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Friday, March 18
Leaked Transcript Ignites Questions of Vaccine Safety and Research Corruption
by
Linda Thieman
on Fri 18 Mar 2005 04:27 PM CST
 Leaked Transcript Ignites Questions of Vaccine Safety and Research Corruption
by Lisa Reagan, Byronchild.com
A Byronchild World Exclusive Report
On
the eve of an historic, billion-dollar world vaccination campaign, a
leaked transcript ignites questions of vaccine safety and research
corruption. Meanwhile, US senators fast-track a bill to protect vaccine
manufacturers from litigation. With millions of lives at stake, and
billions of dollars to loose, will a merger of philanthropy, big
business and compromised science win an epic race between corporate
agendas and medical ethics? In this world exclusive report, byronchild
exposes how the most powerful medical research bodies in the United
States compromise their vaccine safety research for vested interests,
as they assist in a global vaccine policy, while a bill looms in the
background to protect it all.
On
January 24, 2005 -- the same day the Global Alliance for Vaccines and
Immunization (GAVI) announced the receipt of $750 million for its
historic world vaccination campaign -- seven US Senators introduced
Senate Bill 3. The bill is an unprecedented act giving comprehensive
liability protections to vaccine manufacturers , restricting Freedom of
Information Acts on drug/vaccine safety, and pre-empting states' rights
to ban mercury from children's vaccines, all under the bill's official
title: ‘‘Protecting America in the War on Terror Act of 2005''.
Meanwhile
in Texas, after receiving an internal transcript that allegedly proves
the Institutes of Medicine's report denying a link between childhood
vaccines and autism last year was “predetermined”, a US District Court
judge has ordered the worlds' “big five” vaccine manufacturers to
“produce any and all documents relating to payments made to, or stock
ownership” by the seventeen members of the IOM's Immunization and
Safety Review Committee.
A court
document submitting the IOM's leaked transcript as an exhibit in the
first civil juried lawsuit against the vaccine manufacturers states the
transcript proves the IOM committee, “predetermined the necessity of
not finding causality between vaccines and autism and/or neurological
injury” in its official reports on the issue.
(Click here to read the complete article.)
Byronchild: The Magazine for Progressive Families
was created to support and give voice to the embryonic but powerfully
essential movement towards conscious parenting and conscious living
happening all around the world.
Submitted by Larry Hanus of Waterloo.
The Irony of Bush's Assault on ANWR
by
Chad Thompson
on Fri 18 Mar 2005 01:15 PM CST
 The Irony of Bush's Assault on ANWR
by Jim Hightower
Prior to the vote defeating the Campbell amendment, Jim Hightower wrote this article on the irony of the assault on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:
George W has shown again and
again that he won't ever let reality get in the way of ideology –
whether the issue is his Iraq attack, global warming, privatization of
Social Security, tax cuts for the rich... whatever.
Now the Bushites are even
pushing ideology over geology. BushCheney&Company are determined to
win congressional approval of their plan to allow oil companies to
drill and pump in the pristine reaches of ANWR – the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge. George has even played the security card, declaring
that "our national security makes it urgent" to open this unspoiled
wilderness to the oil giants.
But, in a gusher of political
irony, guess what? The oil giants have little interest in drilling
there! Even a Bush advisor on this issue confided that "No oil company
really cares about ANWR," adding that "If the government gave them the
[drilling] leases for free they wouldn't take them." Indeed, Chevron
Texaco, BP, and ConocoPhillips have so little interest in ANWR that
they have withdrawn from Arctic Power, the chief lobbying front behind
Bush's push to open the refuge.
Why the corporate disinterest?
Because, unlike George, companies have to base their decisions at least
partially on reality, and the geological reality is that ANWR doesn't
hold enough oil to make private investment there worthwhile. Only one
actual test of the refuge's oil potential has been done – a secret test
by Chevron Texaco and BP, two of the giants that have now backed away
from Bush's ANWR scheme. If it had real production potential, these
profit-seekers would be lobbying hard to get in there.
What's really behind the
Bushites' insistence on drilling in a wildlife refuge is nothing but
their reactionary, knee-jerk laissez-faire ideology. They hate the idea
that the public can protect any piece of nature from corporate
intrusion – even if the corporations don't choose to intrude. ANWR is a
case of their ideological loopiness.
So, the American public gets a piece of legislation without a real constituency - again!
Iowa Jobs Fall; Jobless Rate Hits 5.1 Percent
by
Linda Thieman
on Fri 18 Mar 2005 04:01 AM CST
 Iowa Jobs Fall; Jobless Rate Hits 5.1 Percent
Iowa Policy Project
MOUNT VERNON, Iowa (March 17, 2005) – Iowa’s shaky economic
recovery took an employment dive in January, falling by 3,600 nonfarm
jobs as the unemployment rate rose to a nearly 17-year high of 5.1
percent.
The
unemployment rate, its highest level in Iowa since February, 1988, rose
from a revised 5 percent in December and 4.6 percent in January 2004.
The nonfarm job number was up by 10,600 over January 2004.
“That is
really slow job growth for a year, especially when compared with levels
before the 2001 recession and even the revised December figures. This
is a setback from what already was a slow pace in regaining jobs lost
during that recession,” said David Osterberg, executive director of the
nonpartisan Iowa Policy Project (IPP).
The
one-month 3,600-job decline for January compares with a revised 2004
average of about 1,300 per month – and keeps the state 15,800 jobs
behind the level from the March, 2001, start of the last recession. To
erase that job deficit in 2005, Iowa will need an average monthly gain
of more than 1,400 nonfarm jobs from February through December.
Osterberg
noted comments from Iowa Workforce Development Director Richard Running
that the economy’s performance “was still too weak to take up the slack
left over from the jobless recovery.”
“We
share the view that this has been a ‘jobless recovery,’” Osterberg
said. “Once again, here we are in March, anticipating the graduation of
new classes from college and high school, and wondering whether the
Iowa economy will offer these new graduates attractive job
opportunities. That is the policy issue that needs to be addressed in
the light of these numbers.”
The
largest single drop in January came in trade and transportation, down
1,900 for the month after three straight months of growth. Construction
jobs fell 1,300 in January after gains in November and December,
while government jobs, which have not shown an increase since August,
fell by 300.
Increases came in professional and business services, 500; financial activities, 400; and manufacturing, 300.
(Click here to read the full report.)
IPP reports about job and income trends are on the web at www.iowapolicyproject.org. The Iowa Policy Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization based in Mount Vernon.
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