Congress
revere | March 5, 2009The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that if the FDA approves a drug, it doesn't mean you don't have to keep the labeling up to date if you should warn people. So that settles one question about FDA approval. The FDA put its stamp of approval on the drug Vioxx, too, but approved or not, Vioxx was not OK. Some unfortunate people traded their arthritis pain for a heart attack. Not a good trade. So the maker of Vioxx got sued. When the regulatory agencies don't do their job, that's about the only remedy left. More important, it is the only way to change the behavior of companies whose negligence…
sheril | February 24, 2009
The United States faces enormous challenges in a troubled climate, but I think we just witnessed President Barack Obama officially usher in a new golden age for American politics.
revere | February 16, 2009Keeping public health in the spot light is critical and what better place to do it than the front page of DailyKos, one of the most visited blogs in the world (average daily visits over 800,000). For six weeks DKos frontpager DemFromCT, one of the founders of FluWiki and himself a pulmonary specialist, has been running a series called Flu and You, interviewing public health types (including one of the reveres). This week he interviews Jeff Levi of Trust for America's Health (TFAH), and the entire thing is worth a read. I want to single out only one aspect that is especially timely, the missed…
revere | November 21, 2008John Dingell (D-MI), longtime Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has done some good things in his time, but overall he's been a net minus. When Henry Waxman (D-CA) toppled him from his perch today my feeling was an uncharitable, Good Riddance. The vote in the Democratic Party caucus was close but not very close: 137 - 122. Dingell has not been representing the people of his District as much as he has been representing the US Automakers. He he got the sobriquet Dirty Air Dingell the old fashioned way: he earned it:
The Energy and Commerce panel is one of the most important House…
illconsidered | November 20, 2008A Few Things Ill Considered is just as happy as the next vile, hate-spewing, far left smear machine that Barack Obama actually won the recent US Presidential election, but I have to say I am so ready to be really disappointed!
Call me a cynic, but we've had progress waved under our noses before, only to have it snatched away by spineless, self-serving Democratic congress people and the harsh reality that the real power structures in the US are not all elected officials.
Nevertheless, when it comes to tackling climate change, the signs are really hopeful, even if the challenge is enormous.
I…
mstebbins | September 25, 2008Most of you have by now heard of the 14 questions that a coalition of science organizations asked McCain and Obama. But I thought I would highlight the parallel efforts to ask a series of 7 questions of all candidates for congress. That project has been going strong for some months now and the answers are posted at Scientists and Engineers for America's SHARP Network. Today they tell me that 10 more members of congress and candidates have answered the 7 questions. If you have not heard of the project before, check it out here and if your candidate has not yet answered, tell them that Barack…
scientificactivist | May 7, 2008You can file this one under "should have been done about twenty years ago." From the Mail & Guardian:
Lawmakers on Tuesday debated legislation to remove former South African president Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) from an apartheid-era United States terrorist blacklist.
Several members of the House of Representatives immediately expressed support for a Bill aimed at removing from any US databases "any notation that would characterise the ANC and its leaders as terrorists".
The House Bill is sponsored by Howard Berman, the California Democrat who chairs the…
scientificactivist | April 29, 2008Last Thursday (April 24), the Senate unanimously passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA, H.R. 493) in a landmark vote. The goal of this bill is "to prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment," and it therefore would help fill this gaping hole that exists in our current protection of employees' and patients' rights.
The bill was passed by the House roughly one year ago by a vote of 420-3, and although it was scheduled for debate in the Senate, it wasn't voted upon until last week. Now, the Senate has…
revere | April 6, 2008About a month ago (March 1, 2008) we brought you the story of how a highly reputable and knowledgeable scientist, Dr. Deborah Rice of the Maine Department of Maine Department of Health and Human Services, was bonced off of an EPA scientific advisory committee because the chemical industry trade group, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), objected that she had a bias. How did they know? Dr. Rice, as part of her duties as toxicologist for the State of Maine, testified before its legislature that on the basis of a review of the scientific evidence she believed the deca congener of the…
revere | March 18, 2008Ex-Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer made a critical mistake in his relations with a prostitute: he had sex with her. Sex is bad, at least in America. You'd think a politician would know better than almost anyone. You don't have sex with prostitutes. You take campaign money from them:
The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents food, beverage and consumer products companies, spent nearly $1.6 million in 2007 to lobby on food safety and other issues.
The trade group spent a little more than $1 million in the second half of 2007 to lobby the federal government, according to a…
scientificactivist | February 21, 2008Two weeks before what could be a decisive Texas primary, Barack Obama picked up the endorsement Monday of Congressman Chet Edwards, whose district includes Texas A&M University, the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, and George W. Bush's Crawford ranch. I'm not going to go so far as to say that I called this one, but I certainly pointed out last week that Edwards was saying some pretty favorable things about Obama (although his office said he hadn't taken an official position yet). I usually don't track endorsements too closely, but I think this one is significant because not only…
scientificactivist | February 13, 2008Yesterday, Barack Obama won all three contests (Maryland, Virginia, and DC) in the "Potomac Primary", all by sizable margins. This means that he has won all eight contests that have occurred since Super Tuesday. He now leads the delegate race--even when superdelegates are included--and he maintains an incredible amount of momentum going into the February 19th contests of Hawaii and Wisconsin, where he is expected to do quite well again. However, his delegate lead is still slim, and if he wants to become the true frontrunner, he'll have to have a strong showing on March 4th, particularly in…
revere | January 22, 2008Recently we posted on the EPA highly unusual (as in unprecedented) decision to reject Californian's new greenhouse gas regulations. Why did they do it? Good question and one the California Congressional delegation wanted an answer to. To whom did EPA talk about the regulations? Who advised them to reject it? Sorry. Mum's the word. Actually its words. Executive privilege:
Invoking executive privilege, the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday refused to provide lawmakers with a full explanation of why it rejected California's greenhouse gas regulations.
The EPA informed Sen. Barbara Boxer…
revere | January 12, 2008Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff often seems mystified that the public doesn't want to be protected as much as he wants to protect them. Maybe a look at the record of the protectors will provide some clue. Protectors like the Transporation Security Administration (TSA), the lovable airport screeners that have done so much to make air travel a tiring and tiresome pain in the ass.
TSA makes mistakes. Quite often, it appears. Some of those mistakes can be pretty onerous. If your name gets on a no-fly list you are in for a heap of inconvenience -- or worse. But, as we were assured by TSA…
revere | November 9, 2007I'm seeing all sorts of ways to refer to Members of Congress (meaning mostly Representatives, although Senators are also Members of Congress). Congressman and Congresswoman are not gender neutral and are disappearing from the language. Congressperson? Ugh. Liberal blogs will often use "Congresscritters" to register disdain, but I never liked it much. I just saw Congressfolk as an alternative. Pathetic. So here's another suggestion.
In the 1960s and 70s there was a particularly noxious Boston pol by the name of Louise Day Hicks. Hicks made her stand on opposing the desegregation of the Boston…
scientificactivist | September 26, 2007Yesterday, the House passed the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) expansion by a vote of 265-159. The bill enjoyed some bipartisan support, although Republicans accounted for only 45 of the votes in favor and almost all of the votes against. Unfortunately, this is a bit short of the supermajority needed to override President Bush's promised veto. According to Roll Call (subscription required), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) claims that this 2/3 majority can be achieved if just 12 additional Republicans cross party lines (although this assumes that the entire…
scientificactivist | September 24, 2007Uh oh, it looks like there's trouble in paradise. From Roll Call (subscription required):
Frustration among House Republicans over sluggish fundraising, staff strife and other internal operations at the National Republican Congressional Committee came to a head this month -- with Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) demanding that changes be made.
The tension reached a boiling point in early September during a meeting between GOP leaders and NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) that resulted in Cole threatening to resign from his post.
[...]
Cole, whom sources described as defensive and taken…
scientificactivist | September 22, 2007Congress appears to be on track for another major standoff with President Bush. The Washington Post reports today that the House and Senate have reconciled their differing versions of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP or CHIP) expansion and will be voting on it this coming week (Tuesday in the House, Thursday in the Senate). Predictably, President Bush still promises a veto of this bipartisan compromise legislation, a position he took long before the bill was voted on in either chamber.
The current bill, which calls for a $35 billion expansion of SCHIP over the next five…
scientificactivist | September 12, 2007Via A Blog Around the Clock comes news that the Senate will be voting on mandatory public access to NIH research later this month (on September 28, apparently). Such a bill has already passed the House (in July 2007). The Alliance for Taxpayer Access is urging citizens to contact their Senators in support of this legislation. Check out the site for more information and for Senator contact information.
The Alliance for Taxpayer Access offers these talking points:
American taxpayers are entitled to open access on the Internet to the peer-reviewed scientific articles on research funded by…
scientificactivist | August 2, 2007After the House passed its expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program on Wednesday, the Senate passed its version late Thursday. Although the House version passed along party lines, against strong Republican opposition, the Senate version enjoyed more bipartisan support, passing 68-31 (although all 31 "no" votes came from Republicans, with no Democrats voting against the measure).