Reuters:
The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to support sweeping legislation that will reshape the way the Food and Drug Administration approves new medicines.While streamlining drug approvals is a worthy goal, as part of the bill shows, even with a stringent approval process, people still die:
It will also provide funding for cancer and Alzheimer's research, help fight the opioid epidemic, expand access to mental health treatment and advance research into precision medicine.
Two years in the making, the 21st Century Cures Act was passed last week by the House of Representatives and will now go to President Barack Obama to sign into law. Supporters say it will speed access to new drugs and devices, in part by allowing clinical trials to be designed with fewer patients and cheaper, easier-to-achieve goals.
It also calls for $1 billion over two years to battle the opioid epidemic. On Tuesday the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a report showing that in 2014 about 129 people died every day as a result of drug poisoning. Of those, 61 percent are opioid or heroin related.Consider that number: 129 people dying every day. Terrorists would kill for those kind of results (pun intended).
"Opioids such as heroin and fentanyl - and diverted prescription pain pills - are killing people in this country at a horrifying rate," Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg said. "We face a public health crisis of historic proportions."
Seriously, why do we need the government involved to approve drugs when they end up with results like this? Illegal street drugs can accomplish this, without the breech of trust between the government and Americans.
Yet more proof that government doesn't solve problems. It only creates new problems. This new health bill is the definition of "doubling down on stupid".
In more positive government news...
Vox:
Donald Trump plans to nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency — a pro-industry, anti-regulation pick that suggests big, big changes could be in store for environmental policy.Translating that last part: "all with an eye towards fixing a problem that doesn't exist". Climate change has happened since the dawn of this planet, and even extreme change in some cases. But appealing to human arrogance in order to get them to submit to your will is all the rage in progressive circles, and the EPA is one of the best ways government can bring you to your knees.
The EPA is in charge of creating and enforcing federal regulations around air and water pollution, largely guided by laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, which were first passed by Congress in the 1970s. Under President Barack Obama, the EPA has been particularly active in formulating new rules on coal-fired power plants, cars, trucks, and oil and gas operations — all with an eye toward reducing conventional air pollutants and curbing the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.
So if this progressive article is any indication of how anti-progressive Scott Pruitt will be, then bring him on!
Pruitt has been an ardent opponent of these efforts for years. He even calls himself the “leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.”
Ever since becoming Oklahoma’s top prosecutor in 2011, Pruitt has joined or led state lawsuits to block virtually every major federal regulation around climate and air pollution that Obama’s EPA has put forward. He sued to stop a major rule to limit mercury pollution from coal plants. He sued to stop a rule to reduce smog pollution that crossed state lines. (Both rules largely survived these challenges.)
At the moment, Pruitt is part of a lawsuit to block the EPA’s efforts to address global warming via the Clean Power Plan — which aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Pruitt has also questioned the science of climate change. In a piece for National Review last May, he wrote: “Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.” (That is not true.)This is why you always have to look at links posted in articles. Sorry Vox, but linking to the IPCC report on climate change, which is more of a political document than scientific, does nothing to disprove Pruitt's point. The IPCC does not represent ALL scientists. He wins that argument.
In other political news...
Salon:
In the fallout of the election, leading Democrats were criticized for not providing a clear future. On Wednesday, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer challenged that, revealing the party is going to fight like hell to keep the social safety net.
In an interview with The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, Schumer said that if Republicans repeal Obamacare without a replacement, “They will own it.” The senator explained: “Democrats will not then step up to the plate and come up with a half-baked solution that we will partially own. It’s all theirs.”Actually, the Republicans offered an Obamacare replacement plan back in June. Whether they go with that one or come up with a new one remains to be seen. So Schumer is being disingenuous.
Speaking of progressive lies...
Reuters:
Media that focus on scandals and spread fake news to smear politicians risk becoming like people who have a morbid fascination with excrement, Pope Francis said in an interview published on Wednesday.Along this line:
Francis told the Belgian Catholic weekly "Tertio" that spreading disinformation was "probably the greatest damage that the media can do" and using communications for this rather than to educate the public amounted to a sin.
Zero Hedge:
In the latest example why the "mainstream media" is facing a historic crisis of confidence among its readership, facing unprecedented blowback following Craig Timberg November 24 Washington Post story "Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say", on Wednesday a lengthy editor's note appeared on top of the original article in which the editor not only distances the WaPo from the "experts" quoted in the original article whose "work" served as the basis for the entire article (and which became the most read WaPo story the day it was published) but also admits the Post could not "vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's finding regarding any individual media outlet", in effect admitting the entire story may have been, drumroll "fake news" and conceding the Bezos-owned publication may have engaged in defamation by smearing numerous websites - Zero Hedge included - with patently false and unsubstantiated allegations.If the MSM wants to understand how "fake news" happened during the election, they could start by looking in the mirror.
It was the closest the Washington Post would come to formally retracting the story, which has now been thoroughly discredited not only by outside commentators, but by its own editor.
The apended note in question:
- Editor’s Note: The Washington Post on Nov. 24 published a story on the work of four sets of researchers who have examined what they say are Russian propaganda efforts to undermine American democracy and interests. One of them was PropOrNot, a group that insists on public anonymity, which issued a report identifying more than 200 websites that, in its view, wittingly or unwittingly published or echoed Russian propaganda. A number of those sites have objected to being included on PropOrNot’s list, and some of the sites, as well as others not on the list, have publicly challenged the group’s methodology and conclusions. The Post, which did not name any of the sites, does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot’s findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor did the article purport to do so. Since publication of The Post’s story, PropOrNot has removed some sites from its list.
But if the Pope is right, I suppose the Washington Post will burn in Hell for this?
Finally, if you feel like your days are getting longer, you may be right...
Los Angeles Times:
The latest findings in Earth science are brought to you by ancient astronomers who observed the heavens as much as 2,700 years ago.Cows of the world celebrated this news, knowing they have just a little more time to get home today.
Thanks to hundreds of records of lunar and solar eclipses carved in clay tablets and written into dynastic histories, modern scientists have determined that the amount of time it takes for Earth to complete a single rotation on its axis has slowed by 1.8 milliseconds per day over the course of a century, according to a report published Wednesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society A.
It may not sound significant, but over the course of 2½ millenniums, that time discrepancy adds up to about 7 hours.
(hat tip to Gary Larson)
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