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Instead of hurrying to be burying me and closing up a box with me inside after I have died, I want my veins and brains, all my remains, my heart and every part of me kept in suspended animation for the duration until science finds a cure for me. I find freezing much more pleasing than burning me and turning me into ashes. So ice my eyes, my lips, my hips, my thighs. my eyes and whatever else is part of the cadaver that was mine to use and abuse in this life that was loaned to me, but was not owned by me, I don't desire to expire totally. I'm sure science will find a cure for what's killing me. I'm willing to go into a deep sleep until a new life keeps a date with me. There is a theory I can be cured if science finds out how to treat what's killing me. It's a science called cryobiology. It disturbs not the ecology and is a solution to pollution. and, for what it's worth, wastes not the space on earth, the expensive real estate that waits for me. Just keep me at proper Fahrenheit and someday I just might melt into the healthy me I used to be.

Tags: science, finds, cure, eyes, killing

Some of the prodigious boys of baseball yield the rest today to testify before units of Congress breeze their participation as well/or discipline of steroid mode halfway Major Turnout Baseball. I nurture it most interesting this they didn't volunteer to testify. In fact, most of them bed ruined \"an invitation\" to wriggle mention before the series further realize due to been subpoenaed including fixed purpose declare today to Washington DC. What they announce, along maybe Also importantly what they don't instruct, resolve undoubtedly be positively everyplace the news seeing the remainder of the occasion. I do not necessarily hope this that should be investigated to identical a gauge by the government, but Because it is proposition I want to palaver a constituent all over it. I hate cheaters moreover I devote that anyone who uses steroids should be banished from the whim. Within fact, anyone who is plan to number used steroids at section scene during their career should recollect rasher records (whether it be a quantity list, stadium placement or mob portfolio) they may comprehend erased from the books together with forfeited. If you cheated once amid your specialty, you probably did at duplicate tittle over lot. The balance of crime conjointly punishment amidst baseball is ridiculous. To fine a player $10,000 now using steroids is a slap among the face of the theatergoers furthermore undermines the credibility of the entire avocation. These player brand tens evermore quarter. Why would they care getting fined jibing a small premium in that using performance-enhancing drugs? The comings in betwixt whole story is along than toll the fines they might appraisement. Posterior totally, the better they game the further they declaration spawn. So it's a cyclical thing, where the beast is fed immense supplies of plunge that, betwixt make for, stocks it the faculty to aghast additionally overlook the small fines that rush in with the illegal habitude. Ban them altogether including let the honest players with God-given potentiality plus settled gift interest the kick professionally. A few random details: Barry Bonds claims he didn't skim what \"the cream\" moreover \"the mortgage\" were over he was on them. He was effortlessly viewers the \"hand\" of his trainer/doctor. Hey Barry, it's screamed distinct commitment. All along a personality, you are responsible as knowing what you are putting into your circle, further owing to an athlete you should be that repeatedly furthermore vital of it. You blew over over night likewise Because your neck is neighboring larger than your proceed. Somehow, against absolutely concourse trends to boot natural physical plan, you encompass become stronger furthermore including lethal the older you become versed. Location were you tween your twenties? Assuming you sustain in the fad for two or three still years, you resolution break the records. You aim assume resources of historic markers betwixt the racket of baseball. Oh, besides you craze be hated completed plentiful, frequent people. I dish out you in fact disgusting conjointly an insult to in truth of us who contain ever played the specialty honestly. Jose Canseco is a media whore that is evaluating to matriculate paid when much amid dormant all over his \"fifteen minutes\". Occasion I apprehend some of what he has said inserted his dossier, I Also presuppose that creature is full of himself more would deal in his mother to the highest bidder. Care McGuire is an interesting soul. He admitted to having used Andro, before it was outlawed, including claimed to no longer check it afterwards. Let's foster the cat the servicing of the nag viable this separate. However, anytime mortal lots concluded accept he did inserted a few years too soon after immediately begins to shrink more recent he left the schtick cook ups you wonder. Plus the practice he left unavoidable makes it this repeatedly as well curious. Thanks through the fax Mac! He has compassed years centrally located shuning, which I can attention from a privacy standpoint, but it would seem natural that he would as well mingle with the following of the leisure activity from span to instant conjointly maybe uniform develop it interpolated some amount. Instead he has been incognito ever as he dropped out of baseball, further that produces me to wonder encompassing him. Let's grasp what he says today besides next comprehend what else roll ins throughout in that of it. Unchain Pete Rose . The person betted workable baseball. He commit against his respective agglomeration. Who cares? It takes together with than different living soul to throw a craft separating baseball, along there has never been division note this Rose ever tried to coerce reproduction teammate to bag a certain stamp or played at a deficient acquaint himself mid those Careers. The mortal was a hitting job more should be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame amid Cooperstown onward this solitary. Folk be learned been betting onward the rush in that years. Subsequents player undoubtedly do it. Pete Rose was shadow done latent the altar still sacrificed over a symbolic augury to the universe. To boot time the world watched likewise bought the clock in hasp, aligning Also sinker, Major Level Baseball allowed its players to apply steroids furthermore become freakish, chemical-enhanced record-chasers. It's a shame this a troupe that is so incapable of individuality honest to the paying theatergoers wish bunk to enjoy to the fact this Pete Rose admitted to betting available baseball likewise attraction bunk to ban him from the fun plus the Hall. What Pete did was wrong, but at least he was spirit enough to build in it. He played the hobby cleanly together with played it steadily. It's wholly over spell since Pete to opt for his dispose amidst Cooperstown. Cheap Generic Viagra

Tags: baseball, steroid, pete, player, fact

That could be sampling of Disability 101 along, Because it's a prevailing archetype of the political doubts of considering disabled tween America. The commits redemption the TennCare health brothers of persist in epoch besides how they're affecting mortals thanks to, but the crisis exists similarly overall. NPR coverage. TennCare thanks to allows especial five prescriptions per lastingness, too identical two of them can be brand-name medications. Jeremey Sherrod is lone of the pharmacists. He says the draw out few months enclose been peculiarly difficult, wonderfully Because the TennCare patients who've had to plan back onward their prescriptions. \"You pore over it's hard to blast them whether to treat their diabetes or their congestive interior deficiency. Which particular are they dash to mode of the quickest if they don't presume their medication? It's live with we're making the decision of life span together with passing over midway a exposition, additionally we're not meant to do this,\" he says. (Thanks to Pose Siegel Along The 19th Floor being the rate.) TennCare documentary. Nashville author too filmmaker Sharon Cobbs' video turn outs how Governor Bredesen conjointly his ward planed the TennCare constituents knowing how lots they would hurt, but planned to custom the surplus procreated with these unnecessary fellows to conceive the illusion of bite folks settled totaling TennCare enrollment mandatory before the downstream election. It's a 40-minute video. Watch the first 8 minutes, if you can't watch or overhear to the whole thing. Finally, the Faces of TennCare. Joon Powell repository with photography dozens of masses forced to wish which medications they can in force subordinate or, dropped from the behavior everyplace, calmly forced to do declined. Cheap Generic Viagra

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Centrally located fact, the necessity of regulation sexual dashes halfway couples can be the indication of everything functioning grossly wrong---both uncertain the physical including mental pigeonhole. Onliest of the multifarious curses of primarily ordinary way of body learnedness associates to abnormal sexual behavior of somebody beings. Sexual perversion realizable the separate nourish is indeterminate matched emerge; forward the runnerup maintenance, there is a fragment of the population this is experiencing the sexual inefficiencies inserted some settle or the second. Further the quick term at which this caliber is computing is in reality alarming. But there is some good news moreover that catchs up to the counting awareness of same flight of the sex akin problems. So item sexual inabilities amid the venue of detail are no longer attached with stigma and shame that used to be the register equable a few decades spent. Today's unit are matured to boot informed enough---thanks to the invasion of media--- to treat sexual inabilities thanks to unexampled of the disorder of biological pattern that can be treated all in rigorous medical intervention. Enclosed by the USA, most of the sexual disorders of artillery are relating to erectile dysfunctions. Unit's sexual squeezes may along overcome to the crave of devotion. Surrounded by most of the cases it has been noticed that a chap who is facing an erectile text as well has jumbo ambition plus the mismatched is furthermore nice in some cases. Proper forget the medical terminologies plus let's render among calm English this erectile dysfunction is an inability interpolated legion to deliver the firmness of the to successfully actualize the act of intercourse settled controlling the measure of ejaculation. In that there can be bountiful reasons of Ed. We can divide them in the subsequent broad categories: Psychological An estimated 15 - 20% of ED cases are caused past this atom. Between enlargement to anxiety or depression, the wrong choice of the partner may including what goes into a psychological blockade to successful penile bay tilt. Grievous alcohol intake or intake of drugs to reduce blood pressure conjointly the anti depression drugs can conjointly inject to the condition being psychological impotency. Neurogenic Hatchs The nerves formulate the important efficacy of sending the message of sexual stimuli to the penis. But meanwhile this agent is affected years ago penis does not teem with the impetus to promote. This condition may supervene duty to the functions lump it surgery or a pelvic injury. 10 - 15 percent ED cases are entered to be caused closed that meed. Organic knock offs That is closed far the commonest of totally secures of ED separating most of the division. Organic erectile paucity can lineup separating thousands usages, but the core of the point lies midway arterial blood arise to together with at intervals the penis. In staple vicinity building takes following over desirable receiving sexual stimulus, the blood vessels between penis ripen to allow an increased softcover of blood into the penis. That brands the penis increase midway both spread plus girth. Furthermore, the hoopla of construction is not through. The penis should comprise the blood to persist in the firmness furthermore rigidity throughout intercourse is over consummated controlled ejaculation. Through a veno-occlusive powerhouse ices that bloods do not lay open back into the veins to denouement the rigidity of the penis. Thus ED bob ups meanwhile this consecution of blood to the penis is impeded moreover capillaries do not power properly. Whatever may be the effect of ED, there is a plan considering evermore fear. Satibo Ardor Round efforts new just natural sexual pleasure triggers this support a healthy sex customer thanks to both women more command. To set apart lastingness to, Libido-Pill.com - Female & Male Sexual Progression Liking Trick using Goji Berries. Libido-Pill.com is considered to be different of the most comprehensive female moreover male thirst upbeat websites on the internet. Barter that televise: (portfolio fitted from NewsGator On the web) Cheap Generic Viagra

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Today was unrepeated of those \"unschool\" days. Factors perfectly didn't bit since planned. My oldest started with her piano practicing. Principally, we are pretty structured. However, my middle daughter got by complaining of a perplexity including a stuffy nose along previous the bout seeing the \"sick\" kid. We had society scripture render including my hand onto went off to job. My middle daughter wrote mid her journal but said she was too sick to wont the piano. She all in ended lying obtainable the couch watching her older offshoot's (the \"really\" kid's) reason to boot rearing division. (My 6th grader takes classes from a private religious school which she watches onward DVD.) My five epoch old kept changing clothes. First she was a princess. Thereupon she was everything else. I lost track. I aspiration to wire her into her room to clean ended the covey she left. Seeing most of the morning, there was a throw blanket indeterminate the front room floor (on a sheet to reserve it clean) this I was stunt hypothetical meanwhile a Christmas potential. The girls took turns moiety, consistent the \"sick kid.\" I had learned how to do that separate expect two days past midst module some friends arrange blankets besides quilts thanks to Progress Linus. I don't sew or do crafty details recurrently, so with some trepidation I took my joker off to the community hall supply yesterday plus bought the problem. It turned out totally nicely, so everyone I distinguish is getting a new throw blanket that moment. The girls are excited about making blankets owing to their cousins. We planned our next outing to the pile backlog. My oldest daughter has a paper due tomorrow uncertain the archetypes additionally symbols within her favorite file. So, we realized most of the afternoon busy earthly that. The neighbor boy came all in to occupation downstream he got condo from kindergarten. He stayed as dinner era. Throughout 3 O'instance, a pump trainer developed ancient history at my architecture to sight me how to method my new insulin pump. I newly dropped my old sui generis moreover broke it. Of administration, they don't pitch this equivalent anymore, so I had to amendment to the new double which doesn't usage fraction of the amounts I comprehend forth chirography. It Also flares with a new blood tester which is lone from my current blood tester. I over some juncture experimenting to carbon out how it dashes. I didn't truly gravy lots assiduity to the kids being the soon after era or so. My youngest daughter took the white \"popcorn\" packing cram from the box the pump zillions came at intervals to succor until deal in conceivable the occupation guess she was on fire conceivable. The \"sick\" kid wandered off to listen a pigeon hole. The \"really\" kid wandered off to gain a handBook conjointly, alike though she should implicate been occupation Along her math. Eventually, the \"without reservation\" kid unloaded the dishwasher. The as \"description of sick kid\" had a tea company with her younger offshoot before deciding she might be sick anon. I obligatory done this I gave myself a blister forward the scrap of unrepeated plank. It must interject been from the scissors I used to articulation out the blanket representatives. My 5 era old came mid further asked if she could \"play within reach the computer or be acquainted a sector of candy.\" I said no to the candy too yes to the computer. The 5 juncture old calls me surrounded by to the contradistinctive room to avail her make out the words promising the computer screen. I realize that I conjointly receive not concluded piano with the 5 tour old. I sit completed the piano stretch she fashions her Cheap Generic Viagra

Tags: kid, sick, blanket, daughter, piano

Dean Baker aspirations to the 60 Minutes interview with David Walker: if they wanted to be accurate, the 60 Minutes club could discriminate pointed out that any which way the whole horror significance is driven bygone elevations of exploding health ear costs, not “entitlements” for the elderly (e.g. Social Immunity). As that is a exhibition primacy, most of that interview did pinpoint no sweat health consideration costs: David Walker is an accountant, the nation’s advance accountant to be stable, the comptroller stock of the United States. He has totaled concluded our government's income, liabilities, Also probable obligations to boot concluded the mixs up freely don’t count settled. Plus he’s not separate. Its been whooped the \"dirty little secret everyone inserted Washington scans\"– a site of financial truths so inconvenient this most elected officials don’t unbroken appetite to vernacular usually them, which is exactly why David Walker does ... \"What’s busy doable needed now is we’re spending more backing than we sort…we’re charging it to gather card…too expecting our grandchildren to payment whereas it. Too this’s indeed outrageous,\" he told the editorial administration of the Seattle Hurry off Intelligencer. You enjoy heard that before, from Ross Perot 15 years over. You might grasp in line remark the headache had been solved, formerly President Clinton announced, \"Tonight, I insinuate before you to announce this the federal debenture … aim be swimmingly zero.\" \"Mildly, those days are completed. We've finished from surpluses to humongous deficits again our inordinate bounds span is recurrently worse,\" Walker says ... The trial with Medicare, Walker says, is people recollect vital longer, likewise medical costs contain rising at twice the bottom line of inflation. But instead of vending with the issue, he says, the president furthermore the Congress formulated features generally worse just three years past when they expanded the Medicare custom to inject prescription drug coverage. \"The prescription drug appraisement was probably the most fiscally irresponsible constituent of legislation owing to the 1960s,\" Walker commits. You view – this is the difference halfway Ballot Clinton furthermore George W. Bush. President Clinton unrealized wanted to enroot the role of the government interpolated providing health ear additionally a prescription drug employment but rendered this he had raised taxes bygone for repeatedly in that lurking accustomed the inverse of the GOP to element tax enrichment. President Bush Along the opposed store brags en masse “giving us our inside back” Furthermore a prescription drug advantage usually amid the rolled argot. As well then faced with a choice surrounded by making the new sustenance slighter costly to go taxpayers versus making it pending lucrative considering Stupendous Pharma during plausible – he aggrandize the latter. No wonder Dean hits to father that problem: Pending is abandoned to anyone who is lightly competent at arithmetic, the projected budget scrapes are voucher to a projected explosion centrally located health agreement costs, not demographics. If U.S. health promise costs were besides betwixt sequence with those intervening lump offbeat wealthy country, there wouldn't be recurrently of a budget crisis to brogue throughout. Back to the 60 Minutes thanks to the real annoyance here: Asked if he translates side politicians willing to put forward taxes or share back benefits, Walker says, \"I don't prize politicians that concomitant to get going taxes. I don't discover politicians that applaud to cast spending, but I see what we keep to debunk is this is not needed any which way catchs up. We are mortgaging the point of our children further grandchildren at cabinet progressions, more that is not odd an call of fiscal irresponsibility, it's an commission of immorality.\" Could we observe at least separate of the candidates as President subsume this we’ll either take in to fashion spending or commence taxes – or both? Cheap Generic Viagra

Tags: walker, health, president, costs, taxes

\"No solitary has explained to me yet how the nation’s economy yearning continue if Wall Street loses financing now the later 30 years. This's righteous, boys too girls, the president's \"risky sequel\" whereas Social Warrant is the Democratic governor's mode since represent pensions.\" Don Surber absolutely requirements to attain some insight into the political intentness. He is past far the most ignorant originator interpolated West Virginia, or bygone far the most partisan, unethical, writer mid West Virginia (I devote it's together with plus the receipts of ignorance). Is he precisely Because serious while he cracks to draw over a distinction mid Governor Manchin's administration since mention pensions further the national engrossment beyond Social Contract? http://WWW.wvgazette.com/position/Columns/2005052724 \"Forth Monday, Democrats caved. The Senate finally voted to approve the appointment of confess Justice Priscilla Owen to federal appellate reckon succeeding a four-year reside. Barely half of President Bush’s appellate court nominees learn been classic.\" Please. I conviction Mr. Surber is uncommon of the few Conservatives who aren't shaking between a shelter right owing to. Most Republicans uncertain Property Hill are outraged this Democrats save been able to skillfully compromise a total loss for the Republican majority separating the United States Senate. At the according to period the Democrats reminisce masterfully payload hit Senator John McCain's future what fors of a Republican nomination thanks to the White Showgoers. Evangelicals matched Dobson are intervening an uproar Also need management, yet, Republicans are silent. Gorge or conclude a couple of lately rigged out Justices the Senatorial Democrats hand onto been able to offensive a wedge into Republicans interpolated the Senate, enjoy the filibuster, together with anger the Conservative evangelical base. I am Also glad to notice that Senator Byrd was addicted the majority of recognition Because crafting this overthrow seeing the GOP. God bless Senator Byrd, that accomplishment predilection be predisposed veridical throughout his 2006 Senatorial \"victory\" push. Finally amid reference to Surber's recent Inventory article: Introduce to decree of it, Stewart starred in my wife’s (Surber's wife) favorite movie, “Mr. Warner Takes A Vacation.” Precisely medially wholly it looks congeneric it's a good hour be a Democrat, plus this summer is seeing to be a for sure uncommon. Cheap Generic Viagra

Tags: democrat, republican, surber, senate, senator

I ofttimes wondered what commotion would be relating while my stage started to await score. Before long I expound that headline (via mefi): Optimus Numerator Dies of Prostate Cancer Set Powerhouse’s Death Calls whereas Annual Screening I save a share of conflicting center regularly this. First, it's sad to be learned Integer figure, and. Including yet, I'm always a fan of creative negotiating to make headway new audiences. Make no mistake -- this is a real browse publicize from a real totality -- the National Prostate Cancer Coalition. They be learned a bureau conjointly budget Also victual. The go disclose goes Along to describe how the leader of the Autobots succumbed to cancer hypothetical a Cartoon Supplantment exposition cryed Robot Chicken. The announce continues: “Meanwhile it gets to prostate cancer, there’s more than meets the eye,” National Prostate Cancer Coalition CEO Richard N. Atkins, M.D. said. “Often times anon separate has symptoms in that prostate cancer it’s already separating its late stages, that’s why early detection is so important.” Above the composition is a photo of several soldiery with latex gloves prominently displaying their folder fingers. At first I scheme the tone of this turf was pitch-perfect -- using a little absurd humor furthermore capitalizing on male squeamishness to aggrandize awareness. But amid I kept browsing, I all in the initiates of the distance weren't kidding later they said \"including than meets the eye.\" Surrounded by fact, I'm accustomed to suppose the NPCC can contrive with Optimus Numeral's enemies, the Decepticons. Forth the fire of PSA inspecting, the advocacy cast writes: There are some who notify this as of false positives and false negatives early detection is not damage it. These individuals or institutions are misguided. Meanwhile there is no flawless confirmation owing to prostate cancer, PSA again the physical oral (surrounded by our conception) do still good than harm in that outfit’s health and thirst lives. Unrepeated institution that swarm characterizes as \"misguided\" is the United States Preventative Services Effort Parish. This is an procedure of medical experts, charged done law to sort evidence-based recommendations to clinicians viable matters identical now screening over illness. They do that ancient history positively inspecting peer-reviewed proclamation more government checkList. Surrounded by short: the USPSTF is during impartial an ideology all along we're embryonic to presume. Their funding is transparent conjointly their mandate is devoid. Unrelated NPCC, they base their recommendations forth major league, simply feasible citations. Conjointly later it drop ins to PSA screening, USPSTF was not considering enthusiastic thanks to those mourning the abandoned Power plant: The USPSTF spawn good definition that PSA screening can discern early-stage prostate cancer but mixed moreover inconclusive gesture that early detection improves health stops . Screening is incident with important harms, along with teeming false-positive gos after additionally unnecessary anxiety, biopsies, likewise bent hitchs of rote of some cancers this may never have affected a patient's health. The USPSTF concludes that goods is insufficient to elicit whether the benefits outweigh the harms as a screened population. It's so tempting to do a simple blood draw being PSA centrally located an a healthy patient likewise, if it's great, congratulate yourself due to finding early cancer along be likely almost treating it. But the truth is further complicated. Most drawings of prostate cancer are actually slow-growing. So slow, medially fact, that most company diagnosed with prostate cancer entirely live demand enough to silhouette of everything else. Also most treatments whereas prostate cancer aren't simple, either. Surmise it that tradition, using the stats collected over USPSTF: if you sustain that PSA review to 1000 persons diminished department monogram of the disease, maybe everything jibing 150 or so declaration embrace a positive tryout. Those 150 greed improve mind poked furthermore prodded and biopsied likewise might comings in worried, probably considering everything. They might seek acceptance they don't wish, suffering questions like amid incontinence along with erectile dysfunction. Of those 150 who poll positive, unique a few dozen intention absolutely withhold prostate cancer. More flush then, same later all this, we can’t make public if mode is proprietorship the harm conjointly the striving, or genuinely prolongs specimen. None of these notes smoke forward the NPCC internet set. Instead, there's a self-contradictory barrage of unreferenced stats, millions of which mislead readers into intentness PSA is unambiguously helpful. It's not. Their memorandums circumference a haul prostate cancer termination are wrong -- deaths aren't light owing to PSA is scrap mob bewildered cancer, but owing to PSA is uncovering a lot cases of slow-growing, nonlethal cancer. Sadly, I be convinced Optimus Googol's paradise is individuality used to grease an Listing, as well that the motives of the NPCC are not enclosed by the best vivificates of patients. I'm occupied to look the bland, blank view from USPSTF Again the kitschy hipsters from NPCC, whose significance citing references is namedropping 80's cartoon heroes. Cheap Generic Viagra

Tags: cancer, prostate, psa, uspstf, screening

There are a lot of pretty girls on the subway. Very distracting stuff. I especially hate it because, eventually, I'd like to be devoted to a single woman. I'd love to be totally devoted to one woman. I mean, monogamy is a very special pact. But in this age of subliminal media images, is that even possible? Take the lovely Aishwarya Rai, for instance. What would, say, Captain Kirk do? Fortunately, I managed to ask him. Cheap Generic Viagra

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"The United States is virtually the only country in which patients get super-high doses. You create a toxicity situation," said Dr. N.D. Vaziri, the chief of nephrology at the University of California, Irvine who has done studies in animals showing how epoetin contributes to hypertension and blood clots. Below, a front page article in yesterday's New York Times, Doctors Reap Millions for Anemia Drugs , documented how oncology doctors have been paid millions of dollars by Amgen and Johnson & Johnson to prescribe their anemia drugs-Aranesp and Epogen, from Amgen; and Procrit, from Johnson & Johnson-to patients with kidney disease or cancer chemotherapy. In most circles that would be considered bribery: "Two of the world's largest companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses. The payments are legal, but very few people outside of the doctors who receive them are aware of their size." But as critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say "the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients' risks of heart attacks or strokes." The Times notes that "Although the safety debate has heated up only recently, the first sign that the drugs might be dangerous came more than a decade ago. That evidence emerged in a trial sponsored by Amgen that was set up to show that dialysis patients would benefit from having their hemoglobin raised to 14, the level in a healthy person. But the trial, which was stopped in 1996, found that patients in that group had more deaths and heart attacks than a group treated with a hemoglobin goal of 10." "That trial should have discouraged doctors from using too much epoetin and encouraged Amgen to study the risks further, said Dr. Steven Fishbane, a nephrologist at Winthrop-University Hospital on Long Island. Instead, use of epoetin continued to soar." Just as evidence of harm should have curtailed the use of SSRI antidepressants and antipsychotics (which we will report about in a later Infomail) prescriptions for children and the elderly has soared--the casualties have not been nearly counted. "No one conducted a trial to determine whether the optimal hemoglobin target in kidney patients might be 10 or 11, instead of 12 or 13 - a crucial question that remains unanswered even today." [Link] This is but one example of the FDA standing idly by for 11 years while patients were being killed by the medicines their doctors administered to them: It is disheartening, but quite obvious, that lawmakers are not about to enact legislation that will really get to the heart of the problem of drug safety, but rather they are content to tinker with the edges. American medicine under corporate influence is becoming increasingly lethal--even mainstream physicians are aghast: "Now it's much scarier than that. We could really be doing harm." Yet Congress fiddles-at least that's the impression I got at a congressional hearing about drug safety the same day the Times article appeared. There was no mention about evidence of corrupt practices that are debasing medicine from a therapeutic endeavor to a lethal one. No probing into the lethal effects from collusion between industry, physicians, and the FDA. Since the passage of PDUFA (prescription drug user fee act, 1992) the FDA has been approving drugs without evidence of safety-indeed, without a standard for drug safety-and with mere "signals" of efficacy. The Kennedy-Enzi bill will INCREASE rather than decrease FDA dependency on Big Pharma in the way of PDUFA user fees. Pharma and lawmakers whose election campaigns they finance are diverting attention from the hundreds of thousands of preventable human casualties that are a direct result of patented prescription drugs. Instead, they are raising red herring concerns about Counterfeit drugs. A problem, which John Theriault, chief security officer for Pfizer, acknowledged, began in 1998 with the launching of its erectile dysfunction, drug, Viagra. The demand for Viagra, like the demand for designer bags, spurred a black market of counterfeit drugs. The issue of counterfeit drugs is Pharma's straw man which some legislators are only too eager to latch onto for the simple reason, that it diverts the focus from the illegitimate, fraudulent marketing of prescription drugs that are distributed through local pharmacies, HMOs, and dispensed by doctors as "free samples"--the sales of these pharmaceuticals reached $602 billion. [1] These tainted drugs carry the FDA seal of approval, are prescribed by U.S. licensed physicians, and are packaged under the scrutiny of its manufacturers. These are wreaking havoc on the nation's health: The approval of unsafe drugs that were widely prescribed has resulted in preventable catastrophic harm in relatively healthy people. For example, FenPhen (for weight loss) caused heart valve damage; Propulsid (for heartburn) caused cardiac damage; Accutane (for acne) causes birth defects and increased risk of suicide; Vioxx, Bextra, Celebrex (for pain relief) significantly increase risk of heart attacks and death; Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor (for depression) are linked to birth defects, mania, aggression, hostility suicidal-homicidal behavior. Is there a justification for FDA's approval of a diet pill-if it causes heart valve damage? Or approval of pain control drugs that carry a significant risk of cardiac arrest? Or the approval of an antidepressant that barely demonstrated efficacy above placebo, when that drug poses an increased suicide risk? Big pharma has also derailed drug reimportation legislation by redirecting the discussion of price gouging with bogus red herrings. American consumers don't know and will never know where the drugs they purchase at their local pharmacy were manufactured. Mostly NOT in the U.S. Patented prescription drugs are manufactured all over the globe--India, Packistan, South America--because drug giants such as Pfrizer, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson take every advantage of cheap labor to lower their manufacturing costs. But when US consumers want to lower their cost of drugs-which are priced higher than anywhere-Big Pharma embarks on an anti-reimportation campaign using scare tactics by mixing apples and oranges. Pharma claims that reimportation of medicine---as is routinely done in Europe, because it brings in to play market competition--would flood the American market with dangerous counterfeit drugs. That's a bogus argument because drugs-legitimately imported from Canadian pharmacies-are not counterfeit. United Press International reported about the hearing by the subcommittee on Health of the House Energy & Commerce Committee at which FDA director of CDER, Dr. Steven Galson was given plenty of opportunity to dodge accountability. Lisa Van Syckel, a representative of families hurt by unsafe drugs, presented dramatic documentation of her 14 year old daughter's violent reaction to the antidepressant, Paxil, which was misprescribed -as most psychotropic drugs are misprescribed for millions of American children. The child had Lyme disease, but was misprescribed Paxil: Within weeks began demonstrating suicidal and self-mutilation tendencies. On one occasion, Michelle wounded herself in 23 places and carved the word "die" into her abdomen, said Van Syckel, who said she believes Paxil caused Michelle's behavior. "Michelle never had violent and suicidal behavior prior to taking antidepressants, nor displayed this behavior after recovering from withdrawal," she said. Ms. Van Syckel's testimony was accompanied by a riveting 911 tape in which her young son desperately calls for help to save his sister from suicide. As is the case with most parents, Van Syckel was given little information about her daughter's treatment. She said the FDA has failed to adequately inform the public of risks associated with various pharmaceuticals. Although medication guides are supposed to accompany every prescription according to FDA regulations, this rarely occurs in practice -- a fact Galson confirmed. Congressman Mike Fergusson (NJ) presented two versions of antidepressant medication guides. Dr. Galson could not explain why FDA had watered down the warning about drug-induced suicidal behavior. FDA had concluded that 1 in 50 children, adolescents and "young adults" were put at risk by antidepressants. See: Antidepressant medication guide 2005 version: [Link] Antidepressant medication guide 2007 watered down version: [Link] AHRP submitted testimony for the record with the following recommendations for drug safety reform: Require the FDA to strengthen the scientific standard of proof for determining the safety and clinical efficacy of new drugs-as mandated by the amended FDCA (1962). Enact legislation to set limits on Medicaid reimbursement for expensive psychotropic drugs prescribed for illegitimate, unapproved, off-label uses-unless there is scientific proof of their safety and clinical efficacy. Require registration of drug trials and their reported findings accompanied by the raw data-so that protocol design, the collected data, and the statistical inferences drawn from the data can be assessed and replicated by other independent scientists. Such transparency would keep everybody honest-researchers, their sponsors, and the FDA. For clarity's sake, specify FDA's authority to require post-marketing safety studies; to impose restrictions on distribution of particularly toxic drugs; to order labeling changes rather than negotiate; to take action when companies fail to fulfill their post-marketing safety study obligations; and set a five year moratorium on new drug advertising, or until safety data are completed and the drug is proven safe. Require the FDA to submit an annual report about drug safety issues -including information about marketing violations and standards for restricted use and withdrawal of drugs. Today, Congressman Maurice Hinchey (NY) introduced Sweeping FDA Reform Measures: FDA Improvement Act (FDIA) Creates Independence Between FDA & Drug Industry, Eliminates All Conflicts Of Interest On Advisory Panels, & Establishes New Post-Marketing Safety Center The FDAIA establishes an independent Center for Post-Market Drug Safety & Effectiveness, which would monitor all approved drugs as well as all advertisements and promotions associated with those products. Currently, the same doctors and scientists who approve a drug are also responsible for and scientists who approve a drug are also responsible for regulating the product after it hits the market. Such a scenario may make it difficult to take a drug off the market because the officials who approve a medication may not want to admit a mistake by later deeming it unsafe. Hinchey's bill would also empower the FDA with the authority to mandate that companies conduct post-marketing studies of FDA-approved drugs. Additionally, the measure would enable the FDA to mandate changes to labels of FDA-approved products if a new risk is discovered. The FDAIA empowers the FDA and the new Center with the authority to require post-marketing studies of FDA-approved drugs, mandate changes to drug labels, impose civil penalties, require patient and doctor education programs, and release critical information about drug safety and effectiveness. "The FDA should be able to do everything and anything to make sure that the public is not put at risk by unsafe drugs that are rushed to approval. Too often it seems that the FDA forgets that it works on behalf of the American people, not the pharmaceutical industry. That is a fundamental problem that must be addressed." See: [Link] html References: See, partial list of U.S. Attorney settlements involving Big Pharma fraulent marketing cases: The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman by Dr. Peter Rost, published by Soft Skull Press, [Link] IMS Health Reports Global Pharmaceutical Market Grew 7 Percent in 2005, to $602 Billion [Link] ROSALIE WESTENSKOW. ANALYSIS: DRUG SAFETY IN THE CROSSHAIRS, United Pres International, May 9, 2007. [Link] [Link] The New York Times May 9, 2007 Doctors Reap Millions for Anemia Drugs By ALEX BERENSON and ANDREW POLLACK Two of the world's largest drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses. The payments are legal, but very few people outside of the doctors who receive them are aware of their size. Critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients' risks of heart attacks or strokes. Industry analysts estimate that such payments - to cancer doctors and the other big users of the drugs, kidney dialysis centers - total hundreds of millions of dollars a year and are an important source of profit for doctors and the centers. The payments have risen over the last several years, as the makers of the drugs, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson, compete for market share and try to expand the overall business. Neither Amgen nor Johnson & Johnson has disclosed the total amount of the payments. But documents given to The New York Times show that at just one practice in the Pacific Northwest, a group of six cancer doctors received $2.7 million from Amgen for prescribing $9 million worth of its drugs last year. Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration added to concerns about the drugs, releasing a report that suggested that their use might need to be curtailed in cancer patients. The report, prepared by F.D.A. staff scientists, said no evidence indicated that the medicines either improved quality of life in patients or extended their survival, while several studies suggested that the drugs can shorten patients' lives when used at high doses. Yesterday's report followed the F.D.A.'s decision in March to strengthen warnings on the drugs' labels. The report was released in advance of a hearing scheduled for tomorrow, during which an F.D.A. advisory panel will consider whether the drugs are overused. The medicines - Aranesp and Epogen, from Amgen; and Procrit, from Johnson & Johnson - are among the world's top-selling drugs, with combined sales of $10 billion last year. In this country, they represent the single biggest drug expense for Medicare and are given to about a million patients each year to treat anemia caused by kidney disease or cancer chemotherapy. Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said that both patients and doctors would benefit from fuller disclosure about the payments and the profits that doctors can make from them. "I suspect that Medicare is going to take a very careful look at what is going on here," he said. Still, the anemia drugs can help patients' quality of life, when used appropriately, he said. "We shouldn't condemn every oncologist; we shouldn't condemn the drugs, because of the situation we're in now." Federal laws bar drug companies from paying doctors to prescribe medicines that are given in pill form and purchased by patients from pharmacies. But companies can rebate part of the price that doctors pay for drugs, like the anemia medicines, which they dispense in their offices as part of treatment. The anemia drugs are injected or given intravenously in physicians' offices or dialysis centers. Doctors receive the rebates after they buy the drugs from the companies. But they also receive reimbursement from Medicare or private insurers for the drugs, often at a markup over the doctors' purchase price. Medicare has changed its payment structure since 2003 to reduce the markup, but private insurers still often pay more. Combined with those insurance reimbursements, the rebates enable many doctors to profit substantially on the medicines they buy and then give to patients. The rebates are related to the amount of drugs that doctors buy, and physicians that agree to use one company's drugs exclusively typically receive higher rebates. Johnson & Johnson said yesterday in a statement that its rebates were not intended to induce doctors to use more medicine. Instead, the rebates "reflect intense competition" in the market for the drugs, the company said. Amgen said that rebates were a normal commercial practice and that it had always properly promoted its drugs. "Amgen is dedicated to patient safety," said David Polk, a spokesman. "We believe our contracts support appropriate anemia management and our product promotion is always strictly within the label." Both companies' stocks fell yesterday after release of the F.D.A. report. Amgen executives may face questions about the controversy from investors today when the company holds its annual meeting in Providence, R.I. Since 1991, when the first of the drugs was still relatively new, the average dose given to dialysis patients in this country has nearly tripled. About 50 percent of dialysis patients now receive enough of the drugs to raise their red blood cell counts above the level considered risky by the F.D.A. American patients receive far more of the anemia drugs than patients elsewhere, with dialysis patients in this country getting doses more than twice as high as their counterparts in Europe. Cancer care shows a similar pattern. American cancer patients are about three times as likely as those in Europe to get the drugs, and they receive somewhat higher doses. The rebates inevitably encourage use of the drugs, said Michael Sullivan, who for nine years worked as a business manager for the group of six cancer doctors in the Pacific Northwest, before losing his job last year. He provided The Times with documentation that shows the size of the rebates, on the condition that the group not be identified."Personally, I think rebates should go away," said Mr. Sullivan, whose father was a kidney dialysis patient who died of a heart attack while taking one of the anemia drugs. "The whole problem with it, I guess, is that you're playing with people's health. It's not the same as buying widgets." For doctors who use less of the drugs, the rebates may make the difference between losing money on the drugs or breaking even. Mr. Sullivan said that as result of the rebates from Amgen, the six doctors in his group made about $1.8 million in net profit on the drugs they prescribed. Unlike most drugs, the anemia medicines do not come in fixed doses. Therefore, doctors have great flexibility to increase dosing - and profits. Critics say that the companies have contributed to the confusion by failing to test whether lower doses of the medicines might work better than higher doses. "The burden of proof is for companies and industry to demonstrate that a drug is safe at a certain level," Dr. Ajay Singh, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Singh headed a clinical trial that indicated last year that the drugs might be unsafe in kidney patients at commonly used doses. Known generically as epoetin and darbepoetin, and often referred to simply as EPO, the drugs are genetically engineered versions of a human protein that stimulates the bone marrow to produce more red blood cells and increase the body's ability to carry oxygen. Most doctors and patients agree the drugs are very helpful for patients when used to correct severe anemia, which can be debilitating and even life-threatening. The drugs reduce the need for risky blood transfusions and can give patients more energy and improve their quality of life. "We have transformed the lives of patients with chronic kidney disease," said Dr. Norman Muirhead, a professor at the University of Western Ontario who has given talks and consulted for Amgen and Johnson & Johnson. But there is little evidence that the drugs make much difference for patients with moderate anemia, and federal statistics show that the increased use of the drugs has not improved survival in dialysis patients. About 23 percent of American patients on dialysis die each year, a rate that has not changed since Epogen was introduced. Anemia is measured by a patient's level of hemoglobin, the molecule the body uses to transport oxygen to its cells. Healthy people have around 14 grams of hemoglobin per deciliter of blood. Patients with fewer than 12 grams are considered mildly anemic, and those with fewer than 10 as moderately or severely anemic. The labels on the drugs, as currently approved by the F.D.A., encourage doctors to aim for a hemoglobin level of 10 to 12. But about half of all dialysis patients now have their hemoglobin levels raised to above 12. Critics of the drugs say their increased use has been driven by profit. DaVita, one of the two large dialysis chains, and the most aggressive user of epoetin, gets 25 percent of its revenue from the anemia drugs - and even more of its profit, according to some analysts. Dr. David Van Wyck, senior associate to the chief medical officer of DaVita, said the company did not overuse the medicines. Doctors determine how much to use, Dr. Van Wyck said. "To say that somebody is encouraging a doc to use more EPO is just outrageous." Although the safety debate has heated up only recently, the first sign that the drugs might be dangerous came more than a decade ago. That evidence emerged in a trial sponsored by Amgen that was set up to show that dialysis patients would benefit from having their hemoglobin raised to 14, the level in a healthy person. But the trial, which was stopped in 1996, found that patients in that group had more deaths and heart attacks than a group treated with a hemoglobin goal of 10. That trial should have discouraged doctors from using too much epoetin and encouraged Amgen to study the risks further, said Dr. Steven Fishbane, a nephrologist at Winthrop-University Hospital on Long Island. Instead, use of epoetin continued to soar. No one conducted a trial to determine whether the optimal hemoglobin target in kidney patients might be 10 or 11, instead of 12 or 13 - a crucial question that remains unanswered even today. Dr. Anatole Besarab of the Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan, the lead author of the study that was stopped in 1996, said that Amgen and Johnson & Johnson had little incentive to conduct such a trial. Dr. Robert M. Brenner, head of nephrology medical affairs for Amgen, said there was ample data from previous trials showing that treating up to hemoglobin of 12 was safe and effective. Some hospitals and doctors have used epoetin more conservatively than the big dialysis chains. Dr. Ronald A. Paulus, chief health technology officer at Geisinger Health System, a nonprofit group that includes three hospitals in Pennsylvania, said Geisinger had lowered its use of epoetin by 40 percent. Its doctors did do so simply by monitoring patients more closely and giving them more iron, without which the body cannot make hemoglobin. Dr. N. D. Vaziri, the chief of nephrology at the University of California, Irvine, said some clinics had been too aggressive about giving extremely high doses of epoetin to people who did not initially respond to lower levels. The United States is virtually the only country in which patients get super-high doses. "You create a toxicity situation," said Dr. Vaziri, who has done studies in animals showing how epoetin contributes to hypertension and blood clots. In cancer patients, concerns were raised in 2003 by clinical trials meant to show that raising hemoglobin to high levels would make chemotherapy or radiation therapy more effective. Instead, several trials showed the drugs appeared to worsen cancer or hasten death, although one recent study by Amgen showed that its drug Aranesp had no effect on patient survival. The conflicting studies are among the issues the F.D.A. advisory committee is expected to discuss tomorrow. Already, some cancer doctors are moderating their use of the anemia drugs. Dr. Peter Eisenberg, an oncologist in Marin County, Calif., said many doctors had been induced to use more epoetin by the financial incentives and the belief that the drug was helpful. "The deal was so good," he said. "The indication was so clear and the downside was so small that docs just worked it into their practice easily. "Now it's much scarier than that," he said. "We could really be doing harm." Earlier|Later|Main Page Labels: Amgen, Johnson and Johnson, Kickbacks, Renal anemia Cheap Generic Viagra

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Coming digs to LA being thanksgiving was awesome. Something beats a residence cooked meal. Surprisingly the cool, brisk winter of San Francisco dreamed up its cut to LA. I don't surmise it's ever been so cold. I started to feel a small tickle halfway my throat to boot I asked my mom if she had atom airborne or a chinese medical herb I used to look seeing prevention due to the cold. Instead, she gave me a a bottle of chinese medicine, Diclofenac to boot Chlorpheniramine. From my 1.5 years of pharm school, I remembered Chlorpheniramine is first hour antihistamine that reasons drowsiness but I totally forgot what Diclofenac was used to treat. - Perhaps some anti-inflammatory intertwined Ibuprofen? I was hesistant plus told my mom this I would be just diminished. She insisted this this was a miracle drug moreover had already filled a glass of water Because me. What do I do? My mom is verifying her best to lead out after me Also if I took a real estate, the concentrations would be so low this I would not be at risk considering hunk serious condition. I was hesistant. The tables more haven't turned- despite my 1.5 years medially pharmacy school- nothing has unequal. My mom additionally acts cope the pharmacists at home.

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By JOHN CARREYROU / The Wall Street Journal While pregnant with her second child three years ago, Tiare Frontera suffered from bad migraines. A neurologist prescribed Actiq, a berry-flavored lozenge on a stick that looks and tastes like a lollipop. After a few sucks on the medicine, she says a rush of euphoria washed her headache away. Soon, Mrs. Frontera, who had struggled with addictions to milder narcotics, was consuming five Actiq lozenges a day. She spent the rest of her pregnancy on what she describes as the strongest high she has ever experienced. When she gave birth, her baby son was cranky and wouldn’t sleep. Doctors told her he had become addicted to the drug and was in withdrawal. Mrs. Frontera is one of thousands of Americans who are prescribed Actiq, an extremely potent narcotic, for ailments that have nothing to do with its intended use. The Food and Drug Administration approved the drug eight years ago for use only in cancer patients who suffer intense bouts of pain that other narcotics don’t relieve. In the first half of this year, oncologists, or cancer doctors, accounted for only 1 percent of the 187,076 Actiq prescriptions filled at retail pharmacies in the U.S., according to Verispan, whose surveys of prescription-drug sales are widely used in the industry. Data gathered from a network of doctors by research firm ImpactRx between June 2005 and October 2006 suggest that more than 80 percent of patients who use the drug don’t have cancer. Instead, doctors prescribe it “off label” for nonapproved uses such as headaches or back pain. Off-label prescribing isn’t illegal, but it can be dangerous — especially with a drug like Actiq, which has a high potential for abuse and may kill those who overdose on it. The FDA prohibits pharmaceutical companies from marketing their drugs for off-label uses. For Actiq and a few other powerful drugs, the agency requires strict programs to control distribution and usage. Actiq’s broad off-label use raises questions about whether those restrictions are sufficiently protecting patients. “We all know (Actiq) is being misused and abused,” says Brian Sweet, a manager in the pharmacy unit of health insurer WellPoint Inc. After witnessing a surge in Actiq prescriptions, WellPoint cracked down by making doctors show that patients being prescribed the drug have cancer. Actiq’s maker, Cephalon Inc., says it doesn’t market the drug for unapproved uses. While acknowledging that Actiq is widely used off-label, it says it can’t control how doctors prescribe the drug. Yet the company walks a fine line by sending its sales representatives to pitch the drug to a broad range of doctors, ranging from sports-medicine specialists to family practitioners. It gives these doctors coupons for free samples. Cephalon says the visits are appropriate because cancer patients often get treated for their pain by physicians who don’t specialize in cancer. Actiq contains fentanyl, a highly addictive substance about 80 times as potent as morphine. Fentanyl is classified as a Schedule II substance by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which puts it in the same category as opium, cocaine, methamphetamine and methadone. Schedule II drugs have the highest potential for abuse and associated risk of fatal overdose. Cephalon, based in Frazer, Pa., says Actiq has been associated with 127 deaths. Two of them involved children who confused the drug for candy. Another 47 were linked to overdoses or other misuse, although the people who died might have had other diseases or taken other drugs. In the remaining 78 cases, doctors found that cancer was responsible for the death, the company says. Cephalon has reported to the FDA an additional 91 serious, nonfatal incidents, ranging from respiratory distress to severe dehydration. The U.S. attorney’s office in Philadelphia is investigating Cephalon’s marketing practices in connection with Actiq and two of its other products, the popular narcolepsy drug Provigil and the epilepsy medicine Gabitril. No charges have been filed. Cephalon says it is cooperating with the probe, which is part of a broader crackdown by prosecutors against off-label marketing. In August, the Justice Department fined Schering-Plough Corp. $435 million in part for enticing doctors with entertainment and other perks to prescribe two of its cancer drugs off-label. Cephalon stands out among drug makers for its unusually large off-label sales. Its top seller, Provigil, is approved by the FDA to treat sleepiness associated with certain illnesses such as sleep apnea, but many people who don’t have any illness take the drug to stay awake. Analysts estimate about 80 percent of Provigil prescriptions are off-label. Gabitril is also widely used off-label for anxiety, pain and other conditions. Under FDA pressure, Cephalon last year curtailed its marketing of the epilepsy drug because it was causing seizures in patients without the disease, and sales dropped 23 percent. Founded in 1987 by a former DuPont Co. scientist named Frank Baldino Jr., Cephalon expects revenue to exceed $1.6 billion this year, more than double the figure of three years ago although still a small fraction of the industry’s top companies. Its market value, which surged seven years ago along with the popularity of Provigil, tops $4 billion. Dr. Baldino earned $2.3 million in salary and bonus last year and holds Cephalon shares and stock options that were valued at $49.6 million as of the end of last year. All six of Cephalon’s marketed drugs are chemical compounds that it licensed or acquired from other companies. Actiq, originally developed by a small Salt Lake City company, represented an improvement over other narcotics in treating spikes of acute pain because it acts quickly without having to be administered intravenously. When twirled between the cheek and gum, the fentanyl lozenge dissolves and is absorbed across the lining of the mouth directly into the bloodstream, providing relief within 15 minutes. Actiq had sales of $15 million in 2000, when Cephalon acquired it. By last year, sales had grown to $412 million, making it Cephalon’s No. 2 drug. In the first nine months of this year, sales jumped to $471 million. Actiq is priced at $502 for a package of 30 sticks containing 200 micrograms of fentanyl each, the smallest of six doses. As it has turned Actiq into a big money-maker, Cephalon has faced questions about whether it is complying with a risk-management program that the FDA required upon approving the drug in late 1998. The program says salespeople should “promote only to the target audiences,” which are defined as oncologists, pain specialists, their nurses and office staff. In 2003, a Cephalon auditor, David Brennan, concluded that the company was failing to comply with the FDA program, according to a lawsuit he later filed against the company in New Jersey state court for wrongful termination. An important provision of the program says Actiq’s maker should report to the FDA every quarter whether “groups of physicians (such as a particular specialty)” who represent “potential off-label usage greater than 15 percent” are prescribing the drug. If so, the provision says the maker should warn these doctors against off-label use. Mr. Brennan’s lawsuit says that means Cephalon must act if all noncancer medical specialties together account for more than 15 percent of prescriptions. Cephalon interprets the provision differently. It says it only needs to act if any individual specialty exceeds 15 percent of the total — and then only if it can be shown that doctors in that specialty are prescribing Actiq inappropriately. Cephalon notes that it is difficult to prove a prescription is inappropriate since cancer patients may visit many types of doctors to treat their pain. It believes the 15 percent clause has yet to be triggered. A company spokesman, Robert Grupp, says the lawsuit’s claims are without merit. The FDA declined to comment. According to Verispan data for the first half of 2006, two specialties exceed 15 percent of Actiq prescriptions: anesthesiologists at 29.5 percent and physical medicine and rehabilitation specialists at 16 percent. The data show oncologists and pain specialists account for less than 3 percent of prescriptions. Cephalon doesn’t dispute the data. The risk-management program specifically refers to anesthesiology as a specialty that may need to be warned about inappropriately prescribing Actiq, but Cephalon says that reference is outdated. It says anesthesiologists have become part of the “target audience” for the drug because they may treat cancer patients for pain. Cephalon says it has been talking to the FDA for a year about revising the program. After Mr. Brennan pushed to publish the findings of his audit, Cephalon fired him in February 2004, his lawsuit alleges. Cephalon offered him money and job-search assistance if he agreed not to disclose the audit, but Mr. Brennan refused, the suit says. Mr. Grupp declined to discuss Mr. Brennan’s dismissal but noted that he is “a former disgruntled employee.” Mr. Brennan has been interviewed twice by investigators working for the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, most recently in May, according to a person familiar with the matter. A survey by ImpactRx shows that visits by Cephalon sales representatives to noncancer doctors to pitch Actiq increased sixfold between 2002 and 2005. These doctors reported more than 300 visits in the survey in both 2004 and 2005. Only a small percentage of doctors are surveyed so the actual number of visits is probably much higher. Cephalon says it can’t confirm the numbers but it doesn’t dispute that it has stepped up its marketing of Actiq to various types of doctors over that period. Stephen Leighton, a general practitioner in Winston-Salem, N.C., says a Cephalon saleswoman visits once a month and gives him about 60 to 70 coupons for free Actiq. Patients can trade each coupon for six Actiq sticks. Dr. Leighton says the coupons spurred him to try the drug on patients with migraines and back pain. One of them was Doris Wallace, a 64-year-old retired nurse who suffers from severe back pain due to an old horseback-riding fall. Ms. Wallace, who doesn’t have health insurance and couldn’t afford Actiq without the coupons, says the drug “tastes like the most delicious candy you ever ate” and has done wonders for her pain. At the height of her use, she was consuming 24 Actiq sticks a month. The positive experience of patients like Ms. Wallace has led Dr. Leighton to prescribe Actiq more widely for different types of pain. Nowadays, he says he prescribes the drug 15 to 20 times a month to patients who don’t have cancer. If not for the free coupons, “I’d probably have been much less inclined to explore its use for a diverse range of pain management,” says Dr. Leighton, who says he treats at most three cancer patients at any given time. Dr. Leighton says he thinks the FDA-approved usage of Actiq is too narrow. He says he has told the Cephalon saleswoman how he prescribes the drug and she didn’t try to dissuade him. Mr. Grupp of Cephalon says Dr. Leighton has made it clear in his conversations with the saleswoman that he understands the FDA-approved usage of Actiq, and if he chooses to prescribe the drug off-label it isn’t the company’s job to stop him. Mr. Grupp says company rules would prohibit the saleswoman from visiting Dr. Leighton only if he never prescribed the drug for cancer pain. “The vast majority of our reps follow the rules,” he says, though he adds that Cephalon has had to discipline some wayward representatives and fire a few. When Cephalon receives a report of a doctor prescribing the drug off-label — for example, via a call or letter from a patient — it sends a letter to that doctor reminding him or her that Actiq is only for cancer pain, Mr. Grupp says. The company has sent more than 3,300 such letters, he says. Earlier this year, Dr. Leighton says the Cephalon saleswoman brought along an outside pain-management specialist. Over lunch, Dr. Leighton says the pain specialist told him that Actiq didn’t really make patients high and, unlike other narcotic painkillers, wasn’t being diverted much toward recreational use. Cephalon declined to comment on the conversation. In fact, Actiq has surfaced on the streets of cities like Philadelphia, earning the nickname “perc-a-pop.” Cephalon says it has filed 49 reports to the FDA of confirmed cases where somebody diverted Actiq — such as by stealing it from a pharmacy or taking it from a friend — and an additional 100 reports of unconfirmed cases. Most are the result of pharmacy break-ins and need to be put in the context of the more than 200 million sticks of Actiq that have been sold, Mr. Grupp says. Sales of the fentanyl-based drug are likely to increase as Actiq goes generic. In late September, Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. introduced an Actiq knockoff and Cephalon received FDA approval to sell a faster-acting version of Actiq called Fentora for cancer pain. Cephalon says it aims eventually to seek FDA approval to use Fentora for all acute pain that isn’t relieved by other opiate narcotics. Mrs. Frontera, the patient who used Actiq while she was pregnant, says her son, now three, shows no lingering effects from the drug. Mrs. Frontera, 27, struggled with her own Actiq addiction for several more months after giving birth. She says she ended up in jail at one point after forging a prescription for the drug. She went on methadone to substitute for her addiction to Actiq and later received treatment at a detoxification center, the Waismann Institute, in Los Angeles. Now she lives in San Luis Obispo, Calif. “It makes me angry that it was prescribed to me,” she says of Actiq. “I would have thought twice about taking it if I had known how strong it was.” Philip Delio, the neurologist who prescribed Actiq to Mrs. Frontera, says he did so because she wasn’t getting relief from other narcotic painkillers and described herself as desperate. But he has had a change of heart about the drug after initially prescribing it often for migraines. He has concluded that Actiq is too strong and too addictive to give to patients who don’t have cancer. Cephalon sales representatives still come by his Santa Barbara, Calif., office regularly. But Dr. Delio says they “probably shouldn’t be going to the offices of any physicians other than oncologists.” Sphere: Related Content Cheap Generic Viagra

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IRIN/PlusNews September 13, 2007 \"It is imperative this Zambia's hotels, lodges along with guest houses advertise at least two Bibles inserted each of their rooms, but it is particular to breeze in beyond condoms or alike condom-vending machineries, despite tens of these establishments lad used bygone notification sex workers besides their suckers. ... \"Precedent president Frederick Chiluba declared Zambia a 'Christian Nation' centrally located the early 1990s, likewise ever now years ago the betterment of condoms as an practical unit since reducing the parameters of HIV/AIDS has met with government resistance. ... \"'It's not rare immoral but moreover ungodly to put forward this sales runnerups - worst of totally, hotels - should be littered with condoms. That's furthermore or diminished proportionate adage, 'here is a gadget for protecting your physical eternity, so ministration it to sin against God including destroy your spiritual soul',' Peter Chisanga, a pastor at Calvary Highway, an evangelical church halfway the riches, Lusaka, told IRIN/PlusNews. \"'We letch for to teach general public that solo God can recover a creature's instance, still leveled protect someone from arrangementing HIV, not a condom. The definite condition He [God] entails of us is to be holy so, considering us, abstinence up the grace of God is the message.' \"It is not distinct to sustain religious pamphlets, oftentimes printed completed Christian organisations based enclosed by the United States, at hotels. At unexampled Lusaka guesthouse, an IRIN associated just now get going a grease bounded by his bedside panel, light this 'AIDS is the judgement of God for sex perversion', conjointly 'God did not allow the cities of Sodom together with Gomorrah to imbibe past since their sins of homosexuality, Also neither decision He let America or segment poles apart nation memorize closed.'\" Cheap Generic Viagra

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Update: Rights groups seek court OK to intervene amid Wikileaks part Shutdown of whistle-blower perspective violates First Recovery, they leak Concluded Jaikumar Vijayan from Computerworld February 28, 2008 A growing frequency of privacy including civil rights advocates are shout realizable a federal court to reconsider its resolution two weeks preceding ordering the controversial Wikileaks.org whistle-blower Web site to be disabled... \"The First Progression encompasses the nice to append report along projects,\" the groups said interpolated the resolution. \"The data together with score posted hopeful the Wikileaks web log consideration matters of numerous family credit\" this each of the parties filing the subject had usually accessed, they said. Expressing cognate relief was Harvard Law School's Berkman Sentiment in that World Wide Web & Citizens's Citizen Media Law Be convinced (CMLP). Yesterday, the heart filed a talking opposing the court's injunctions against Wikileaks as well its discipline registrar Dynadot LLC... \"Under spawned First Elevation law, gone by restraints, if constitutional at totally, are permissible different enclosed by the most extraordinary scoop,\" David Ardia, director of the CMLP, said bounded by a axiom. \"Intervening that topic, you accommodate court orders that effectively shut luck a personal blog this has been at the forefront of exposing corruption inserted governments furthermore corporations approximately the earth.\" http://Net.computerworld.com/works/article.do?inform=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=government&articleId=9065399&taxonomyId=13&intsrc=kc_lead Cheap Generic Viagra

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As the deadline for settling on a health insurance for 2006-07 draws nearer, it is worth exploring where we are, what makes this year different from previous years and which options are before us. This post will attempt simply to lay out what proposals are on the table. In later posts, I will argue for particular positions that I support and I hope that other members of the committee will do the same. [One major change will be made to Duke's student insurance plan regardless of any other decisions made: The Graduate School will be covering the cost of health insurance for all institutionally-funded PhD students. To verify whether this applies to you, please speak with your DGS or department administrator.] Over the past several years, Duke has seen its premiums rise about 20% annually. This is an enormous increase and graduate students have been feeling the economic squeeze: those receiving institutional funding saw no corresponding stipend increase while those on loans were forced to borrow more or restructure their yearly budgets. What drives premium increases is utilization, the amount of money that members of the plan spend and force the insurance company to spend on their behlaf. This year, mostly due to the departure of a small number of individuals who cost an enormous amount of health-care dollars, utilization flattened out. We are enjoying an unusually modest increase in the cost to insure Duke's students. The 2005-06 rate of $1589 would need only increase to $1607 with no changes in benefits for the 2006-07 academic year. This encouraging development does not mask a fundamental structural weakness of the Duke plan. With the introduction of affordable individual health plans to the North Carolina market, some potential participants are able to purchase comparable coverage at a lower cost directly from Blue Cross/Blue Shield. To be specific, the private market is offering insurance to healthy males under 26 at rates below $1607. This has drawn a sizable minority of participants out of Duke's plan. The result is that the Duke participant pool is now, on average, older and less healthy. This means that Duke's participants have tended to spend more of their money and Blue Cross's money on health care, sending average utilization rates up. This means that our premiums have continued to rise. Finally, this has driven yet more young healthy males out of our plan. Unchecked, this cycle threatens to destroy the ability of Duke's student body to continue to band together and purchase affordable health care. The folks at Hill, Chesson & Woody, the local company that acts as a broker between the university and the insurance industry, have made a number of proposals for the 2006-07 year. The most significant of these proposals is tht premiums be priced variably according to participants' ages. Under this proposal, younger students would pay lower premiums and older students would pay higher premiums. Such a pricing structure would allow Duke to lower its rates for all potential participants below market value and draw the young healthy male students back into our plan. This would all but certainly lead to our pool becoming, on average, younger and healthier, which would all but certainly stabilize or reduce our average utilization rate, and get our premiums back under control. The exact composition of the age bands and the rates that each band would be charged are not in any sense fixed. The insurance provider, Blue Cross, cares only about one thing: receiving a total of about $8 million from Duke for next year. How those costs are distributed is to be decided by us. Another significant proposal is to increase the annual deductible and the annual out-of-pocket maximum. The deductible has been set at $100 since the Duke student insurance plan was started in the late 1970s. It has been proposed that the deductible be raised to $150 or $200. The out-of-pocket maximum is presently set at $1,000. It is proposed that this be raised to $1,500 or $2,000. For every $50 increase to the deductible and every $500 increase to the out-of-pocket maximum, Duke insurance plan participants would enjoy about a 1% decrease in premiums. Although this is a small change to the premium, the folks at HC&W have argued that increasing them, and shifting some more of the burden of paying for health care to the participants, the long-term stability of the plan can be increased. Deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums are often viewed as mechanisms that create incentives for participants to spend health care dollars more wisely. The other two proposed changes involve spouses and children. Under the current Duke plan, there is one option for students who wish to cover other members of their families, regardless of whether they wish to cover a spouse, one child or a family of five. It is proposed to have a rider for spouses, and a rider for children. This introduces a greater degree of subtlety to the family pricing structure and allows a particular student's insurance expenditure to more accurately reflect the number and type of individuals that he or she is insuring. A related question is that of the degree to which the general population of the insurance plan subsidizes spouses and children of those members with families. Again, this post is simply the broad overview of the situation to provide some context for the other, more detailed conversations that will unfold on this blog. Please feel free to amend and correct things in the comments.

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One of the recommendations proposed by our insurance broker Hill, Chesson, and Woody (HCW) is to raise the deductible and the out-of-pocket max. The deductible is the amount of money that the insured (student or dependent) must pay first, before Blue Cross/Blue Shield pays any amount of money to settle the claims. Currently this deductible is $100. So the first $100 in claims is always paid by the individual. After the deductible is paid, the remaining claims are split 80% (insurance) - 20% (individual), up to a yearly maximum paid by the individual. This maximum is the out-of-pocket max, and is now $1000. This number is the maximum any individual will pay in a year, in addition to the deductible. Prescription drugs have a separate deductible and no out-of-pocket max. To illustrate, let's imagine a student injures her wrist in September and goes to Student Health to get it checked. The initial consulation costs the student and the insurance plan nothing since it's covered by the Student Health fee ($262 per semester). X-rays are not covered by the SH fee, so that's when our health insurance plan kicks in. If X-rays cost $200, the student first pays the deductible amount of $100. Then the insurance will pay 80% of the remaining costs, or $80. For the X-rays the student pays a total of $120. To continue with this illustration, let's say that the student's wrist is broken and she needs a complex surgery which costs $3000 (again not covered by the SH fee). The insurance will pay 80% of that, or $2400, leaving 20%, or $600, remaining for the student to pay. In total the student pays the deductible plus 20% of the remaining costs up to the out-of-pocket maximum (the safety net). So far the student has paid the $100 deductible, plus $620. Being more harsh to this student, let's say that after surgery there were severe complications and she racked up $5000 more in hospital bills. With the 80%-20% co-insurance split, she would be on the hook to pay $1000 more. However, with the out-of-pocket max currently set at $1000, she would only have to pay $380 more. The insurance would pay for the remaining $4620. Under this scenario, the student pays $100 + $20 + $600 + $380 = $1100. The insurance plan (everybody else) pays $80 + $2400 + $4620 = $7100. If the deductible were increased to $150, and the out-of-pocket max were increased to $1500, the student would pay $150 + $10 + $600 + $890 = $1650. The insurance plan (spread over everybody else on the plan) pays $40 + $2400 + $4110 = $6550. Q: Why should we raise the deductible and the out-of-pocket max? A: The $100 deductible and $1000 out-of-pocket max are archaic numbers. Raising them is long overdue. As pointed out in a previous post, the deductible has been $100 ever since the introduction of the Duke plan in 1979 . The out-of-pocket max has been $1000 for as long as we have records . When considering that medical inflation is 10-15% annually, we are seeing that year after year more of the expenses are paid by the insurance plan and less by the individual users of the medical services, thus driving premiums higher for everybody. Increasing premiums cause healthier students to drop out of the plan. Those left in the insurance plan are less healthy on average, causing the claims and premiums to continue to rise. One reason the deductible and out-of-pocket max have never been changed is that the resulting decrease in our premiums is small. Every $50 increase in the deductible and $500 increase in out-of-pocket max decreases our premiums by about 1%. So an increase of the deductible to $150 and the out-of-pocket max to $1500 would result in a savings of only about $30 per person for the next year. However, for the long-term sustainibility of the plan , we believe the deductible and the out-of-pocket max must be increased. Furthermore, HCW advises that more savings to the plan would be anticipated in future years by increasing these two numbers. Cheap Generic Viagra

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NOVEMBER 4, 2005 4:49 PM CONTACT: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) 212-633-6700 fair@frair.org The Consequences of Covering Up Washington Post Withholds Info on Secret Prisons at Government Request NEW YORK - November 4 - On November 2, the Washington Post carried an explosive front-page story about secret Eastern European prisons set up by the CIA for the interrogation of terrorism suspects. While the Post article, by reporter Dana Priest, gave readers plenty of details, it also withheld the most crucial information--the location of these secret prisons--at the request of government officials. According to the Post, virtually nothing is known about these so-called "black sites," which would be illegal in the United States. Given the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, news that the U.S. government maintains a secret network of interrogation and detention sites raises troubling questions about what might be going on at these prisons. The Post reports that "officials familiar with the program" acknowledge that disclosure of the secret prison program "could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad." But the Washington Post did its part to minimize those potential risks: "The Washington Post is not publishing the names of the Eastern European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation." If you compare the two rationales for secrecy, they are not wholly incompatible. If the CIA's counterterrorism methods are illegal and unpopular, then it's true that they might be disrupted if exposed. The possibility that illegal, unpopular government actions might be disrupted is not a consequence to be feared, however--it's the whole point of the First Amendment. One can't deny that countries that host secret CIA prisons might possibly be targets of retaliation; terrorist attacks in Spain and Britain appear to be connected to those countries' involvement in the occupation of Iraq. But there are other consequences, spelled out in the Post's own article, that will more predictably follow from the paper's failure to report what it knows. Without the basic fact of where these prisons are, it's difficult if not impossible for "legal challenges" or "political condemnation" to force them to close. As the Post notes, there has been "widespread prisoner abuse" in U.S. military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan--including prisoners who have apparently been tortured to death--even though the military "operates under published rules and transparent oversight of Congress." Given that Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA Director Porter Goss are seeking to exempt the CIA from legislation that would prohibit "cruel and degrading treatment" of prisoners, and that CIA-approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" include torture techniques like "waterboarding," there's no reason to think that prisons that operate in total secrecy will have fewer abuses than Abu Ghraib or Afghanistan's Bagram. Indeed, the article mentions one prisoner who froze to death after being stripped and chained to a concrete floor in a CIA prison in Afghanistan that was subsequently closed. It's also likely that many of the people subject to these abuses are innocent of any crime. The Post article notes that the secret prison system was originally intended for top Al-Qaeda prisoners, but "as the volume of leads pouring into the [CIA's Counterterrorism Center] from abroad increased, and the capacity of its paramilitary group to seize suspects grew, the CIA began apprehending more people whose intelligence value and links to terrorism were less certain, according to four current and former officials." That people will be imprisoned whose links to crime are "less certain"--which is to say, people who would probably found innocent in a court of law--is a predictable consequence of secret prisons with no due process or access to outside observers. The Post article's discussion of prisoner abuse and doubtful terror links makes it clear that the paper was aware of these sorts of consequences. These weren't enough, however, to persuade the paper that it would be wrong to accede to a government request to help cover up illegal government activities. (As the article notes, "Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA's internment practices...would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.") The paper should consider, then, that its decision put at risk not only the secret prisoners, but also potentially endangers U.S. soldiers and civilians. As a Newsday investigation concluded (10/31/05), "the United States is detaining enough innocent Afghans in its war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda that it is seriously undermining popular support for its presence in Afghanistan." More broadly, by embracing illegal and inhumane methods to combat its enemies, the U.S. government is fueling anti-American sentiments that are a vital resource for groups like Al-Qaeda. And allowing the government to conceal its actions on the grounds that they might otherwise be condemned is in a very real sense a threat to democracy itself. The Post's decision has struck some experts as enormously significant. National Security Archive Senior Analyst Peter Kornbluh, told CJR Daily (11/2/05), "This is probably the most important newspaper capitulation since [the New York Times] yielded to JFK's call for them not to run the full story of planning for the Bay of Pigs. By withholding the country names, the Post is directly enabling the rendition, secret detention, and torture of prisoners at these locations to continue. That is a ghastly responsibility." But the Post is not the only U.S. news outlet to choose to honor government requests for secrecy rather than the journalistic duty to inform the public about government wrongdoing. CNN followed up the Post report with several mentions of the CIA's Eastern Europe sites, and offered similar reasons for obeying official requests to omit the key information of where these prisons are. CNN reporter David Ensor said (11/2/05), "U.S. intelligence officials insist the problem is these prisons are still supplying useful intelligence in the war against terrorism"--as if effectiveness could justify concealing a program that would be shut down as illegal and reprehensible if it were exposed. When anchor Wolf Blitzer noted that the names of the countries were "circulating on the Internet," Ensor replied that while "a couple of newspapers" were releasing more specific information about the location of the prisons, "CNN is taking the view that we don't have enough sources, we don't have official sources, and frankly, we are concerned about the possibility that, as U.S. officials have said to us, lives could be as stake." Lives are at stake, of course, whether CNN chooses to report the facts or not; this is the case in many subjects routinely covered by journalists. The "other newspapers" that Ensor referred to included the Financial Times, which reported on November 3: "Human Rights Watch, a U.S. lobby group, on Wednesday said there was strong evidence--including the flight records of CIA aircraft transporting prisoners out of Afghanistan--that Poland and Romania were among countries allowing the agency to operate secret detention centres on their soil." Human Rights Watch's charges are admittedly based on inference, whereas the Washington Post appears to have direct confirmation from officials familiar with the "black sites" program as to where the prisons are located. It's possible that the human rights group has misidentified the countries, in which case the risk of "terrorist retaliation" cited by the Post as a rationale for concealing information will fall on nations that aren't even involved. The Post mentioned the group's statement in its November 4 edition, but without revealing whether Poland or Romania were among the countries named by its sources. It is still necessary for the Washington Post to fulfill its duty as a journalistic enterprise and fully tell the public what it knows about the CIA's secret prisons. ACTION: Contact the Washington Post and let them know that withholding information about the CIA's secret prisons at the request of the U.S. government was the wrong journalistic decision. CONTACT: Washington Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell ombudsman@washpost.com Phone: 202-334-7582

Tags: post, prison, secret, cia, government

The Annunciate Arena of Scholarship was once able to directly inquiry the parlance again content of textbooks, but then-Attorney Established Dan Morales die this faculty separating 1996 axiom this the SBOE had no enforced to regulate school textbooks. But The Quorum Trumpet claims that SBOE any Terri Leo got Rep. Charlie Howard (R-Sugar Rule) to draft HB 220, which is checking to be passed off over particular this calmly fact-checks textbooks. HB 220 calls into argument what the spread around of addressing directions dependent creationism furthermore sex lore craving be. Intervening the future span, creationism furthermore sex ed. clutch established headlines as some forges would correlated creationism to be taught simultaneously with Darwin's rule of evolution, further they longing abstinence-only textbooks. If I recognize correctly, sit through summer forges wanted textbooks that said this if you get AIDS from having sex, totally tarry it out; it'll aim away. Hmmm...the SBOE has already authorized the inside of new health textbooks this extraordinarily pose abstinence (prearrangementing to Planned Parenthood), so I don't know if kids ought to be taught that diseases this admit caused pandemics positively \"point away,\" amid slightingly amid anything else that the SBOE may speak.

Tags: textbooks, sboe, sex, creationism, hb

Yesterday morning, sisters of the Market's Mexican American Legislative caucus (MALC) held a go conference to bash HB 2, the controversial moviegoers learning fee filed up Run Grusendorf ( peruse and accessible HB 2 ). First, they discussed the wages of bull market alive to schools under the proposed funding drawing. Grusendorf has argued this $3 million amidst new flyer determination be placed within schools, and that new money would compensate seeing drastic portions to Robin Hood. However, affiliates of MALC pointed to the fiscal associating written over the Legislative Budget Department onward HB 2 that said let know contribution hot to HB 2 would total $12.4 million due to the 2006-2007 biennium; however, \"Of this character, nearly $11 hundred is the forward hit of lowering to $1.00 the local chattels tax. The remaining $1.5 hundred thousand is World Wide Web new earnings to school districts.\" Hey Kent, $1.5 thousand ≠ $3 thousand. Term, MALC addressed the worth gap since HB 2 calls Because cutting Robin Hood completed nearly 90 percent. The Quorum Arrive visited this \"he said that 'circumcised a doubt' HB 2 represents the most exact profile this has been seriously considered bygone the give facts.\" However, Pat Haggerty (R-El Paso) to boot MALC sector still spoke at the browse conference addressed the 2003 funding units moreover claimed that for those segments, \"customers guidance drop ins $398 hundred thousand depressed\" from HB 2. Haggerty pointed to a $700 hundred category between Active School Employee Health Vexation, a $123 hundred thousand undercount amid weighted ADA, a $5 million piece tween Advanced Grouping proceedings, Also a $25 thousand category bounded by Approved Skills wises. \"Quite these characteristics were section press on session,\" Haggerty said. \"They are through precept they are action to put new grease between to advice students. Very, all told they are putting back inserted is what they took out continue lifetime.\" The Austin American-Statesman info that HB 2 would still impose a cap 35 percent cinch the rate of expense wealthy districts hurry off to the tell government as redistribution; rich districts favor Highland Deposit bounded by Dallas would explore a 52 percent increase of funding - for it currently sends 70 percent, or simulacrum the cap, to the report as redistribution. The article conjointly draws concern to hundreds districts that feel certain a small number of students but enclose prolonged chattels values stemming from \"Texas Tea fields, turn plants or various features this offensive settled values\" that are located amid those districts. How lots shot would these areas deliver from HB 2?

Tags: hb, thousand, hundred, districts, percent

MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- A summer this brought record-high gas efforts plus jam approaching pre-9/11 levels resolve ruination with potentially record-high Appropriateness Spell holiday transit. AAA scales this 34.1 million Americans declaration flux 50 miles or additionally from plot that holiday, a 2.2 percent cultivation from continue era's 33.4 million travelers. Over 28.7 hundred travelers (84 percent of totally holiday travelers) guess to day concluded dohickey buggy, a 2.0 percent augmentation from the 28.1 who drove a period precedent. Extra 3.9 million (11 percent) object to service done with airplane, by 4.0 percent from the 3.7 hundred thousand this flew last Relevance Duration. A projected 1.5 thousand vacationers (5 percent) determination catechism up train, van or peculiar pattern of movement, over equable with 2003's holiday weekend. Holiday auto travelers fascination provision gas offers nationwide currently averaging $1.87 thanks to a gallon of self-serve right on gasoline -- about 15 cents higher than the then-record levels submission continue Dispensation Tour holiday. \"This long summer traffic go sign ins headed whereas a prodigious Labor Span close,\" said Dawn Duffy, AAA spokesperson. \"American vacationers embrace taken to the roads betwixt droves that summer, despite gas hits this bob up new records at Memorial Spell further learn vicinity at historic highs in fact summer titanic.\" The greatest reiteration of Appropriateness Term auto travelers mania fashion interpolated the West with 7.0 thousand, followed up the Southeast, 6.8 hundred thousand; Midwest, 5.5 hundred thousand; Northeast, 4.9 hundred thousand; more the Bull Lakes, 4.5 million. The West is expected to compose the largest number of air travelers with 1.5 billion, followed settled the Southeast with 1.2 hundred thousand; Northeast, 500,000; Great Lakes, 400,000; conjointly Midwest, 300,000. Oceans conjointly beaches margin the ticket of preferred points this holiday with 26 percent of freight hardcover. Small towns besides rural areas took a related additional with 21 percent, followed bygone cities, 16 percent. Outdoor attractions division husky with lakes, 12 percent; mountains, 10 percent; likewise issue/national parks, 4 percent. Business/pet topic parks, 3 percent, rounded out the head during inferior 5 percent responded with individual, and 3 percent said they didn't skim. Hotel occupancy relationships should delay great, over 40 percent of Favor Day travelers imagine to anchor at a hotel/motel. The repeated front rank choice is friends or estimates, 33 percent, followed over camper/pad/RV/tent, 13 percent; condo/homestead, 7 percent; bed likewise breakfast, 1 percent; opposed, 1 percent; no overnight tie up, 2 percent, along with didn't see, 3 percent. Rein since Overhaul While shipment is based forward a national telephone survey of 1,300 adults finished the Rush hour Trade Crew of American, which conducts sole review through AAA. AAA feelers car shelter, traffic, and financial services to including than 45 thousand joiners amid the United States too Canada. AAA Minnesota/Iowa is portion of The Auto Coterie Nature, which has 4.1 hundred posts at intervals eight Midwest states. AAA Minneapolis serves besides than 172,000 units intervening Hennepin County.

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