60 Minutes - Softball Questions About Counterfeit Drugs

If you listened to the 3/13/2011 CBS' 60 Minutes' interview with the FDA Commission about counterfeit drugs, you didn't hear the difficult question, the real question, as to the difficulty that the FDA has with pharmaceutical product manufacturing and counterfeiting abroad.  Had the question been asked, perhaps the FDA Commissioner would have acknowledged that the FDA is not given sufficient money through the Congressional budgeting process to supply the systems and hire the people to take frequent hard looks abroad for shoddy pharmaceutical manufacturing processes and counterfeiters.  Those who provide our Representatives and Senators with campaign funds do not want a strong FDA regulatory process, notwithstanding that FDA regulation is a matter of life preservation for many Americans. They would rather provide election financing, pay the small fines, hire the law firms to defend themselves and let the counterfeiters skim off some of their profits.  They are unconcerned with Americans' welfare; they are concerned with corporate profits and executive bonuses.

60 Minutes: why aren't you addressing the significant issues?

The Appearance of Impropriety

Page 1 of The New York Times (July 30, 2009) describes the river of money flowing, in part, to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ($500,000), individual candidates ($120,000, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (House of Representatives) ($800,000+). The sources can be traced to McAllen Texas and the funds were traced by the Times to entities or individuals connected, in one way or another, to Doctors Hospital. (See my blog from 7/14/2009 with its link to the New Yorker article on McAllen Texas' health care costs.)

At a time when President Obama proclaims that his party's health care reform will drive down health care costs and prevent health care inflation, the Democratic Party seems blissfully unaware that the party and its members have provided American citizens with an appearance of impropriety which gives the lie to political rhetoric from Obama, Pelosi and Reid. Our health care system is being sold, without public benefit, to self-serving bidders while Democratic and Republican politicians and their parties reap the economic rewards. All of this while American adults' and childrens' health interests are being violated.

The public is silent. It is not apathetic, and one can readily sense frustration and anger bubbling below the surface.

Key health care senators have industry ties

For the Yahoo presentation of the Associated Press report by Associated Press Writers, LARRY MARGASAK and SHARON THEIMER (6/11/09), click the title above. The report lists names of Senators (and, where relevant, their family members) who have serious conflicts of interest. I wonder whether the conflicts should require that they recuse themselves from the legislative process affecting health care, though recusal would throw the legislative process into complete and utter turmoil.

We won't have ethics in health care, or appropriate health care legislation, if we don't have ethics in Congress relating to health care legislation. Doctors, engaging in qualitatively similar behavior, might find themselves accused of Federal Stark Law violations, and face fines, litigation and loss of Medicare provider status and licensure.