September 10 in Previous Years (4/4)
News Summaries from the WantToKnow.info Archive
Mainstream media often buries important news stories. PEERS is a US-based 501(c)3 nonprofit that finds and summarizes these stories for WantToKnow.info's free weekly email newsletter and website. Explore below key excerpts of revealing news articles from our archive that were published on today's date in previous years. Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. The most important sentences are highlighted. If you find a link that no longer works, please tell us about it in a comment. And if you find this material overwhelming or upsetting, here's a message just for you. By educating ourselves and spreading the word, we can and will build a brighter future.
Mainstream media often buries important news stories. PEERS is a US-based 501(c)3 nonprofit that finds and summarizes these stories for WantToKnow.info's free weekly email newsletter and website. Explore below key excerpts of revealing news articles from our archive that were published on today's date in previous years. Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. The most important sentences are highlighted. If you find a link that no longer works, please tell us about it in a comment. And if you find this material overwhelming or upsetting, here's a message just for you. By educating ourselves and spreading the word, we can and will build a brighter future.
Did Merck Unfairly Monopolize the Market for a Mumps Vaccine?
Published on this day in 2014, by Wall Street Journal blog
Original Article Source, Dated 2014-09-10
Did Merck use false pretenses to monopolize the market for mumps vaccines? A pair of lawsuits – one of which is filed by former employees and the other by doctors – make this allegation and a federal judge is allowing both claims to proceed. The former employees – virologists who filed a whistleblower lawsuit four years ago – charge Merck knew its vaccine was less effective than the purported 95% efficacy level. And they alleged that senior management was aware, complicit and in charge of testing that concealed the actual effectiveness. They claim to have witnessed fIrsthand what they describe as “improper testing and data falsification in which Merck engaged in order to conceal what the drug maker knew about the vaccine’s diminished efficacy. In fact, their Merck superiors and senior management pressured them to participate in the fraud and subsequent cover up when they objected to and tried to stop it,” according to their lawsuit. The feds declined to join the lawsuit, which was unsealed two years ago. Shortly afterwards, the physicians subsequently filed the other lawsuit charge the vaccine was mislabeled and was not the product for which the government or other purchasers paid, which meant that Merck violated the False Claims Act. Both lawsuits note that Merck held an exclusive license to sell a mumps vaccine and its actions discouraged competition. “The ultimate victims here are the millions of children who, every year, are being injected with a mumps vaccine that is not providing them with an adequate level of protection,” the lawsuit filed by the virologists states. Meanwhile, the mumps vaccine was ringing the register at Merck, which reported that sales reached $621 million last year.
Note: Read the complete summary and notes here
Big Food vs. Big Insurance
Published on this day in 2009, by New York Times
Original Article Source, Dated 2009-09-10
To listen to President Obama, or to just about anyone else in the health care debate, you would think that the biggest problem with health care in America is the system itself — perverse incentives, inefficiencies, unnecessary tests and procedures, lack of competition, and greed. No one disputes that the $2.3 trillion we devote to the health care industry is often spent unwisely, but the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter. Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet. That’s why our success in bringing health care costs under control ultimately depends on whether Washington can summon the political will to take on and reform a second, even more powerful industry: the food industry. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of health care spending now goes to treat “preventable chronic diseases.” Not all of these diseases are linked to diet — there’s smoking, for instance — but many, if not most, of them are. We’re spending $147 billion to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes, and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and the many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet. One recent study estimated that 30 percent of the increase in health care spending over the past 20 years could be attributed to the soaring rate of obesity, a condition that now accounts for nearly a tenth of all spending on health care. The American way of eating has become the elephant in the room in the debate over health care.
Note: Read the complete summary and notes here
Rotherham child sex abuse files 'missing from archive'
Published on this day in 2014, by BBC News
Original Article Source, Dated 2014-09-10
Key reports detailing child sexual exploitation have disappeared from the archives, the outgoing chief executive of Rotherham Council has told MPs. Martin Kimber said he had not seen a full copy of a 2002 report, had never seen a 2003 report and only saw a 2006 report on [last] Sunday. A report published earlier this month found at least 1,400 children were abused in the town from 1997 to 2013. The council was heavily criticised by Professor Alexis Jay. In her report, Professor Jay said: "Further stark evidence came in 2002, 2003 and 2006 with three reports known to the police and the council, which could not have been clearer in their description of the situation in Rotherham." Addressing MPs, Mr Kimber said he did not know whether the archives had been destroyed, but he told the Local Government Committee: "They are not within the council's archives." Director of children's services Joyce Thacker told MPs the first two reports did not appear to have been referred to in any existing council minutes. Asked whether there had been a "deliberate attempt to suppress information", she said she could not answer. Meanwhile, Rotherham council announced plans to dissolve the cabinet and invest Ł120,000 in counselling services for victims of child sexual exploitation. Deputy leader Paul Lakin said the money would come from cutting two cabinet posts and banning overseas travel by members. The council has also approved an emergency motion calling for the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire Shaun Wright to resign. Mr Wright ... was cabinet member for children's services in Rotherham between 2005 and 2010.
Note: Read the complete summary and notes here
Take a Tour of Masonic Washington: What Does It All Mean?
Published on this day in 2009, by Washington Post
Original Article Source, Dated 2009-09-10
Does the layout of Washington reveal some hidden Masonic influence? Masons first appeared in Britain in the early 1400s as members of craft guilds. The Masons encouraged free thought and religious tolerance. They helped invent America: George Washington, Ben Franklin, nine signers of the Declaration of Independence and 13 signers of the Constitution were Masons. Both Presidents Roosevelt and 11 other presidents besides Washington were, too. Also J. Edgar Hoover, Will Rogers, Ty Cobb, John Wayne. [There are] roughly 1.5 million Masons in the United States today. But you only have to visit any number of anti-Masonic Web sites to find the darker claims of conspiracies to rule the world. A persistent rumor involves secret symbols in the map of the city. The White House, Washington Circle, Dupont Circle, Logan Circle and Mount Vernon Square: Draw lines on the avenues connecting the points (pretend Rhode Island doesn't stop at Connecticut) and you get a five-pointed star. It's also possible to divine a six-pointed star on the map east of the Capitol. 16th Street is Washington's "Rose Line." The intersecting line from the Capitol across the Potomac River [takes you to] a place called Rosslyn, which ... is also the name of the sacred Templar chapel in Scotland. The Masonic headquarters ... is on Washington's Rose Line. In September 1793, Washington donned a ceremonial Masonic apron and helped lay the cornerstone of the Capitol. High on the Capitol Rotunda's domed ceiling is Brumidi's dramatic portrayal of the "Apotheosis of Washington" -- the Mason ascending to heaven. Of 100 or so statues in Statuary Hall and elsewhere in the building, [there are] at least 30 Masons.
Note: Read the complete summary and notes here
The Rich Get Richer Through the Recovery
Published on this day in 2013, by New York Times
Original Article Source, Dated 2013-09-10
The top 10 percent of earners took more than half of the country’s total income in 2012, the highest level recorded since the government began collecting the relevant data a century ago, according to an updated study by the prominent economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. The top 1 percent took more than one-fifth of the income earned by Americans, one of the highest levels on record since 1913. The figures underscore that even after the recession the country remains in a new Gilded Age, with income as concentrated as it was in the years that preceded the Depression of the 1930s, if not more so. High stock prices, rising home values and surging corporate profits have buoyed [the] incomes of the most affluent Americans, with the incomes of the rest still weighed down by high unemployment and stagnant wages for many blue- and white-collar workers. “These results suggest the Great Recession has only depressed top income shares temporarily and will not undo any of the dramatic increase in top income shares that has taken place since the 1970s,” Mr. Saez, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote. The income share of the top 1 percent of earners in 2012 [jumped] to about 22.5 percent in 2012 from 19.7 percent in 2011. The economy remains depressed for most wage-earning families. With sustained, relatively high rates of unemployment, businesses are under no pressure to raise their employees’ incomes because both workers and employers know that many people without jobs would be willing to work for less. The share of Americans working or looking for work is at its lowest in 35 years.
Note: Read the complete summary and notes here
The 9/11 Hijackers: Fraud in Official Video Exhibits Uncovered by Expert Panel
Published on this day in 2012, by MarketWatch/Wall Street Journal
Original Article Source, Dated 2012-09-10
A Panel of 22 researchers into the history of 9/11 has uncovered evidence of fraud in the photographic images of Muslim hijackers prior to boarding the planes on 9/11. Court exhibits state that leader Mohamed Atta took a commuter flight from Portland, Maine, to connect to AA Flight 11 out of Boston, which hit the North Tower. The dubious images heighten the mystery of why Atta left Boston, where Flight 11 was to be hijacked, and risked the failure of his entire mission by driving to Portland September 10, staying overnight, and booking a tight connection back to Boston early September 11. The [9/11 Consensus] Panel's in-depth review shows the Portland story to be peppered with inconsistencies and revisions, placing the entire hijack theory in question. Similarly, at Washington's Dulles International Airport, five hijackers allegedly passed through security before flying AA Flight 77, carrying CNN correspondent Barbara Olson, into the Pentagon. Yet no images were released from the 300+ security cameras at Dulles that morning, nor were Arabic men reported in FBI interviews of airport staff. The Panel has produced 28 Consensus Points of "best evidence" regarding the official claims of 9/11 -- the trigger event for the Middle East wars of the last decade. Its investigations cover: explosives at the Twin Towers and Building WTC-7; the inadequate flying skills of the alleged Pentagon pilot; the missing debris from "Let's Roll" Flight 93; the [many] military drills coinciding on 9/11, and the allegedly absent political and military commanders.
Note: Read the complete summary and notes here
Court blocks S.F. warning on cell phones
Published on this day in 2012, by San Francisco Chronicle (SF's leading newspaper)
Original Article Source, Dated 2012-09-10
A federal appeals court blocked San Francisco on [September 10] from requiring cell phone dealers to tell customers the products may expose them to dangerous levels of radiation, saying the city can't force retailers to pass along messages they dispute. The ordinance, the first of its kind in the nation, had been scheduled to take effect last October, but has remained on hold during an industry challenge. It would require retailers to give each cell phone buyer a fact sheet saying the World Health Organization had classified the phones' radio-frequency emissions as a "possible carcinogen." The sheet also shows human silhouettes absorbing radiation and suggests protective measures, like wearing headsets, making shorter calls and limiting use by children. Stores would have to put similar messages on large wall posters and on stickers attached to display ads. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the government can require businesses to display factual, undisputed information about their products. The city's lawyers and policymakers will review the ruling before deciding their next steps.
Note: Read the complete summary and notes here
With best wishes for a transformed world,
Mark Bailey and Fred Burks for PEERS and WantToKnow.info
