Daily Kos: Flu Stories

Flu Stories - by DemFromCT

The hysteria has abated at bit (a good thing), and we're back to intermittant but sobering stories that appear in the news. here's a trio of good reads to stay current.


Vaccine Funding Tied To Liability

Legislation that would pour billions of dollars into the production of vaccines against avian flu and other pandemic diseases is threatened by the trial lawyers' lobby, which objects to proposed limits onlawsuits against drug manufacturers.

Republican congressional leaders, acting at the urging of President Bush, hope to approve a measure soon that would appropriate about $7 billion to pay for vaccines that would combat a flu epidemic and biological attacks by terrorists. The bill could begin moving on Capitol Hill this week.

But the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and some of its Democratic allies in Congress are working to scuttle or drastically transform the effort, asserting that anti-lawsuit language in the bill would so broadly indemnify pharmaceutical companies against suits that consumers' rights would be denied.

For more background on vaccines, see Avian Flu - What We Need To Know and DNA Could Speed Flu Vaccines. Tyler Cowan, flu blogger and an economics chair at George Mason, has written:

Institute prizes for effective vaccines and relax liability laws for vaccine makers. Our government has been discouraging what it should be encouraging.



Here's a case where Americans are going to look for results, not ideology. There's got to be some compromises made to get legislation passed, and this is prime territory. As it is, we have vaccine shortages every year and short of a rewriting of the entire health care system (a political non-starter in the short term but a real option long term) some version of liability protection is likely to pass.

AIDS may help spread of bird flu

Dr Robert Webster said it was possible people with Aids, who have depressed immune systems, could harbour the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

This would potentially give it the opportunity to become better adapted - and more dangerous - to humans.

Think Africa. Whereas cytokine storm may be less likely in the immonocompromised (cytokine storm is an overactive immune system causing immunologically-induced complications, like respiratory failure), secondary infections would be a huge problem. Africa is next on the migratory bird map, and can ill-afford to cull poultry. For more on Dr. Webster, see aetiology.

Finally, China is getting involved in bird flu in a big way.
China's top veterinary official said Tuesday that the government plans to vaccinate all of the country's 14 billion poultry against bird flu as two new outbreaks of the disease in the far west were announced.

"China is in the process of vaccinating all the poultry in the country," said Jia Youling, the Agriculture Ministry's chief veterinary officer.
Forget hysteria and panic. Bird flu is a panzootic, meaning that it's spreasding thoughout the world's avian population. Even without H2H transmission, that's a problem. Culling poultry is going to cost billions.

Stay tuned for more. There'll be plenty to write about over the coming months.

Daily Kos: Flu Stories

Daily Kos: FEC: Blogs Are Just As Much "Press" As Everyone Else

FEC: Blogs Are Just As Much "Press" As Everyone Else
by Adam B
Thu Nov 17, 2005 at 12:23:11 PM CST

This morning, the Federal Election Commission unanimously approved Advisory Opinion 2005-16, agreeing that the Fired Up! sites were entitled to the same press exception from campaign finance laws as are the New York Times, National Review and Sean Hannity.

According to the House report on the 1974 amendments to the Act, the press exception made plain Congress's intent that the Act would not "limit or burden in any way the first amendment freedoms of the press . . ." and would assure "the unfettered right of the newspapers, TV networks, and other media to cover and comment on political campaigns." . . .

Fired Up is a for-profit LLC and is not owned or controlled by any political party, political committee, or candidate. Given that Fired Up's operation of its websites is at the core of its activities as a press entity, its provision of news stories, commentary, and editorials on its websites falls within Fired Up's legitimate press function. Thus, because Fired Up is a press entity, and neither it nor its websites are owned or controlled by any political party, political committee, or candidate, the costs Fired Up incurs in covering or carrying a news story, commentary, or editorial on its websites are exempt from the definitions of "contribution" and "expenditure."

The Commission notes that an entity otherwise eligible for the press exception would not lose its eligibility merely because of a lack of objectivity

Daily Kos: FEC: Blogs Are Just As Much "Press" As Everyone Else

itzgerald To Present Evidence to a New Grand Jury

Fitzgerald To Present Evidence to a New Grand Jury
by mitch2k2 [Subscribe]
Thu Nov 17, 2005 at 11:38:16 AM CST

Looked around and didn't see this info in the recent diaries, but according today's edition of the Note:

Bloomberg's Keil and Jensen write that Woodward's disclosure adds an unexpected new element to the Libby indictment "without greatly altering the substance of the case." LINK

While the Woodward disclosure may muddy the Libby prosecution, the Wall Street Journal's Squeo and McKinnon report that the White House must now "brace itself" for the possibility that Fitzgerald's probe, "far from winding down, may have just gotten a second wind."

Prosecutors deposed Woodward in anticipation of presenting that evidence to a new grand jury, according to a person familiar with the situation. And that is exclusive new news, courtesy of Dow Jones.

That is a scoop.

Push has come to shove. God willing, Patrick Fitzgerald will see this thing through, will not let this die. America itself is at stake here. You can tell from the growing rage spewing from the White House that the hoods understand this as well.

* mitch2k2's diary :: ::
*

Update [2005-11-17 12:58:26 by mitch2k2]:: Tracked down a link to the WSJ piece that has this item. Subscribers only, though. But here's the relevant grafs:

Mr. Wilson, Ms. Plame's husband, publicly criticized the administration on July 6, 2003, for twisting intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. The disclosure of his wife's identity soon thereafter in a column by Robert Novak prompted the investigation. Intentionally disclosing the identity of a covert agent can be a crime under a 1982 law.

Mr. Card's possible involvement in the investigation -- perhaps as an innocent witness -- is bad news for the White House, which has been working assiduously to change the subject from the leak investigation to policy issues and to Mr. Bush's trip to Asia.

The White House now must brace itself for the possibility that Mr. Fitzgerald's probe, far from winding down, may have just gotten a second wind. Prosecutors deposed Mr. Woodward in anticipation of presenting that evidence to a new grand jury, according to a person familiar with the situation. The one that indicted Mr. Libby expired on Oct. 28. That could require that Mr. Card and the unnamed official be called to testify about their conversations with Mr. Woodward. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment.

Daily Kos: Fitzgerald To Present Evidence to a New Grand Jury

Daily Kos: Former CBS Producer Mary Mapes on Air America Tonight

Former CBS producer Mary Mapes will be on Air America Radio's Majority Report today. I'll be putting up a review of her book Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power sometime in the next few days, but short version: it's definitely worth a read. (Those of you still hankering for typography battles -- or those of you more appropriately looking for new evidence into the life of one of this country's most fortunate sons -- might be interested in the expanding document collection at the book's website.)

The "Rathergate" controversy is looked upon, by the right, as the defining moment of their new blog-based "investigative journalism". I'd say that's a fair assessment -- the defining moment part, that is -- but I don't look on it as being nearly the inspirational prize that many of them have suckled at the teat of, this past year. Look at the flashing bitmap is a compelling investigative argument only to that class of motivated "investigative journalists" who think that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have in all probability been spirited away by Arabic sprites and leprechauns. (Mapes also helped break the Abu Ghraib story, which earned her the wrath of a great many administration supporters.)

In any event, Air America might be worth a listen tonight. The implications of much of what she has written -- and I'm not speaking strictly about the controversial memos, but about the backstories, follow-up investigations, her work to break the Abu Ghraib story, the inside look at CBS during the period in question, etc. -- are messages which should reverberate throughout the media and blogs.

Daily Kos: Former CBS Producer Mary Mapes on Air America Tonight

Woodward Was Told of Plame More Than Two Years Ago

Washington Post - 11/16/05

Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed.

In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told him in mid-June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released yesterday."

Woodward Was Told of Plame More Than Two Years Ago