The Food and Drug Administration is directly responsible for those 106,000 deaths from negative effects of correctly prescribed drugs. They are also indirectly responsible for 7,000 other deaths from mistakenly administered-medications in hospitals and elsewhere.   There is no good reason for medicine, even mistakenly prescribed or administered medicine to kill anyone unless A. They were in a mighty precarious state to begin with or B. An allergic reaction of some sort took place.  IF, IF the FDA were required to abide by the common-sense medical dictate “First Do NO Harm!” at least 95% of those 113,000 would NOT die every year. Instead some FDA drugs have killed over 100,000 people in their history and keep right on killing today; and the legions of maimed and severely injured from some of those drugs climbs into the millions.

The worst aspect about all this, is that a whole lot of the medicines that do the most damage are palliative medicines that do NOT cure or fix anything. There is nothing wrong with easing patients’ symptoms, but that ease should NEVER come at the cost of endangering the patient’s health, which is the case in 100% of the drugs the FDA approves for palliative purposes. When, in actuality, many of these palliatives are no more effective than placebos (sugar pills) and great harm is possible and the medicines are expensive . . . look for the FDA to be behind this travesty. Medicines that actually cure something can kill or injure on sad occasions; but medicines that cannot cure should NEVER cause harm. This is one more reason why the FDA needs to be eliminated.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

For those wondering about other iatrogenic deaths: 80,000 die from infections that are encountered while in the hospital; 45,000 from miscellaneous errors; and 12,000 from unnecessary surgeries.

The FDA bastar_s have added another sellout to their resume.

No Drug Too Deadly for Approval

and Continued FDA Backing

            Many Americans find it difficult to believe that the FDA is a corrupt agency. Well “blatantly corrupt” is the mildest term appropriate for the FDA. As Rajjpuut has been saying all along through the eleven earlier anti-FDA rants, we suspect that health care change is coming this autumn . . . if they only make one change let it be wholesale radical elimination or total reform of the Food and Drug Administration. The outrages continue to mount: Ritalin, Celebrex, Avandia . . . Thalidomide is back again approved by the FDA (Rajjpuut does not make these things up) despite the horrendous birth defects it instigated in the 60’s. COX-2 inhibitors are allowed again despite 60,000 deaths according to the British Journal of Medicine evaluating the FDA advisory panels decision. The online website naturalnews.com put it this way:

“The fact that a single COX-2 drug has reportedly killed more Americans than the entire Vietnam War is apparently not sufficient for the FDA to characterize it as unsafe.

“With this decision, a ‘full safety approval’ by the FDA has now become meaningless. If the agency can put its stamp of public safety approval on a drug that has killed tens of thousands of Americans and that was removed from the market by its own manufacturer following the revelation of studies showing alarming increases in heart attack risk, then what, pray tell, could possibly be the FDA's definition of a dangerous drug?

“For the FDA to consider a drug dangerous, it apparently has to kill more than 60,000 Americans. I'm curious what threshold must be reached before the FDA actually does its job and seeks to protect the U.S. public. Do 250,000 people have to die before the FDA calls a drug unsafe? 500,000 people? How about a million people?”

“There can no longer be any doubt whatsoever about the FDA's true purpose. Regardless of what the agency publicly states, when it comes time to make key decisions about the safety of U.S. consumers, the FDA will side with drug companies every time. We've seen it time and time again: with the FDA's reluctance to pull obviously dangerous drugs off the market in a timely fashion (Rezulin, for example), with the FDA's attempts to silence its own drug safety scientists (censorship of Dr. David Graham, for example), and with the FDA's collusion with drug companies in suppressing clinical trials and other forms of evidence that raise safety questions about prescription drugs. Corruption runs deep at the FDA, it seems.

“This decision with Vioxx and other COX-2 inhibitors was a defining moment for the U.S. Fraud and Drug Administration. It was a moment where the agency could have sided with public safety and held fast to a position of responsibility and ethics. Instead, it chose to favor drug company profits and put its stamp of approval on a class of drugs that is arguably the most deadly drugs ever to hit the open market.

“A sane, ethical FDA would have not only banned COX-2 inhibitors outright, it would have put an end to direct-to-consumer advertising that ultimately led to the over-hyping and over-prescribing of these painkillers in the first place.”

Well said, the FDA does not even appear to be even making a pretense of doing the job it was created for. This once proud federal agency created immediately after the outcry following Upton Sinclair’s novel/expose` “The Jungle” outraged the public in 1906 to demand protection from business charlatans in the food and drug industries. The FDA has spit upon the proud purpose that created it over a hundred years ago. For example, Nsaids, as a class are among the most dangerous, least necessary, most expensive and most hyped of any class of drugs and COX-2 inhibitors are easily the most dangerous of the Nsaids.  Attacking nutrient supplements, FDA always claims “ there's not enough evidence they’re safe;” when defending drugs they’ve let wallow onto the shelves “there’s never enough evidence to prove they’re dangerous” . . . regardless of all the deaths they cause.  This is one dozen rants now . . . the story ought to be clear:   Americans, be vigilant in defending yourselves from the protection of the FDA.

If the citizens of America with all the wealth of information about this most corrupt of agencies continue to stand for it, then they deserve the fruits of FDA decadence heaped upon them. Rajjpuut hopes we are a better more alert and informed people and will rise up and contact our elected officials about this most corrupt evil empire in our midst: The FDA.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

Hypocritical FDA Scolds Cheerios

for Cholesterol Assertion

                In this series of rants against the ultra-corrupt FDA (Food and Drug Administration), Rajjpuut’s premise is that since health care change is coming almost certainly this fall or winter . . . if there were only one improvement that could be made in the American health care mess, that would be to eliminate or totally revamp the FDA. Here we see the FDA at their very hypocritical worst . . . .

                The FDA, approver of the poisonous substances Ritalin and Celebrex which has refused to remove either one of those killer drugs from the market after FDA exaggerations of the two drugs' safety proved to be absolutely erroneous, has attacked cereal maker General Mills for revealing their scientific study showing Cheerios reduces cholesterol 4%.   “Only FDA approved drugs are allowed to make such claims,” is the official FDA lie, ‘er line, on the issue. General Mills, You believed our lies? Shame on you! We’ll bust you to private!   Has the FDA killed two million Americans yet?  Well they've certainly contributed to the maiming or killing of ten million.  Brings a sense of disgusted nausea and bile, no?

                Staying true to form, the FDA which is single-handedly most responsible for boosting iatrogenic deaths in America into 4^th place among all deaths (iatrogenic deaths are those caused by medicines and medical treatment) in the nation, fails to mention that the simple fact is this: less than 47% of those who die from heart attacks have elevated cholesterol. The 33 year old lie that high cholesterol brings heart attacks makes statins (cholesterol  lowering drugs) the most profitable of all the billion dollar drug bonanzas in American history for the huge pharmaceutical companies and has probably killed, maimed and injured more Americans than all of our war dead from all the wars in our history, while costing individuals and the government hundreds of billions of dollars for these expensive, dangerous drugs that cure nothing and arguably make strokes much more probable.

                The FDA, which has not shown the courage to attack big food or big drug companies for their improprieties; or to stand up to its sister in corruption the USDA, has however a proven track record for attacking health food stores and individual doctors who have the temerity to prescribe vitamins, minerals or other nutrients for some of their patients’ problems and the FDA now is attacking the most popular semi-healthy cereal in the nation. CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! It makes me so proud to be an American.

                In hypocrisy of the highest audacity, the FDA goes on to say, “. . . Companies that make claims about their whole grain foods are supposed to mention that fruits and vegetables are also part of a fiber-rich diet” which Cheerios does not.    Why are they doing this? Imagine if Cheerios improves its product some day and can say confidently after confirmation from say fifteen studies, “Cheerios reduces elevated cholesterol an average of 32% with a nine week period.” If that were to happen and the statement were true, than there would be clinical study information backing the idea that food can make you healthy: a claim that the FDA adamantly (but wrongly) refutes, repeatedly they have officially claimed:   “There has NEVER been a supplement or a food that has been proven to cure any disease" even though they're hypocritically demanding General Mills say what they've declared invalid that food can make you healthy, in this case fruits and vegetables.  What imbeciles!

Now you and I know that if the doctors find after a few days in the hospital that all your horrendous symptoms show that you have scurvy, they’re NOT going to start feeding you 16 oranges and citrus fruits every day. No, they will probably give you about twelve to fifteen times the RDA of Vitamin C tablets . . . but the FDA statement denies that, denies the experiences of Captain Cook and the epithet “limies” given to British sailors;  denies the Nobel Prize of Linus Pauling; and denies the recent Nobel Prize of Louis Ignarro. The FDA protects the food industry and its lies; the FDA protects the drug industry and its lies; the FDA ultra-protects itself and its own lies and ineptitudes . . . the FDA attacks those whose products have never been proven to do anybody any harm when used in proper dosage. The FDA is a major cause of America’s health problems and needs to step out of the way, change or blow themselves up.  The FDA, once a great agency created in response to Upton Sinclair's monumental novel expose` "The Jungle" in 1906 certainly will not protect the American people.

Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

FDA Lacks “Rocky Mountain Oysters”

Necessary to Protect the Nation’s Food Supply 

           The FDA is the mighty, giant agency that’s supposed to protect the integrity of our foods?   The points of this now eight-rant series exposing the FDA corruptions and incompetence are these: A. American lives and health are at risk B. American taxpayers are not getting 1% of what they’d should expect from the FDA on the positive side C.  The American people are getting 100,000% of the negatives they should expect from the FDA  D. President Obama is calling for health care reforms and a whole new expensive federal program but has not really shown much interest in the FDA when reforming the FDA is the single most necessary step that needs to be taken if our health care system is to improve.  Additionally, President Obama’s programs have addressed exactly one significant point out of the forty-three raised by the Ol' Health Educator Rajjpuut’s “A Far Better Health Care Alternative” series . . . .

           The FDA which makes twenty-man raids of natural foods stores and offices of doctors who dare to prescribe nutrients (vitamins, minerals, etc.) for their patients has uniformly shown itself to be gutless and toothless when dealing with big food, big drug companies and the USDA (Agriculture Department).  

Well before the recent scandals, four and a half years ago the FDA responded to anonymous and correct information about salmonella in peanut better which ConAgra’s internal testing had noted but which had NOT been reported to the FDA. Unbelievably the agency turned away when told they would only give the documents asked for in response to an FDA written request. 

Specifically, the company officials A. confirmed the test results reported by the anonymous informant but B. refused to turn over the lab reports and incredibly C. the FDA walked away without further ado. Apparently the FDA according to this example and others gleaned by internet sources will almost NEVER serve paperwork requests and even more rarely take a big company to task (make a raid or take them to court or fine them) regardless of the circumstances. They make big showy raids of small organizations and doctors' offices but back away at the merest sign of resistance at big companies.

This is the mighty giant agency that’s supposed to protect the integrity of our foods?

Of greatest concern is the FDA absolute cowardice in the face of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The first noticeable problem is that the jurisdictions of the two agencies overlap in many places (a huge waste of tax-payer money). The second problem is that it appears that the agriculture department might well be every bit as inept and corrupt as the FDA, perhaps moreso (Rajjpuut can’t believe he said that! Is that possible?) but in cases where the FDA has discovered the USDA dropping the ball . . . reportedly, the USDA ignores anything the FDA says. 

This is the mighty giant agency that’s supposed to protect the integrity of our foods?

The huge 143-million pound beef recall announced in February, was apparently foreshadowed by FDA officials telling USDA officials of problems they’d noticed back in November (three months earlier). The USDA officials did nothing until February and then reported the Hallmark/Westland meatpackers had been “skimping upon inspections” and ordered the recall.  Because of the delay in action the USDA admitted at the recall time that most of the beef had surely been already eaten by consumers – including school children who received the beef as part of a school-lunch program. The wonder is that it was discovered at all. Apparently a video of plant personnel abusing fallen cattle, trying to get them to stand up and to walk to the slaughter point had been surreptitiously recorded by a Humane Society member according to an L.A. Times article. By law, non-ambulatory (they can’t walk) cattle canNOT be slaughtered since “Mad-Cow Disease” is much more likely under those conditions.

If the Humane Society had not created this cause-celebre` would the USDA or FDA have done anything or even reported anything (since what they did had NO positive effect)???

This is the mighty giant agency that’s supposed to protect the integrity of our foods?

            ‘Tis to laugh!

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

 Regular readers of Rajjpuut’s little rants will recognize a strong personal antipathy toward the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). That once great organization created in 1906, the very year that Upton Sinclair’s monumental novel/expose` “The Jungle” hit the bookstore shelves, has degenerated into the most corrupt federal organization in America. Rajjpuut, health educator he, believes that only a complete top-to-bottom remake of the FDA will allow any health care plan, now or in the future, any hope of success.

Taylor Appointment,

Just One More Scandal

in the Sad FDA History

           
            President Obama's new health care system (if it comes) is doomed to failure at huge expense, personal-healthwise and economically to the country . . .  as we mentioned in Rants #4 and #5, #6 there were four main reasons why, two of those reasons are germane to this discussion, items C and D:

C.    And mostly because, the President is NOT expected to address FDA re-organization or clean up in his new program: huge mistake, HUGE!

D.    Additionally, as far as is known, the President is expected to address exactly one of the forty-three points brought up by health educator Rajjpuut in his blog series “A Far Better Health Care Alternative.”

          Point C above, is not only true of the “drug side” of the FDA but especially so of the food side. Just a few years back, the FDA created the position of food czar, to oversee cleanliness and safety for the nation’s food supply. To say that move was an unmitigated disaster is to insult unmitigated disaster everywhere. Last Tuesday, the FDA made Monsanto’s Michael Taylor “senior advisor to the commissioner,” basically a new food czar. The once proud FDA has by this appointment of yet another roving bureaucrat underlined the incestuous nature of its dealings with both the food industry and the pharmaceutical companies. The fact that Mr. Taylor is a lawyer shows the utter disdain with which the FDA holds the public well-being. Let us be perfectly clear here:   Keeping feces out of meat and salmonella out of everything is not rocket science. The highest standards of cleanliness and conscientious care are required, yes, but if the FDA can’t ensure even that, to a level at least 50 times higher than what we’ve seen in the past three years, what the hell good are they?

            A revolving doorful of bureaucrats and aparatchiks is never going to clean up our food supply. What the hell does a lawyer-for-hire know about food safety? About manufacturing processes? About the public interest? Why not search within the FDA itself and find somebody who’s blown the whistle on the agencies own corrupt practices and incompetences? Why not go within the FDA itself and find someone who’s nailed unclean companies repeatedly in the past? Why the hell not try common sense for a change.   Why the hell not try integrity for a change.

            As always, the FDA bigwig has switched sides often; Taylor began as a counsel to the FDA; later he moved to a law-firm representing Monsanto, a high-profile biotech company also involved very much in the agricultural industry. In 1991 he returned to the FDA as “Deputy Commissioner for Policy.” The team that issued virtually all the FDA’s industry-friendly decisions on food and approved Monsanto’s growth hormones for cattle and dairy cattle had constant input from Taylor you can bet. His role was questioned by the Government Accounting Office but he was exonerated.

            In ’94  Taylor became adminstrator of Food Safety and Inspection Services. Then he went back to private law practice; then joined Monsanto again and became one of their chief lobbyists dealing with the FDA. There is NO record of Mr. Taylor knowing anything about public health, Rajjpuut doubts the man ever read “The Jungle,” the book that created the scandal that created the FDA back in 1906. Rajjpuut is quite sure that Mr. Taylor was too busy smoozing to have time to learn anything about public health and welfare. Shame, shame shame FDA shame on you.

           What can we expect from Taylor in his latest incarnation with the FDA? He’s a damn lawyer. We can expect him to counsel closely with his bean-counters about “cost-benefit analysis” and come up with an essentially “risk-based” approach because that’s what lawyer’s do. What? You don’t know what a risk based approach or cost-benefit analysis means? Well, let ol’ Rajjpuut clue you in. When the Ford Pinto’s came on the market with a dangerous exploding gas tank and a high probability of high speed collisions crumpling the doors and trapping passengers inside, the worst aspects of their bad design could have been prevented by either a reduction in trunk space to create a tank position immune to the problems; or modifying the plan they finally approved:  by installing an $11 per car fire-prevention system.

           As it turns out, the bean-counters were right in their cost benefit analysis that fewer than a thousand people would burn to death and at $200,000 a head . . . the company would make substantially more money leaving the $11 fire-prevention system off the car. And the lawyers analyzing their recommendations were right it was an “acceptable risk.” Of course when later on the factors behind the decision-making were made public, the public relations nightmare created, to say nothing of the class action law suit that followed, were probably NOT what Ford would have wanted to risk.  Simple integrity, it seems, and making the best product for your customers play no part in lawyers' outlook.

              By the way, the Ford Pinto was considered “Lee’s Car,” meaning that Lee Iacocca designed it. Iacocca later went to Chrysler and got them their first bailout . . . you can see the man has a talent for incompetence on a national scale that’s beyond virtually any man but the designer of the Titanic or George Armstrong Custer. Taylor is such a man: a natural in the hearts of the bureaucrats at FDA.

            NO!  No, we definitely do NOT need cost-benefit analysis and “risk-based” approaches when it comes to our food safety. We need instead the highest standards of cleanliness and conscientious care possible and a man or woman who’ll ensure that is the result.   We need, instead a man or woman who’s whole life has been dedicated to public health who’ll insist that any contamination at all is unacceptable.        

            At the FDA they’ve long forgotten it’s the public health they’re in the business of protecting; and the public they’re supposed to be serving but the President, congress, and the American Public needs to remember that key fact RIGHT NOW!  The first necessary step in any health care change is to UNDO, REDO and UNcorrupt the FDA.

Live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut  

Regular readers of Rajjpuut’s little rants will recognize a strong personal antipathy toward the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). That once great organization created in 1906, the very year that Upton Sinclair’s monumental novel/expose` “The Jungle” hit the bookstore shelves, has degenerated into the most corrupt federal organization in America. Rajjpuut, health educator he, believes that only a complete top-to-bottom remake of the FDA will allow any health care plan, now or in the future, any hope of success.

            President Obama's new health care system (if it comes) is doomed to failure at huge expense, personal-healthwise and economically to the country . . .  as we mentioned in Rants #4 and #5, there are four main reasons why:

A.    Government spending programs seldom work.

B.     The two earlier programs, Medicare and Medicaid, did not help and only made health and cost trends already in place much worse.  Both are functionally bankrupt.  Medicare now has obligations of $34 TRillion and will be officially bankrupt in 2016.

C.    And mostly because, the President is NOT expected to address FDA re-organization or clean up in his new program: huge mistake, HUGE!

D.    Additionally, as far as is known, the President is not expected to address a single one of the points brought up by health educator Rajjpuut in his blog series “A Far Better Health Care Alternative.”

          As shown clearly in Rant #5, American medical scientists have time and time again concluded research underlining that there is absolutely NO need for new drugs that mask pain but do not help cure the underlying problems. The problem has been made infinitely worse because now drug companies are allowed to legally "bribe"** the FDA to rush their newest dangerous concoctions right out into the marketplace and FDA philosophy has deteriorated since 1990.  In that year, 58% of the drugs studied were approved; today about83% of studied drugs are approved. 

In 1990 only 5% of the brand new to the world drugs were approved; today 2/3 of these brand new drugs never before used in any other country now receive FDA approval:  an anguishing 1300% rise in approval of untested drugs.  The combination of rapid (bribed) approval; loose overallapproval habits and ultra-loose sanctions on brand-new drugs has made the American health scene a dangerousplace for patients when given an Rx from their doctor.

The FDA seems to go out of its way to protect the drug companies from potentially healthier, lessexpensive, and less dangerous competitors.  Why else would the FDA have issued several statements at various times in their history that "no supplement has ever been proven to cure any disease or heal any medical condition."  Amazing that they've never heard of Vitamin C and scurvy; of Linus Pauling's Nobel Prize; or Louis Ignarro's Nobel Prize.

             Even though there are virtually no instances of medical PROBLEMS caused by nutrients (vitamins,minerals, etc.) when taken in recommended dosages but combined millions of DEATHS, DEFORMITIES, illnesses and INJURIES caused by "proper" dosages of prescription medicines . . . nevertheless, the FDA has attacked natural ingredients and natural nutrients producers and stores with an incredible vehemence especially, it seems, nutrients which have performed very well in scientific studies such as DHEA, DMSO, hydrogen peroxide and food grade hydrogen peroxide.  Natural ingredients being far less expensive, and having no side effects for people not allergic to them are serious rivals to drugs.  The drug companies have no motivation, for their part, to feature any "natural ingredient" because no natural ingredients are patentable.

             The FDA seemingly attacks all enemies or competitors of the big pharmaceutical companies:  vitamin stores; doctors who routinely prescribe vitamin or nutrient regimens; natural whole-grain diet breads and diet cereals; homemade diet soups, etc., etc., much more eagerly than it applies pressure to the drug companies themselves.  Where are the deaths? deformities, illnesses and injuries that justify that kind of scrutiny?  Why don't they do the math  and do their jobs instead and protect Americans from the irresponsible drug companies?  I think the folks who created the FDA in 1906 must be rolling over in their graves seeing the Frankenstein monster their once great agency has degenerated into.  If for no other reason,the number of iatrogenic deaths, deformities, injuries and illnesses today's drugs have visited upon the unsuspecting American public give them sufficient excuse to continue rolling around in those graves for thenext 100 years.

            At the FDA they’ve long forgotten it’s the public health they’re in the business of protecting; and the public they’re supposed to be serving but the President, congress, and the American Public needs to remember that key fact RIGHT NOW!  The first necessary step in any health care change is to UNDO, REDO and UNcorrupt the FDA.

Live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut  

**   the correct term is "bribe" but the FDA calls them "expedited evaluations" or "expedited reviews"

Regular readers of Rajjpuut’s little rants will recognize a strong personal antipathy toward the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). That once great organization created in 1906, the very year that Upton Sinclair’s monumental novel/expose` “The Jungle” hit the bookstore shelves, has degenerated into the most corrupt federal organization in America. Rajjpuut, health educator he, believes that only a complete top-to-bottom remake of the FDA will allow any health care plan, now or in the future, any hope of success.

Americans believe health comes in drug bottles and the few in the medical community who know differently (they ALL should but are hypnotized by drug claims) aren’t advertising the truth.

 At the FDA they’ve long forgotten it’s the public they’re supposed to be serving.

Drug Culture Created by the FDA

and Big Pharmaceutical Companies

Costs Government Programs Heavily

Obama plans to put a new health care system in place doomed to failure at huge expense, personal-healthwise and economically to the country . . .  as we mentioned in rant #4, there are four main reasons why: 

A.    Government spending programs seldom work. 

B.     The two earlier programs, Medicare and Medicaid, did not help and only made health and cost trends already in place much worse. Medicare has contractual obligations for $34 TRillion in obligations it cannot cover; officially it will be bankrupt in 2016.

C.    And mostly because, the President is NOT expected to address FDA re-organization or clean up in his new program: huge mistake, HUGE!

D.    Additionally, as far as is known, the President is only expected to address exactly one of the forty-threepoints brought up by health educator Rajjpuut in his blog series “A Far Better Health Care Alternative.”

          American medical scientists have time and time again concluded research that underlines the simple fact that there is absolutely NO need for new drugs that mask pain but do not help cure the underlying problems. There are enough old pain medications at large, and the newer ones are just far more expensive and much, much more dangerous. But the drug companies keep cranking them out and despite the best medical advice ever known (First Do No Harm!), the FDA keeps approving them. The pure cost in money; the cost in iatrogenic ailments (problems caused my errors from doctors, nurses or the hospital itself; or by reactions to medicine) in money and lives; and the cost to the U.S. government all demand that the FDA deny approval to about 90-95% of all such drugs.

          However, the FDA in its inanity and corruption (see Rajjpuut’s earlier FDA rants) doesn’t even deny approval to 10% of these dangerous new concoctions. Year after year the list of horrendous side-effects for new medications we hear advertised on TV grows longer and more virulent. 

          Drug companies then go out of their way to see that their dangerous, expensive concoctions become popular:

A.      Nurses are paid by drug companies for using their products when they have that discretionary power

B.      Schools get paid thousands of dollars monthly for every child they help get prescribed for psychiatric drugs like Prozac or Ritalin.

C.      Doctors routinely get visited by drug sales men with huge amounts of literature “pushing” their drugs and even kickback offers and bonus offers if certain “quotas” are

 met

D.      A, B, and C above are clearly abuses that endanger the patients and the government’s coffers. The FDA which has the power to stop A, B, and C above from happening

never does anything . . . never.

The biggest abuse of all, however, is that drug companies routinely pay scientists and doctors on government advisory panels to recommend their drugs. And often the payments even come for recommending their drugs in front of FDA evaluation hearings and the FDA condones the practice.

Drug companies can now legally bribe** the FDA to hasten their drugs onto the market. 

It’s all a huge pack of lies, deceit, shady practices and outright corruption that endangers the public and costs the government immense amounts of money every second of every day. The FDA knows but will not tell you that:

A.      An aspirin a day makes strokes much more likely

B.      Almost all sunscreens cause cancer but don’t do much to prevent skin cancer (since sunscreens have become common, American skin cancer rates have risen dramatically, far worse than people under the tropic sun typically encounter)

C.      Lowering cholesterol does nothing to stop heart attacks.  The 33-year old high-cholesterol lie is the most profitable charade in the history of medicine making all the quack medicine salesmen ever known look like Honest Abe.

D.      Estrogen therapy is an extraordinarily dangerous practice.

E.       Roughly 60% of the most frequently prescribed drugs for the elderly are found on lists of drugs NOT to be given to elderly persons.

F.       Every prescription drug has dangerous side effects, nevertheless 20% of them have NO printed warnings on the packaging.

G.      Average Americans consume fifty pounds worth of prescription, non-prescription, and over the counter drugs every year (400 times more than Rajjpuut does!)

H.      People who don’t need drugs are now going into their doctors and demanding certain drugs they’ve seen advertised on TV.

I.        Iatrogenic disease (caused by medicines and medical treatment is now the 3^rd or 4^th

largest cause of death and dangerous medicines are a prime cause of them. You are ten times more likely to go to the hospital for a prescription drug reaction and four times more likely to die than if you had an automobile accident.

J.        The FDA could IMMEDIATELY stop every one of these sad situations, the FDA does nothing!

            At the FDA they’ve long forgotten it’s the public health they’re in the business of protecting; and the public they’re supposed to be serving but the President, congress, and the American Public needs to remember that key fact RIGHT NOW!

The first necessary step in any health care change is to UNDO, REDO and UNcorrupt the FDA.

Live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut   

**   the correct term is "bribe" but the FDA calls them "expedited evaluations" or "expedited reviews"

Regular readers of Rajjpuut’s little rants will recognize a strong personal antipathy toward the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). That once great organization created in 1906, the very year that Upton Sinclair’s monumental novel/expose` “The Jungle” hit the bookstore shelves, has degenerated into the most corrupt federal organization in America. Rajjpuut, health educator he, believes that only a complete top-to-bottom remake of the FDA will allow any health care plan, now or in the future, any hope of success.

The Hippocratic Oath says, “First Do No Harm” . . . indicating that 97% of the time, doctors could be sued for malpractice for prescribing drugs they know can do enormous harm according to the official list of side effects.

Drug Culture Created by the FDA

and Big Pharmaceutical Companies

Endangers Citizen’s Health

            We all know that Obama plans to put a new health care system in place. Most of us know that it’s doomed to failure at huge expense, (personally and economically) to the country . . . here are the reasons why: 

A.    Government spending programs seldom work. In fact Obamacare is a ruse to cover up the fact that Medicare has obligations of $34 TRillion it can’t cover and will be bankrupt officially in 2016. 

B.     The two earlier programs, Medicare and Medicaid, did not help and only made health and cost trends already in place much worse.

C.    And mostly because, the President is NOT expected to address FDA re-organization or FDA clean up in his new program: huge mistake, HUGE!

D.    Additionally, as far as is known, the President is only expected to address exactly one of the forty-three points brought up by health educator Rajjpuut in his blog series “A Far Better Health Care Alternative.”

The Hippocratic Oath, which doctors swear to, says “First Do No Harm” . . . since study after study indicates that 70% of the expensive drugs Americans take actually have “no effect,” and all drugs created, that means 100% of them, have proven and listed side effects: arguably from 90%-100% of instances when a doctor prescribes a drug for a patient, he is at least technically, if not in fact, breaking the Hippocratic Oath. America is a drug culture. People believe health and happiness comes in bottles. The information found in this paragraph is highlighted because of whistle-blowers who in study after study say that internal memos and other documents generated by the drug companies themselves reveal pretty much those same two sad statistics.

            When it’s also considered that a huge percentage of drugs are only designed to mask or alleviate symptoms but NOT or even NEVER to cure any underlying conditions and all these drugs too have annoying, dangerous and/or deadly side effects . . . the magnitude of the problem becomes clear. The FDA, by approving these palliatives and their side effects is making America’s health problems worse. The fact that drug companies now have the option to legally bribe** the FDA to expedite putting the drugs on the market has exacerbated an already horrendous problem. 

            Additionally, consider this . . . the FDA has known for over thirty years that high cholesterol levels are NOT associated with heart attacks and that lowering cholesterol does NOT cure any actual medical condition;  yet they say nothing to the American health care industry, refuse to remove the drugs from circulation and thus continue to help the drug companies rip off the American public.  It's one of their biggest shams because statins (cholesterol lowering drugs) are some of the most dangerous, very expensive and totally unnecessary drugs.  "First Do No Harm!"

            PPIs (proton pump inhibitors) likewise are drugs for no real disease.  So-called “Acid Reflux Disease” is an invention of the drug companies. If you have persistent heart burn, nine times out of ten you have TOOLITTLE stomach acid NOT too much. PPI’s actually make virtually all heartburn problems worse and they have recently been proved addictive. Taken with over-prescribed anti-biotics, PPIs can decimate the healthy stomach biota and create a horrendous and deadly dysenteric condition called “c. dificile” which kills older Americans quite frequently.   And PPIs are strongly suspected of causing serious bronchitis and even pneumonia.   "First Do No Harm!"

Need Rajjpuut mention that statins are the single most profitable drugs of all time and PPIs are very nearly as profitable?????? Of course a more horrendous example of FDA corruption is the conflict of interest that leads to the Celebrex (used for osteoarthritis; rheumatoid arthritis and painful menstruation) disaster in the first place and that same conflict of interest has kept that deadly drug on the market right up to the present moment with extra warnings added to its packaging. “First Do No Harm,” indeed!

            Depending upon who’s doing the study, iatrogenic deaths (death caused by medicines; doctors’ and nurses’ errors; hospital errors; etc.) rank as either the third or fourth greatest killers of Americans: “First Do No Harm” indeed!! And the biggest danger lies in the medicines themselves . . . every single one of them approved by the FDA. You are ten times more likely to enter a hospital and three and a half times more likely to die because of a prescription drug reaction then from an automobile accident. The root of a huge percentage of the American health care mess is 100% linked to the evil we call the FDA.  "First Do No Harm!"

            At the FDA they’ve long forgotten it’s the public they’re supposed to be serving and NOT the drug companies . . .  but the President, congress, and the American Public needs to remember that key fact RIGHT NOW!  President Obama, FIRST DO NO HARM:  re-organize and clean up the FDA before making any other health care change!

Live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut   

**   the correct term is "bribe" but the FDA calls them "expedited evaluations" or "expedited reviews"

Regular readers of Rajjpuut’s little rants will recognize a strong personal antipathy toward the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). That once great organization created in 1906, the very year that Upton Sinclair’s monumental novel/expose` “The Jungle” hit the bookstore shelves, has degenerated into the most corrupt federal organization in America. Rajjpuut, health educator he, believes that only a complete top-to-bottom remake of the FDA will allow any health care plan, now or in the future, any hope of success. 

                In the most blatant and shameless sell-out in American journalistic history, Barak Obama now “owns” MSNBC journalistic coverage of Himself and scratching the back that scratches his:  General Electric  (GE: MSNBC’s parent company) now “owns” the inside track on all cap-and-trade contracts; global warming contracts; green job contracts; and, oh yes, bailout money for the nearly bankrupt** General Electric during the Obama administration. GE, of course, has already received $139 Billion dollars in federal bailout funds for its financial arm. While it may have been obvious during the presidential campaign that MSNBC news was incapable of mouthing anything less than glowing praise for Barak Obama . . . their closet relationship has come out into the open courtesy of a leaked memo General Electric Vice Chairman John G. Rice wrote in an Aug. 19 e-mail to his colleagues at GE. First a bit of background . . . .

                It appears that this “open scandal” is no surprise to anyone. The other liberal-leaning networks aren’t commenting and only party-pooper conservative channel Fox News is on the scent. It’s so blatant that Barak Obama himself made light of it at the Radio and TV  correspondent’s dinner when he said, he was trying to come up with ideas for his comments at the gathering and couldn't sleep. But suddenly he knew where to go for help.  He just rolled over in bed and asked Brian Williams what he thought.

                If you watch political news at all, it’s no secret that the Fox Network is on Barak Obama’s enemies list; and that MSNBC, owned by GE, is easily the most pro-Obama TV news department in the whole country. In a land of left-leaning antennae, MSNBC could just as well change its name to the “Barak Network” and no would notice. 

There was one instance during the presidential campaign and another in March of 2009 when some of their CNBC financial analysts began criticizing Obama and his proposed programs (“a spending spree” according to one man) the typical government spending boondoggles GSBs liberals are famous for. Virtually immediately GE CEO Jeff Immelt and NBC President Jeff Zucker both dropped in on aforesaid commentators to inform them as to the weather: “Boys, this is how the wind blows around here . . .”  Apparently the “re-orientation chat” worked.  Since that time criticism, even subtle criticism of Obama the candidate or Obama the president has been non-existent. Their bias for Obama had always been outrageous, but today Zucker and Immelt have become Obama’s trick ponies and President Obama is deified at least three times daily on each NBC affiliate company. Other than Obama getting unlimited use of NBC teleprompters during the campaign and later as president, no one could be sure exactly what the tie in was. Up till late August the nature of their “pact” was still anybody’s guess. Let’s look at three examples of the suspicious nature of the relationship: 

1.        GE is relying on the Obama administration to come through on a promise that all American health records could by law only be computerized with GE and its supposedly “superior technology” having the inside track for a contract that would bring in billions. When word of this “cozy relationship was first aired in early August, Obama began showing a bit less favoritism at news conferences and even invited ABC in to tour the White House. Instead of a whole slew of government contracts, however, GE might be cruising for a bruising. Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly opined recently that any important contract for GE

“would make Watergate look like a Shirley Temple movie.” If that is the case, then one video clip that will make every highlight reel will be Kareem Dale (Special Asst. to Obama) smiling, “At the White House, as we always like to say, we love MSNBC.”

2.      GE appointed former Senator Tom Daschle to its health advisory board. Daschle, President Obama's nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services until a tax scandal derailed him, has strong connections to the Obama White House. So obviously there is a huge potential conflict of interest here. NBC News is in on the take for Obama, even as GE, the parent company, is aiming to corral billions from the federal government. Hard to believe that MSNBC has only run positive spin stories on Obamacare for the last 11 ½ weeks isn’t it? NBC, was once renowned for the high ethical tone of its (liberal) news coverage but now with Zuckerman, Immelt and Daschle running point for the news gatherers, all you can hear is poisonous left-wing fanaticism supporting the president unerringly. Literally, sneezing or partial eye-rolling while reporting an Obama story is now a capital offense at NBC.

3.      GE, the once mighty Dow Jones Smokestack America Industrial giant who’s dividends were all any frugal retiree every needed, is now moving toward penny-stockville. To arrest that slide they have created a whole new strategy arm called “Ecomagination” which is plotting to win a wide array of ecology-themed contracts associated with global warming, green-tech, and cap and trade legislation. It all comes down on the “Obama connection,” will the president come through?

The connections that were assumed are now obvious, the August 19 e-mail memo from GE Vice Chairman Rice made it all official . . . .

"The intersection between GE's interests and government action is clearer than ever," Vice Chairman John G. Rice wrote in his August 19, 2009 e-mail to colleagues. He was calling on all GE people and GE subsidiary people to join GEPAC, the General Electric Political Action Committee. "GEPAC is an important tool that enables GE employees to collectively help support candidates who share the values and goals of GE,” that is, as the e-mail continued sharing the values and goals of GE means “support for policies that profit the company.”

Rice continues by getting specific about climate change, "we were able to work closely with key authors of the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill, recently passed by the House of Representatives. If this bill is enacted into law it would benefit many GE businesses."

GE has put almost all its eggs into the Waxman-Markey basket. W-M would profit GE Greenhouse Gas Services, which deals in greenhouse gas credits, products that have value only if a cap-and-trade bill like Waxman-Markey passes. That is if W-M fails, GM is up the creek. Rice did not pull any punches, "Our Company is heavily impacted by a number of issues pending in Washington this fall.”

GE spent more on lobbying in the second quarter of this year than did any other company, according to federal lobbying files. Since 1998, GE has been the king of lobbying expenditures, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, outpacing its runner-up by 40 percent. Tying the lobbying and PAC effort together, Rice said, " . . .we must also make sure that candidates who share GE's values and goals get elected to office . . ."

Six House members have received more than $4,000 from GEPAC this cycle -- all Democrats -- Representative John Murtha, D-Pa., faces an extra rough re-election in 2010, courtesy of accusations that he  used his chairmanship on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee to benefit campaign supporters, other donors and patrons. GE is a defense contractor, of course.

The other big recipients are all incumbents in powerful positions, presumably safe for now: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer, Ways and Means member Richard Neal, who chairs the subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, and key appropriator Norm Ducks**. This year two-thirds of GEPAC money has gone to Democrats, but during the 2008 elections, recipients were pretty equally divided. 

Why would GE give $15,000 to every senatorial candidate in the last election. Obviously, it was not because they cared so much who won, but rather because this way they had an “in” with the winner, whoever he/she was. The process is called “Rent-Seeking” which means: Lobbying and contributing to campaign funds so that favorable government legislation or regulation; or defeat of unfavorable legislation or regulation happens precisely in the manner most calculated to generate huge profits for the company which ordinary free market interchanges could never provide.  

It’s a fact of life in Washington, D.C., and GE is playing the game for high stakes with its presidential stooge benefitting from the firm's (via NBC) unfailing support over the airwaves. A $15,000 contribution to both horses in a two-horse contest may cancel each other out, but they work fine if what you’re really paying for is the “ear” of a congressman.   But the stakes look much higher this time.

How crucial is Waxman-Markey to GE, and by extension to, NBC?  Follow the money.  Follow the money.  Follow the money.  Follow the money.  Is $100,000 too much to pay for a congressman to vote for the most evil and anti-American legislation in history?  Count on once mighty GE to ante-up however much it takes . . . .

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

At more than 90% of evaluation and recommendation meetings at least one member has a conflict of interest

FDA = Frequently Disguised Avarice

American Citizens’ Best Interest

is NO Concern of the FDA

               Before a drug is approved for the public the FDA will listen to a presentation by the drug manufacturer and then listen to expert witnesses.   Federal law prohibits the FDA ever use experts with financial stakes riding on the FDA decisions. According to NY Times Best-selling author Kevin Trudeau, however, this is a rule that is quite commonly waived. Trudeau says that the FDA keeps these meetings secret as well as which companies are involved, what the nature of the conflict is, and how much money may be involved. Your tax dollars at work protecting you!  Rajjpuut has heard that waiving the conflict of interest rule might happen nine or ten times a month. Reuters and USA Today has run articles that imply a far greater degree of financial involvement than that, however -- that well over half the experts the FDA calls upon for testimony have a direct financial interest in the drugs or subject matter being evaluated. With stock ownerships, grant money, consulting charges or other incentives involved, Rajjpuut believes that if three times in every hundred instances the “unbiased expert” testified against his own best financial interests that would be very surprising.

               At the FDA what the public doesn’t know, can’t hurt them (“them” being the FDA). According to Trudeau, once the experts have been heard from (and there’s only one side represented in 85% of instances) it’s very rare that the FDA rules against their advice in broad general matters. If a specific drug is the subject of evaluation, the FDA appears far less biased: at these meetings only 30% of the experts on average have financial conflicts.

               Does this “unbiased” FDA evaluation process work? Listen to the extensive list of side effects that get mentioned every time some drug is advertised on the television. And what happens when the side-effects are truly dangerous or even deadly? The FDA very seldom “pulls” a drug from the market. Instead they typically recommend including another warning on the packaging. Before 1990 less than 60% of drugs were approved today it’s over 80%. Before 1990 about 5% of the drugs approved by the FDA were brand new to the world. Since 1998 the FDA has made enormous amounts of fees approving drugs, 2/3 of them first-time drugs on the market. It is now also considered part of doing business normally for the drug company to legally bribe** the FDA to conclude it’s business much faster than unbribed examinations take.

               Acid Reflux medicines (proton pump inhibitors or PPIs) are potions without a real disease. 90% of the time when heartburn strikes, the cause is too little acid, not too much. Acid reflux medicine actually makes heartburn worse.

               Rajjpuut wants to puke when he thinks about the FDA and its horrendous corruption, but he’s afraid someone might give him some FDA recommended medicine – oh no!

Live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut  

**   the correct term is "bribe" but the FDA calls them "expedited evaluations" or "expedited reviews"

Regular readers of Rajjpuut’s little rants will recognize a strong personal antipathy toward the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). That once great organization created in 1906, the very year that Upton Sinclair’s monumental novel/expose` “The Jungle” hit the bookstore shelves, has degenerated into the most corrupt federal organization in America. Rajjpuut, health educator he, believes that only a complete top-to-bottom remake of the FDA will allow any health care plan, now or in the future, any hope of success.

"FDA . . . Foul, Disgusting Agency" doesn't say the half of it. No more corrupt government entity has ever turned upon the citizens of this country.         

           Unlike ordinary free tap water which is monitored by the EPA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) monitors bottled water. As usual that's very bad news.

            Some popular brands of bottled water have had their bottles voluntarily recalled three times just since recalls have been monitored . . .  indeed, bottled water has been recalled on over one hundred separate occasions since monitoring began.  But have you personally ever been notified? Ever heard a news story about a recall?   Ever known anyone who turned back even one single bottle? Did you know that next to plastic shopping bags, bottled water containers are one of the very biggest environmental headaches of our time? Did you know that many popular brands are contaminated with phthalates, a chemical used to make plastic softer which unfortunately disrupts the human endocrine system. Did you realize that many bottled waters are less safe than free tap water?  That many of them basically are free tap water, and nothing more?   That despite their claims of health advantages, not one such advantage has ever been proved.

           Looking at one of the biggest issues more closely, phthalates besides being a disaster for the endocrine system in general is a holocaust for male fetuses.  Have you ever been heard that bottled water should NOT be drunk by pregnant or nursing mothers?   Well it shouldn't because malformed reproductive organs, undescended testes and low sperm counts later in life are all suspected results of ptthalates contamination at high levels. The bottles themselves do NOT contain the chemical phthalates, surprisingly enough. The contaminants are suspected of entry into the water during processing at bottling plants or perhaps were present in the original water source. Phthalates has even been  found on occasion contaminating some tap waters.

          The FDA refuses to give oversight to any water which is bottled and sold within a state, including those huge water-cooler jugs you see in every office . . . so 70% of all bottled water has NO FDA oversight. The FDA has less than one full-time person per state monitoring this sixteen billion dollar industry. Many bottling plants are not inspected even yearly.  The manufacturers are not required to let customers know about recalls, and they don't. Mold, crickets, coliform bacteria, microbes and, of course, super high levels of the contaminate phthalates mentioned earlier are all reasons for some of the hundred plus recalls since 1992.    So the FDA which has the resources to make raids on the office's of doctors suspected of prescribing GASP! vitamins, minerals and other nutrients; and also on health food stores . . . has no interest in looking at our bottled water. But, of course, it all makes sense in a perverted sort of FDA way . . . . Cheers, wait . . . make mine vodka!

Live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut     

Regular readers of Rajjpuut’s little rants will recognize a strong personal antipathy toward the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). That once great organization created in 1906, the very year that Upton Sinclair’s monumental novel/expose` “The Jungle” hit the bookstore shelves, has degenerated into the most corrupt federal organization in America. Rajjpuut, health educator he, believes that only a complete top-to-bottom remake, or better yet, elimination of the FDA will allow any health care plan, now or in the future, any hope of success. 

The Food and Drug Administration, FDA, that once great organization created in 1906, the year that Upton Sinclair’s monumental novel/expose of the meat packing industry “The Jungle” hit the bookstore shelves, has degenerated into the most corrupt federal organization in America. Rajjpuut, health educator he, believes that only a complete top-to-bottom remake of the FDA or its total elimination will allow any health care plan, now or in the future, any hope of success.

A September, 2006 Spanish study puts second hand smoke in a crowded bar as “over 60 times more toxic than traffic fumes."

The state of California, which can be a little bit nuts Rajjpuut admits, backs up the Spaniards with its own conclusion that second-hand smoke (what's breathed out after first going directly into the lungs of a smoker) ranks in toxicity up there with the most toxic automotive or industrial air pollutants and says California parents “who would NOT willingly fill their homes with motor vehicle exhaust, for their children’s sake, should feel the same way about tobacco smoke.”

Strong words but unfortunately accurate words . . . but Rajjpuut is NOT here to turn the screws a notch tighter on the already beleaguered smokers . . . but rather to ask you to consider this about the FDA: what else besides tobacco products in the United States is allowed to be sold and consumed by mouth without a listing of its ingredients on the package? How did that cozy little arrangement come to be? I submit that it’s just one more long-standing sign of the corruption of the FDA: the typically 554 ingredients of a cigarette are never revealed because big tobacco doesn’t want to lose even one customer, especially a young developing smoker who might look at that god-awful list of chemicals and think, “Oh my heavens, this is what I’m doing to my body!” If the single most unhealthy product available for private consumption is not regulated appropriately, you start to get a handle on the full scope of this nightmare agency's ability to pervert its original great purpose and betray American’s health. Gotta love ‘em with all your heart.

Live long, strong and ornery,

. . . roughly $402,000 in obligations for every American man woman and child

               Special Treasury Department Inspector General to oversee the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) Neil M. Barofsky made himself very Unpopular in the Obama camp a few months ago^^ when he called a spade a spade. Barofsky, daring to tell the world there is NO FREE LUNCH calculated the government’s maximum exposure on the financial sector bailouts he was watch-dogging: could reach $24 Trillion. He has repeatedly attacked Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the Treasury Department for repeatedly failing to adopt recommendations aimed at making the government financial rescue effort more accountable and transparent. Now lets’ put that $24 TRillion figure in perspective . . .

1.        That’s just the first bailout the $819 Billion TARP he’s talking about, the one passed during the waning days of the Bush administration by bi-partisan efforts

2.     That comes to a $78,076 obligation for every man, woman and child in this country. Most children, by the way, average a $3 allowance per week.

3.      Obama’s personal stimulus plan of $1.34 Trillion passed almost exclusively by his Democratic majority in the House and Senate can be expected to have a similar effect on the economy. There was a strong effort to get the second bailout to be called Bad-Asset-Relief-Fund or BARF. Today’s taxpayers presumably feel that the acronym is personally apropos. The net downward drag on the economy from that one might well reach $45 or $50 TRillion (we can’t tell because there are no Barofsky’s watching over those funds for us) . . . but if it comes to $48 TRillion, which is easy to work with, then there’s another $156,000 obligation for each man, woman and child.

4.      Obama has more than doubled the National debt to $11.8 Trillion which comes to $36, 874.73 cents for each man, woman and child.

5.      Medicare is scheduled to run out in 2016 and right now has incurred contractual obligations of $37.8 TRillion. The reason that President Obama was in such an all-fired toot to pass his Obamacare initiatives is to cover-up the fact that Medicare is a huge GSB (government spending boondoggle) by replacing it with a new (and much worse) form of health care interference by the federal government to push the problem as far back in history as they possibly can so that citizen tax-payers never see or understand the real price of GSB** interference in their lives. In this case that $37.8 TRillion obligation from Medicare comes to $121,000 more for every person.

6.      The other two great GSBs, Social Security and Medicaid are likewise going broke and have at various times been projected to end in bankruptcy with huge UN-MEETABLE obligations . . . but, surprise-surprise, each time the key “moment of truth” approached some sort of miraculous new GSB was created to push that Judgment Day back into the future. Social Security, for example is now supposedly OK till 2037. Social Security, was, of course the first great government spending boondoggle. It survived sort-of because the ratio throughout its history was roughly 3.3 workers putting in funds to every worker receiving assistance. Now with the Baby Boomer generation and through the foreseeable future to at least the year 2083, seven decades in the future, the ratio is expected to be roughly 2.2 workers for every benefits recipient but dipping slightly below 2.0 workers for every recipient by 2080. The key concern here is that while Social Security is a pittance compared to funding Medicare, right now a whole lot of workers (roughly 15.3% not the government’s official 9.7%) are out of work and NOT earning money to create payments into the Social Security Trust Fund. If this continues and the Social Security bite becomes $3.1 Trillion dollars in unfunded obligations than the taxpayers can be on the hook for another $10,000.

7.       All told $10,000 + $121,000 + $37,000 + $156,000 + $78,000 . . . why, Rajjpuut, believes we’re talking BIG money here . . . roughly $402,000 in obligations for every man woman and child. NICE! That is the now not-so-hidden cost of government spending boondoggles (GSBs). Aren’t you glad you know? Wouldn’t that have helped us make better decisions way back when?

 Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

^^On July 20, his office released a report estimating the $700 billion effort to shore up the nation's wobbly banking system could end up costing taxpayers as much as $23.7 trillion, due to estimates for programs offered by the FDIC, federal money for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other institutions on top of $7.4 trillion in TARP and other Treasury aid. A spokesperson for the Treasury Department quickly called the numbers flawed, making this the latest in the back and forth between Barofsky's oversight office — which currently has 35 ongoing criminal and civil investigations of suspected accounting, securities and mortgage fraud — and the Treasury Department over the handling of TARP disbursements.

**As an aside, going back to Medicare: the “death panels” that Obama denies are part of his bill (but really are) are actually vital. If you look at the history of medical bills and drug costs for people over age 65, typically 47% of the total cost to take care of these factors is incurred during the last six months of life. The simple expedient of having an inhumane set of decision-makers decide upon resource allotment for these dying folk would do a lot to make Medicare approach fiscal-viability . . . however, whether it’s done by Democrats or Republicans it’s a political disaster as loyal readers can already see . . . Of course projections for creating a society akin to that of the “Logan’s Run” movie where no one above age 30 was allowed to live are, at present, a bit far-fetched LOL! Anyway the nature of GSBs is that they quickly multiply and spin all out of control because it’s always popular to appear to be “giving away something for nothing” (a.k.a. free lunch) and incumbents like to do popular things to keep getting re-elected. Who’s paying for all this? Right now a few American and a lot of foreigners.

 Europe and China, Japan, Russia, India and the big holders of U.S. Debt have a choice they can get out of the dollar-investing club and come up with a new “world reserve currency” or they can continue to be the fall guys for Washington’s excesses and inanities and buy America out of its problems while dooming their own countries to bankruptcy . . . what will they decide? Rajjpuut’s got his money on them protecting their countries’ and their own power self-interests by ship-canning the American Dollar forever. Chances of a new world gold currency are very high.