Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has some important business before her in Kansas as she is preparing for a role on the federal scene as secretary of Health and Human Services, assuming she is confirmed.

You see, the Kansas legislature has bowed to pressure and passed a law that is intended to prevent dairy farmers who do not use growth hormones in their cows from letting the public have this information. In recent years the public has clearly voted against milk produced using Posilac / rBST / rBGH.

Continue reading →

The O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law has announced a project related to national and international health law. Of the project, it says it is building a diverse portfolio of health law projects . . . collaborative relationships with faculty who possess a diverse set of interests and expertise.

Incidentally, and before getting into its projects, the ONeill Institute has announcement of jobs and fellowships. Something to do while waiting out the economic storm . . . and to further health care.

Continue reading →

Sunday marked the 20th anniversary of the start of the Pittston strike, a coal miners’ strike that would drag on for 14 months into 1990. On April 5, about 1,700 miners in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky struck Pittston Group’s coal mining operations. Within a couple months there were demonstrations and solidarity strikes that involved 10 times as many people.

This was a strike that provided and still provides a window into who we were as a people and what we value. It still does. Twenty years after the strike began is time to re-examine the portrait of us as a people.

Continue reading →

The only things certain in life are, death, taxes, and misuse of military contractors. Not that there haven’t been efforts to deal with the third inevitability. And not that those efforts haven’t so far all gone down to defeat. But consider the recent efforts with SPOTting the contractors.
Continue reading →

I hear it all over these days: Future Generations Will Pay for [fill in the blank]. We have a stark political breakdown on what load will be transferred to future generations. What does this mean for us?
Continue reading →

Traditionally, medical research has been done at academic institutions with high levels of scrutiny and control over the entire process. Key to the system has been the Institutional Review Board (IRB) which has ensured that all aspects of the human subject testing process give participants notice of dangers and are performed in a way to minimize psychological and physical dangers where they cannot
be eliminated.

In recent years, however, private IRBs have come into existence. If you participate in studies in the future, perhaps you would like to know how they operate.
Continue reading →

You may recall that the basic reporter questions are who, what, where, when, and why. They also seem to apply elsewhere. Or not. When the DOD hires private contractors, it seems to make no effort to answer these basic questions.

Continue reading →

Ever suspect that the Bush administration wasn’t exactly on the side of workers? Ever suspect that DOL Secretary Chao was in the employers’ pocket but have no strong proof?

Well, look no farther than a new report out yesterday from the GAO. When it comes to enforcing wage and hour laws, the DOL was definitely choosing the employer’s pocket – or at least pocketbook – over the worker’s. Indeed, under Chao, the DOL seems to have become a wholly owned subsidiary of the US Chamber of Commerce.

Continue reading →

by gjohnsit, posted with permission

On June 24, 1982, four bank examiners from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City walked into the rear of a small shopping mall in Oklahoma City.

This unlikely location marks the start of a series of events that have brought us to the brink of a global economic collapse and a second Great Depression.

Continue reading →

According to the headline of a press release on Watson Wyatts newest survey findings about employer views, you would think it is steady as she goes: “Companies Remain Confident in Future of Health Benefits, Watson Wyatt/National Business Group on Health Survey Finds,” claims the press release.

But if you actually check the data, the data seem to say employers are ready to bail out.

Continue reading →