Flu Vaccine- Who's lyin'?

Who said the yanks and the brits were such good pals?

The US FDA and the UK Department of Health are pointing fingers about why the US was so blind-sided by the revocation of Chiron's license to sell flu vaccine earlier this month.

Lester Crawford of the FDA said: "I want to refute as strongly as possible the contention . . . that FDA knew before October 5 that there was evidence of a problem serious enough for [British officials] to suspend Chiron's license to distribute or export influenza vaccine for the upcoming flu season" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25114-2004Oct11.html?sub=AR

Meanwhile, Alison Langley at the UK Department of Health suggests that "[Records at Britain's Department of Health show that the plant's owner, Chiron Corp., warned officials of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency on Sept. 13 that potential contamination problems remained unresolved at the plant] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18795-2004Oct8.html

At this time, we don't have specific quotes showing what the UK told the FDA, and no evidence of a communication other than that they say there was one.

However, the US quotes are sounding dodgy. Crawford, above, refers to the lack of information on a "problem serious enough" to suspend Chiron's license.. ok, so what DID the FDA know? Another dodgy US quote from an FDA spokesman, Jason Brodsky: "None of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) staff who were in regular communication with Chiron since August 25, 2004, were notified by Chiron that there was an increased level of concern regarding the company's investigation of the bacterial contamination."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18795-2004Oct8.html

Note that Brodky is SUPER specific about who was not notified by whom. he details which specific staff were in contact, between which times, etc. Again, so now we know who was NOT informed. who WAS informed, and when?

i'm not seeking out to absolve Britain of all responsibility for this snafu and blame it all on the US. I just want to know why the hell the FDA was in the dark about this contamination. It may be that they were not totally in the dark, but that various US departments and agencies were not in good contact with each other. I would understand if they would tell us that, the truth, you know? We need for our intelligence agencies to be coordinated better-- that kind of thing..

Instead, we get these dodgy answers from government officials, and it just smacks of cover-up.

I can forgive the mistakes of humans and agencies made up of humans. But the mistakes of incomplete truths and lack of transparency in the wake of major snafus has become tiresome. I, for one, would welcome a change.

It's ON, Tom DeLay...

Well, to my great surprise and delight, the Texas re-districting battle is back on. The US supreme court sent the case back to the lower courts and told them to re-consider on the basis of the Pennsylvania case, in which the Court upheld the Republican partisan redistricting map as constitutional.

Democrat Chris Bell, who lost his primary race this year following the redistricting, appears unclear on how the Pennsylvania case is relevant on the Texas situation. he suggests that the supreme court sent back the Texas case for a reason, but does not suggest what that reason might be. see the houston chronicle article for his comments: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/page1/2854073

Maybe the dems don't want to give up their strategy, but it is clear to me why the texas case is being sent back while the pennsylvania map was upheld. In a word: TomDeLay.

To my knowledge, the House Majority Leader did not hand deliver a re-districting map to the state legislature of Pennsylvania. He's the architect of the new Texas map, no question about that. Is this ethical? Is it appropriate? Is it legal? Legal scholars, please advise, but there is a clear conflict of interest here, even if there is not technically an illegal act.

Let's get this straight:

1.) Tom DeLay's PAC funnels money into state congressional races to achieve the first Republican majority in the state legislature since Reconstruction.

2.) The state legislature is responsible for passing new districting maps for US House congressional seats.

3.) Tom DeLay hand delivers a new map for US House seats to the state legislature. They didn't come up with it themselves. Tommie Boy is all but appointing his future Republican US House colleagues. He is all but destroying the chance of some of his current Democratic US House colleagues to be re-elected.

Is it proper for the US House leader to be involved in the state legislature, at least insofar as his involvement applies to his own re-election or the election of his colleagues? If it's not illegal, it should be. It is certainly unethical and uncollegial.

I believe the Supreme Court knows that this is the difference between the Pennsylvania case and the Texas scandal. They know that congressional re-districting is inherently partisan. They also recognize the clear impropriety of allowing officials in power to abuse their power to remain in power.

Why, in the Chronicle article, is not ONE reference made to Tommie Boy's influence in the Texas map scandal? Why does Chris Bell make no mention of the fact of this significant difference in the cases? Can the Democrats possibly win this fight if they don't even realize the crime that has been committed? Am I the only one outraged by the abuse of power?

Thank God for the Supreme Court, conservative though they be, for seeing the injustice in this case and sending it back (hint hint- take a look at the case again, people). Please, Texas Democrats, take the hint.

First thoughts

Welcome to thoughts 'o jax. in my inaugural address, perhaps i will begin by introducing myself, and some topics i'd like to take up here. if i didn't write down some of the things i'd like to take up here, i'm afraid they would fall out of my head.

you can call me jax. i live in austin, texas, the closest there is to a haven for free thinkers in texas. by trade, i am a speech scientist. there are a hundred different ways to 'name' my job, but basically i study speech, language, hearing, and all of the cognitive processes associated with communication primarily in people who have had strokes, brain injuries, etc.

In my limited experience with blogs, mostly i see blogs as a forum for rants about bloggers' pet peeves, things they don't like, or about how things used to be different. my friend scott likes to complain about how the flavors for gatorade used to be much simpler. with all due respect to him, who cares about gatorade flavors? they still have orange and lemon-lime, so we're ok. having said that, the dislikes i bring up here will probably be trivial to one person or another, so having caveated that (i like to verb words) here goes.

- language. it's a fascinating thing. i'm not one of these people who thinks your grammar should be all good and stuff. probably the most important thing about language is that it communicates a message. i love the fact that language is an infinitely creative system, that you can formulate a sentence that has never been said before. i like the fact that the meanings of words change, that old words come to mean new things, that words can change parts of language.

take, for example, my comment above that 'i like to verb words'. i stole this from calvin and hobbes. at present, i don't remember what the reference was. note, in this sentence that the word 'verb' has the grammatical function of a verb. ironically, the usual grammatical function of the word 'verb' is a noun. the phrase means, i like to make verbs of words that are not verbs (usually nouns).

this is a creative change of language. this is something being done for a purpose to be communicative. it breaks the rules of language, but who cares?

my general permissiveness about language does not extend to every linguistic bastardization, however. let me explain why. some 'errors' in language form and use have the function of obscuring truth, being subversively persuasive, or of being reduced to a filler word/phrase, or a word/phrase that has no meaning but is there to take up space.

let's take some examples of words that have the function of obscuring truth. there's even a name for these: euphemisms. makes it sound like something it's not. temporary refund adjustment. my mind blanks on others right now

wordphrases that are subversively persuasive: noo-kyuh-luhr. my understanding is that dubya didn't always say nuclear this way. the mispronunciation of noo-kyuh-luhr has a cultural function of identifying people with a political affilitation, or with a particular foreign policy stance. why? does this pronunciation make the word sound scarier? we don't talk about the noo-kyuh-luhr family, do we? the distinction begins as a conscious one, but becomes unconscious. that scares the crap out of me. there are plenty more where that came from.

what about wordphrases that have come to be meaningless? this is maybe the opposite of euphemisms. they're phrases people say to make them sound smart, but instead of being loaded with extra irrelevant meaning, they mean nothing. i had a stats professor a few years ago that used to mis-say the phrase: six of one, half dozen the other. she liked to say, instead: one-half six, a dozen the other. the phrase is meant for the purpose of indicating that two things are the same: two different ways of saying six are: a) six, and b) half dozen. in contrast, one half of six is actually three, which is different than a dozen, which is twelve! when people don't realize the meaning of the words that they are saying, and they are supposed to be authority figures, and people who are persuading others, i consider it to be scary AND irresponsible.

okay, well enough about that. what else will i address here?

- adam's favorite writers, musicians, people

- tv shows that once were good and suck later on
- why i don't like the stripping industry or sex on tv
- why UT football is so over-rated
- more to come...

enjoy my thoughts. they are very persuasive. yes, very persuasive....