Clifford Asness debunks many healthcare mythologies and explains why they exist in this report:

Lots of people are scared and misinformed by their politicians and the media or else they would understand the whitewash that is going on here and reject socialist “solutions” to a problem best solved for their families by freedom…

The rush to pass a huge expansion of government now, and limit debate and discussion, is indicative of a group that knows it is wrong, and if people have time to think they will refuse to go along, but is attempting an exercise of naked power, to impose dictatorship before the people wake up.

Actually the media is often just plain intellectually lazy, repeating tired leftist dogmas and looking down on anyone who believes in freedom as just a red state moron (trust me, they think that). How else do you explain free infomercials for Obama’s socialized medicine without rebuttal?

Some politicians may indeed just be idealistic dupes who actually want to help people but don’t realize they will harm them. I have sympathy for these people but they still should not win the day. Some just want to feel important. But let’s leave Ms. Pelosi out of this for now. Let’s talk about the smart ones who understand these issues. I do not think true confusion among the political and intellectual class is most of their problem. I do not think they believe for a second that socialized medicine will make people better off. How could they?

Lots of politicians understand that the simple free system leaves them out in the cold. No power for them. No committees to sit on to decide people’s lives. No lies to tell their constituents how they (the government) brought them the health care they so desperately need. No fat checks from lobbyists as the crony capitalists pay dearly to make the only profits possible under this system, those bestowed by the government.

Libertarians are often accused wrongly of loving “big business,” but we don’t, particularly when corporate executives predictably turn themselves into crony capitalists who try to succeed by wheedling from the government. On the other hand the socialists love cronies of all sorts, ones who command large enterprises all the better. Liberals are far closer than libertarians to building and countenancing the all-powerful corporate state they claim to fear.

Odd I know!

That an array of crony capitalists are lining up from Wal-Mart to hospitals to medical insurers (bringing back Harry and Louise – this time for socialism) hoping to cut the best deals for themselves before the iron curtain falls is sad. That they are being lauded by the administration as a sign its health care position is right is simply propaganda. Yep, when someone agrees to pay Al Capone protection, it’s a clear sign Al Capone was right to begin with….

We further see this predicted abuse of power as the health care proposals are already filled with freebies to the President’s friends – including exempting unions from onerous features. Gee, the same unions in whose favor he has re-written the bankruptcy rules and wants to exempt from the most American of ideas, the secret ballot. It’s good to be a friend of “the most ethical administration ever.”

For another example how this is about government power and the suppression of private liberty, and not about helping people, look no further than the fact that their proposed massive tax increase on the “rich” (which by leftist definition are never paying their “fair share” if they have enough left over to remain rich) is on pre-deduction income.

That means if you give all your money to charity you still owe Caesar his 5+ percent on money you did not keep and do not have, but gave away to a good cause. This might raise some revenue, but it is largely about the destruction of private charity. Barack and Harry and Charlie and Nancy and the other gang of four (yes our gang of four is much bigger than four) are about the people having to crawl on their knees to government (them) instead of anyone else, including private charity, not about helping people.

BTW, Congressman Rangel, the House’s chief tax writer and current tax cheat investigatee, said lawmakers targeted high earners because it “causes the least amount of pain on the least amount of people.” So does, in the short-run, imprisoning the rich and harvesting their organs for better health care for everyone else. Charlie, any thoughts on where you stop? When is enough enough?

The rush to pass a huge expansion of government now, and limit debate and discussion, is indicative of a group that knows it is wrong, and if people have time to think they will refuse to go along, but is attempting an exercise of naked power, to impose dictatorship before the people wake up.

Paraphrasing Mark Twain, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. They are counting on this, and they don’t want to give the truth time to be shod.  (More here)

California surgeon Linda Halderman reports that Congress’ version of ObamaCare will feed the federal deficit and “cause small businesses to hemorrhage and carve a pound of flesh from patients forced to navigate the new bureaucracy it creates.”

H.R. 3200 rewards middlemen paid to deny medical care recommended by a patient’s physician. These political appointees, charged with “Comparative Effectiveness” determinations, would make treatment recommendations far from the exam room without ever having examined the patient whose treatment is denied…

Patient choice is another casualty of H.R. 3200. The effect of the bill’s new bureaucracy, a public (government-controlled) health plan, is described by The Lewin Group. Over 88 million workers would be shifted to the public plan from private coverage. Yearly premiums for individuals with private coverage would increase as the result of cost shifting from the government-sanctioned plan…

To the needs of older Americans, the bill mandates an “Advanced Care Planning Consultation” in which senior citizens must meet at least every five years with a doctor or nurse practitioner to discuss “dying with dignity.” (more here)

Thomas Sowell writes:

The confusion of “health care” with medical care is the crucial confusion. Years ago, a study showed that Mormons live a decade longer than other Americans. Are doctors who treat Mormons so much better than the doctors who treat the rest of us? Or do Mormons avoid doing a lot of things that shorten people’s lives?

The point is that health care is largely in your hands. Medical care is in the hands of doctors. Things that depend on what doctors do – cancer survival rates, for example– are already better here than in countries with government-run medical systems…

When the survival of South Africa’s (SA) mining industry now appears to hinge on their ability to blame their laborers’ costly mine-related lung diseases on irresponsible sex, the financial connections between South Africa’s mining industry, government regulators and university researchers is becoming clear.

Because strategic mining operations depend upon our ability to cheaply mine defense materials like gold, platinum and uranium, the US government shares a powerful incentive to promote the “irresponsible sex/HIV” mythology rather than support the historical claims against the SA mining industry.

The latest evidence comes from Farber lawsuit defendant James J. Murtagh MD who recently posted this email about possible criminal prosecution of the so-called AIDS denialists:

Starling new evidence that AIDS denialist Peter Duesberg and his supporters may be liable for vast human tragedy. I hope that other denialists including Gil and Ullberg will read this carefully. I hope Gil and his gang will repent. Time may already have run out.

Attached to Murtagh’s email was this commentary by AIDS Truther Nathan Geffen, which reads in part:

From 1999 to 2007, (Thabo) Mbeki and his Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang obstructed and then undermined the implementation of highly active ARV treatment (HAART) and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the public health system. Two studies, conducted independently of each other, conservatively calculated that over 300,000 people died because of Mbeki’s AIDS denialist policies.

Edward Mabunda was one of them. These studies could not account for additional deaths due to the promotion of quackery, often with the health minister’s support. They also did not consider the number of infections that occurred because of the confusion generated by the insipid state-funded prevention campaign and the messages by some outspoken Mbeki supporters dismissing the link between sex and HIV infection. The Mbeki era also fostered a profound mistrust of scientific medicine, the consequences of which also cannot be quantified.

What, if any, repercussions should be there for those responsible for this tragedy?

Geffen ponders various possible criminal charges and venues citing studies, all written by South African researchers who just happen to also be directly or indirectly funded by the SA mining industry, US pharmaceutical companies, investors and/or consultants to those industries. Some of those reports are published by the National Institutes of Health.

As I described last month, RMIT professor Jock McCulloch used portions of the Leon Commission Report (1995) to explain the incestuous relationships between the SA mining industry and research community which:

… shared the same research focus and a common source of funding through mine revenue. They also shared the same personnel, as key researchers moved between one sector and the other. The same men served on state commissions and departmental committees, and represented the Chamber at public inquiries. That made it difficult for an individual to confront the mining houses over the dust hazard…

While the slippery relationships between the genocidal post-Apartheid groups AIDS Truth, Treatment Action Campaign and the pharmaceutical industry and investors were exposed last month, Murtagh’s latest email and Geffen’s report produce one more financial/pharmaceutical connection.

The report footer indicates that it was published by the newly created Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiancy Syndrome (JAIDS.org), which is managed by co-Editors in Chief William Blattner (who just happens to be the co-founder of Robert Gallo’s Institute of Human Virology) and acclaimed AIDS researcher David Ho.

The website’s domain name registrant is the international investment powerhouse Wolters Kluwers, which generated ~$5 billion in 2008.

According to WK’s 2008 Annual Report:

Wolters Kluwer had 2008 annual revenues of €3.4 billion, employs approximately 20,000 people worldwide, and maintains operations in over 35 countries across Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and Latin America…

The division is organized into four market-centered business units – Pharma Solutions, Medical Research, Professional & Education, and Clinical Solutions – to serve the information needs of its customers.

Their product Pharma Solutions:

… provides a wide range of data and analytic capabilities, marketing and publication services, business intelligence products, and diversified consulting services to support life science professionals and the pharmaceutical industry, from drug discovery through distribution, as well as government agencies and other healthcare sectors…

… The unit was awarded multi-year pharmaceutical data contracts, including a long-term agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)… and a multi-year partnership with Bristol-Myers Squibb to provide Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) – compliant prescription sales data to measure business efficiency, control costs, and determine sales force effectiveness.

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) is the manufacturer of  Sustiva (Efavirenz), which is so highly addictive that African children are now smoking it like crack.  Sustiva’s addiction-withdrawal syndrome also appears to produce symptoms that AIDS clinicians identify as the onset of AIDS.

Because BMS faces significant liability regarding the Sustiva snafu, they have good reason to partner with a damage-control publishing company like WK and children of Apartheid like Nathan Geffen who, with the assistance of very creative legal counsel (probably from WK), threatens real scientists like Peter Duesberg with false charges of genocide.

As an investigator, Geffen’s commentary appears to be one more propaganda piece that fits well with the genocidal post-Apartheid organizations that exploit Africa’s cheap black labor force for mining operations, leaving them with mining diseases, false HIV diagnoses and highly addictive and deadly AIDS drugs.

It is also possible that Geffen’s propaganda is the beginning of fabricated documentary evidence that Murtagh and his co-defendants may try to use to defend themselves from Ms. Farber’s lawsuit – even as they try to distance themselves from him.

Either way, Bristol-Myers Squibb has much to explain.

SSI recently received this email from someone who identified himself as a physician and wants to refer SPR victims to Semmelweis:

Please post this to everyone involved in this running feud. I used SSI when I was having my career ruined. Now I don’t know where to send fellow health care providers to when they are getting their lives ruined in a sham peer review. All the clinics and hospitals will use your fued (SIC) against you in court and discerdit (SIC) SSI. Shame on all of you for what you are doing. Both sides of this SSI fued (SIC).

Dear Doctor:

SSI believes that your question is important. As requested, we have posted your email and this response on our website.

If you are mugged and you defend yourself, the casual observer might conclude that you and your mugger are equally and shamefully immoral. Reasonable people know, however, that your morality is not based upon the pedestrian’s casual observations. By raising the specter of shame, you are either profoundly misinformed or are practicing the intellectually lazy doctrine of Relativism. If either is the case, I encourage you to join Dr. Murtagh’s cohorts.

If you read my preliminary investigation and my ongoing investigation you’ll see that “the dispute” began in May 2008 when ex-SSI members James Murtagh and Kevin Kuritzky issued outrageous allegations against UC Professor Peter Duesberg and investigative journalist Celia Farber, with the intent to compel the SSI Board to summarily rescind their 2008 awards without review.

Their complaint called for a competent independent investigation because, if false, their libelous allegations could have professionally harmed both (per se libel) and would have unnecessarily subjected Semmelweis and its Board to unnecessary liability.

As a retired member of the LAPD and licensed investigator who had not heard of the issues, disputants or SSI before 2008, no one was better suited to examine the charges. As soon as I began my investigation however, Murtagh’s camp tried to pressure me into stopping it – going as far as criminal attacks and witness intimidation.

My continuing investigation eventually developed sufficient evidence for this New York Supreme Court lawsuit against and Murtagh and Kuritzky, who are still hiding from process servers. Their co-defendant receives, directly and indirectly, millions of dollars in funding from pharmaceutical and mining companies (and their investors) that avoid billions of dollars in liability by blaming their impoverished black African miners’ silicosis, asbestosis and tuberculosis on “irresponsible sex” (e.g. AIDS). Murtagh, his co-defendants, hedge fund operators, pharmaceutical companies, international mining companies and the UN promote the scam as a “human rights” issue in order to sack Africa’s rich mineral wealth while attacking individuals like Farber and Duesberg who question the arrangement.  Without AIDS, thousands of international mining operations in Africa would close – as they almost did in 1995.

So outrageous were Murtagh’s charges that even his collaborators recently distanced themselves – calling him morally repugnant.

If Murtagh’s allegations against Farber and Duesberg were true, he would enthusiastically respond to the civil charges against him - just as SSI did after Ralph Bard filed his frivolous lawsuit against SSI last December. Because of our fact-based response, Bard’s own neighborhood court will soon dismiss his complaints.

So as you can see, the two sides consist of 1) the current board and membership, and 2) “Murtagh’s camp” which libelously tried to rescind the 2008 awards to Duesberg and Farber without evidence – in what anathematically resembles “sham peer review.”

If you read my bio and investigation you’ll see that I have better things to do than keep the peace between SSI and a tiny group of socially dysfunctional ex-doctors.  But as a victim of retaliation myself, I never targeted others for personal gain. Murtagh’s camp demonstrates that not all peer review are shams: Their behavior only serves to corroborate whatever allegations were once made against them.

My year-long examination concludes that SSI, its membership, mission and goals are too important to turn over to alleged men who attacked SSI on behalf of individuals like Murtagh and Kuritzky.

What also appears to animate Murtagh’s camp is SSI’s refusal to advertise legal services by ex-doctors. The SSI Board stopped this practice last year when they sensed that SSI’s former ex-doctor-lawyer board members were exploited SSI’s website, name and members for personal gain.

Since those lawyers were removed from Board influence last year, SSI has assisted more than a dozen physicians and nurses with free legal consultation and affirmative defense that has saved their careers at a minimum cost.

Because of the complications of HCQIA and peer review, SSI no longer promotes the use of career doctors who become lawyers for the same reason that we would not encourage surgery by a career lawyer who becomes a surgeon. When it comes to peer review cases, experience matters.

If you’re still confused about what you’ve called our shameful dispute, SSI probably isn’t for you. Our mission and goals are too important to waste time with Murtagh cohorts or those who are easily confused by them: Nor do we waste much time thinking about them. Like other benign pathologies, they will eventually slough off or find softer targets.

As a former US Marine and LA cop, I am proud that the SSI Board stood strong in the face of Murtagh and his enablers. Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis knew that courage often exacts a terrible price.  Of courage, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote:

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression that the loss of courage extends to the entire society.

SSI membership is not for the morally confused or ambivalent. While it takes courage and endurance to fight corrupt multi-billion dollar healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, it would take comparatively little effort to accept the material benefits that would come by surrendering to them in the name of patient safety and Semmelweis.

As long as there are some healthcare professionals who take their Hippocratic Oath seriously, I am proud to remain in that fight.

Clark Baker
Secretary/Treasurer
Semmelweis Society International

Senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute David Gratzer MD asks: 

In Canada, private-sector health care is growing. Dr. Day estimates that 50,000 people are seen at private clinics every year in British Columbia. According to the New York Times, a private clinic opens at a rate of about one a week across the country. Public-private partnerships, once a taboo topic, are embraced by provincial governments.

In the United Kingdom, where socialized medicine was established after World War II through the National Health Service, the present Labour government has introduced a choice in surgeries by allowing patients to choose among facilities, often including private ones. Even in Sweden, the government has turned over services to the private sector.

Americans need to ask a basic question: Why are they rushing into a system of government-dominated health care when the very countries that have experienced it for so long are backing away?  http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php?t=6173

Dr. Kate Scannell compares disgraced financier Bernie Madoff to pharmaceutical shill, Scott S. Reuben, MD: 

In an analogous manner, the story of Dr. Scott S. Reuben tells the tale of one man who, in pursuit of personal gain, harmed huge segments of our nation’s health care system. That he could get away with falsifying pharmaceutical research and medical publications on such a massive scale over many years also tells a larger story about our nation’s medical research industrial complex. 

That complex — the enormous, poorly regulated, financially incestuous and opaque system that generates and disseminates the medical information we use to determine health care for patients — is similarly structured to allow individuals and privileged industries to profit through backroom deals. 

A few days ago, it was widely reported that Reuben, an anesthesiologist in Massachusetts and a faculty member of Tufts’ medical school, had falsified at least 21 of his 72 published research studies. He simply made them up. 

Many of those fictional studies promoted the use of painkillers — like Pfizer’s Celebrex or Merck’s Vioxx — during orthopedic surgeries, highlighting yet another layer of his disgrace. Those drugs, known collectively as “COX-2″ drugs, have been suspected of causing severe side effects like heart attacks and strokes, and Vioxx was finally withdrawn from the market in 2004. 

As was reported in Scientific American, Reuben’s work tried to encourage surgeons to abandon use of older and less expensive anti-inflammatory painkillers in favor of newer and more expensive ones called “COX-2″ drugs. 

In addition to faking research, downplaying COX-2 side effects, and jacking up the cost of medical care, Reuben also profited from financial arrangements with Merck and Pfizer. Those relationships are hard to confirm in his publications, but you find evidence of them in odd places. For example, in a conference brochure (Reuben lectured widely to disseminate his “research”) you discover that he not only received “grants” from Merck and Pfizer, but that he was also on their for-hire speaker’s bureau.  

The rest of Dr. Scannell’s commentary is found at Inside Bay Area.