. . . because much of the content relates both to Washington, D.C., and "outside the beltway" -- the heartland, specifically Iowa -- and because after going from Iowa to Washington via Texas and California I subsequently returned, From DC 2 Iowa.
Practicing Medicine with an FCC Broadcasting License
Are broadcasters practicing medicine -- or at least undercutting our family physicians ability to do so?
I found a report on last evening's [August 11] "ABC World News with Charles Gibson" a little troubling.
Unfortunately, I cannot now find a link to a transcript or video of what ABC's Dr. Tim Johnson said. But in some ways that helps to make my point. [I subsequently (Aug. 14 9:00 p.m.) found this ABC Audio feed interview with Dr. Tim Johnson that is comparable. He repeats that he's now added a 1000 IU dose to his former 400 IU of vitamin D; he goes on to say that there's no evidence doses in that range and higher cause any harm; and he says nothing about the adverse effects of doses of 2000 IU and above reported by the Mayo site, referenced below.]
Unless we TiVo or tape the TV news, days or even minutes later we have little but faintly recalled impressions to draw upon regarding what we learned; impressions created from moving images (more than the voice over) and however much attention we were paying at the time.
TV news may not be a very efficient, or safe, way of communicating information that matters. In fact a Pew study revealed that the more TV news viewers watched the more likely it was they would be misinformed regarding such things as whether the 9/11 terrorists had come from Iraq, and whether we'd actually found weapons of mass destruction there.
Dr. Johnson was reporting on new studies revealing that some of us, some of the time, have inadequate levels of vitamin D. The more shocking and attention-grabbing suggestion was that, as a result, we were more likely to die.
So what was he, personally, doing with this information? Although he was formerly taking a multi-vitamin with the standard 400 IU of vitamin D he was now, as a result of these studies, adding an additional 1000 IU to his daily intake.
So what's wrong with that?
What's wrong with it is an application of my late friend, Molly Ivins', insight that her fellow Texans are a people who believe "that more is better, and too much is not enough."
While that observation related to conspicuous consumption generally, especially of hard goods, it is applicable beyond the borders of Texas, automobiles, houses and jewelry.
How many Americans are today buying up vitamin D capsules, hoping that if 1400 IU will keep Dr. Tim Johnson from dying, just to be safe they're going to start taking 5000-25000 IU a day?
To the best of my recollection, during the TV news broadcast there was no effort to explain the many limitations on the studies' findings, or even more significantly the very serious harms that can come from taking excessive dosages of vitamin D.
And yet, as the Mayo Clinic's online resource points out,
"Vitamin D is an essential nutrient for your entire body. Still, it's possible to have too much of a good thing. . . . You're unlikely to get too much vitamin D from the food you eat, and prolonged sun exposure doesn't seem to cause vitamin D toxicity. Over time, however, megadoses of vitamin D supplements can cause nausea, vomiting, poor appetite, constipation, weakness and weight loss. More seriously, excessive doses of vitamin D can raise the level of calcium in your blood — which can cause confusion and changes in heart rhythm. Generally, the upper limit for vitamin D is 2,000 IU a day."
It's true that sunscreen reduces your skin's ability to make vitamin D from sunlight. But sunscreen also reduces the likelihood of your getting the skin cancer called melanoma -- which, if you're interested in long life, has the possibility of shortening rather than lengthening it. Some may react to Dr. Johnson's comments by risking sunburn (not to mention skin cancer) in their rush to grab as many unscreened rays as possible before school starts -- convinced that tans are now good for you because they are a source of vitamin D.
The power of the Internet is such that it has turned all other media -- radio, television, newspapers, magazines, billboards -- into advertisements for itself, efforts to direct readers and viewers to Web sites. That's where you are sent to see the company's full catalog, T. Boone Pickens' energy plan, the continuing conversation in the ABC "This Week" green room, the online store from which you can order and pay for the advertised product.
[T]he study's researchers and others were quick to say that the study provides absolutely no evidence for now that taking vitamin D can reduce the risk of heart disease.
"Before we tell all Americans out there that this will definitely prevent heart attack, we need some clinical trials," Michos said.
Some took it a step further and questioned whether low vitamin D levels can even be considered a risk factor at all at this point.
"A relative increase in risk of death of 26 percent is not trivial, but not huge, either," said Dr. David Katz, director of the prevention research center at Yale University School of Medicine.
"Consider that being physically active, not smoking, and eating well could reduce the risk of premature death by as much as 80 percent," said Katz. "We would not want people to get the impression that a vitamin D supplement is a panacea. The findings are by no means that significant."
Others strongly agreed.
"It can't be considered a risk factor with the strength of cholesterol and hypertension until further studies are done," said Dr. Melvyn Rubenfire, the director of preventive cardiology at the University of Michigan. . . .
Dr. James O'Keefe, a cardiologist at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo., . . . noted that the latest study's findings were unclear because many of the risk factors for heart disease, like obesity, can actually cause a deficiency in vitamin D. So, it may be a marker rather than an agent.
Of course, however much harm can be done by inaccurate, or inadequate, journalistic reports of medical studies, they pale by comparison with the potential harm from the broadcast of pharmaceutical companies advertising of "illegal drugs."
Why do I call them illegal drugs? Because it is against the law for TV viewers to buy the product being advertised. They are not over-the-counter medicines. They are medicines that, by law, can only be authorized for purchase by physicians. So what it the purpose of the commercials? To encourage us to put pressure on our doctors to give us prescriptions for the advertised drugs. And the commercials work.
Moreover, to the extent the effect of this aspect of broadcasting is that we are taking medicines that may be at best unnecessary for our conditions, and at worst actually harmful, it is the result of deliberately manipulative presentations, drawing on all that is known about the psychological and emotional promotion of sales, as applied by America's most professionally skillful advertising agencies. Journalists may be simply not fully informed, or not given sufficient time (or space) to tell the full story. Pharmaceutical companies' presentations are focused on one goal only: an increase in sales. "Broadcast and print advertisements accounted for some 94 percent of the $4.2 billion spent in 2005 on direct-to-consumer drug ads, according to a recent report by the federal Government Accountability Office. It said that such ads are increasing each year by about 20 percent a year, and officials say the spots are working, increasing profits of drug companies . . .." Bill Hendrick, "Self diagnosis from TV drug ads can be dangerous,"Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 8, 2007.
As a former FCC commissioner I can assure you, whatever Congress originally authorized the Commission's broadcast licenses to permit broadcasters to do, it never intended them to be a license to practice medicine.
Taking excessive quantities of most vitamins only results in a waste of your money as you transfer most of them directly into your local sewer system.
Not so with vitamins A and D.
Before you are swept away with enthusiasm for excessive doses of vitamin D in your quest for life everlasting I'd recommend you see your doctor.
(esp. of sweethearts during courtship in early New England) to lie in the same bed while fully clothed, as for privacy and warmth in a house where an entire family shared one room with a fireplace.
Indeed, when I was growing up that's the only definition I knew for the word, aside from "a bundle of sticks." There were even "bundle boards" that could be put in beds to further separate the couple.
In today's politics the word means pretty much the same thing -- except the couples are naked and there's no bundle board.
In order to prevent the appearance that PACs, corporations, CEOs, and their lawyers and lobbyists are obtaining untoward influence with elected officials by way of exorbitant campaign contributions, "bundlers" have taken their place. (As the Times editorializes this morning, see below, whether the headline writer chose the words deliberately or not, the candidates are "Snuggling Up to the Bundlers.")
For example, the board of directors of a corporation wishing to influence a president, or senator with the power to affect the corporation's bottom line, might vote to give all of the company's top executives big raises. Thereafter, an individual known to be the designated bundler pays a call on each of them with the request they write out a check for the maximum legal amount ($2300) payable to the candidate's campaign. With 100 executives, that means that (in effect) the corporation is able to send its bundler to a meeting with the candidate, offer him or her $230,000, and remind them where it is coming from. (The same process works with contributions from an industry as distinguished from an individual company -- or for any influence-seeking individual with enough wealthy friends to put him or herself on the team of $100,000 to $1,000,000 bundlers.)
The candidate can honestly say that he or she is not accepting money from PACs, corporations, or lobbyists; their only contributors are individual supporters. But the assertion is a little deceiving, as the Times editorializes this morning:
In his self-serving retreat from the spending restraints of public financing, Senator Barack Obama hailed his formidable Internet army of small donors as “a new kind of politics.” Maybe so. But just in case, the senator is not about to neglect the old politics of special-interest money bundlers in his presidential campaign.
Senator Obama is scheduled to meet Thursday with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her platinum card money raisers. One group specialized in amassing $250,000 packages for the campaign, while another excelled at hitting $1 million jackpots.
Now that Mr. Obama has forsworn the public spending limits that he initially pledged to defend, campaign aides have great expectations for Mrs. Clinton’s bundlers. If Mr. Obama woos and wows them, his aides hope they can generate an extra $75 million in private donations for the Obama campaign in coming weeks.
In Vegas, that’s called covering the board — continuing to work the 1.5 million small-bet donors who helped Mr. Obama set grass-roots records, while attending to the political high rollers, too.
Senator Clinton has her own practical interests for this meeting. Mr. Obama is offering to help her with the $22 million she owes after her campaign went bust.
In real-world politics, none of this is a surprise. But in ideal politics — the realm Mr. Obama often purports to speak for — the meeting could mean another coffin nail for public financing. Senator Obama should at least pledge to make the updating of the public subsidy system a top priority of his first year in the White House.
Senator John McCain — who is also vying for the mantle of reformer in chief — is opting for the public subsidies that begin after the conventions. In the meantime, he is relying on his own flock of special-interest bundlers to raise all the private funds he can.
The voters should not be fooled. They must demand that both candidates explain how they will reform the campaign-finance system so no future candidate has any excuse for going into hock to the bundlers and their special-interest donors.
Senator Obama's spin team argue that his flip-flop on public financing of campaigns is of little consequence. After all, they say, he's created an alternative system of public finance: his 1.6 million contributors have removed the special interests' big money, and influence, from campaigns. So what's the big deal?
But the New York Times' concern is shared by Fred Wertheimer, once President of the campaign finance reform group Common Cause who now heads Democracy 21. His Web site carried an article on the subject last September. And here is an excerpt from the NPR story quoting him last Friday:
Obama will be the first candidate of either party ever to turn down public money for the fall campaign. He's counting on his new, Internet-driven strategies for raising cash.
"We've won the Democratic nomination by relying on ordinary people coming together to achieve extraordinary things," he told supporters in a video Thursday.
That's true of Obama's 1.5 million donors today. But Fred Wertheimer, head of the watchdog group Democracy 21, says it didn't start out that way.
In 2007, when Sen. Obama was raising the money that was essential for him to become a serious candidate, "54 percent of his contributions came in contributions of a thousand dollars or more, and much of that money was raised by bundlers," he says
Bundlers are people who solicit friends and colleagues for checks that they bundle for delivery to the campaign. Wertheimer says Obama wouldn't be where he is without them.
"He has not created a parallel system of public financing," he says.
Ironically, the article notes that not only did Obama support public financing before he decided not to, he and Senator Russ Feingold actually sponsored legislation to prevent what he subsequently decided to go ahead and do.
For balance, let me make clear that what Senator John McCain did (accept public financing for purposes of getting a bank loan, and then, once the bank loan was obtained, reject public financing) is even worse, and as the Times notes he's as deeply indebted to the bundlers and those for whom they speak as Obama -- and probably much more so.
Hillary's Debt. There's a lot at least bizarre, and even troubling, about Senator Obama's efforts to help Senator Clinton pay off her debt.
(1) It makes it look like her support is being bought. Coupled with President Bill Clinton's (a) 17-day-delayed, (b) very limp, (c) "support" of Obama, (d) not even spoken by him, but offered only through a "spokesperson, I don't think it reflects favorably on any of them.
(2) It's kind of like people who repeatedly rebuild on floodplains asking the taxpayers to either buy their houses or help them rebuild. (a) Virtually all independent political observers acknowledge that Clinton's campaign was very poorly managed when it came to expenditures -- among other things. (b) Much of her debt was a result of continuing her campaign way beyond the time when it made any real sense to do so. That's something she had a perfect right to do; that's not the issue; the issue is whether it is now anyone's responsibility but hers to pay for the added costs, and now debt, that those decisions created. (c) Why is she more entitled to this "bailout" from donors than a mis-managed corporation is entitled to a bailout from taxpayers?
(3) The distinctions between the "debt" to herself (and her husband) and the debt to third parties is bogus (though legally significant). Money is fungible; money is money. It's like someone asking you to borrow $2000 for an "emergency" transmission repair because, after all, they "have to get to work," when they've just spent $3000 on an ocean cruise. Your $2000 loan goes into a pot and can as well be thought of as paying for two-thirds of the cruise as for the entirety of the transmission repair. She has an ability to raise on her own some fixed amount of money; to the extent others pay off the third-party debt they have enabled her to keep more of what she can raise on her own as a "repayment" of the debt she owes herself.
Why I'm Supporting Obama My interest in Michelle and Senator Barack Obama goes well beyond his simply winning the election in November. It is mostly focused on what he does with the presidency thereafter. I point up problems that I see at this time because after the election it's really too late.
We know what he's asking of us: money, and enthusiastic political activist support.
And the bundlers have made clear to him what it is they are asking for in return for their support.
[After writing this morning I was looking through State29's tribute to George Carlin, who he says provided some inspiration for State29's standard of "insightfully vulgar" commentary, and came upon this video of one of Carlin's routines. If you find Carlin's version of "insightfully vulgar" to be offensive I'd urge you to skip it. Otherwise, I find it a much more effective, sharp and to the point, way of putting what I'm trying to say. Start at 1:30 into the routine and run to the end. Enjoy.]
If Senator Obama's 1.6 million non-bundling supporters are simply taken for granted, if we follow him like lemmings to the sea -- only then to discover that he cannot walk on water after all -- if we let him take our votes for granted, it is only the bundlers whose wishes will be granted.
I believe his supporters need to make clear to him, now, what it is we are asking of him: Why it is we care about FISA, letting phone companies off the hook when they spy on us illegally, the inequities of NAFTA, public financing of campaigns, restrictions on bundling, universal single-payer health care, getting our troops out of Iraq -- whatever is important to you. I want his political courage, his leadership, in pushing the politically difficult causes that require him to take, and hold, a stand -- including when he needs to take a stand against the interests of his bundlers.
I am perfectly capable of performing a cheerleader's role with regard to Obama. But I don't think he needs that; he's demonstrated a very, very impressive ability to produce plenty of that.
What I think the campaign needs is to be reminded of the price it pays as it veers towards the center, and the right, and abandons those changes "we can believe in," and with them the enthusiasm of those who were attracted to what they thought really was something different in American politics.
Some 80% of Americans think our country is on the wrong track. Scarcely more than 20% identify themselves as Republicans. President Bush's approval ratings are below 30%.
And yet, in most recent polls, Obama leads McCain by no more than 3-6%. (The Newsweek poll is an outlier at 15%.) This election is Obama's to lose. And he could lose it. It will not be a slam dunk. The points I, and others, are raising should be taken seriously, not dismissed as "opposition" when they are, in fact, the strongest form of support.
Do I Criticize McCain?
So why don't I criticize McCain? I have and I do.
But for the same reason parents take more interest in optimizing the behavior of their own children than that of the neighbors' children, I have little interest at this point in time in helping McCain win his election.
I am certainly not a McCain supporter, and while I would not consider the things I've written about him as "beating up on" him I rather imagine he might.
At one point both Clinton and Obama supporters were saying that if their candidate did not receive the nomination they were going to vote for McCain. Among my responses was Nicholas Johnson, "Before You Actually Vote for McCain," April 30, 2008. In it I noted how the media were holding Obama and McCain to different standards. I discussed, and linked to, stories regarding his "anger problem." I included excerpts from MoveOn.org's well documented "10 Things You Should Know About John McCain but Probably Don't." And I had excerpts from Harold Meyerson's hilarious but scary "McCain on the Red Phone."
I can't know if the author of the comment would find that an adequate response to "Why not beat up on McSame? That would serve the country better." But it comes about as close as anything I'm likely to write.
What Happened to "Promises We Can Believe In"? The blog entry that brought forth the critical comment was Nicholas Johnson, "Change We Can No Longer Believe In," June 22, 2008. Now I would never suggest that any blog entry of mine would even be read by an Obama campaign worker, let alone influence a change in the campaign's direction. In fact, the change I'm about to note may well have been in place before that entry was written.
But I did notice in a televised news item yesterday that the sign on the front of Senator Obama's podium no longer offered "change we can believe in." It now merely represents that the change he promises is "change that works for you." Here's the video. "Barack 'Confident,'" ABC World News, June 25, 2008.
The candidate and his campaign are to be commended for the candor represented by the retirement of "change we can believe in." But its replacement is still, at this point in time, in need of the same verification as its predecessor.
