health and human services HHS

=primary 9/20 on caputo covid fail<div>9/18</div><div>==1120<h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1em; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">h<a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/hhs-finally-releases-documents-showing-wave-of-dubious-vaccine-contracts/" aria-label="HHS finally releases documents showing wave of dubious vaccine contracts with big pharmaceutical companies" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(255, 187, 99); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; word-break: break-word; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">HS finally releases documents showing wave of dubious vaccine contracts with big pharmaceutical companies</a></h1>==<h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; word-break: break-word; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 25px;">b<a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/bombshell-study-finds-up-to-210-000-americans-died-of-because-of-anti-science-trump/" aria-label="Bombshell study finds up to 210,000 Americans died of COVID because of Trump administration's ‘monumental screwup’" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; word-break: break-word; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 25px;">ombshell study finds up to 210,000 Americans died of COVID because of Trump administration's ‘monumental screwup’</a></h1><div class="social-author clearfix" style="margin-top: 10px; display: inline-block; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/david-badash" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">David Badash</a> <a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/the-new-civil-rights-movement" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">The New Civil Rights Movement
</a></div><div class="social-date" style="margin-top: 8px; display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> October 22, 2020</div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2648441624" style="margin-top: 10px; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; display: -webkit-box; text-overflow: ellipsis; line-height: 31px; overflow: hidden; -webkit-line-clamp: 4; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description">A bombshell <a href="https://ncdp.columbia.edu/custom-content/uploads/2020/10/Avoidable-COVID-19-Deaths-US-NCDP.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Columbia University study</a> finds President Donald Trump is responsible for the coronavirus deaths of 130,000 to 210,000 Americans."We believe that this was a monumental, lethal screwup</div></div>=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trump-officials-weighing-deep-funding-cuts-to-relief-newborn-screenings-in-democrat-led-cities/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trump-officials-weighing-deep-funding-cuts-to-relief-newborn-screenings-in-democrat-led-cities/</a>
lawyer? baby jail?
<h3 class="staffer-name" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: -12px 0px 0px 50px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.5em; font-family: " tiempos="tiempos" text="text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" width="width" px="px" max-width="max-width" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Emily Newman<span class="awaiting-confirmation" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 9px 0px 0px 7px; padding: 5px 5px 3px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 0.5em; line-height: 1em; font-family: Graphik; vertical-align: top; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline-block; background: rgb(153, 92, 0); border-radius: 3px; text-transform: uppercase;">TRANSFERRED TO <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/trump-town/staffers/emily-newman" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: none; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES →</a></h3><p class="agency-staffer-position agency-staffer-agency" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 50px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: inherit; font-family: Graphik, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://projects.propublica.org/trump-town/agencies/homeland-security" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: none; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s; color: rgb(17, 102, 172); text-decoration-line: none;">Homeland Security</a> (joined: Jan. 23, 2017)<p class="agency-staffer-position" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1rem 50px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: inherit; font-family: Graphik, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Advisor | Director, Office of Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs | <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4387711-Emily-Newman-Financial-Disclosure.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: none; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s; color: rgb(17, 102, 172); text-decoration-line: none;">Financial Disclosure »</a><h3 class="staffer-name" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: -12px 0px 0px 50px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.5em; font-family: " tiempos="tiempos" text="text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" width="width" px="px" max-width="max-width" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Emily Newman <span class="left-gov" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 9px 0px 0px 7px; padding: 5px 5px 3px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 0.5em; line-height: 1em; font-family: Graphik; vertical-align: top; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline-block; background: rgb(143, 0, 0); border-radius: 3px; text-transform: uppercase;">DEPARTED MARCH 30, 2019</h3><p class="agency-staffer-position agency-staffer-agency" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 50px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: inherit; font-family: Graphik, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://projects.propublica.org/trump-town/agencies/health-and-human-services" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: none; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s; color: rgb(17, 102, 172); text-decoration-line: none;">Health and Human Services</a> (joined: July 23, 2017)<p class="agency-staffer-position" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1rem 50px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: inherit; font-family: Graphik, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Senior Advisor to the Director, Indian Health Service<p class="agency-staffer-position" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1rem 50px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: inherit; font-family: Graphik, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">counsel 3/15- =<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-official-in-charge-of-shaping-policies-at-hhs-has-been-a-college-senior-report">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-official-in-charge-of-shaping-policies-at-hhs-has-been-a-college-senior-report</a>no lnxtrump official in charge of ‘shaping policies’ at HHS has been a college senior: reportWritten by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement September 22, 2020The Trump administration put a college senior in charge of personnel at the Dept. of Health and Human Services, Catherine Granito. She appears to have graduated this spring.A Politico report Monday afternoon, “Trump administration shakes up HHS personnel office after tumultuous hires,” revealed the stunning placement – including that she has been “playing a role in shaping policies in the middle of a pandemic.”HHS has an annual budget of $1.286 trillion. As of 2015 it had 79,540 employees.“White House Liaison Emily Newman and her deputy Catherine Granito will be shifting full-time to the Voice of America’s parent organization, the United States Agency for Global Media, HHS chief of staff Brian Harrison told senior staff on Monday,” the Politico article states.It adds that “Granito — an undergraduate at the University of Michigan as recently as this spring — had been in charge of the health department’s personnel while playing a role in shaping policies in the middle of a pandemic.”Granito’s LinkedIn page says she attended the University of Michigan until May as a student athlete playing lacrosse and notes she majored in English language and literature. A Google search shows that page listed her as an “advisor” at HHS.Her Facebook page says she “Works at U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”The recent Michael Caputo scandal appears to have involved Granito.“Granito, who was in the class of 2020 at the University of Michigan, was involved in political appointees’ recent scrutiny of CDC Deputy Director Anne Schuchat, a career civil servant. Caputo and his team raised concerns about Schuchat this spring after she publicly acknowledged missed opportunities in the nation’s response to the coronavirus.”=<div>=ref nytno lnx<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/us/politics/trump-cdc-coronavirus.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/us/politics/trump-cdc-coronavirus.html</a>Emails Detail Effort to Silence C.D.C. and Question Its ScienceEmails from a former top Trump health official and his science adviser show how the two refused to accept Centers for Disease Control and Prevention science and sought to silence the agency.
Michael R. Caputo, the Department of Health and Human Services’s top spokesman, went on medical leave this week, days after he attacked C.D.C. scientists in a bizarre Facebook video. 
Noah WeilandBy Noah WeilandSept. 18, 2020WASHINGTON — On June 30, as the coronavirus was cresting toward its summer peak, Dr. Paul Alexander, a new science adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services, composed a scathing two-page critique of an interview given by an experienced scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Dr. Anne Schuchat, a 32-year veteran of the C.D.C. and its principal deputy director, had appealed to Americans to wear masks and warned, “We have way too much virus across the country.” But Dr. Alexander, a part-time assistant professor of health research methods, appeared sure he understood the coronavirus better.“Her aim is to embarrass the president,” he wrote, commenting on Dr. Schuchat’s appeal for face masks in an interview with The Journal of the American Medical Association.“She is duplicitous,” he also wrote in an email to his boss, Michael R. Caputo, the Department of Health and Human Services’s top spokesman who went on medical leave this week. He asked Mr. Caputo to “remind” Dr. Schuchat that during the H1N1 swine flu outbreak in 2009, thousands of Americans had died “under her work.”ImageFrom a Trump science adviser’s critique of the C.D.C. scientist Dr. Anne Schuchat.From a Trump science adviser’s critique of the C.D.C. scientist Dr. Anne Schuchat.Of Dr. Schuchat’s assessment of the dangers of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, he fumed, wrongly, “The risk of death in children 0-19 years of age is basically 0 (zero) … PERIOD … she has lied.”Dr. Alexander’s point-by-point assessment, broken into seven parts and forwarded by Mr. Caputo to Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the C.D.C. director, was one of several emails obtained by The New York Times that illustrate how Mr. Caputo and Dr. Alexander tried to browbeat career officials at the C.D.C. at the height of the pandemic, challenging the science behind their public statements and trying to silence agency staff.On Friday, two days after Mr. Caputo went on medical leave and Dr. Alexander was dismissed from the Department of Health and Human Services, the C.D.C. reversed a heavily criticized recommendation suggesting that people who have had close contact with a person infected with the coronavirus do not need to get tested if they have no symptoms. The emails shed light on the monthslong fight that led to their departures.Far from hiding what they knew about the virus’s danger, as Bob Woodward’s new book contends President Trump was doing, the emails seem to indicate that aides in Washington were convinced of their own rosy prognostications, even as coronavirus infections were shooting skyward.At the same time, Mr. Caputo moved to punish the C.D.C.’s communications team for granting interviews to NPR [// Hansen?] and trying to help a CNN reporter reach him about a public relations campaign. Current and former C.D.C. officials called it a five-month campaign of bullying and intimidation.Read the Email Between Caputo and Dr. AlexanderIn late June, as coronavirus infections were surging to their heights, Dr. Paul Alexander, a science adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services, emailed a scathing critique of an interview given by Anne Schuchat, a senior scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The email shows how aides in Washington bullied and tried to silence the C.D.C. at the height of the pandemic.For instance, after Mr. Caputo forwarded the critique of Dr. Schuchat to Dr. Redfield, C.D.C. officials became concerned when a member of the health department’s White House liaison office — Catherine Granito — called the agency to ask questions about Dr. Schuchat’s biography, leaving the impression that some in Washington could have been searching for ways to fire her.In another instance, Mr. Caputo wrote to C.D.C. communications officials on July 15 to demand they turn over the name of the press officer who approved a series of interviews between NPR and a longtime C.D.C. epidemiologist, after the department in Washington had moved to take ownership of the agency’s pandemic data collection.“I need to know who did it,” Mr. Caputo wrote. A day later, still without a reply, Mr. Caputo wrote back. “I have not received a response to my email for 20 hours. This is unacceptable,” he said. “I need this information to properly manage department communications. If you disobey my directions, you will be held accountable.”On Friday, a department spokeswoman said Mr. Caputo, in his comments about interview approvals, had been trying to make sure that the C.D.C. followed protocols dating to prior administrations that the department clear interview requests for health officials. The C.D.C. did not have an immediate comment, nor did Mr. Caputo.[Dr. Paul Alexander, a Department of Health and Human Services science adviser, criticized the C.D.C.’s principal deputy director.In the months leading up to their exits, the two had routinely worked to revise and delay the C.D.C.’s closely guarded and internationally admired health bulletins, called Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, in an effort to paint the administration’s pandemic response in a more positive light.Far from apologetic, Dr. Alexander told The Globe and Mail of Toronto this week that the C.D.C. had written “pseudoscientific reports” and that he was better suited to examine data than agency scientists.“None of those people have my skills,” Dr. Alexander said. “I make the judgment whether this is crap.”The judgments he rendered — and the punishments that Mr. Caputo appeared intent to mete out — had a demoralizing effect on the agency.One C.D.C. communications official became so worried about Mr. Caputo’s threat that she wrote to other senior staff asking how to reply, saying that she was “uncomfortable turning over our employee’s name to Mr. Caputo, given the hostility of the message.”In another email to an agency communications officer who had directed a CNN reporter to contact Mr. Caputo about a vaccine public relations campaign, Mr. Caputo shot back, “In what world did you think it was your job to announce an administration public service announcement campaign to CNN?”The C.D.C. press official then apologized, which did not satisfy Mr. Caputo. “We will discuss this on a teleconference tomorrow,” he wrote. “I want your H.R. representative in attendance.” He then scolded the official for removing Dr. Redfield from the email thread after Mr. Caputo had added the director in a prior email.In the emails obtained by The Times, Mr. Caputo repeatedly added Dr. Redfield, who was overseeing an 11,000-person agency, to email chains about news media disputes. People familiar with the emails said it was an attempt to use Dr. Redfield to shame his own staff.People familiar with Dr. Redfield’s responses to the emails said that he would call senior aides sounding resigned to the orders and asking how to navigate Mr. Caputo’s demands. Often, he tried to delay or ignore Mr. Caputo until the tension subsided.Perhaps most illuminating in the emails was the way the top officials at the C.D.C. saw the disease in fundamentally different ways than confidants and loyalists of Mr. Trump’s. In the interview that provoked Mr. Caputo and Dr. Alexander, Dr. Schuchat referred to “a lot of wishful thinking around the country that, ‘Hey, summer, everything is going to be fine, we’re over this.’”“And we are not even beginning to be over this,” she said. “I think we need to continue to learn and continue to apply what we’re learning and be humble about our assumptions.”At the time of her interview, the United States was setting record levels of new infections and was weeks away from an even more catastrophic peak of almost 70,000 new cases a day. States like Arizona were pausing the reopening of their businesses.Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s leading infectious disease expert, testified to a Senate panel that the country could hit 100,000 new cases a day.That portrait of the virus was at odds with the one the White House had strained to present. The day Dr. Schuchat lamented there was “way too much virus across the country,” Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, told reporters, “We’re aware that there are embers that need to be put out.”Mr. Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network that week that he believed the virus was “at some point” going to “sort of just disappear, I hope.”Dr. Alexander also had his own ideas of the virus’s staying power. He disputed Dr. Schuchat’s claim that children were vulnerable to it. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that while it is rare, the virus can be lethal to children, who can readily transmit it to more vulnerable family members.“It also causes no symptoms as it is so mild … you don’t even know you have it,” Dr. Alexander wrote. “Many people never knew they had it. Not one indication. It is very false her statement that it causes death in children.”At one point in his response to Dr. Schuchat, Dr. Alexander appeared to endorse the largely rejected strategy of “herd immunity,” or allowing the virus to freely spread until enough people develop antibodies that it dies for lack of human hosts.“Importantly, having the virus spread among the young and healthy is one of the methods to drive herd immunity,” he wrote. “This was not the intended strategy but all must be on deck now and it is contributing positively at some level.”The clashes between the White House and C.D.C. intensified this week, when Mr. Trump publicly slapped down congressional testimony Dr. Redfield gave, in which he praised masks and estimated that a vaccine might not be widely available to the public until the middle of 2021.“I think he made a mistake when he said that,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Wednesday.On Friday, the president told reporters the broad American public would have access to a coronavirus vaccine by April, again snubbing his C.D.C. chief.Sharon LaFraniere contributed reporting.</div><div>
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watchdog group has accused Robert Charrow, the general counsel at the Department of Health and Human Services, of pushing to ease testing rules to help his former clients in the medical device and diagnostic industry.Charrow, who was <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/president-donald-j-trump-announces-intent-nominate-personnel-key-administration-posts-2/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">appointed by President Trump in 2017</a>, led the administration’s push to ease rules ensuring the safety of coronavirus diagnostic tests developed by individual labs before HHS Secretary Alex Azar “overruled” Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials to revoke their ability to regulate the tests, according to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/15/hhs-alex-azar-overrode-fda-testing-rules-415400" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Politico</a>.“Top HHS officials led by General Counsel Bob Charrow argued for months that the FDA lacked the legal authority required to regulate this particular slice of the testing market, which includes labs located in larger academic medical centers and smaller commercial laboratories, as well as a handful of large corporations,” the outlet reported earlier this week.Charrow, a veteran attorney who has specialized in <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/leadership/robert-p-charrow/index.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">cases surrounding federal regulation of health care</a>, previously represented more than a dozen clients in the medical device and diagnostic space, according to his <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4387634-Robert-Charrow-Financial-Disclosure.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">financial disclosure</a>.  charrow’s former clients included Hologic, which was the <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/03/09/hhs-supports-development-of-first-high-throughput-covid-19-diagnostic-test.html" target="blank" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">first diagnostic firm to receive support</a> from the HHS’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and later <a href="https://www.hologic.com/coronavirus-test" target="blank" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">received an Emergency Use Authorization</a> from the FDA for its coronavirus test. In July, the company <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/07/26/hhs-dod-invest-7-6m-hologic-expand-production-custom-sample-collection-processing-consumables-covid-19-tests.html" target="blank" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">received $7.6 million</a> from HHS and the Department of Defense to expand its diagnostics.Charrow’s other former clients in the industry include CVS, which is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-cvs-health/cvs-to-offer-companies-covid-19-testing-program-as-u-s-cases-rise-idUSKBN23V1KY" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">selling coronavirus tests to employers</a>, and OPKO Health, which <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/09/15/2093569/0/en/OPKO-Health-Initiates-Clinical-Trial-of-RAYALDEE-in-COVID-19-Patients.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">announced Phase 2 trials</a> of a coronavirus treatment this week, along with Bracco Diagnostics, Cure Medical, CRH Medical, Genetic Technologies Ltd., Itamar Medical, LGC Limited, LifeBond Inc., MedBridge Healthcare, Medtronic and OrSense Ltd. He has also represented pharmaceutical companies like Teva and Sanofi, which <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/07/31/hhs-dod-partner-sanofi-gsk-commercial-scale-manufacturing-demonstration-project-produce-millions-covid-19-investigational-vaccine-doses.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">have both received funding from HHS</a>.“This is the definition of the swamp that President Trump had promised to drain,” said Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for the progressive watchdog group Accountable Pharma, in a statement to Salon. Americans are losing trust in the administration, he continued, especially in the face of evidence that “far too many political appointees at Azar’s Department of Health and Human Services care more about helping their special interest friends and allies than protecting patients and families,”HHS did not respond to questions from Salon.The department led a months-long pressure campaign against the FDA “urging the agency to abandon its responsibility for ensuring the safety and accuracy of a range of coronavirus tests,” according to the Politico report. The effort alarmed FDA officials who worried that such a move would result in “inaccurate tests … flooding the market” and might undermine efforts to combat the pandemic.The FDA’s device chief, Jeff Shuren, was excluded from key meetings on the issue while HHS lawyers like Charrow led the push, according to the report.“Primarily, it was our lawyers advising us that this [review] requirement was illegal,” HHS chief of staff Brian Harrison told the outlet.But the push alarmed many career officials who expressed concerns about the politicization of public health policy. “I’ve never seen such a complete political overruling of the agency,” a former HHS official told Politico. “It makes me worried about what’s to come.”Azar ultimately revoked the FDA’s ability to regulate tests developed by individual labs for their own use, despite opposition from FDA head Dr. Stephen Hahn. That decision led to pushback inside the FDA, which has not announced any changes to policy even though HHS published an announcement on its own website.Earlier in the pandemic, the FDA’s decision to ease testing rules led the agency to grant Emergency Use Authorization for dozens of tests. More than 80 of the 125 tests submitted to the FDA for authorization had “design or validation problems,” according to an article by Shuren and Tim Stenzel, the FDA’s diagnostics chief, published in <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2023830?query=featured_home" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The New England Journal of Medicine</a>.Politico reported that the push by Charrow echoed a position “long held” by some diagnostic companies despite “fierce resistance” from FDA lawyers and “skepticism” from White House attorneys.Former Trump FDA chief <a href="https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1297152402773233666" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Scott Gottlieb warned</a> that as a result of the move the “FDA might not be able to provide critical advice to test developers or take needed enforcement actions against bad tests.”Charrow pushed back on the concerns from medical experts.“It is false to say that this will lead to unregulated, low quality COVID-19 tests,” <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-fda-coronavirus-response-tests-oversight-f50f4a11-7568-4228-acbe-cb706180d4ff.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">he told Politico last month</a>. “Every single COVID-19 test in the United States will still be regulated at the federal level. This simply removes an additional regulatory barrier that was erected in January that at most other times is not required.”Bloomberg Law previously described Charrow as head of a <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/dream-team-pushes-hhs-policy-envelope-with-high-risk-of-lawsuits" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">controversial “dream team” of attorneys</a> at HHS that has taken an “aggressive” approach in pushing political priorities. The team at the department’s Office of General Counsel has been intimately involved in crafting policies that stand to benefit the industry that Charrow previously represented. Charrow has expanded the size of the office by about 100 attorneys since taking over.Charrow was also involved in pushing for an FDA authorization for chloroquine, a drug hyped by Trump before he switched to its less toxic cousin hydroxycholoroquine, which has since been shown to be ineffective in treating or preventing coronavirus infection.Charrow sent former BARDA chief Rick Bright an “urgent directive” to make the drug widely available outside of medical settings and without close supervision from doctors, according to a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/exhibits-submitted-as-part-of-rick-bright-s-whistleblower-complaint/8b40193d-fe03-44f3-806e-34b7f680ebcc/?itid=lk_inline_manual_24" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">whistleblower complaint filed by Bright</a> after clashing with officials.The push “raised alarms” inside the FDA, according to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/05/rick-bright-hydroxychloroquine-whistleblower-complaint/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Washington Post</a>, where officials pushed to limit the authorization.Two current officials confirmed Bright’s claim that Charrow “directly drove the project after Trump spent days in March publicly stumping for his health officials to expand access to the drug,” <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/13/rick-bright-vaccine-chief-coronavirus-254127" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Politico</a> reported in May.One former administration official told Bloomberg Law that Charrow feels that he has nothing to lose by taking a more aggressive approach than previous office-holders.Charrow “plans to make this job the last of his career,” the official said, “so he doesn’t feel the need to make nice with everyone.”<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/leaked-emails-reveal-a-trump-official-sought-to-muzzle-dr-fauci-on-vital-19-facts/</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">no lnx twt</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Andrea Germanos / Common Dreams September 10, 2020</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Reporting from Politico Wednesday revealed that a Trump-allied official within the Department of Health and Human Services tried to censor Dr. Anthony Fauci from communicating to the press dangers the coronavirus may pose to school children.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">According to Politico, the messaging directives came from Paul Alexander, a Trump administration appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services. Alexander is a senior adviser to Michael Caputo, a Trump ally and assistant HHS secretary for public affairs.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Politico obtained multiple emails from Alexander that reflect his responses to what Fauci—director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)—planned on telling outlets including Bloomberg and HuffPost. They included messages that “are couched as scientific arguments” but “often contradict mainstream science,” according to the reporting.</div><div>
</div><div>The outlet cited as one example an Aug. 27 email in which Alexander wrote that he continues “to have an issue with kids getting tested and repeatedly and even university students in a widespread manner…and I disagree with Dr. Fauci on this. Vehemently.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>In another email from Tuesday, Alexander suggested children have “essentially zero” risk if they are exposed to the coronavirus and pushed Fauci’s press team to make sure Fauci told MSNBC that children should not wear masks at school. From Politico:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>“Can you ensure Dr. Fauci indicates masks are for the teachers in schools. Not for children,” Alexander wrote. “There is no data, none, zero, across the entire world, that shows children especially young children, spread this virus to other children, or to adults or to their teachers. None. And if it did occur, the risk is essentially zero,” he continued — adding without evidence that children take influenza home, but not the coronavirus.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Alexander’s repeated efforts at push Fauci to parrot the administration’s anti-science line, however, may have been for naught.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“No one tells me what I can say and cannot say,” Fauci said. “I speak on scientific evidence.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It did not, however, mark Alexander’s first attempts at controlling the narrative from federal health experts.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>The Washington Post reported in July that he made similar efforts with CDC officials. In a June email to CDC officials, Alexander wrote that the agency’s warning about Covid-19 impacts on women “reads in a way to frighten women .?.?. as if the President and his administration can’t fix this and it is getting worse.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Virologist Dave O’Connor weighed in on the new reporting on Twitter, writing, “This sort of story will be recalled years from now as an example of the government interfering with science, with predictably disastrous results.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>Shannon Watts, founder of gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action, also shared Politico‘s new reporting, and had harsh words for the Trump administration.</div><div>
</div><div>“They don’t care if our kids die. They don’t care if we die,” wrote Watts. “They just want power.”</div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div><div>=</div><div>omg</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-administration-plans-250-million-ad-buy-telling-voters-not-to-worry-so-much-about-the/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-administration-plans-250-million-ad-buy-telling-voters-not-to-worry-so-much-about-the/</a></div><div>
</div><div><div class="story-intro story-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Trump administration has given up on any serious attempts to curb the nation’s ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As U.S. deaths inch towards the 200,000 mark, outside experts are now warning Americans to <a title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/opinion/cdc-testing-coronavirus.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">ignore the “dysfunctional” Centers of Disease Control and Prevention</a> after the agency issued new, Trump-favored guidelines to reduce testing, rather than expand it. There is no federal contract tracing effort. There is no standard, expert-based pandemic policy—each state has been left to its own devices, with federal officials ignoring even the most serious state outbreaks.Don’t worry, though. It’s not like the Trump-led federal government is entirely asleep at the wheel. The Department of Health and Human Services is <a title="" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/hhs-contract-coronavirus-despair-hope-406361" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">seeking bids for a new quarter-billion dollar communications contract, reports Politico</a>. No, not to encourage Americans to social distance, wear masks, or get tested—don’t be stupid. The new publicity campaign will instead “defeat despair and inspire hope,” advising businesses how to operate “in the new normal” and instilling “confidence to return to work and restart the economy.”Yeah, we’re all going to die.</div><div class="row" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="col-sm-12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="story-body story-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">You will note, dear tired reader, that this language sounds very much like Trump’s own anti-pandemic anti-policy. Rather than taking more aggressive steps to curtail the pandemic—as nearly every other nation on the planet has—the new publicity campaign will presume we live in a “new normal.” It will be based, says “a senior HHS official” who for some reason would not go on the record to say these embarrassing things, on “defeating the mental health challenges of the coronavirus,” which sounds explicitly like Trump’s own insistence that it’s depression over social distancing that’s killing people, not the deadly disease marked on the death certificates.so instead of a new testing program or, say, mailing out masks to every American household, we’re getting an advertising campaign meant to “defeat despair.” Oh, and Politico reports the contract will be managed by Trump ex-campaign guy Michael Caputo.Odds that Trump loyalist Michael Caputo is going to sign off on a $250 million ad campaign telling Americans to “defeat despair” through the remarkably effective practice of wearing masks, against Donald Trump’s personal wishes? Zero. Less than zero. Zero minus the square root of Ivanka.Anyhoo, the idea that the Trump-led federal government is, immediately before the (cough) November elections, going to be combatting the COVID-19 pandemic via an ad campaign telling Americans to maybe just stop being sad about it is … well, let’s be honest. It’s so on-brand it hurts.It’s the “Be Best” of infectious disease campaigns. Sorry, we still need to limit testing—but here’s some tips on how you can restart the economy, fellow patriots. Nothing inspires “hope” like getting your unmasked face back to work, unless it’s getting legislation passed immunizing your employer from consequences if you die afterword. Now that’s inspiring.</div></div></div></div><div>
</div><div>=</div>7/20 hijack bogart covis data from CDCultimate transparency fail?  to be fair, CDC is under DHS, and hospitals did gripe about having to report to mult agy?<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/experts-sound-alarm-as-trump-hijacks-coronavirus-data-from-cdc-and-threatens-to-withhold-covid-19-drug/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/experts-sound-alarm-as-trump-hijacks-coronavirus-data-from-cdc-and-threatens-to-withhold-covid-19-drug/</a>=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/hhs-inspector-general-allows-trumps-vaccine-czar-to-maintain-big-pharma-investments-despite-blatant-conflict-of-interest">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/hhs-inspector-general-allows-trumps-vaccine-czar-to-maintain-big-pharma-investments-despite-blatant-conflict-of-interest</a>
slaoui COI?<div></div><div>an 5/28/20</div><div><div class="header-list-style" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2 class="entry-title grid-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;">
</h2><h2 class="entry-title grid-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;">p<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/purged-watchdog-who-found-severe-medical-supply-shortages-persists-with-14-ongoing-investigations/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px;">urged watchdog who found ‘severe’ medical supply shortages persists with 14 ongoing investigations</a></h2><div class="grid-post-box-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 12px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/kerry-eleveld/" title="Posts by Kerry Eleveld" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Kerry Eleveld</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/daily-kos/" title="Posts by Daily Kos" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Daily Kos</a>May 28, 2020</div></div><div class="item-content entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 18px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As Donald Trump tries to replace the independent watchdog at the Health and Human Services Department post-haste, she has continued doggedly investigating his endlessly inept handling of the coronavirus. Christi…</div></div><div></div>an 220 '<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/an-outrage-hhs-chief-refuses-to-vow-coronavirus-vaccine-will-be-affordable-for-all-not-just-the-rich/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px;">An outrage’: HHS chief refuses to vow coronavirus vaccine will be affordable for all — not just the rich</a><div class="header-list-style" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="grid-post-box-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 12px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/jake-johnson/" title="Posts by Jake Johnson" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Jake Johnson</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/common-dreams/" title="Posts by Common Dreams" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Common Dreams</a> February 27, 2020</div></div><div class="item-content entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 18px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“This is what happens when you put a Big Pharma CEO who doubled the price of insulin in charge of regulating Big Pharma.”</div>
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div>[T]he President has a growing number of supporters who understand opposition to abortion and immigration as intertwined—as means of preserving a white, Christian America. And the Trump Administration is taking concrete steps to encourage this ideational fusion.</div><div>
</div><div>Consider the events of last week. The Trump Administration dispatched officials to the International Conference on Family Policy. There, Trump officials laudedHungary’s “procreation, not immigration” policies, which oppose refugees and immigration and instead subsidize traditional, nuclear Hungarian families to have more children. These policies coincided with a new Hungarian constitution, which protects fetal life from the moment of conception.</div><div>
</div><div>Joe Grogan, an assistant to the president and director of the Domestic Policy Council, praised Hungary for the “courage and creativity” of these policies and said the Trump Administration was “inspired” and came “in support and solidarity.” He took the occasion of celebrating Hungary’s fertility-boosting programs to affirm the Administration’s opposition to abortion.</div><div>
</div><div>Hungary’s “procreation, not immigration” policies have their roots in “replacement theory.” This doctrine holds that white women are not producing enough babies and Christian, western civilizations will be “replaced” through the twin forces of falling birth rates and increasing immigration.</div><div>
</div><div>Back in March, Trump’s HHS provided $5.1 million Title X family-planning funds to an organization called Obria, which aims to be a pro-life alternative to Planned Parenthood.</div><div>
</div><div>In 2015, Obria’s founder and current chief executive explained, “When [Europe’s] nations accepted contraception and abortion, they stopped replacing their population. Christianity began to die out. And, with Europeans having no children, immigrant Muslims came in to replace them, and now the culture of Europe is changing.” She warned that America is “on the same track as Europe” and that “[i]n only two of the past 40 years have we replaced our population.” WHITE GENOCIDE</div><div>
</div><div>Anyone familiar with Margret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale understands that this is what happens when democracy is replaced by theocratic authoritarianism. It is a marriage of white nationalism, Christian nationalism, and misogyny. That is where the current conservative movement is headed in this country.</div><div>
</div><div>Nancy LeTourneau is a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly. Follow her on Twitter @Smartypants60.</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><ol start="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 50px; list-style: none;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal;">Recommended Unsafe Levels of Drinking Water Contaminants</li></ol>Poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are used in firefighting foam and a variety of nonstick, cleaning, packaging and other household products, have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/23/pfas-everyday-products-toxics-guide" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">linked</a> to thyroid disease and kidney, liver, pancreatic and testicular cancer. According to a recent <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drinking-water-may-contain-pfas-chemicals-in-43-states-according-to-new-study-by-environmental-working-group/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">study</a> by the Environmental Working Group and Northeastern University, these chemicals threaten the drinking water supplies of an estimated 19 million Americans. A 2018 Union of Concerned Scientists <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/center-science-and-democracy/preserving-science-based-safeguards/toxic-threat-pfas-contamination-military-bases" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">report</a>, meanwhile, found that PFAS water contamination at 130 military bases across the country exceed the 11-parts-per-trillion safety threshold determined by the Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Nearly two-thirds of the sites had contamination that was more than 100 times higher than the safe level.<div class="p8_31" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In February, Wheeler <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-acting-administrator-announces-first-ever-comprehensive-nationwide-pfas-action-plan" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">announced</a> the “first-ever nationwide action plan” to regulate PFAS chemicals in water, saying the agency would develop and set a limit for two of the most prevalent PFAS chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid. During the announcement, he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/politics/epa-pfas-water-plan/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">told</a> reporters he believes the agency’s voluntary 70-part-per-trillion health-advisory level for the chemicals is “a safe level for drinking water,” despite the fact that this level is more than six times higher than what the Disease Registry considers safe.<div class="p9_31" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-10" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">While Wheeler slow-walks the EPA’s response, members of Congress have introduced at least a <a href="https://saferchemicals.org/2019/05/29/communities-call-on-congress-to-act-on-pfas/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">dozen</a> bills to address PFAS contamination, and the <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/450706-senate-vote-requires-military-epa-to-deal-with-harmful-forever" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Senate recently passed</a> a defense bill that would require the EPA to set a science-based standard for PFAS in drinking water.</div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/civil-rights-groups-sue-trump-administration-over-religious-conscience-rule">https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/civil-rights-groups-sue-trump-administration-over-religious-conscience-rule</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Civil rights groups sue Trump administration over religious conscience rule</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Civil rights groups sue Trump administration over religious conscience rule Christian leaders praying over Donald Trump in the Oval Office (Photo: Screen capture)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">written by Matthew Rozsa / Salon May 29, 2019]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>A new rule allows providers to deny care to people whose medical needs raise an objection of religion or conscious.</div><div>President Donald Trump’s administration faces a lawsuit over a new rule allowing health care providers to deny care to women, the LGBTQ community and other marginalized groups whose medical needs raise an objection of religion or conscious.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">Lambda Legal, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Association of LGBTQ+ Psychiatrists are among the coalition of civil rights groups who are suing Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services over its new rule. In their complaint filed Tuesday, the coalition argued the new Health and Human Services rule violates the basic freedoms of individuals who could face discrimination from religious conservatives.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Although purporting to implement long-standing healthcare statutes with specific provisions affording protections for the religious or moral beliefs of certain individuals and entities (‘religious objections’), the rule instead creates a wholly new regime that elevates religious objections over all other interests and values,” the complaint says. “The rule invites a much larger universe of healthcare workers to decline to serve patients based on religious objections, defines with unprecedented breadth the types of activities to which they may object and fails to reconcile objections with the needs and rights of patients — even though doing so is critical in any regulatory scheme administering these laws. And the rule does not include emergency exceptions.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Earlier this month, HHS issued what we have dubbed ‘the denial of care rule,'” Genevieve Scott, senior staff attorney at Center for Reproductive Rights, said during a conference call with reporters Tuesday.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">“It extends not only to doctors and nurses, but even EMTs and administrative staff are encouraged to deny care. The rule is extremely broad and contains no limits on who is at risk of being denied treatment, even for those in need of emergency care,” Scott added. “Health care facilities, including hospitals and clinics, are threatened with a loss of federal funding if they do not comply. Many hospitals and clinics rely on government funding to stay open and could not survive this kind of loss.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Scott also pointed out that “the rule is intentionally confusing and unworkable for health care facilities to implement. To avoid potentially violating the rule and losing the funding, many facilities may end up doing away with services that staff might object to — including reproductive health services, like abortion and contraception, and LGBT services. Other facilities may be forced to close.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lambda Legal, whose mission is to achieve the full civil rights of the LGBT community and individuals living with HIV, expressed similar thoughts.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Our organizations are jointly representing premiere health care providers and community centers that are dedicated to serving the LGBT community, abortion providers, individual doctors and three national associations of health care professionals and medical students,” Jamie Gliksberg, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal’s Midwest regional office, said during the call. “These health care providers and community centers are really providers of last resort for their patients and of crucial importance to LGBT people, people living with HIV, patients in need of reproductive health care and public health, generally. The people who go to these organizations for care often have been turned away from other health care providers and have no place left to go.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/right-wing/donald-trump-and-republicans-work-every-day-destroy-social-security-medicare-and-medicaid" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/right-wing/donald-trump-and-republicans-work-every-day-destroy-social-security-medicare-and-medicaid</a>during..Trump’s campaign for president, he promised <a href="https://medium.com/senator-bernie-sanders/14-times-donald-trump-promised-not-to-cut-social-security-medicare-and-medicaid-99beefa9f584" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">over and over again</a> to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Now, in the lead-up to the midterm elections, Trump is <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1037407341816283137" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">claiming</a> to have kept that promise. Completely in character for a president who doesn’t let a day go by without lying, he recently falsely claimed, “We’re saving Social Security, the Democrats will destroy Social Security. We’re saving Medicare. The Dems, you look at what they’re doing. They want to destroy Medicare.”It’s time to set the record straight. Far from keeping his word, Trump and his administration have spent every day since taking power working to destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.Here are 10 of the Trump administration’s worst attacks on the American people’s Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid:<div style="margin-bottom: 20px;">1. Trump nominated Congressman Mick Mulvaney to be the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director. Mulvaney has a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/16/senators-confirm-trumps-pick-to-deal-with-the-federal-budget/?utm_term=.bb71f86660ad" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">long history</a> of working to destroy Social Security and Medicare. In 2011, he said, “We have to end Medicare as we know it.”Every single Republican senator <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=115&session=1&vote=00068" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">voted</a> to confirm Mulvaney, while every Democrat voted against.2. Trump nominated Tom Price to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Medicare. Price <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a-vote-for-tom-price-is-a-vote-to-destroy-medicare_us_589a2c11e4b0985224db5b06" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">has stated</a> that “We will not rest until we make certain that government-run health care [e.g., Medicare] is ended” and decried “the federal government’s intrusion into medicine through Medicare.”Every single Republican senator <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/10/us/politics/tom-price-confirmation-vote.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">voted</a> to confirm Price, while every Democrat present voted against. After less than a year on the job, Price was forced to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/us/politics/tom-price-trump-hhs.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">resign in disgrace</a>, and Trump replaced him with Alex Azar, a former pharmaceutical executive <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/deadly-greed-alex-azar-must-not-be-confirmed_us_5a1c3bfbe4b0bf1467a84886" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">who tripled the price of insulin</a>.3. As soon as Trump took office, the Republican Party’s top priority was to take health care away from tens of millions of Americans. If “Trumpcare” had become law, it would have cut <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumpcares-880-billion-cut-to-medicaid-is-an-attack_us_58ca930be4b0537abd956e46" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">$880 billion</a> from Medicaid, creating a disaster for seniors who rely on Medicaid for long-term care. It would also have created a Medicare <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-overlooked-trumpcare-threat-a-medicare-time-bomb_us_594d77cee4b0326c0a8d0845" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">time bomb</a> by starving the program of essential funding.4. Trump’s 2018 budget proposal sought cuts of <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/trump-wants-800-billion-10-year-cut-entitlement-programs" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">$800 billion</a> to Medicaid and Social Security Disability Insurance over 10 years. When OMB Director Mulvaney was asked if these cuts would lead to fewer people receiving their earned Social Security disability benefits, he replied, “<a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mick-mulvaney-i-hope-fewer-people-social-security-disability-insurance" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">I hope so</a>.”5. Republicans passed a massive tax giveaway to billionaires and corporations, which they are now using as an excuse to <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/republicans-voted-tax-bill-cut-medicare-social-security-pay-488a9bcbba7d/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">demand cuts</a> to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.6. Nearly every House Republican <a href="https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2018/roll138.xml" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">voted</a> for a so-called “Balanced Budget Amendment,” which would <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/blog/why-a-balanced-budget-amendment-would-harm-social-security-and-federal-deposit-insurance" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">make it unconstitutional</a> for Social Security to use its own $2.9 trillion trust fund to pay promised benefits. (Fortunately, the Amendment did not attain the two-thirds majority required for passage.)...</div></div>see price, resigned

trump:

<h2 class="pp-int-hed" style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; margin: 25px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1;"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/heritage-foundation-critical-transgender-rights-HHS-civil-rights-office" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration-line: none;">Heritage Foundation Alum Critical of Transgender Rights to Lead HHS Civil Rights Office</a></h2>

<p style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Roger Severino, the new head of the Office for Civil Rights within Health and Human Services, has opposed transgender patients’ rights, same-sex marriage and Planned Parenthood. <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/heritage-foundation-critical-transgender-rights-HHS-civil-rights-office" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration-line: none;">Read the story</a>.

==
Ximena Barreto, a right-wing commentator with a history of pushing

conspiracy theories and bigoted rhetoric, has finally resigned from the

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Barreto joined HHS in December 2017 as a deputy communications director. Media Matters first <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/04/09/hhs-official-pizzagate-conspiracy-theorist-who-said-african-americans-are-way-more-racist-whites-and/219888" style="text-decoration-line:none;">reported</a>

on April 9 that Barreto (who also goes by the surname Barreto-Rice)

frequently made toxic remarks as a conservative pundit. She promoted the

Pizzagate conspiracy theory, claimed that “African-Americans are way

more racist than white people,” and labeled Islam “a fucking cult” that

has “no place” in the United States, among other remarks.

Here is a video from Media Matters’ John Kerr of some of her worst remarks:...[vid]
ours after Media Matters’ report, HHS issued a statement saying Barreto “has been placed on administrative leave while the matter is reviewed.”

Media Matters originally found out about Barreto’s federal employment because ProPublica <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/trump-town/staffers/ximena-alexandra-barreto" style="text-decoration-line:none;">added</a> her name to Trump Town, its <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/trump-town/" style="text-decoration-line:none;">database</a> of Trump administration political appointees.

CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, Chris Massie, and Nathan McDermott <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/politics/kfile-hhs-official-obama-clinton-treason/index.html" style="text-decoration-line:none;">reported</a>

on April 13 that Barreto “shared an image in 2017 that said ‘our

forefathers would have hung’ Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for

treason,” “repeatedly used the hashtag #BanIslam and twice shared

conspiracy theories about the death of Democratic National Committee

staffer Seth Rich,” among other conspiracy theories.

The Trump administration <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/05/02/trump-administration-declines-fire-hhs-official-ximena-barreto-over-bigoted-and-conspiratorial/220090" style="text-decoration-line:none;">decided</a>

to allow Barreto back to work in early May but said she would “not to

return to the public affairs department and will serve in a different

role where she will work to complete several projects.”

On June 21, Mediaite’s Caleb Ecarma <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/online/hhs-official-called-john-podesta-a-pedophile-and-claimed-liberals-abuse-children-in-satanic-rituals/" style="text-decoration-line:none;">reported</a>

that Barreto attacked CNN for purportedly conducting a “smear campaign”

against her (CNN did not smear Barreto). Mediaite also “conducted an

extensive review of her social media posts and found that the HHS

appointee pushed the baseless Pizzagate conspiracy theory even more than

previously reported,” finding that she tweeted variations of the

conspiracy theory “at least 17 times.”

On June 22, CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/22/politics/kfile-hhs-official-listed-work-for-anti-islam-show/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twCNNp&utm_content=2018-06-22T21%3A08%3A23&CNNPolitics=fb" style="text-decoration-line:none;">reported</a>

that a copy of Barreto’s resume -- which was obtained through a Freedom

of Information Act request -- showed that “she listed her previous

conspiratorial work on her resume as a qualification for the

communication position.”

Politico’s Dan Diamond <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/27/hhs-official-conspiracy-theories-resigns-ximena-barreto-747461" style="text-decoration-line:none;">reported</a>

on July 27 that she “was escorted from Health and Human Services

Department headquarters Friday, according to an individual with

knowledge of the situation. Barreto resigned, the individual said.”

There are <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/24/politics/kfile-trump-appointee-va/index.html" style="text-decoration-line:none;">numerous</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/07/politics/kfile-hhs-allowed-back-on-job/index.html" style="text-decoration-line:none;">other</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/03/politics/trump-dod-appointee-resigns-birther/index.html" style="text-decoration-line:none;">people</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/16/politics/kfile-jamie-johnson-resigns/index.html" style="text-decoration-line:none;">who</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/08/politics/kfile-john-gibbs-hud/index.html" style="text-decoration-line:none;">have</a> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/06/23/doe-agency-head-second-us-civil-war-may-be-necessary-imagine-world-without-islam-transgenderism/217016" style="text-decoration-line:none;">served</a> in the Trump administration and have pushed toxic conspiracy theories <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/28/politics/kfile-top-aide-to-ryan-zinke/index.html" style="text-decoration-line:none;">and/or</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/18/politics/kfile-carl-higbie-on-the-radio/index.html" style="text-decoration-line:none;">bigoted</a> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/01/22/dhs-senior-adviser-who-has-worked-travel-ban-claimed-true-muslims-can-t-peacefully-coexist-or-mingle/219112" style="text-decoration-line:none;">rhetoric</a>.
<h2><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/07/30/right-wing-conspiracy-theorist-ximena-barreto-finally-leaves-hhs-after-outlets-document-her-toxic/220838">Right-wing conspiracy theorist Ximena Barreto finally leaves HHS after outlets document her toxic rhetoric</a></h2>
<h2 style="margin: 25px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1;">Swamp denizens, including health care lobbyists hired by HHS Secretary Tom Price</h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1;">Alexandra Campau, hired at the department of Health and Human Services, was formerly <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/lobbyist.php?id=Y0000048211L&year=2014" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1;">a lobbyist</a> in Washington for the law firm Cozen O’Connor. According to disclosure records, her firm’s clients included a licensee of insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Fresenius Medical Care, a German company that specializes in medical supplies for renal dialysis.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1;">Timothy Clark, a senior adviser to HHS Secretary Tom Price, ran his own political consulting firm in California. His <a href="http://clarkstrategygroup.com/current-and-past-clients/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1;">past clients</a> included PhRMA, the powerful trade group that represents the pharmaceutical industry.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/keagan-lenihan-071b511/?locale=de_DE" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1;">Keagan Lenihan</a>, also a senior adviser to Price, was a director of government relations at McKesson Specialty Health, a firm that supports independent health providers. Disclosure <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/lobbyist.php?id=Y0000046788L&year=2016" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1;">records</a> show Lenihan directly lobbied HHS. For Lenihan, the new post represents a return trip through the revolving door between government and the private sector, and a reunion with an old boss. Before registering as a lobbyist, she was a senior legislative assistant for Price, when the now-HHS secretary was in Congress.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Asked about the three HHS staffers, an agency spokeswoman said: “We are not confirming or commenting on personnel at this time.”

That could finally change with the newly appointed Department of Health and Human Service Secretary <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/06/us/health-secretary-sylvia-mathews-burwell-builds-relationships-from-west-virginia-to-washington.html" onclick="javascript:gaq.push(['trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.nytimes.com']);" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">Sylvia Burwell</a>, who was born and raised in Hinton, West Virginia.

“We implore you to come home for a visit, come to our mountaintop removal communities in the Coal River Valley,” <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/the-webb-abides-heroic-an_b_781403.html" onclick="javascript:gaq.push(['trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.huffingtonpost.com']);" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">nationally-honored </a>West Virginia advocate <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/urgent-webb-letter-to-oba_b_168604.html" onclick="javascript:gaq.push(['trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.huffingtonpost.com']);" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">Bo Webb</a> wrote in a letter to Burwell this week. “Come to Twilight and Lindytown and see what mountaintop removal is doing to us.”

Recognizing the staggering human and health crisis from the extreme form of strip mining, including <a href="http://www.kftc.org/sites/default/files/docs/resources/mtrhealthimpactskftcfactsheet.pdf" onclick="javascript:gaq.push(['trackEvent','download','http://www.kftc.org/sites/default/files/docs/resources/mtrhealthimpactskftcfactsheet.pdf']);" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">high birth defects and cancer rates</a>, besieged residents and coal mining families in Burwell’s neighboring West Virginia communities have now issued an urgent appeal to the HHS chief to make a breakthrough visit to afflicted residents.

“All of us who have been born and grown up in West Virginia recognize our close connection to coal and the coal industry,” wrote Webb, a Vietnam veteran, who co-founded the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/reintroduced-ache-act-is-b_2639926.html" onclick="javascript:gaq.push(['trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.huffingtonpost.com']);" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; background: transparent;">Appalachian Community Health Emergency</a> group. “My father, uncles, grandfather, and cousins, all worked in underground coal mines. Mining has been an honorable job in West Virginia.” He added:

==

TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

Formaldehyde Added to “Known Carcinogens” List Despite Lobbying by Koch Brothers, Chemical Industry

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has added formaldehyde to a list of known carcinogens, despite years of lobbying by the chemical industry. Formaldehyde is found in plastics and often used in plywood, particle board, mortuaries and hair salons. The government also said Friday that styrene, which is used in boats, bathtubs and in disposable foam plastic cups and plates, may cause cancer. The conservative billionaire Koch brothers have led the lobbying effort against labeling formaldehyde as a carcinogen, and Georgia-Pacific, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, is one of the country’s top producers of formaldehyde. [includes rush transcript]

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn to our continued coverage of a major development in public health and safety. The government has added formaldehyde to a list of known carcinogens, despite years of lobbying by the chemical industry. Formaldehyde is found in plastics and often used in plywood, particle board, mortuaries and hair salons. The government also said Friday styrene, which is used in boats, bathtubs, disposable foam plastic cups and plates, may cause cancer. The conservative billionaire Koch brothers have led the lobbying effort against labeling formaldehyde as a carcinogen. Georgia-Pacific, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, is one of the country’s top producers of formaldehyde.

For more, we’re joined by two guests: Jennifer Sass, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, joining us from Washington, D.C., and here in New York we’re joined by Joaquin Sapien, a reporter at ProPublica focusing on environmental issues.

Joaquin, start off by talking about the significance of this report.

JOAQUIN SAPIEN: I think that this report is — shows that there is a growing consensus around the dangers from formaldehyde exposure. The report on carcinogens is something that’s been held back for, I believe, four years now. Like you said, in spite of tremendous pressure from the chemical manufacturing industry, it’s finally out, and it said what I think many in the public health community have known for quite some time, that formaldehyde is indeed a carcinogen, and there is strong evidence showing that it’s been linked to leukemia.

In the meantime, there’s still another risk assessment that has been in the works now since 1998, that the Environmental Protection Agency has been working on, and that one will — is probably the document that will have more of an impact on regulations in terms of how much formaldehyde can come off of everyday products like plywood and other things. And so, it’s yet to be seen what influence the report on carcinogens will have on that assessment, but I think a lot of people are looking to the EPA now for some closure.

AMY GOODMAN: Jennifer Sass, you’re with the Natural Resources Defense Council. You have been following this report very closely over many years. Just explain the time line on what was finally released on Friday and then, you know, comes out in the papers Saturday, the least read paper of the week.

JENNIFER SASS: Sure, Amy. This announcement was actually made on Friday afternoon, so it was — sort of bypassed a lot of media attention. But the formaldehyde assessment has been in the works, really, by government assessors and government scientific experts trying to do this for about 20 years, for a long time at EPA, and then more recently with the National Toxicology Program’s Report on Carcinogens. And in that 20 years, the formaldehyde industry, and really the American Chemistry Council, so the ACC, which represents all the chemical manufacturers, have been pulling out all the guns to try and stop this assessment from coming out.

They’ve used a number of standard tactics, or what I call their sort of dirty bag of tricks. So, for example, they start out by saying that first the chemical isn’t actually toxic, that it’s not hazardous. But a long time ago it was realized that formaldehyde causes cancers of the nose and throat. And finally, at some point, even the industry couldn’t deny that. But they really wanted to deny that it causes cancer anywhere else in the body, so they’ve been spending a lot of money, hiring a lot of scientists, and also giving money to a lot of people in Congress to try and delay or prevent this report from coming out.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about, Joaquin, who are these lobbyists — for example, the Koch brothers, and their significance in this delay.

JOAQUIN SAPIEN: Well, there is an industry trade group called the Formaldehyde Council that hired a fairly prominent lobbyist in Washington by the name of Charles Grizzle, who I wrote about quite a bit last year. And Charles Grizzle was key in getting Stephen Johnson appointed to the EPA. He was a Bush pioneer. And the Formaldehyde Council, which no longer exists today, interestingly, hired him for — I think from 2008 until 2010. And he was sort of instrumental in currying favor from David Vitter, as well as Senator James Inhofe, who acted on behalf of the industry by doing things like holding up Obama administration appointees until the EPA agreed to have their risk assessment of formaldehyde reviewed by an outside panel of scientists.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, this is the Louisiana senator, David Vitter.

JOAQUIN SAPIEN: Right, who ironically represented a number of people who lived in formaldehyde-contaminated trailers that were provided by FEMA for Hurricane Katrina victims.

AMY GOODMAN: He, instrumental in preventing formaldehyde being classified as a carcinogen?

JOAQUIN SAPIEN: Yeah, and if you look at sort of the time line of some of the favors that he did for the industry and the campaign contributions, you’ll see that, you know, he was — he would write letters to the EPA urging them to have this review of their risk assessment done by an outside panel of experts, which is a sort of a classic industry move, similar to what Jen was describing, where essentially the review of these documents causes a tremendous delay. And delay, in the very short term, means more money for this industry. And so, you’d see him write a letter to the EPA, and then, within weeks, he would get a check from someone like Charles Grizzle or one of the many people that he represents on the Hill.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me get some responses from industry groups. After the Department of Health and Human Services listed styrene in its 12th Report on Carcinogens, the Styrene Information and Research Center issued a statement saying, quote, "The designation is completely unjustified by the latest science and resulted from a flawed process that focuses on only those data that support a cancer concern, and in the case of styrene ignored the preponderance of data that fail to suggest a cancer concern for this substance." Jennifer Sass, your response?

JENNIFER SASS: Yeah. You know, this is part of what public health people sort of call the "four dog defense," you know, and it’s sort of the four dogs that the industry puts in the fight. And you see these tricks over and over again. They were probably first developed by the tobacco industry, and they’ve been carried through with asbestos and all the other toxic chemicals.

So the first is, you know, "My dog doesn’t bite. My dog isn’t harmful." And that’s the first line of defense, is to deny that the chemical is harmful at all. So, both styrene and formaldehyde industry have done this.

The second one is, "Well, OK, my dog bites. The evidence is there. I can’t deny it anymore. But it didn’t bite you. You’re not exposed. So don’t worry about it. You’re still safe. It causes some cancers in lab rats, but you’re not exposed to my chemical."

Then we start finding it in our environment. We find it in our food, in our water, in our air, and in people’s bodies with biomonitoring. And then the chemical industry will say, "OK, my dog bites. It bit you. You’re exposed. But it didn’t hurt you. Don’t worry." And the arguments there go something like, "Well, it causes cancers in lab rats, but those lab rats are different than people," for differences that are hard actually to explain for the industry. "And so, don’t worry about it. Jut because it causes cancers in lab animals, don’t worry. You’re safe. Even though you have it in your body, your families, it’s in your food, in your drinking water, it’s contaminating the air you breathe, don’t sweat it."

And then, what they might say at the end is, "Well, OK" — you know, really when they’re pushed with the evidence, they’ll say, "OK, my dog bit you, and it hurt you, but it was your fault." And this might be something like, "OK, my chemical causes cancer. Yes, you’re exposed to my chemical, but that your levels are too low." And that’s sort of the stage that they’re at here, Amy. So with the formaldehyde industry, they’re saying, "Well, you know, these studies of tens of thousands of workers that are exposed to formaldehyde over a working lifetime and have cancers" — not only of the nose and throat, but also of the blood and bone marrow, of leukemias and lymphomas, which is what the industry is trying to deny — they say, "Well, those workers were exposed at much higher levels, and you’re not exposed to those high levels."

But actually, when people are exposed, they’re exposed even when they’re children or infants, because a lot of that formaldehyde is in your home. And the indoor levels are actually much higher than the outdoor levels, because the fumes are emitted from a lot of that particle board and plywood and composites that furniture and other things in your home are made of. So, it’s a real problem, because pregnant women are exposed. People are exposed, therefore, pre-birth, early in childhood. If people live in the homes, they may spend really most of the day in the home, and so vulnerable periods of their development they’re exposed to these chemicals. And that’s much more serious, in a lot of ways, than an adult healthy male worker.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me just ask Joaquin some — quick question, as we wrap up the show. David Koch was on the board of the National Institutes of Health, right?

JOAQUIN SAPIEN: That’s right. He —

AMY GOODMAN: So, one of the chief lobbyists for formaldehyde is on the board, then leaves. Is there any relation to now the report’s coming out?

JOAQUIN SAPIEN: Well, he offered his resignation in October after an article came out in The New Yorker by Jane Mayer that first raised the issue of his involvement with the board on the National Institutes of Health. How closely this report is linked to his resignation and the conclusions that it made is yet to be seen.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us, Joaquin Sapien with ProPublica and Jennifer Sass with the Natural Resources Defense Council. That does it for our show. We’ll link to their articles at democracynow.org.

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