FDA is Considering Bending the Rules

The FDA is considering on bending their rules just a bit allowing non official use of drugs. What that means is that some drugs that are use for specific things like regulating blood pressure could also be use to help other things i.e. lowering cholesterol. FDA is considering allowing pharmaceutical makers to provide doctors with medical journal studies of unapproved uses for drugs, a move critics say would undermine long-standing restrictions on marketing medicines for "off-label" purposes.

Opposing this is Rep Henry A. Waxman. He wrote “"would open the door to abusive marketing practices that will jeopardize safety, undermine public health, and lead to an increase in unapproved uses of powerful drugs," which means that Drug companies wouldn’t research the drugs side affect as much and wouldn’t need the formal FDA approval for that specific study. Example, if a drug helps with depression and FDA approved for that, but also could help with cancer but not FDA approved to help cancer. Doctors could prescribe that medication for cancer but the medication could be flawed since not enough research went into the drug for helping cancer. He believes Drug companies would push Doctors on sales of the product for money.

“To be, or Not to be,” If we go with the Drug companies many known rare diseases could help those that are sick at a much lower cost. But then again how much are we willing to risk on getting better? Either way it’s a fight between money and health. But who’s the real bad guy I wonder? Who’s really trying to help America’s Health? Is it the politician’s who care, or is it the powerful drug companies? Does it even matter as long as we get better? There are many options you can go with, but it all comes down to what you decide.

Comment’s on a Colleague’s work.

This article that my colleague has presented us shows that in the near future social security will become a big problem. In recent news the first baby boomer will be getting their social security check in the mail. What might seem like a small problem now will have major affect on us in the future. For every one person back in the day who retired there were forty tax payers who funded his or her retirement. But with the up coming baby boomers it is going to be like three tax payers to every one retiree.

I agree with my colleague in saying “Where is our money going to be when we get old?” I am not looking forward to working hard and have nothing to show for it. My colleague brought up a great point saying that the government was obligated to come up with the money and I concur.

With the war going on today and the rises in gas price it looks like the US economy is going down. There is a great saying I once heard, “You can judge how far advanced a civilization is by how they treat their poor.” Well our poor aren’t looking so good. So the government really need to do something about this shortage of money issue.

http://timesofpolitics.blogspot.com/

Blackwater Bodyguards Given Immunity for Shooting 17 Civilians

Blackwater bodyguards were given immunity for the recent killings of 17 Iraqi civilians. The FBI has been trying to gather information for this investigation. The FBI took over the case early this month, officials said, after prosecutors in the Justice Department's criminal division realized it could not bring charges against Blackwater guards based on their statements to the Diplomatic Security investigators. Prosecutors will have to prove that any evidence they use in bringing charges against Blackwater employees was uncovered without using the guards' statements to State Department investigators. It is still unclear why and how these Blackwater guards got there immunity

Since this case cannot be tried under the military court, the US must put this case under criminal law, but it’s not clear how the law is going to cover criminal act under war zone conditions. Americans are immune from Iraqi law under a directive signed by the U.S. occupation authority in 2003 that has not been repealed by the Iraqi Parliament.

When was killing people so easy to get away with? The higher you go in the chain of politics the easier it is to get away with criminal acts. If someone were to kill innocent civilians in the US the trial would barely last a week. Are war zones and riots within US cities any different? I don’t believe so. It was a judgment call and the Blackwater guards made a bad judgment. Killing the innocent should be tried exactly the same as killing people in the US. Just because they are Iraqi’s doesn’t mean there any less human. Shooting 17 innocent people to me doesn’t seem like it is just something you can call an accident.