NetRootsMass » Health

371. HHS seeks to permit refusal of services for women

Hugh — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:48:57 +0000

In a July 31, 2008 article in the Washington Post, the Department of Health and Human Resources is developing a rule which would allow healthcare personnel to refuse to dispense care which they found morally or religiously objectionable. The goal is to provide legal underpinning to those institutions and persons who receive federal funds but wish to refuse to perform abortions or give out contraception deemed tantamount to abortion. Thus a woman who had been raped or pregnant as the result of either rape or incest might be denied treatment and have her trauma added to by having to go from hospital to hospital or from healthcare giver to healthcare giver until she found one willing to treat her. It is difficult to see how such a moral and religious exception could not be used as legal cover to deny treatment to other groups, such as gays, minorities, or the poor. The rule’s definition of abortion is sweeping:

any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.

It also slips in the controversial notion that from the moment of fertilization onward the embryo is a human being, and one would assume with the same Constitutional rights and protections as other citizens. The problem, one among many, is that this is a profoundly anti-scientific view. Many fertilized eggs spontaneously abort due to lethal genetic combinations or they fail to implant. How does the HHS intend to address the legal rights and health concerns of these “human beings”? Why is equal protection for embryos placed ahead of equal protection of women? What will the HHS do with the supernumerary embryos/human beings of in vitro fertilization? How will it resolve the contradiction between a “human being in utero” and conception which does not occur in utero. What does “natural birth” mean anyway? Does it preclude Caesarean delivery? This is the kind of chaos that results when simple solutions are applied to complex problems.

362. KBR exposed US soldiers to a carcinogen in Iraq

Hugh — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:29:26 +0000

KBR allowed around 250 soldiers guarding the Qarmat Ali water treatment in Iraq to be exposed to sodium dichromate, a powerful carcinogen. Soldiers also presented acutely with nosebleeds, spitting of blood, cough, shortness of breath and eye, nose, and throat irritation. Dichromate at the site was used in anti-rust coating for water pipes used in oil field production. It was left strewn on the ground after the plant was looted following the 2003 US invasion. KBR knew about the dichromate but initially described it as only a “mild irritant”. Early testing by the military showed that soldiers did not have high levels of chromium but it is unclear if the right test was used and performed within the proper timeframes. In addition, cancers related to a past exposure can take years to develop. KBR said it did nothing wrong. Apparently it views putting the lives and health of US service men and women as a normal cost of doing business.

354. USDA to no longer track pesticide use

Hugh — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:10:41 +0000

The National Agricultural Statistics Service, an agency within the Department of Agriculture (USDA), announced in May 2008 that it could no longer afford to spend $8 million a year to track pesticide use in agriculture. Since this information is only used by farmers, consumer groups, environmental groups, the EPA, and the pesticide companies themselves I can see why the NASS would think that such tracking is not cost effective.

352. FDA loosens rules for drug trials in Third World countries

Hugh — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:08:53 +0000

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is set to finalize a rule on October 27, 2008 which, at the behest of drug companies, would drop US adherence to the Declaration of Helsinki. The Declaration outlines how drug trials should be conducted internationally. Increasingly these trials are being conducted in Third World countries. The Declaration requires informed consent be given by study participants, that there be an independent review board, that the well being of participants be monitored, that they be assured of treatment in accord with the best practices identified in the trials, and that the countries from which participants are drawn have some likelihood of benefiting from the results of the trial. Instead the FDA advises only that good clinical practices be used and monitored by a local review board. Such boards in poor countries have been notoriously easy to manipulate and pressure by wealthy drug companies. Most egregiously, the new FDA rules would permit participants to receive placebos in place of the current best treatment. In other words, instead of comparing a new drug against the current best medication, the FDA is sanctioning studies where something will be compared against nothing. This is reminiscent of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment where a cohort of African American males was purposely left untreated although they could and should have been.

348. The EPA, Mary Gade, and dioxin

Hugh — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:55:53 +0000

On May 1, 2008, Mary Gade EPA administrator for the Great Lakes region resigned. Two aides to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson had told her she had been placed on administrative leave and that if she did not resign by June 1 she would be fired. Gade, a lawyer who made her name defending corporations from environmental regulators, was appointed to the EPA position by George Bush in September 2006. Gade’s problems began when she sought to force Dow Chemical to clean up dioxin contaminated areas stretching 50 miles from its plant in Midland, Michigan to Lake Huron. Dioxin is a long lived, highly toxic byproduct in the production of some kinds of herbicides. It is best known for the health problems associated with the Vietnam era Agent Orange and for the evacuations of Love Canal in New York and Times Beach in Missouri. Dow had been getting rid of it by dumping it into Michigan streams into the 1980s. In mid-2007, Gade invoked emergency powers and demanded that Dow clean up 3 dioxin “hotspots” near the Midland plant. In November, she ordered more work to be done when the highest concentration of dioxin ever recorded in this country was found in a Saginaw park. Dow tried to cut a deal with Gade in January 2008 to get out from under its liability but when this fell through it lobbied Washington. The result was Gade’s dismissal. This Administration has few standards but a regulator who regulates is something it will not stand for.