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Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Adm. Mike Mullen (center) with US troops in Haiti, 2010 (photo: Chad J. McNeeley/DoD)
This week on CounterSpin: There are enough storylines in the July 7 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse to make you lose sight of the big picture. The thing is: US media consumers don’t have to puzzle out if the assassins were Colombian, or if a Florida doctor bankrolled the plan, or if Moïse’s own bodyguards had it in for him and his wife. The long history of the US using state force to kill Haitians and their aspirations is sufficient and appropriate context for current events. From George Washington to Woodrow Wilson to the Clintons, there’s enough for US citizens to know about not doing harm before we chinstroke over whether “the world’s policeman” should wade in again. We talk about Haiti with Chris Bernadel from the Black Alliance for Peace.
Also on the show: Cronyism between pharmaceutical companies and their ostensible government regulators is an infuriating fact of US life, along with the unsurprisingly obscene cost of drugs. Yet somehow the story of aducanumab takes it to a new level. We talk about what pharma and the FDA call a breakthrough Alzheimer’s drug, and what public advocates call an example of all that’s wrong with the FDA, with Michael Carome, M.D., director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen.
re: “Cronyism between pharmaceutical companies and their ostensible government regulators is an infuriating fact of US life,”
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“Billy”
campaign ad from Democrat Barack Obama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCRO0g9CfAw
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Obama Puts Lobbyists, PACs on DNC’s Do-Not-Call List
By Massie Ritsch
June 5, 2008 1:15 pm
For mega-fundraiser Obama, eschewing PAC and lobbyist money has been a politically smart policy but hasn’t entailed a significant financial hit. PAC contributions typically amount to only 1 percent of the giving in a presidential campaign, and lobbyists aren’t as generous or numerous as, say, lawyers or Wall Street executives or even college professors.
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White House declines to disclose visits by health industry executives
By PETER NICHOLAS
JULY 22, 2009 12 AM PT
WASHINGTON —
Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.
As a candidate, President Obama vowed that in devising a healthcare bill he would invite in TV cameras — specifically C-SPAN — so that Americans could have a window into negotiations that normally play out behind closed doors.
Having promised transparency, the administration should be willing to disclose who it is consulting in shaping healthcare policy, said an attorney for the citizens’ group. In its letter requesting the records, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics asked about visits from Billy Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans; William Weldon, chairman and chief executive of Johnson & Johnson; and J. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Assn., among others.