Teri O'Blog

Dr. Graham, You Should Be Ashamed of Yourself

“As I testified before Congress in November, about 100,000 people probably had heart attacks because of Vioxx. And 30,000 to 40,000 of those patients died. So, that‘s a very high toll to pay. I think that, when you compare that, say, to the 9/11 tragedy, 3,000 people were killed in that event. And here we‘re talking about many, many more lives. I think that the idea of an independent commission to investigate and to report what would be the best ways to reform the drug safety process in the United States might be a very good move.“
Dr. David Graham, MS-NBC’s “Hardball”, 12/21/04

Opponents of the advertising of pharmaceutical drugs wring their hands and warn of the dire consequences that will result if ordinary bumpkins like you and me are permitted to have a peek behind the curtain and actually be informed about the benefits and potential risks of prescription drugs. Those magical potions must remain shrouded in mystery, their uses and miraculous effects disclosed only to the white-coated priesthood. Don’t you worry your little empty head about that.. Just shut up and do as your told. Otherwise, you will be sitting ducks for the greedy pigs who run those avaricious drug companies. They are just waiting to take advantage of a bonehead like you.

In the next breath, the very same people, who are motivated only by their desire to protect the simple-minded public, tell us that a mouth-breather like you or me can persuade a doctor, you know, that all-knowing gatekeeper person, to do as he or she is told. How exactly? Maybe a firearm is involved. After all, without a gun to the head, how could a doc be persuaded to just pull out the pad and write the name of the drug you just saw on tv and are now demanding?
My advice: if your doctor is such a spaghetti-spined milquetoast that he’ll scramble to scribble any script that anyone asks for, it’s time to get a new doc. Your current one is obviously too stupid and too indifferent to be entrusted with the care of patients. Does anyone seriously expect us to believe that there is a physician anywhere who doesn’t spend nearly every waking hour trembling in fear at the thought of an ambulance chaser taking every penny he’s spent years accumulating? Yet doctors are going to blithely give people drugs they don’t need? What exactly motivates them to take that risk? These pharmaceutical company critics and the afore-mentioned ambulance chasers, who of course are motivated only by a desire to protect the simple-minded public, would have you believe that doctors do what they’re told to keep from losing a patient. Oh yeah, that enormous fee for an office visit, which they usually have to wait several weeks to actually receive from the insurance companyor HMO, provides a huge incentive. PULEEZE. If it were me, it wouldn’t be worth it to deal with ignorant, demanding patients, transfixed by tv commercials, and insisting that I give them drugs they don’t understand and don’t need, and put my practice at risk in the process. These people must have really bad doctors, or perhaps there is another motivation. Perhaps they are hate capitalism and see in the pharmaceutical companies a perfect target for their socialist objectives.

That brings me to Dr. David Graham, the latest darling of the drug company bashers—what a bunch of ingrates these people are—the so-called “whistleblower” who claims that his evil taskmasters at the FDA have tried to silence him. He portrays himself as the lone voice of reason and caution, a caring professional attempting to stop the FDA from doing the drug companies’ bidding by approving dangerous drugs based on bad science. One question: If this guy is so well-intentioned, and so scientifically-rigorous, why is he resorting to misleading, even false, statements to make his point? He has spent the last week running from tv studio to tv studio actually saying with a straight face that 30,000-40,000 people have been killed by Vioxx, when he knows full well that he is basing that statement on a computer model analyzing epidemiological studies, which DO NOT PROVE CAUSATION. This statistic bears as much relationship to reality as that bull secretion that about 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties that the Red Cross was carping about before the war. The headlines said 100,000, when it turns out it was 100,000 or 8000! We can be 95% sure it is somewhere between these two numbers. So it is with Dr. Graham’s 30,000-40,000, except he hasn’t shown us the data so we don’t know what the actual range is.

Pharmaceutical company critics accuse the drug companies of using false and misleading advertising on an unsuspecting public, yet these highly-regulated industries could never get away with telling the sort of lies that Dr. Graham is using to make his case against them. Just exactly who is being dishonest?

Didn’t catch last week’s show? Here’s Some of What You Missed …

*Twenty years after the incident that earned him the moniker “The Subway Vigilante,” Bernie Goetz reveals his greatest regret (no, it wasn’t shooting those 4 thugs) and also that he’s out there! Don’t get me wrong—I think it’s outrageous that he spent even a minute in jail, given the fact that the city had conceded the streets to bands of uncivilized predators, but this vegetarian thing was too strange …

* Let’s hear it for the Fat Girl—Give Kirstie Alley credit for having the guts to star in a self-titled show called “Fat Actress,” but question her self-esteem for saying that she ballooned because she didn’t have man

* Ted Koppel gives Christopher (Booed off the stage at Rockford College) Hedges 30 minutes of network time just to prove that the mainstream media IS NOT negative in its coverage of the war in Iraq. Sure, compared to this guy who thinks it was a good think for the United States to be humiliated and defeated. Ted, we’re not convinced.

* We warned you that when Dick Durbin aka Eddie Haskell says sometimes “it takes a leak” (isn’t that the name of his new book?), he wasn’t kidding, and now the Justice Dept. is reviewing a criminal referral against this embarrassment to our state for blabbing about the super secret black satellite program, code name “Misty.” Wasn’t this bozo whining about that idiotic Valerie Plame disclosure? He was outraged that anyone would reveal her identity, yet is perfectly ok with revealing the existence of a program designed to protect our countries security. Oh, but I forgot--- he, Rockefeller and Wyden are whistleblowers. Why isn’t the person who told Bob Novak that a CIA employee had recommended her clueless husband, a known enemy of the Bush administration, to go to Niger and sip tea a whistleblower? Or is that honor only for members of Congress who blithely commit felonies?

* President Bush is once again named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.” What? P.T. Barnum wasn’t available? You just know that this article will be one big back-handed compliment along the lines that says “You’ve got to hand it to this dumb, tongue-tied cowboy for being able to fool millions,” and will have the tone of a ransom note being read aloud.

You see? You should have been there! Please join me this coming Sunday, 12/26/04 for the inside story on the hottest topics in politics and popular culture, then share your thoughts on the air!

Which is worst--Walmart or Target?

In response to my questioning whether we should boycott Target based on their caving to anti-God, P.C. types and their demand that they ban Salvation Army bell ringers, a smart listener wrote:

Hi, Teri.

I heard you choose Walmart over Target today, because Target scuttled the Salvation Army's solicitation of donations at Christmas time.

[Another radio host,not only WLS] been ragging on Walmart for at least a half year, off and on, for getting local governments around the country to use eminent domain to condemn property in order to get the land cheaply for stores. The governments stand to gain from the greater taxes, and the property owners are wrongly screwed.

In my book, that's far more insidious and fundamental a threat to us than the Target sin.

What say you?

(Of course, I confess I haven't decided to boycott either of them, yet. And, when you consider other businesses that support violations of gun rights, where the heck are we supposed to shop if we boycott everyone whose politics we find threatening?)
R


Hi R,
Thanks so much for listening and sending in your thoughtful question.

I’m sure you realize that I don’t support the reckless and abusive use of the power of eminent domain. After all, the 5th and 2nd amendments are the two most important ones in the Constitution, in my opinion. Still, I don’t share the libertarian viewpoint that says it should be used only for bridges, roads and other uses that some people arbitrarily declare ‘public uses.’ That’s a tad simplistic, and it absolves our public officials of the responsibility they sought when they ran for office. It is up to our elected officials to use this power, and all the others we lend them, judiciously and appropriately. Arguably, the construction of these big box stores is a legitimate public use if it generates tax revenue and creates jobs. I’m not unsympathetic to the argument that many public officials, more desperate than strung-out junkies for their fix of our money, are constantly looking for new sources of bucks to spend, and so are easily bullied by developers and big retailers into cooperating on these projects, but once again, that’s evidence that they are derelict in their duties. They shouldn’t be spending recklessly in the first place, and when they do, they shouldn’t abuse the power of condemnation to find another source of funds. When they do, they need to be voted out.

I can’t understand why the radio host you mentioned is on Wal-mart’s case, or I should say on their case exclusively when this practice is commonly used not only by them, but also by Home Depot, Costco, and---are you ready for this?—Target. In fact, last year, Target was denounced by U.S. District Judge Charles A. Shaw in a condemnation case. They were renting a store on a piece of property and wanted to build a bigger store. When the landlord responded by asking for higher rent, they blew him off and got an alderman to initiate condemnation proceedings. I don’t want to say that Target and the city were tight, but when the city scheduled a public hearing on the condemnation, it sent a notice to Target, but not to the landowner.

Does that mean we should boycott Target? Not necessarily. Remember I asked the question. I'm not really a big fan of consumer boycotts, if you want to know the truth. That said, if one company accepts the very flawed reasoning of the ACLU and seeks to banish God from the public square, or cowers in the face of accusations that they are 'insensitive' because they don't want to confer special rights on people based on the way they have sex, and another doesn't, I will choose to spend my money with the latter. You're right: if we take this stuff too far, pretty soon we'll have no place to shop, a situation that I would find absolutely intolerable!

And you’re also right about the 2nd amendment: it’s very distressing to me when retailers cave to gun grabbers!
Thanks again for listening and checking in!
Best,
T

Must I admit it? Ok, my husband was right.

One thing I’ve noticed about being on the radio. Most of the time people are unhappy about what you say, but sometimes they bust you for what you don’t say. Like last Sunday, when smart listener Ron aka ‘the husband’ took me to task for my discussion of psychologist Patricia Dalton’s column in the Washington Post about raging materialism and its destructive effect on the family.

Naturally, Dr. Dalton couldn’t resist taking a shot at President Bush, an inaccurate, gratuitous slap, of course, which I mentioned on the air. I was referring to the following paragraph, which followed the good doctor’s lamenting a teenager’s tossing aside a gift from a 90-year-old great aunt and whining “I already have that:”

“Many of us already "have that." We have become, to borrow a phrase President Bush used while addressing his donors, "the haves and the have mores." That explains why some of us are left feeling spiritually empty during this season of feasting and giving.”

Ron correctly pointed out that I was derelict in not mentioning just how unfair and inaccurate that statement is, and he’s right. I should have. I guess I was so stunned that the fine editors of the Washington Post didn’t correct the error that I lost the ability to speak to the point. No, not really. It’s just that I was on a roll expounding on the major focus of the column, with which I agree, that I didn’t want to go off on Dr. Dalton. Still, it is important to note that Dr. Dalton’s mistaken belief that the president was speaking to a group of “his donors” no doubt comes from that scurrilous work of fiction from the Porcine Purveyor of Putrid Pinko Propaganda, the Round Mound Whose Lies Astound, Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Is there no end to the toxicity of this pack of lies? It’s like some sort of hideous infectious plague in the cultural bloodstream. But I digress, which I often do, which is why I didn’t want to start down this road on the air, however, the truth is the truth, and it is a mission to which the radio show is devoted. So in that spirit, let me quote here from the excellent article “59 Deceits in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,” by Dave Kopel.

“Another Bush joke is presented as an obvious joke, although important context is missing. Near the end of the movie, Bush speaks to a tuxedoed audience. He says, "I call you the haves and the have-mores. Some call you the elite; I call you my base." The joke follows several segments in which Bush is accused of having started the Iraq war in order to enrich business. As far the movie audience can tell, Bush is speaking to some unknown group of rich people. The speech actually comes from the October 19, 2000, Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. The 2000 event was the 55th annual dinner, which raises money for Catholic hospital charities in New York City. Candidates Bush and Gore were the co-guests of honor at the event, where speakers traditionally make fun of themselves.



Gore joked, "The Al Smith Dinner represents a hallowed and important tradition, which I actually did invent." Lampooning his promise to put Social Security in a "lock box," Gore promised that he would put "Medicare in a walk-in closet," put NASA funding in a "hermetically sealed Ziploc bag" and would "always keep lettuce in the crisper." So although Fahrenheit presents the joke as epitomizing Bush's selfishness, the joke really was part of Bush helping to raise $1.6 million for medical care for the poor. Although many a truth is said in jest, Bush's joke was no more revealing than was Gore's claim to have founded the dinner in 1946, two years before he was born.”

(To read the Dalton article, the 59 Deceits, or the links therein, please visit teriobrien.com.)

Now the record is corrected, and I’m glad it is. Thanks, Ron. I salute you for your tireless devotion to the truth (and to taking out the garbage).