million Medicare beneficiaries in the country. Multiply that number times $30 and the first expected windfall of the scam becomes obvious. However, seniors were not half as dumb as Bush thought, and only a fraction of the beneficiaries even bothered to buy the cards.
Because they had insider knowledge about the program, the drug companies simply raised prices in anticipation of the cards being issued. In the first quarter of 2004, right before the program went into effect, some drug makers raised prices almost 7 times as fast as producers of all US goods, according to a study by the senior advocacy group AARP.
Bush claimed that using the cards would result in discounts of 10 to 25%, which amounts to a 0% discount considering the fact that drug prices increased by nearly 22% over the past 3 years. The dramatic increase in prices offset any potential savings on drugs purchased with the cards. Only the drug companies stand to make money with this deal.
Due to the enormous increase in drug costs, many seniors are skipping doses, cutting pills in half, or not taking the medication at all. In the long run, these drastic measures can actually prolong an illness and add to the expense of the treatment.
Discount Card Prices Verses Non-Card Prices
In April 2004, the minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee, released a study that compared prices available to seniors who would pay the $30 to buy a card, against prices available to seniors who did not.
The study used prices from 3 card providers, ExpressScripts, Advance (Advance is owned by Bush-buddy David Halbert, who crafted major portions of the bill), and Walgreens. Prices of these companies were similar to all others. The drugs used in the study represent a month's supply of the top 10 brand-name drugs used by seniors.
The study compared the card prices to (1) prices in Canada; (2) prices negotiated by the Department of Veterans Affairs; and (3) prices charged by internet outlets Drugstore.com and Costco.com.
Card prices were much higher than prices in Canada. A month's supply of the 10 drugs in Canada cost $596, while prices were $972 with Walgreens, $1,046 with Advance, and $1,061 with Express. The average card price was 72% higher than in Canada.
The difference for some drugs exceeded 100%. For instance, Celebrex, costs $81.28 at Walgreens, but only $38.69 in Canada; Prevacid was $129.68 with Express, but only $56.54 in Canada.
The comparison to drugs purchased by the VA, also found card prices much higher. With the VA the10 drugs cost $587, while the average price with the cards was $1,026, or more than 75% higher.
A month's supply of the drugs even cost less on internet sights Drugstore.com and Costco.com. While the average card price was $1,026, the drugs only cost $959 at Drugstore.com.
In June 2004, Families USA released the results from a study that tracked price changes for the top 30 brand name drugs prescribed to seniors. According to the report, between January 2001 and January 2004, the prices of the top 30 drugs increased by nearly 22%. On average, the cost of the drugs increased by 6.5%, while in the same time-frame, the overall rate of inflation, excluding energy, was only 1.5%.
Of these 30 drugs, 28 increased in price by 2 or more times the rate of inflation; 21 increased by three or more times the rate, and 14 increased in price by more than 5 times the rate of inflation.
The drug companies also raised prices at a break-neck speed right before the cards came out. For example, Nexium is used to treat heartburn, a problem for more than 40 million people. Democratic Rep Henry Waxman released a study that showed that in one month, between May 3 and June 3, 2004, the price of Nexium increased by 13%.
In 2003, the drug company AstraZeneca spent $411 million promoting the drug. And in return, it had sales of $3.3 billion, and became the 7th largest selling brand name drug according to the trade publication Pharmaceutical Executive.
Generic drug prices were also spiked. A report by the Wall Street Journal revealed that pharmacies were buying generic drugs for a few cents and marking them up nearly 200%. For example, a 90-day supply of generic Prozac costs only $4, and was sold for $14.94 at Costco.com. Yet the Medicare website showed one card sponsor charging $84.15.
Lawmakers On Both Sides Of The Isle
The importation issue is not only important to senior citizens, it affects all Americans. And they are speaking out. On December 22, 2004, Rep Bernie Sanders from Vermont issued the following statement in response to a Task Force Report, that came out against drug importation, from the Bush administration:
"It is ironic that two weeks after the HHS announcement that ... flu vaccine doses will be imported from Germany, HHS is ... saying drug importation cannot be done safely and affordably. This report is reflective of the entire Bush policy to protect the financial interest of the pharmaceutical industry over the health of regular Americans."
Sanders claims it is absurd to say we can't import drugs safely. "If we can import beef, poultry and vegetables ... there is no reason we cannot figure out a way to safely import prescription drugs. The momentum remains with the American people," he notes.
According to Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), "The only thing endangered by allowing Americans access to lower-priced FDA-approved medicines from abroad is the incredibly large profits of the drug companies who over-price their medicines in our market, just because they can," he said.
Importation would be legal if it was up to Republican Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana. During the debate over the prescription drug bill, he attempted to pass a provision that would have legalized importing drugs from Canadian with safeguards.
But Burton says he couldn’t get it passed because he ran into two brick walls: the drug industry and the government: “This is a perfect example, in my opinion, of where a special interest, the pharmaceutical industry, has been able to manipulate the Congress and the government of the United States to their benefit, and to the detriment of the American taxpayer and the American people.”
How any politician can look an American citizen in the eye and argue against drug importation is beyond me.
In December 2003, the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act was passed. Many seniors expected the new law to provide relief for the ever-rising prescription drug costs but they were sadly mistaken.
We recently learned that instead of costing tax payers $400 billion, the bill is going to cost more than $1.3 Trillion, over the next 10 years, and the only ones benefiting from it are the pharmaceutical companies and HMOs.
The new law will not save tax payers any money because it specifically bars Medicare from negotiating for better drug prices like the Department of Veterans Affairs does, and it bans the importation of cheaper drugs from neighboring Canada and other countries. The notion that the bill will provide any meaningful savings for seniors is unlikely.
Due to its insider knowledge about the pending Medicare prescription bills in Congress, and the amount of money up for grabs, the pharmaceutical industry lobbied non-stop in 2002, to make sure that its favored version of the bill got passed. It spent a record breaking $91.4 million on lobbying, and 24 separate companies and trade groups spent over $1 million each. The top 10 drug companies and trade associations together, spent an estimated $55.8 million on lobbying.
However, what's $55 million compared to the $35.9 billion in profits that were realized by the same 10 companies in 2002. Since Bush took office, pharmaceutical industry profits have soared past all other business sectors, at a rate of more than 5 times greater than all other industries in the Fortune 500.
Prohibits Medicare From Negotiating For Lower-Priced Drugs
According to Senator Edward Kennedy, "The single most irresponsible provision in the Medicare bill is the prohibition that prevents Medicare from negotiating lower-priced prescription drugs."
Prescriptions bought by the VA cost at least 24% less than the average retail price, said Steve Thomas, director of the program. For many drugs, the VA negotiated price is on average 40% less that what most consumers pay, Thomas said.
When Bush was asked why he barred Medicare from bargaining for lower prices on behalf of its beneficiaries, he offered the feeble excuse that he was concerned that if Medicare negotiated with drug makers, it would amount to a government monopoly and a form of price controls.
That excuse is ridiculous. Although Medicare might be a major player in the market, being recipients are expected to buy over $1.5 trillion worth of drugs over the next 10 years, it could hardly be considered a monopoly in a market projected to earn about $4.6 trillion.
During the debate on the Medicare bill, the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General said, "Medicare and its beneficiaries would save $1.6 billion a year if 24 drugs were reimbursed at amounts available to the VA." As an example of the possible savings, he listed the price of the asthma treatment drug, Albuterol, that was being sold for 47 cents, while the VA was paying only 5 cents.
Comptroller General, David Walker, of the General Accounting Office (GAO), has been recommending that Medicare should follow the VA model for years but Bush refuses to take the advice of our government experts.
Discount Drug Card Scam
Shortly after signing the new Medicare bill, Bush announced a plan for a drug discount card program. To enroll in the program seniors had to pick one of Bush's approved providers. A card could cost up to $30, and once chosen, seniors had to remain with the same provider for a year. No discounts were guaranteed, drug prices could change at any time, and drugs offered could also change at any time.
The card program in itself, is a scam. There are over 40 million Medicare beneficiaries in the country. Multiply that number times $30 and the first expected windfall of the scam becomes obvious. However, seniors were not half as dumb as Bush thought, and only a fraction of the beneficiaries even bothered to buy the cards.
Because they had insider knowledge about the program, the drug companies simply raised prices in anticipation of the cards being issued. In the first quarter of 2004, right before the program went into effect, some drug makers raised prices almost 7 times as fast as producers of all US goods, according to a study by the senior advocacy group AARP.
Bush claimed that using the cards would result in discounts of 10 to 25%, which amounts to a 0% discount considering the fact that drug prices increased by nearly 22% over the past 3 years. The dramatic increase in prices offset any potential savings on drugs purchased with the cards. Only the drug companies stand to make money with this deal.
Due to the enormous increase in drug costs, many seniors are skipping doses, cutting pills in half, or not taking the medication at all. In the long run, these drastic measures can actually prolong an illness and add to the expense of the treatment.
Discount Card Prices Verses Non-Card Prices
In April 2004, the minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee, released a study that compared prices available to seniors who would pay the $30 to buy a card, against prices available to seniors who did not.
The study used prices from 3 card providers, ExpressScripts, Advance (Advance is owned by Bush-buddy David Halbert, who crafted major portions of the bill), and Walgreens. Prices of these companies were similar to all others. The drugs used in the study represent a month's supply of the top 10 brand-name drugs used by seniors.
The study compared the card prices to (1) prices in Canada; (2) prices negotiated by the Department of Veterans Affairs; and (3) prices charged by internet outlets Drugstore.com and Costco.com.
Card prices were much higher than prices in Canada. A month's supply of the 10 drugs in Canada cost $596, while prices were $972 with Walgreens, $1,046 with Advance, and $1,061 with Express. The average card price was 72% higher than in Canada.
The difference for some drugs exceeded 100%. For instance, Celebrex, costs $81.28 at Walgreens, but only $38.69 in Canada; Prevacid was $129.68 with Express, but only $56.54 in Canada.
The comparison to drugs purchased by the VA, also found card prices much higher. With the VA the10 drugs cost $587, while the average price with the cards was $1,026, or more than 75% higher.
A month's supply of the drugs even cost less on internet sights Drugstore.com and Costco.com. While the average card price was $1,026, the drugs only cost $959 at Drugstore.com.
In June 2004, Families USA released the results from a study that tracked price changes for the top 30 brand name drugs prescribed to seniors. According to the report, between January 2001 and January 2004, the prices of the top 30 drugs increased by nearly 22%. On average, the cost of the drugs increased by 6.5%, while in the same time-frame, the overall rate of inflation, excluding energy, was only 1.5%.
Of these 30 drugs, 28 increased in price by 2 or more times the rate of inflation; 21 increased by three or more times the rate, and 14 increased in price by more than 5 times the rate of inflation.
The drug companies also raised prices at a break-neck speed right before the cards came out. For example, Nexium is used to treat heartburn, a problem for more than 40 million people. Democratic Rep Henry Waxman released a study that showed that in one month, between May 3 and June 3, 2004, the price of Nexium increased by 13%.
In 2003, the drug company AstraZeneca spent $411 million promoting the drug. And in return, it had sales of $3.3 billion, and became the 7th largest selling brand name drug according to the trade publication Pharmaceutical Executive.
Generic drug prices were also spiked. A report by the Wall Street Journal revealed that pharmacies were buying generic drugs for a few cents and marking them up nearly 200%. For example, a 90-day supply of generic Prozac costs only $4, and was sold for $14.94 at Costco.com. Yet the Medicare website showed one card sponsor charging $84.15.
Lawmakers On Both Sides Of The Isle
The importation issue is not only important to senior citizens, it affects all Americans. And they are speaking out. On December 22, 2004, Rep Bernie Sanders from Vermont issued the following statement in response to a Task Force Report, that came out against drug importation, from the Bush administration:
"It is ironic that two weeks after the HHS announcement that ... flu vaccine doses will be imported from Germany, HHS is ... saying drug importation cannot be done safely and affordably. This report is reflective of the entire Bush policy to protect the financial interest of the pharmaceutical industry over the health of regular Americans."
Sanders claims it is absurd to say we can't import drugs safely. "If we can import beef, poultry and vegetables ... there is no reason we cannot figure out a way to safely import prescription drugs. The momentum remains with the American people," he notes.
According to Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), "The only thing endangered by allowing Americans access to lower-priced FDA-approved medicines from abroad is the incredibly large profits of the drug companies who over-price their medicines in our market, just because they can," he said.
Importation would be legal if it was up to Republican Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana. During the debate over the prescription drug bill, he attempted to pass a provision that would have legalized importing drugs from Canadian with safeguards.
But Burton says he couldn’t get it passed because he ran into two brick walls: the drug industry and the government: “This is a perfect example, in my opinion, of where a special interest, the pharmaceutical industry, has been able to manipulate the Congress and the government of the United States to their benefit, and to the detriment of the American taxpayer and the American people.”
How any politician can look an American citizen in the eye and argue against drug importation is beyond me.
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