Big Pharma Profit Enhancement and Population Control Bill

A bill recently introduced in the US Senate, the “Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005” (S. 1873) aims to shortcut the testing procedures for new vaccines and drugs in case of a pandemic and to protect vaccine-makers from legal liability in case the drug causes adverse reactions.

The US National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) has called the bill, which passed out of the US Senate HELP Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness the day after it was introduced, “a drug company stockholder's dream and a consumer's worst nightmare.”

The proposed legislation will strip Americans of the right to a jury-heard court case if they are harmed by an experimental or licensed drug or vaccine that they are forced by the government to take whenever Federal health officials declare a public health emergency.

The bill allows for the establishment of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA) as the single point of authority within the government for R & D into drugs and vaccines in response to bioterrorism and natural disease outbreaks such as the flu. BARDA would operate in secret, exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act, ensuring that no evidence of injuries or deaths caused by drugs and vaccines labeled as “countermeasures” will become public.

Nicknamed the “Bioshield Two,” the legislation is being pushed rapidly through Congress without time for voters to make their voices heard by their elected representatives.

The legislation will eliminate both regulatory and legal safeguards applied to vaccines as well as remove the right of children and adults harmed by vaccines and drugs to present their cases in front of a jury in a civil court of law.

(Source: NVIC press release, October 19, 2005, http://www.nvic.org)

Do Mammograms Actually CAUSE Breast Cancer?

John Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., has concluded that at least 66% of breast cancer cases are caused by radiation exposure (including that from mammograms). I don’t know how he arrived at that number, but you can’t argue with his credentials. Dr. Gofman worked for decades at Livermore (a foremost radiation studies laboratory). And he was chosen by the Atomic Energy Commission to head their studies on the effects of radiation.

It wouldn’t be surprising if mammograms contribute to cancer. The female breast is highly sensitive to radiation. Compared to other cancer sites, the breasts are 2 to 3 times more vulnerable to cancer from radiation. But not only are mammograms potentially dangerous, they’re also highly unreliable. In a Swedish study of 60,000 women, 70% of the “tumors” detected by mammograms turned out not to be tumors. And according to the National Cancer Intsitute (NCI), mammograms miss the real thing 40% of the time.

The NCI has been campaigning for women to get a mammogram every year, starting at age 40. But given their questionable benefit and proven risks, I would advise against it. Instead, consider a monthly breast self-examination (BSE), and see a trained health professional every year for a clinical breast examination (CBE).

- Jon Herring

The US Supreme Court vs. Your Right to Privacy

Dear A-Letter Reader:

In yesterday’s A-Letter , editor and former US congressman Bob Bauman, discussed the Bush administration’s authorization of the National Security Agency to spy on Americans without court order, a blatant usurpation of power of deep concern to those of us at The Sovereign Society. He concluded: “I do hope and think the recent revelation of warrantless wiretapping may make this the year when Americans say “enough” and vote accordingly.”

I’m less sanguine and would like to add my reasons.

The question of the legality of domestic spying is looming large as confirmation hearings for Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. progress. Committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, asked Alito about our constitutional right to privacy, and naturally Alito responded, “Senator, I do agree that the Constitution protects a right to privacy.”

Yet, as a lawyer in the Solicitor General’s office in 1984, Alito supported absolute immunity from civil liability for Cabinet officials who had authorized illegal wiretaps of American citizens said to threaten national security. Later as a judge, he argued that police officers did not violate the Constitution when they strip-searched a mother and her ten year-old daughter, despite the fact that neither was named in the search warrant. In another case, he wrote an opinion upholding a warrantless police search. The list goes on.

The bitter fights between the two political parties to populate courts, and particularly the US Supreme Court, with partisan judges is hard evidence that courts are far from politically neutral. The Supreme Court is not, as schoolchildren are taught, the instrument insuring a balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of government.

The founding fathers would be dismayed over the evolution of power of the Executive Branch. Gradually, methodically, over more than a century the Executive has won the struggle for dominance. All the pomp and ceremony of committee hearings and congressional debates notwithstanding, the President effectively runs the show and Bush knows it.

To better grasp the relative importance of the Executive, peruse the US Government Manual, 2005-2006, the official publication that describes the branches, departments and agencies of the US Government. A total of 40 pages describe the Legislative Branch. Twenty pages details the Judicial Branch. A whopping 273 pages is devoted to the Executive, and that doesn’t count another 226 pages describing “Independent Establishments and Government Corporations”, including such things as the CIA, many of which are under the control of the Executive.

How does the Presidency wield so much power? One means is that the President issues Executive Orders, which become laws simply by their publication in the Federal Registry. Until someone in Congress challenges the constitutionality of an Executive Order, it stands. And that is what makes packing of the Supreme Court so important to politicians.

The Supreme Court of the United States enjoys a reputation, popularly undisputed, as the great protector of our inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, as Henry Mark Holzer, professor emeritus of constitutional law, points out in his book, Sweet Land of Liberty? The Supreme Court and Individual Rights , the Supreme Court is our most consistent destroyer of individual rights - and always has been. Dissecting some sixty major Supreme Court decisions in seven crucial areas of the law which affect all our lives, he shows that traditional distinctions such as liberal or conservative are irrelevant in assessing blame, for both sides of the ideological coin are responsible.

The moral right to property - and therefore to privacy — exists. However, it no longer exists in law, only in the nature of man. And, unfortunately, only in the minds of those of us who deny the right of the state to control our lives. The challenge facing us who believe in the sovereignty of individuals is how to defend our privacy in a world that has been brainwashed to believe privacy is a threat to society, and in which politicians and judges agree. It is an ongoing task for anyone seeking to become a sovereign individual and one of the major issues that The Sovereign Society is committed to helping its members solve.

JOHN PUGSLEY, Chairman
The Sovereign Society Ltd.
E-mail: johnpugsley@sbcglobal.net

Food for Thought: What's Really Scary About America

Do you sometimes wonder why Americans, as a group, come up with such stupid ideas about themselves and the world they live in? Here's the reason: Americans are amazingly uneducated.

One in 20 adult Americans can't read a newspaper or a prescription label. That's the result of a new federal survey - the first comprehensive look at literacy since 1992. Recent immigrants are responsible for the bulk of those 11 million illiterates, but dismally educated "inner city" people are also a significant factor.

The illiteracy rate in the U.S. is disturbing. But the semi-literacy rate is even worse. That same survey indicated that 87% of Americans can't compare the viewpoints of two editorials or interpret a table showing the relationship between blood pressure, age, and physical activity. Only about one in two Americans can "look at a heating bill and figure out that a 5-cent-per-gallon deduction on a purchase of 140 gallons of oil would yield $7," reported USA Today.

"It's a stark snapshot," admits Dale Lipschultz, the president of the National Coalition for Literacy. "A more literate America would be more competitive and prosperous."

- Michael Masterson

A Country of Idiots

For those that might have missed where the Speaker of the House (Congress) said they are thankful for American's ignorance, read the first sentence:

Now, we are all familiar with the annual tax filing ritual, but thankfully few Americans are familiar with the IRS collections process. Of the $2 trillion per year that the IRS collects through self-assessment, a small percentage, but a large amount in real terms, approximately $60 billion--$60 billion--remains unpaid at the end of the year. Now, ideally, the IRS would collect every individual tax debt owed to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, but that has not occurred in recent years.

IRS: Liars, Thieves, Thugs, Cowards, and Hypocrites