Bush drops ball, shows disdain for working Americans over flu issue [View All]

[bigpathpaul]

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lu season arrives like clockwork each year. But an inattentive Bush administration has put millions of Americans at risk by failing to supply adequate amounts of vaccine, highlighting the hypocrisy of Bush’s claims that he represents average Americans, while demonstrating time and again how out of touch he really is. Ordinary citizens, thousands of whom may die without the flu vaccine, are ignored by an administration obsessed with boosting corporate bottom lines for wealthy donors.

In the Oct. 13 debate, the president blamed the British for the vaccine shortage. But, Chiron, the manufacturer, is an American company, subject to FDA regulation, with a plant in England. In June 2003, the FDA found the plant contaminated with bacteria yet announced “the problems were corrected to their satisfaction,” allowing production to continue. President Bush claimed that “We took the right action and didn’t allow contaminated medicine into our country.” But that was also false. The plant’s license was revoked by the British on October 5 after they inspected it.

While research and deployment of bioterror countermeasures move at a snail’s pace, drug companies recycle massive profits into commercials for pills to improve sexual performance and combat hay fever. Drug companies enjoy some of the highest profit margins of any American industry, paying 40% less in taxes than other companies. Yet, the cost of drugs to Americans has risen at three times the rate of inflation.

When lobbyists for giant pharmaceutical companies pressured Washington to allow them to extend their patents, the Republican Congress — recipients of millions of dollars in donations from the drug companies — readily cooperated. The result was fewer low-cost generic drugs for working men and women and record profits for the pharmaceutical companies. With the campaign in high gear, phony tax breaks and promises abound, but come November 3rd, if the Republicans retain power, the needs of working men and women and their families will tumble right back down to the bottom of the barrel.

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