AN
international drug company made a hit list of doctors who had to be
“neutralised” or discredited because they criticised the anti-arthritis
drug the pharmaceutical giant produced.
Staff
at US company Merck &Co emailed each other about the list of
doctors – mainly researchers and academics – who had been negative
about the drug Vioxx or Merck and a recommended course of action.
The email, which came out in the Federal Court in Melbourne
yesterday as part of a class action against the drug company, included
the words “neutralise”, “neutralised” or “discredit” against some of
the doctors’ names.
It is also alleged the company used intimidation tactics against
critical researchers, including dropping hints it would stop funding to
institutions and claims it interfered with academic appointments.
“We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live,” a
Merck employee wrote, according to an email excerpt read to the court
by Julian Burnside QC, acting for the plaintiff.
Merck & Co and its Australian subsidiary, Merck, Sharpe and
Dohme, are being sued for compensation by more than 1000 Australians,
who claim they suffered heart attacks or strokes as a result of Vioxx.
The drug was launched in 1999 and at its height of popularity was
used by 80 million people worldwide because it did not cause stomach
problems as did traditional anti-inflammatory drugs.
It was voluntarily withdrawn from sale in 2004 after concerns were
raised that it caused heart attacks and strokes and a clinical trial
testing these potential side affects was aborted for safety reasons.
Lead plaintiff Graeme Peterson, 58, claims the drug caused him to
have a heart attack in 2003 after he took it for back pain and
arthritis every day from May 2001.
Merck last year settled thousands of lawsuits in the US over the
effects of Vioxx for $US4.85billion ($7.14 billion) but made no
admission of guilt.
The company is fighting the class action in Australia.
The Federal Court was told yesterday that Merck wanted to gain the
backing of researchers and doctors – or “opinion leaders” – in the
fields of arthritis to help promote the drug to medical professionals
when it was launched in 1999.
Mr Burnside said internal emails in April 1999 from Merck staff
showed the company was not happy with what some researchers and doctors
were saying about the drug.
“It gives you the dark side of the use of key opinion leaders and
thought leaders … if (they) say things you don’t like to hear, you
have to neutralise them,” he said. “It does suggest a certain culture
within the organisation about how to deal with your opponents and those
who disagree with you.”
The court was told that James Fries, professor of medicine at
Stanford University, wrote to the then Merck head Ray Gilmartin in
October 2000 to complain about the treatment of some of his researchers
who had criticised the drug.
“Even worse were allegations of Merck damage control by intimidation,” he wrote, according to Mr Burnside.
“This has happened to at least eight (clinical) investigators … I
suppose I was mildly threatened myself but I never have spoken or
written on these issues.”
Mr Burnside told the court Dr Fries went on to describe instances of
intimidation, including one colleague who thought his academic
appointment had been jeopardised and another who received phone calls
alleging “anti-Merck” bias.
Dr Fries said in the letter that Merck had been systematically
playing down the side effects of Vioxx and said the company’s behaviour
“seriously impinges on academic freedom”. The court was also told a
rheumatologist on Merck’s Australian arthritis advisory board was angry
he did not find out about Merck’s decision to withdraw Vioxx until an
ABC journalist rang to tell him. Mr Burnside said James Bertouch wrote
to other members of the board saying he was “extremely disillusioned”
with the company.
“In every possible way the company exerted itself to present the
impression to the world at large that Vioxx did not provide any
increased cardio risk … when (a) it probably would and (b) it
probably did,” he wrote, according to Mr Burnside.
Peter Garling, acting for Merck, accused Mr Peterson of not taking
the drug Vioxx in the months leading up to his heart attack in December
2003.
He said Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme figures showed he did not
fill a Vioxx prescription for the drug in the two months before his
heart attack.
Mr Garling put to Mr Peterson during his cross-examination that this
was because he had retired from his job as a safety consultant and
therefore he did not need to take Vioxx because his back pain lessened.
Mr Peterson denied this meant he was not taking the drug.
“No, I wouldn’t accept that at all,” he said. “I can remember taking Vioxx regularly.”
The trial, before Justice Chris Jessop, continues.
Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve (HR 1207)
now has 223 co-sponsors, and the numbers keep growing! At the same
time, HR 1207’s companion bill in the Senate, S 604, is now beginning
to attract its first co-sponsor!
This is history in the making, and victory is within reach. Imagine what will happen if HR 1207, The Federal Reserve Transparency Act, comes up for vote in Congress! With more than 50% of the House of Representatives already co-sponsoring this bill,
it has real potential to pass — BUT only if we educate and rally the
people to support it and get our Congresspeople to put it to vote and
pass it.
April 29, 2009 — The current policy and legal framework regulating use of cyberattack by the United States is undeveloped and highly uncertain, says a new report from the National Research Council. The United States should establish clear policy on its use, informed by open debate on the technological, policy, legal, and ethical issues of cyberwarfare, while also continuing to develop technological capabilities in this area.
Listen to this report:
http://nationalacademies.org/podcast/20090429.mp3
Time Magazine’s coverage of the swine flu scare has a noticeable subplot – preparing Americans for draconian measures to combat a future pandemic as well as forcing them to accept the idea of mandatory vaccinations.
In an article entitled How to Deal with Swine Flu: Heeding the Mistakes of 1976, the piece discusses how dozens died and hundreds were injured from vaccines as a result of the 1976 swine flu fiasco, when the Ford administration attempted to use the infection of soldiers at Fort Dix as a pretext for a mass vaccination of the entire country.
Despite acknowledging that the 1976 farce was an example of “how not to handle a flu outbreak,” the article still introduces the notion that officials “may soon have to consider whether to institute draconian measures to combat the disease.”
Later we discover exactly what this will entail, namely “when to institute mass vaccination programs,” according to Howard Markel, director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan and a historical consultant to the CDC on flu pandemics.
Markel notes that the less politically combustible situation in America today compared to the post-Watergate era of Ford would make such draconian measures more achievable.
“Even so, he says, citizens still need to trust that the government is working for the greater good,” adds the article. “The American public has to be forgiving and patient and do [their] part too,” according to Markel.
Americans would indeed have to be very trustworthy and ultimately forgiving in taking a vaccine by government decree manufactured by a company that was been caught red-handed contaminating their vaccines with far deadlier viruses than swine flu.
As we reported yesterday, Baxter International confirmed over the weekend that it is working with the World Health Organization on a potential vaccine to curb the deadly swine flu virus that is blamed for scores of deaths in Mexico and has emerged as a threat in the U.S., reports the Chicago Tribune.
As reported by multiple sources last month, including the Times of India, vaccines contaminated with deadly live H5N1 avian flu virus were distributed to 18 countries last December by a lab at an Austrian branch of Baxter.
Since the probability of mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible, this leaves no other explanation than that the contamination was a deliberate attempt to weaponize the H5N1 virus to its most potent extreme and distribute it via conventional flu vaccines to the population who would then infect others to a devastating degree as the disease went airborne.
These are the people we are supposed to “trust” and “forgive” according to Time Magazine and Markel when the federal government breaks down our door, guns drawn and dripping needle in hand.
On March 5th 2009 the local PBS station, KBDI, in Denver Colorado broadcast the groundbreaking expose, America: Freedom To Fascism to raise funds for the station. They invited Gary Franchi to come and talk about the points of the film during breaks.
To support KBDI please consider making a pledge so they can continue broadcasting the message to truth to the American people.
Recognizing that we each swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and affirming that we are guardians of the Republic, of the principles in our Declaration of Independence, and of the rights of our people, we affirm and declare the following:
1. We will NOT obey any order to disarm the American people.
The attempt to disarm the people on April 19, 1775 was the spark of open conflict in the American Revolution. That vile attempt was an act of war, and the American people fought back in justified, righteous self-defense of their natural rights. Any such order today would also be an act of war against the American people, and thus an act of treason. We will not make war on our own people, and we will not commit treason by obeying any such treasonous order.
Nor will we assist, or support any such attempt to disarm the people by other government entities, either state or federal.
In addition, we affirm that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to preserve the military power of the people so that they will, in the last resort, have effective final recourse to arms and to the God of Hosts in the face of tyranny. Accordingly, we oppose any and all further infringements on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. In particular we oppose a renewal of the misnamed “assault-weapons” ban or the enactment of H.R. 45 (which would register and track gun owners like convicted pedophiles).
2. We will NOT obey any order to conduct warrantless searches of the American people, their homes, vehicles, papers, or effects – such as warrantless house-to house searches for weapons or persons.
One of the causes of the American Revolution was the use of warrantless searches known as “writs of assistance” and the first fiery embers of American resistance were born in opposition to those infamous writs. The Founders considered all warrantless searches to be unreasonable and egregious. It was to prevent a repeat of such violations of the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects that the Fourth Amendment was written.
We expect that warrantless searches of homes and vehicles, under some pretext, will be the means used to attempt to disarm the people.
3. We will NOT obey any order to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to trial by military tribunal.
One of the causes of the American Revolution was the denial of the right to jury trial, the use of admiralty courts (military tribunals) instead, and the application of the laws of war to the colonists. After that experience, and being well aware of the infamous Star Chamber in English history, the Founders ensured that the international laws of war would apply only to foreign enemies, not to the American people. Thus, the Article III Treason Clause establishes the only constitutional form of trial for an American, not serving in the military, who is accused of making war on his own nation. Such a trial for treason must be before a civilian jury, not a tribunal.
The international laws of war do not trump our Bill of Rights. We reject as illegitimate any such claimed power, as did the Supreme Court in Ex Parte Milligan (1865). Any attempt to apply the laws of war to American civilians, under any pretext, such as against domestic “militia” groups the government brands “domestic terrorists,” is an act of war and an act of treason.
4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state, or to enter with force into a state, without the express consent and invitation of that state’s legislature and governor.
One of the causes of the American Revolution was the attempt “to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power” by disbanding the Massachusetts legislature and appointing General Gage as “military governor.” The attempt to disarm the people of Massachusetts during that martial law sparked our Revolution. Accordingly, the power to impose martial law – the absolute rule over the people by a military officer with his will alone being law – is nowhere enumerated in our Constitution.
Further, it is the militia of a state and of the several states that the Constitution contemplates being used in any context, during any emergency within a state, not the standing army. The imposition of martial law by the national government over a state and its people, treating them as an occupied enemy nation, is an act of war. Such an attempted suspension of the Constitution and Bill of Rights voids the compact with the states and with the people.
5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty and declares the national government to be in violation of the compact by which that state entered the Union.
In response to the obscene growth of federal power and to the absurdly totalitarian claimed powers of the Executive, upwards of 20 states are considering, have considered, or have passed courageous resolutions affirming states rights and sovereignty.
Those resolutions follow in the honored and revered footsteps of Jefferson and Madison in their Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, and likewise seek to enforce the Constitution by affirming the very same principles of our Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights that we Oath Keepers recognize and affirm.
Chief among those principles is that ours is a dual sovereignty system, with the people of each state retaining all powers not granted to the national government they created, and thus the people of each state reserved to themselves the right to judge when the national government they created has voided the compact between the states by asserting powers never granted.
Upon the declaration by a state that such a breach has occurred, we will not obey orders to force that state to submit to the national government.
6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
One of the causes of the American Revolution was the blockade of Boston, and the occupying of that city by the British military, under martial law. Once hostilities began, the people of Boston were tricked into turning in their arms in exchange for safe passage, but were then forbidden to leave. That confinement of the residents of an entire city was an act of war.
Such tactics were repeated by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto, and by the Imperial Japanese in Nanking, turning entire cities into death camps. Any such order to disarm and confine the people of an American city will be an act of war and thus an act of treason.
7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.
Mass, forced internment into concentration camps was a hallmark of every fascist and communist dictatorship in the 20th Century. Such internment was unfortunately even used against American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II. Whenever a government interns its own people, it treats them like an occupied enemy population. Oppressive governments often use the internment of women and children to break the will of the men fighting for their liberty – as was done to the Boars, to the Jewish resisters in the Warsaw Ghetto, to the Cossacks, and to the Chechens, for example.
Such a vile order to forcibly intern Americans without charges or trial would be an act of war against the American people, and thus an act of treason, regardless of the pretext used. We will not commit treason, nor will we facilitate or support it.“NOT on Our Watch!”
8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control” during any emergency, or under any other pretext. We will consider such use of foreign troops against our people to be an invasion and an act of war.
During the American Revolution, the British government enlisted the aid of Hessian mercenaries in an attempt to subjugate the rebellious American people. Throughout history, repressive regimes have enlisted the aid of foreign troops and mercenaries who have no bonds with the people.
Accordingly, as the militia of the several states are the only military force contemplated by the Constitution, in Article I, Section 8, for domestic keeping of the peace, and as the use of even our own standing army for such purposes is without such constitutional support, the use of foreign troops and mercenaries against the people is wildly unconstitutional, egregious, and an act of war.
We will oppose such troops as enemies of the people and we will treat all who request, invite, and aid those foreign troops as the traitors they are.
9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies, under any emergency pretext whatsoever.
One of the causes of the American Revolution was the seizure and forfeiture of American ships, goods, and supplies, along with the seizure of American timber for the Royal Navy, all in violation of the people’s natural right to their property and to the fruits of their labor. The final spark of the Revolution was the attempt by the government to seize powder and cannon stores at Concord.
Deprivation of food has long been a weapon of war and oppression, with millions intentionally starved to death by fascist and communist governments in the 20th Century alone.
Accordingly, we will not obey or facilitate orders to confiscate food and other essential supplies from the people, and we will consider all those who issue or carry out such orders to be the enemies of the people.
10. We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.
There would have been no American Revolution without fiery speakers and writers such as James Otis, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, and Sam Adams “setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
Patrick Henry: “Give me Liberty, or Give me DEATH!”
Tyrants know that the pen of a man such as ThomasPaine can cause them more damage than entire armies, and thus they always seek to suppress the natural rights of speech, association, and assembly. Without freedom of speech, the people will have no recourse but to arms. Without freedom of speech and conscience, there is no freedom.
Therefore, we will not obey or support any orders to suppress or violate the right of the people to speak, associate, worship, assemble, communicate, or petition government for the redress of grievances.
— And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually affirm our oath and pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.Oath Keepers
The above list is not exhaustive but we do consider them to be clear tripwires – they form our “line in the sand,” and if we receive such orders, we will not obey them. Further, we will know that the time for another American Revolution is nigh. If such a revolution comes, at that time, not only will we NOT fire upon our fellow Americans who righteously resist such egregious violations of their God given rights, we will join them in fighting against those who dare attempt to enslave them.
