The Senate is poised to vote on S. 2191, the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade scheme for reducing carbon emissions, which would cost the U.S. economy an estimated $1 trillion to $2.8 trillion by 2050. When gasoline and electricity price increases are taken together, 90% of Americans reject even the low-range estimates of the measure’s costs. Meanwhile, truckdrivers and fishermen are snarling traffic and blockading ports in Europe, protesting “green” taxes.

The Lieberman-Warner bill “would impose the most extensive reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s,” states the lead Wall Street Journal editorial for May 27. It involves the government’s creation of a new commodity—the right to emit carbon dioxide—and puts a price on it. This constitutes an indirect tax that “would profoundly touch every corner of American life.”

Not only is it a giant revenue grab, but it gives politicians the right to influence the price of every good and service in the economy. In 157 pages of amendments submitted by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is $800 billion in consumer tax relief through 2050 to return a small fraction of the regressive tax revenues to the politically chosen. It’s a “massive income redistribution scheme” mediated by Boxer and “her fellow Platonic rulers.”

The National Center for Public Policy Research commissioned a survey of 802 people on how much they’d be willing to pay in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Respondents were given a choice between spending “nothing more,” a percentage increase correlating to estimates from three different econometric analyses of Lieberman-Warner, and a percentage increase just below the most optimistic of these projections.

About 65% of Americans reject spending even a penny per gallon more for gasoline, and 71% reject spending more for electricity. Only 6% would be willing to accept the gasoline and electricity price increase ranges forecast by any of the three studies.

The actual number rejecting the costs would be even higher, suggested David Ridenour, if they considered the inevitable price increases in other consumer goods, and the fact that many Americans would lose their jobs.

“As amazing as it is that 90% of the public agrees on anything,” said Ridenor, “is the fact that all three of the major presidential candidates—Senators Clinton, McCain and Obama—favor a proposal the public appears to be almost unanimously against.”

The goal of Lieberman-Warner is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 2005 levels by 2012, and by a further 30% by 2030. It assumes that every coal-fired generating station in the U.S.—the source of 50% of our electricity—would be shut down (Wall St J, op. cit.).

Europeans will fail to meet far more modest Kyoto goals. Because of the expense of the effort, “insurrection is in the air,” writes Nick Clegg (Daily Telegraph 5/28/08). The Labour Party got its biggest hammering in 40 years in recent UK elections (Civil Defense Perspectives, May 2008). A British polling firm showed that more than 70% of voters are not willing to pay any higher taxes on the pretext of combating climate change. Much of France ground to a halt last week in strikes over fuel taxes, resulting in clashes with riot police. Fishing fleets blockaded French ports and blocked cross-Channel ferries. Italian, Greek, and Portuguese fishermen have threatened to join the protests (Globe and Mail 5/28/08, AFP 5/27/08, posted by Benny Peiser to the Cambridge Conference Net 5/28/08).

All this to reduce the human share (4%) of global carbon dioxide emissions. The upshot of Lieberman-Warner is that “trillions in assets and millions of jobs would be at the mercy of Congress and the bureaucracy, all for greenhouse gas reductions that would have a meaningless impact on global carbon emissions if China and India don’t participate. And only somewhat less meaningless if they do” (Wall St J, op.cit.).

The Lieberman-Warner bill is, of course, based on the dubious assumption that returning to the carbon dioxide emissions of a pre-industrial economy would somehow improve the climate.

Additional information:

• “32,000 Scientists Dissent from Global Warming ‘Consensus’,” AAPS News of the Day 5/20/08.
• “Pressure to Restrict Energy Use Intensifies; Opposition Also Builds,” AAPS News of the Day 11/20/07.
• Lieberman-Warner Bill, Boxer Amendment, Regulations and Mandates.

Widely trumpeted in the press, a nonscientific survey shows that 59% of American physicians purportedly favor legislation to establish national health insurance (NHI), while only 32% are opposed.

“The debate over physician support of national health insurance is over,” comments Don McCanne, M.D., on the website of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP).

The survey was published as a letter to the editor in the April 1 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine (2008;148:566-567). Authors are Aaron Carroll, a board member of PNHP, and Ronald T. Ackermann, M.D., M.P.H., associate director of the Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research at Indiana University. [In the 2008 Annals and in some reports, the name is spelled “Ackerman.”]

A survey sent to 5,000 randomly selected names from the AMA Physician Masterfile asked two questions: 1) “In principle, do you support or oppose government legislation to establish national health insurance?” 2) “Do you support achieving universal coverage through more incremental reform?” Responses were received from 2,193 physicians, or 51% of the 4,294 eligible participants. (Responses from physicians no longer in active practice were discarded.)

In answer to question #1, 38% “strongly” and 31% “generally” supported NHI; 9% were neutral; 17% “strongly” and 15% “generally” opposed it. In response to question #2, 14% “strongly” and 41% “generally” supported “incremental reform”; 21% were neutral; and 14% “strongly” and 10% “generally” opposed it.

Support for government health insurance has increased by 10% since the last survey in 2002, claimed a PNHP press release. However, sampling methodology was quite different in the earlier, more rigorous survey, and question #2 was dramatically changed. In 2002, the question read: “Do you support or oppose a national insurance plan where all health care is paid for by the federal government” [emphasis in original]. Only 26% supported this option (only 9% “strongly”), while 60% opposed it (27% strongly). (Ann Intern Med 2003;139:795-801)

Doctors least likely to support government payment for care were male, “non-minority” specialists in private practice in rural areas, whose practice was less than 20% Medicaid. Authors Ackermann and Carroll were “surprised to find that fewer than 50% of family practitioners supported government legislation to establish national health insurance,” and suggested this might be explained by the fact that FPs were more likely than internists or pediatricians to have a rural practice.

The bias of the authors seemed apparent in the 2003 abstract. “Background:… National health insurance would remedy this situation [of 40 million uninsured], and many believe the success of reform efforts in this direction may depend on physician support…. Conclusions: A plurality of U.S. physicians supports government legislation to establish national health insurance. This support may be relevant to the success of future efforts to reform national health care.”

AMA Board of Trustees chairman Edward L. Langston, M.D., said it was difficult to draw conclusions from the 2007 survey because of “possible confusion over its terminology” (AM News 4/21/08).

The survey was “pure propaganda,” stated Greg Scandlen of Consumers for Health Care Choices, noting that the sample was self-selected, and the contents of the cover letter unknown. “It might have been calculated to infuriate physicians who believe in freedom, resulting in these doctors discarding the survey.” He compared it with a Commonwealth Fund survey a few years ago, which purported to show that employers supported an employer mandate. Scandlen found that the survey permitted only two choices: an employer mandate or single payer (Consumer Power Report #122, 4/3/08).

Desperation resulting from being mugged by managed care is one suggested explanation for the results.

Additional information:

• “White Paper on Medical Financing” by Andrew Schlafly and Jane M. Orient, J Am Phys Surg, Fall 2006.
• “Why the United States Should Reject Socialized Medicine (a.k.a. ‘Single Payer’)) and Restore Private Medicine,” AAPS brochure; 2003.

The U.S. vaccine court recently conceded that the brain damage suffered by Hannah Poling, who has a coexisting mitochondrial disorder, stemmed from her exposure to five vaccines. “I would not be too quick to dismiss Hannah as an anomaly,” writes Bernadine Healy, M.D., former director of the National Institutes of Health and a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

“Families are not alone in searching for a trigger that might explain why autism and autism spectrum disorders have skyrocketed,” she writes; “now they reportedly afflict about 1 in 150 kids” (US News & World Report 4/10/08).

In a May 12 interview with CBS News, Healy said that public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis that vaccines may be linked to the autism epidemic.

She told CBS that public health officials have intentionally avoided researching whether certain subsets of children are especially susceptible to vaccine side effects, to avoid scaring the public.

“I don’t think you should ever turn your back on any scientific hypothesis because you’re afraid of what it might show.”

CBS said that government officials would not respond to Healy directly, but reiterated that vaccines are safe.

Paul Offit, M.D., co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine RotaTeq, writes that the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) “seems to have turned its back on science.” Instead of a preponderance of evidence, it now simply requires that an expert propose a plausible mechanism for vaccine injury. In the wake of the Hannah Poling case, he writes, “the VICP should more rigorously define the criteria by which it determines that a vaccine has caused harm. Otherwise, the message that the program inadvertently sends to the public will further erode confidence in vaccines….” (N Engl J Med 2008;358:2089-2091).

On Mar 6, CDC Director Julie Geberding claimed that Hannah’s case was a virtually one-of-a-kind case with little if any relevance to the other 4,900 autism cases currently pending before vaccine court. Then, on Mar 11, there was the “conference call heard ’round the world,” set up by the CDC’s Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network. Some researchers said that mitochondrial dysfunction may be much more common that the previously stated 1-in-4,000 estimate (David Kirby, Huffington Post 5/15/08). Some speculate the genetic mutation could affect as many as 1 in 50 Americans.

Another case nearly identical to Hannah’s, involving a boy from New York, has recently been withdrawn as a test case for thimerosal. Only one theory of causation can be heard at a time, and it will be hard to deny the boy compensation on the basis that has just been found appropriate in Hannah’s case.

Hundreds of cases could follow this precedent. Some estimates of mitochondrial dysfunction in autistic children range as high as 20% to 30%, and in regressive autism, up to half the children may show signs of it, writes David Kirby (Spectrum Magazine 4/24/08). According to an abstract presented at the Apr 13 meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, 65% of 37 children with autistic spectrum disorders had oxidative phosphorylation (mitochondrial) defects, writes British attorney Clifford Miller.

During April, designated Autism Awareness Month, one expert denied not only a vaccine-autism link but the existence of an autism epidemic. Dr. Bennett L. Leventhal of the University of Illinois at Chicago said that the incidence of autism—the number of new cases over a certain time period—has remained constant since about 1943. Only prevalence, or number of counted cases, has changed, he claims (Courier News 4/11/08).

Clifford Miller challenges Leventhal to produce evidence backing up his assertion—and to locate all the aging autistic adults that the claim implies must exist.

The British Department of Health has hired a psychiatrist to track down the alleged 500,000 adult autistics in the UK and their alleged 500,000 full-time caregivers. The claims are obviously nonsense, Miller writes. According to the UK’s Office of National Statistics, the total number of adults caring for another adult who required full-time care for any reason was 326,000 in 2001.

Healy is the best-known “mainstream” American physician to speak out in opposition to the academicians and officials who either deny the existence of a pandemic or any chance of a link to vaccines. She asks why, over the past decade, the government hasn’t compared the autism/ADD rate of unvaccinated children with that of vaccinated children. And why do some in government treat vaccines as an all-or-nothing proposition? Either everybody gets vaccinated at the same time with the same vaccines, or nobody will get vaccinated and long-gone deadly diseases will re-emerge. “Personalized medicine” is done in virtually all areas of medicine today—except with vaccines, notes Sharyl Attkisson, an investigative correspondent for CBS News.

There are groups of unvaccinated children. In addition to the Amish, there are thousands of children cared for by Homefirst Health Services in metropolitan Chicago. As far as physicians are aware, there are no cases of autism in an unvaccinated child—and only one case of severe asthma, writes Dan Olmsted (UPI 12/7/07).

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain all say they support research into the link between vaccines and autism (David Kirby, Huffington Post 4/22/08).

 Additional information:

• “Vaccine Compensation Fund to Pay Award to Autistic Girl; Broad Implications Feared,” AAPS News of the Day 3/11/08.
• “Autism in the United States: a Perspective,” by F. Edward Yazbak, J Am Phys Surg, Winter 2003.

At a press conference on May 19, Arthur Robinson, Ph.D., announced the release of the names of 32,000 scientists who have signed a strongly worded petition dissenting from the alarmist assertions of Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Fears of catastrophic human-caused global warming, requiring draconian energy rationing, are the basis for policies supported by all three leading Presidential candidates: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain.

Al Gore claims that “the debate is over,” and that there are only a “few” remaining “skeptics.”

“In Ph.D. scientist signers alone, the project already includes 15-times more scientists than are seriously involved in the United Nations IPCC project. The very large number of petition signers demonstrates that, if there is a consensus among American scientists, it is in opposition to the human-caused global warming hypothesis rather than in favor of it,” states Robinson. Signers include more than 9,000 Ph.Ds.

Most signatures were obtained by mailing to lists of university professors and a compendium that constitutes a “Who’s Who” of American scientists.

“How many scientists does it take to establish that a consensus does not exist on global warming?” asks Lawrence Solomon (Financial Post 5/17/08). He reviews the history of previous petitions, including the Heidelberg Appeal, which ultimately obtained 4,000 signatures, including 72 Nobel Prize winners. In numbers, the Oregon Petition Project vastly exceeds all others, having gathered some 17,800 signatures in 2001—“all the more astounding because of the unequivocal stand these scientists took.”

“Not only did they dispute that there was convincing evidence of harm from carbon dioxide emissions, they asserted that Kyoto itself would harm the global environment because ‘increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth.’”

Robinson was urged to renew the effort to collect signatures by scientists who were “outraged at the way Al Gore and company were abusing the science to their own ends” (ibid.).

“Proposed political actions to severely reduce hydrocarbon use now threaten the prosperity of Americans and the very existence of hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries,” Robinson writes in the Frequently Asked Questions on a website that posts the Petition, a description of the Project, the list of signatories, and their qualifications.

Additional information:

• “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon, J Am Phys Surg, Fall 2007.
• “Human Rights, Science, and the Energy Emergency,” by Arthur Robinson, Human Events 5/19/08.
• “China Claims One-Child Policy Helps to Protect Climate,” AAPS News of the Day 12/15/07.

Passing the House of Representatives on a voice vote, S. 1858 has been sent to President Bush for signature. The Newborn Genetic Screening bill was passed by the Senate last December. The bill violates the U.S. Constitution and the Nuremberg Code, writes Twila Brase, president of the Citizen’s Council on Health Care (CCHC). “The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research,” she states. “It does not require consent and there are no requirements to inform parents about the warehousing of their child’s DNA for the purpose of genetic research. Already, in Minnesota, the state health department reports that 42,210 children of the 780,000 whose DNA is housed in the Minnesota ‘DNA warehouse’ have been subjected to genetic research without their parents’ knowledge or consent.”

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuoma has issued subpoenas to Aetna, Cigna, UnitedHealth, WellPoint, and other insurers in a broadening investigation of possible fraud in setting insurance reimbursements that cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars. Insurers charge a higher premium to consumers, promising to cover 80% of reasonable and customary rate for out-of-network services. In setting the rates, however, they allegedly used rigged data from Ingenix, Inc. Called an “independent” research firm, Ingenix is actually a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group (Michael Gormley, AP 3/7/08).

In what was called a “thunderclap in the vaccine industry,” French authorities have opened a formal investigation concerning a hepatitis B vaccination campaign by GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur in the 1990s. It is alleged that the companies failed to fully disclose neurologic side effects. Another investigation opened by Judge Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy concerns the death (“manslaughter”) of a 28-year-old woman from multiple sclerosis, allegedly connected to the vaccine (Le Figaro 1/31/08).

After her daughter died at age 31 of colon carcinoma, Dr. Jennifer Schneider of Tucson wondered whether three cycles of egg donation might have been related. She is asking Congress to create a registry of egg donors. Research on the long-term effects of egg donation are not now possible because many donations are anonymous, and there is little, if any, follow-up care.Most prospective donors “don’t know the difference between being told ‘We don’t know of any significant long-term risks’ and ‘There are no significant long-term risks,’” Dr. Schneider said.

Although an attorney representing the federal government said that it “has not conceded that vaccines cause autism,” Associated Press headlines read that “officials concede vaccines’ link to illness like autism” (AP 3/6/08). Petitioner Hannah Joling, now 9 years old, received 5 vaccines at once in 2000. According to a document that AP obtained from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, causing metabolic dysfunction manifesting as worsened brain function with features of autistic spectrum disorder.

As former Comptroller General David Walker told 60 Minutes, the unfunded liabilities of entitlement programs, especially Medicare, are so huge that even shutting down the Pentagon would not help significantly. He states that leaving this huge debt to the next generation is morally wrong. He does not, however, address the question of who will continue to lend us the money that subsequent generations will have to repay. Apparently, it has been assumed that the funds would be forthcoming.