Democracy Now! presents another excellent program. Links are provided. Shopping at the Gap or Victoria's Secret? You're going to want to check out the headlines. All segments are LWR (listen, watch or read).
- U.S. Suffers Deadliest Attack Of Iraq War
- First Major U.S. Contractor Pulls Out of Iraq
- Save the Children Pulls Out of Sudan
- 866,000 African-Americans Die Prematurely Due to Health Care
- Conyers Calls for Release of Exit Poll Data
- Maryland Arson Could be Racially Motivated
- Retailers Spy on Customers' Shopping Habits
- Muckraking Journalist Jack Newfield, 66, Dies
(http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/22/151206)
Highlighting the last item in headlines:
Muckraking Journalist Jack Newfield, 66, DiesAnd longtime New York journalist Jack Newfield has died at the age of 66. He spent 24 years writing for the Village Voice and wrote 10 books including a critical biography of former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. An avid boxing fan, Newfield once described his muckracking style of journalism as the "Joe Frazier method." He wrote "Combine activism with writing. Create a constituency for reform. And don't stop until you have achieved some progress or positive results."
Attack on U.S. Base in Mosul: Deadliest Incident for U.S. in Iraq Since Start of Occupation
Excerpt:
PAUL RIECKHOFF: Absolutely. At Operation Truth recently we called for Congressional investigations to get to the bottom of the Rumsfeld armor scandal. We saw a few weeks ago that Mr. Rumsfeld really doesn't understand the reality of the battlefield on the ground. And we later found out that the Armor Holdings Company could have increased production of armor by over 22% a month and a half before Rumsfeld was exposed. So we wanted Congress to get to the bottom of this, and Congress announced last week that they will be having investigations to find out who is accountable. Our members will hopefully be a part of those investigations.
Can the FDA Protect the Public? Agency Accused Of Approving Unsafe Drugs Under Pressure From Pharmaceutical Industry
Excerpt:
SIDNEY WOLFE: Well, the pain reliever story actually goes back about four years, when a study showed that Vioxx, now off the market a couple of months or so, was five times more dangerous than Naproxen, this drug that might cause problems but probably doesn't anywhere as near as Vioxx. So four years ago, a study showed that the rate of heart attacks in people taking Vioxx was five times higher than people taking Naproxen. We asked the FDA back then to put a black box warning, warning people about this. If they had, the number of people using Vioxx would have gone way down. At the same time, another study caused concern about FDA documents about Celebrex. It didn't cause a five times increased risk, but there were more blood clots in people using Celebrex. It goes back then and then fast forward to more recently, another study on Vioxx comparing it to a sugar pill, a placebo, shows a doubling of heart attacks and strokes, and another study on Celebrex comparing it to a placebo shows a two to three-fold increase in heart attacks.
Guinea Pig Kids: How New York City is Using Children to Test Experimental AIDS Drugs
Excerpt:
JAMIE DORAN: Basically, it began when someone told me about -- I was given a very rough version of the story, and I took it for granted that we were talking about some developing country or whatever -- I couldn't believe when it was New York City, and what happens was that I discovered that the ACS were – incidentally, I’m terribly sorry they refused to appear. They also refused to appear in my film which only tells you how much they have to hide. But I discovered the ACS were basically providing children on a conveyor belt process, into children they’ve taken into care. Many of the children incidentally had been taken by force from their parents or guardians and put into either foster homes or children’s homes in the city. One particular home we concentrate on is the Incarnation Children's Center in Harlem. And we discovered they were carrying out tests which even under federal rules are certainly illegal.
