[CTRL] Fwd: Arianna's Latest Column
-Caveat Lector- --- Start of forwarded message --- Subject: Fwd: Arianna's Latest Column Date: 10/31/02 1:00:05 PM Drugging Our Children The Legal Way By Arianna Huffington Chalk up another profitable victory for those promoting the legal drugging of America's children -- also known as the good folks of the pharmaceutical industry. Earlier this month, a federal judge struck down a Food and Drug Administration regulation that required drug makers to test medicines routinely given to children. As a result, America's legal drug pushers are once again free to offer their potent concoctions for our kids' consumption without having to prove that they are safe or effective for pediatric use. This is no small matter, given the skyrocketing number of children being prescribed heaping helpings of powerful mood-altering drugs. For instance, 1.5 million kids are currently taking Prozac and its equivalents even though the FDA hasn't approved these drugs for use by anyone under 18. In making his ruling, U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy, Jr. made it clear that the problem wasn't the FDA's attempt to protect our kids, but Congress' failure to authorize them to do so. He pointed out that earlier this year Congress considered but passed on the chance to require drug companies to make sure that products designed for grown-ups but regularly given to kids are, in fact, safe for children to take. Instead, our elected representatives -- no doubt under the influence of the $18 million drug companies have donated to congressional campaigns this election cycle -- approved an industry handout, offering financial incentives to companies willing to take the trouble to find out if their products are dangerous for kids. Rewarding companies that bother to behave with ordinary civic responsibility is becoming a bad habit for Washington and it reveals their scary baseline assumption that, left alone, big business can never be expected to do the right thing. Sens. Christopher Dodd, Mike DeWine, and Hillary Clinton are cosponsoring a new bill that would supersede the federal court's ruling and give the FDA legal authority to require drug testing for children. Children will be harmed if we don't pass this legislation, warns DeWine. So far, the troika's efforts to bring the bill to a vote have been thwarted by the drug companies' loyal beneficiaries in the Senate. But Capitol Hill is not the only pharmaceutical industry-friendly place in Washington. The drug companies also appear to have found an ally inside the highest echelons of the FDA. In keeping with the White House's habit of assigning foxes to guard the henhouses they used to stalk -- including the tres-vulpine Harvey Pitt and Gale Norton -- last summer the president appointed lawyer Daniel Troy as the FDA's general counsel. While in private practice, Troy had successfully challenged the agency's power to regulate drug companies -- particularly the companies' ability to freely promote and market their products. It probably shouldn't come as too much of a surprise then that, from his lofty post, Troy has overseen a dramatic decrease in the number of drug companies that have been reprimanded for running false or misleading commercials -- even as the drug ads filling our TV screens and magazines have multiplied. Of course, it could just be that the drug companies have all joined the Boy Scouts and are now being meticulously honest and trustworthy. One of the pharmaceutical industry's weapons of choice in its fight to free itself from federal oversight has been the First Amendment, a tactic once favored by none other than Daniel Troy. Groups aligned with the industry have successfully used free speech arguments to convince courts to strike down regulations barring drug companies from advertising so-called compounded drugs and from telling doctors about unapproved uses for its products -- such as giving adult drugs to children. The founding fathers would have had to pop a lot of pills to conceive of this perversion of the Bill of Rights. Reeling from these rulings and under increasing pressure from the drug industry, this spring the FDA invited interested parties to comment on whether any of its other rules raise First Amendment issues. Among the flurry of feedback the agency received was a suggestion from the ever-helpful gang at Pfizer that the FDA do away with those pesky rules requiring drug companies to list a product's side effects and replace them with a cheerful reminder that since all medications come with some risks, patients should always check with their doctor before taking them. Makes sense. Why bother letting consumers know that downing a brightly colored, widely advertised little pill might cause nervousness, anxiety, insomnia, restlessness, suicidal thoughts, self mutilation, manic behavior, and bad breath when a simple and direct Consult your doctor -- or rather consult your overworked, underpaid, HMO-tormented physician -- will suffice? Who on
[CTRL] Fwd: Arianna's Latest Column
-Caveat Lector- --- Start of forwarded message --- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: Arianna's Latest Column Date: 10/24/02 8:41:00 PM Dear Friends, We've had an overwhelming response to the suggestion in my last column that we mount a citizen's ad campaign aimed at getting people to stop driving SUVs and other gas-guzzling vehicles -- and jolting our leaders into taking action. It's been a busy -- and productive -- last few days. Lawrence Bender, producer of Pulp Fiction and Good Will Hunting, and director Scott Burns, co-creator of the Got Milk? ad campaign, have agreed to donate their services to make these ads a reality through A Band Apart, Lawrence's production company. And to get these ads on the air we are opening a fund for the sole purpose of creating these commercials. Many of you have asked where you can contribute. Since it will take a long time to answer all these emails individually, here is the information. Please make checks payable to: SUV Ad Fund/A Band Apart 7966 Beverly Boulevard 2nd Floor Los Angeles, CA 90048 If you would prefer to make your contribution online using PayPal, please visit either www.salon.com or www.ariannaonline.com on Monday. Thank you so much for taking a stand. -- Will The NRA Once Again Gun Down Common Sense Legislation? By Arianna Huffington Let it bleed. That's been the traditional route movie moguls have taken to win the public's heart. In mayhem-happy Hollywood, it's become axiomatic that the road to big box office is paved with dead bodies. But what becomes of this cinematic bleed-motif when the blood being spilled is all too real -- and the film being screened is a withering indictment of America's culture of violence? We're about to find out, thanks to the eerie synchronicity that has the nation's attention riveted on the capture of two suspects in the sniper shootings at the same time that Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine begins its run in movie houses across America. The horror in Maryland, Washington, and Virginia over the last three weeks makes every frame of Bowling, Moore's blistering exploration of America's obsession with guns, resonate with relevance, frustration, and rage. If you've ever found yourself watching the news and wondering what kind of insane country makes it so easy for a madman to arm himself with weaponry that allows him to blithely mow down his human prey from up to 500 yards away, take a look at this film. Featuring Moore's trademark blend of provocative social satire and deadpan humor, it's filled with memorable moments that, in their own absurd way, make a dent in the formidable task of answering that question. These moments include: a stop at a Michigan bank that gives away high-powered rifles to customers opening a new account (Don't you think it's a little dangerous handing out guns in a bank? Moore reasonably asks a bank employee); a barbershop that sells ammo; and an ambush interview with National Rifle Association president Charlton Heston. Indeed, the most trenchant -- and timely -- aspect of the film is its look at the NRA's in-your-face tactics, brought chillingly to life with footage from a pro-gun rally the group defiantly decided to hold in Colorado just 10 days after the Columbine shootings. Standing in front of a cheering crowd, Heston raises a vintage rifle over his head and bellows: From my cold dead hands! The NRA's mindset is particularly pertinent today as we watch the organization -- and its gun-loving pals in the White House -- use every weapon in its arsenal to try to derail the sniper-inspired push to create a national database of ballistic fingerprints. Despite powerful evidence that such a system would be a boon to law enforcement, the NRA has adopted a scattershot, drive-by-shooting approach to mowing down the idea. The technology isn't foolproof, the organization's mouthpieces argue. Ballistic fingerprints can be tampered with. Guns get stolen. What about the 200 million guns already in circulation? And the always popular: Guns don't kill people, people kill people. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer parroted this bumper sticker cop-out when he helpfully explained why the president didn't support a federal ballistic fingerprinting database: In the case of the sniper, he said, the real issue is values. Yeah, like the value of being able to pick off unsuspecting victims at long range with a military-style weapon versus the value of sending your kids to school without having to worry about whether they'll come home. The debate over a bullet-tracing system has quickly turned into what the NRA wants: a case of dueling studies. But making the case against a bullet database is getting harder and harder. Even opponents of the system concede that it is effective in matching up bullets to the guns that fired them at least some of the time. If such a system were only able to save one innocent person from being blown
