The Canary Party Challenges 2012 Presidential Candidates on Three Key Healthcare Questions

The Canary Party Challenges 2012 Presidential Candidates on Three Key Healthcare Questions

Children’s Health Crisis Ignored on the Campaign Trail

“The U.S. Presidential election is down to the wire, with both candidates in a dead heat”, states Mark Blaxill, Chairman of the Canary Party. “What can set one man apart to win? Bold, innovative ideas on healthcare policy-making.”

“In an effort to draw attention to problems affecting every American”, continues Blaxill, “The Canary Party has three hard-hitting questions for the 2012 Presidential Candidates. We are asking them to break the deadlock of denial about environmental toxins, iatrogenic causality, and the unprecedented intrusion of marketing into consumer healthcare decision-making.”



“Our first question is, ‘Why are so many American children sick?’” Canary Party Founder, Jennifer VanDerHorst-Larson says. “According to the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health, 43% of children in our country have a chronic illness, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 14% of children ages 3-17 have a developmental disability. American infant mortality has dropped to 41st worldwide, behind Cuba and Estonia. Autism rates have exploded, and SAT scores are declining again for the first time in decades. What frustrates me,” she continues, “is that current discussions on health care have focused on the questions of costs and insurance but have not addressed the more important questions like ‘Why are so many American children sick?’ and ‘What needs to be done to stop the new childhood epidemics?’ We need a leader who will pledge to proactively address this crisis in children’s health by focusing national health policy on the environmental causes that have triggered these epidemics.”

“Our second concern is improving vaccine safety,” states Katie Weisman, Executive Director of the Canary Party. “As the number of mandated childhood vaccines has doubled over the last two decades, we have concerns over conflicts of interest within Health and Human Services. HHS agencies now develop, approve, recommend and judge injury claims for vaccines in addition to profiting from patents on them. This does not happen in any other industry.  At the same time, over 89% of parents in a 2010 survey reported that vaccine safety was their number one medical research priority.” Weisman continues, “Reform is needed to restore confidence to the national vaccine program. In the U.S., we have a widely respected model in the National Transportation Safety Board, which is an independent agency that lies outside the Department of Transportation. The Canary Party would like to see unbiased assessment of vaccine safety risks and benefits through the creation of a National Vaccine Safety Board and we are asking the candidates to support that.”

“Our third candidate pledge is focused on direct-to-consumer advertising,” says Blaxill. “Of all the advanced economies in the world, only the United States and New Zealand permit unconstrained direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical products [John Abramson, Overdosed America 2008 p.80]. Starting in the 1980s, a series of FDA rulings relaxed previous disclosure requirements for such advertising. As a result of the FDA's 1997 guidance on ‘adequate provision’ of risk information, DTC advertising, which was only $985 million in 1996, skyrocketed to $4.2 billion in 2005. This explosive change in pharmaceutical advertising has promoted the use of potentially dangerous drugs, allowed their manufacturers to wield vast influence over mainstream media outlets, and weakened the integrity and independence of American journalism on health issues. We are asking the candidates to restore integrity to broadcast media by issuing an executive order restoring full disclosure requirements for direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising.”

Because American children are now the sickest generation ever, the Canary Party calls on President Obama and Governor Romney to pledge support for research on environmental causes of illnesses, to create an independent agency to oversee vaccine safety and to better regulate direct-to-consumer advertising.

[The Canary Party is a movement created to stand up for the victims of medical injury, environmental toxins and industrial foods by restoring balance to our free and civil society and empowering consumers to makehealth and nutrition decisions that promote wellness.]

Comments

[Andrea]

Maybe no one checked out my link but it appears Mitt Romney may have been responsible for allowing this pharmacy to continue to operate in Massachusetts that produced the shots that caused the meningitis outbreak.

http://www.newser.com/story/156777/how-romney-may-be-linked-to-meningitis-outbreak.html

[BJ]

Don't you get it? These men aren't listening to us and they never will. I'm not wasting my time on Obama or Romney. I'm voting 3rd party this year, for a candidate who is on record saying that vaccines should not be mandatory: Gary Johnson.

[Bill]

How can you trust Obama when he lied in 2008 about helping the autism community. And, how do you know that Obamacare won't make mandatory vaccines a part of it -- for children as well as adults. If this country goes to government run healthcare, we have lost all our freedoms. It is not about health and maintaining wellness -- it is about government control, keeping us sick, keeping us stupid and letting us die when they are done squeezing us for $$. Obama also lied about genetically modified foods (GMOs) He said in 2008 he supported mandatory labeling of GMOs. He lied!!! Now, he is fighting to keep them from being labeled. He is also doing a revolving door with Monsanto and the CDC & FDA -- Obama appointed as deputy commissioner of the FDA, the new food-safety-issues czar, Michael Taylor, former vice-president for public policy for Monsanto. Taylor had been instrumental in getting approval for Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (Bovine Growth Hormones have been linked to Cancer in humans). http://www.naturalnews.com/033387_Obama_GMOs.html
Obama is dangerous for this country.

[Benedetta]

Gee.
If the media did not have such a "Sugar Daddy" pharma advertisments -- would the news then report more vaccine injuries?

Where else, and how else could pharma get their foot it the door?

[no vac]

Very good questions, but IMO, the most important issue is gaining the freedom from vaccine poisoning. Safe vaccines do not exist and never will. They are not designed to save lives, but to injure and kill. I also have more faith in Pres. Obama than in gov. Romney to protect American children.

http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/vaccine_awareness/through_the_needle.html

[Jen]

Barbara j, interestingly Canada has just put approx 100 NRC employees -scientists on notice. The "Conservative government plans to slash funding for basic research and focus instead on research that's industry driven." That doesn't sound like the way to go in my opinion; holding science slave to marketing interests, which was already bad enough.
I also notice some doctor associated with McGill university supporting healthcare workers to have mandatory flu shots. McGill seems to be a hotbed of vaccine schzit. I think maybe even Adam Bly, the guy who started Scienceblogs went there...

[Nancy]

Bravo! I would vote for any candidate that would give good answers to those questions! Unfortunately, our options at this point, are far more limited.

[barbara j]

IMO you lost one candidate with the words "We need a leader who will pledge to proactively address this crisis in children’s health by focusing national health policy on the environmental causes that have triggered these epidemics.”
I've been listening, and while we all listen with our own opinions as our guide, I've heard, to Sam Wessel , Romney saying "no more free stuff", we will turn this over to science."
I've heard,"the States and communities will be responsible" from Ryan I heard the states, communities, local charities, will be responsible"
I've heard that strict environmental controls will be LIFTED to promote corporate growth.
I've heard, Obama was the weakest president ever, yet, I saw children like ours insured for the first time in their lives. I'm not going to go further, I've made up my mind based on reviewing video after video, I see who really cares, and while weak , it's a start, and I see as well,who will sell our kids out for a dime. JMO private science, corporate science will worsen the future,we do not need a country where everything is privatized, greed at the top will overcome any possibility of aiding the weakest among us. The EPA and the FDA will be impotent , likely will be disbanded .. their work turned over to the states. States ,by law, have to balance their budgets, while perhaps a promise of again saving the rich from taxes,and the rest of us from a few, the states will apply heavy taxes as they must when the people of this country become their responsibility alone. What will be will be , Romney's claims are lies, simply lies, the in place actions he brags about in Massachusetts
were known to have been under others direction before his time...and bragging about balancing the budget is only a grabber for low information voters.All states are required to balance their budgets, hence the huge real estate and local tax increases we will face during his administration.

[Sarah]

excellent video. lets hope that they see it. Our leaders must also recognize the fact that 80% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients in drugs sold to the US, and that includes vaccine ingredients, are made in China and India. Security of the US drug supply chain is a huge concern and has been cited as a significant issue by Deborah Autor, FDA's Deputy Commissioner of Global Regulations and Policy as well as by US Representative John Dingell who sits on an FDA oversight committee. Attention needs to be given to weaknesses in the US drug supply chain particularly where most of our active pharmaceutical ingredients are manufactured overseas are rife with problems due to weakenesess in the supply chain, safety and quality control

Read: "Are We Sure Our Drugs Are Safe?" by John Dingell

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/01/opinion/dingell-drug-oversight/index.html

Securing the Pharamceutical Supply Chain" Testimony by Deborah Autor, FDA Deputy Commissioner of Global Regulations and Police"

http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Testimony/ucm271073.htm

An excerpt from Deborah Autor's testimony before a US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions:

When we refer to the drug supply chain, we are talking about the increasingly complex path that medical products travel, from raw source materials to finished products for consumers. At every stage in this process, opportunities arise for the product to be contaminated, diverted, counterfeited, or otherwise adulterated. The Internet presents an additional layer of complexity by introducing more players into the system and more opportunities for criminals to reach consumers. Our efforts to secure the supply chain both in the United States and abroad include minimizing risks that arise anywhere along the supply chain continuum, from sourcing a product’s raw material, ingredients, and components through the product’s manufacture, storage, transit, sale and distribution. A breach at any point in this continuum could lead to dangerous and even deadly outcomes for consumers. Supply chain safety threats also impact manufacturers’ bottom lines due to costs associated with both recalls and decreased public confidence.

As Members of this Committee well know, this threat is not purely hypothetical. Recent incidents of adulteration, counterfeiting, and cargo theft have posed serious threats to public health. The consequences, throughout the world, have been tragic. In recent years, glycerin in fever medicine, cough syrup, and teething products was adulterated with the highly toxic solvent, diethylene glycol (DEG), resulting in the deaths of adults and children in Panama, and children in Haiti and Nigeria. Over the last 20 years, drug products containing glycerin contaminated with DEG have caused an estimated 570 deaths worldwide. Also in 2007, pet food adulterated with the industrial chemical melamine and cyanuric acid sickened several thousand pets in our country. The same contaminant was added to infant formula in China, fatally poisoning six babies and making 300,000 others gravely ill. And Members of this Committee are well aware of the 2008 heparin contamination crisis that resulted in several deaths and cases of serious illness.

Counterfeit drugs raise significant public health concerns, because their safety and effectiveness is unknown. A counterfeited drug could be made up of a substance that is toxic to patients. But even a non-toxic counterfeit drug with a substitute or no active ingredient could prove harmful to patients who take it, thinking that they are taking a lifesaving or life-sustaining medication. In 2003, over $20 million in illegally imported and counterfeit Lipitor, a popular cholesterol-lowering drug, was distributed throughout the United States. The source and manufacturing methods of the product were unknown and had the potential to endanger patients."

[Andrea]

interesting story about Romney today.

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/30/romneys_lax_regulation_fueled_meningitis_outbreak/