USA Exceptionalism Stumbling toward 2024, Every Breathing Body a Hero

Every Character innately qualified to Command Armies, Determine Life and Death of Millions

What Qualifies?

Who is Qualified?

What is the Thing called Patriotism?

Individuals Recorded Having Announced their Candidacy for Commander-in-Chief * 

(U.S. Presidency) 2024

Military Service 

11 of 12: NO 

1.      BIDEN: Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. NO	7. KENNEDY: Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. NO
2.      DeSANTIS: Ronald Dion DeSantis YES	8. RAMASWAMY: Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy NO
3.      ELDER: Laurence Allen Elder NO	9. SCOTT: Timothy Eugene Scott NO
4.      HALEY: Nimarata Nikki Haley (née Randhawa) NO	10. STAPLETON: Corey Stapleton (attended Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, Rhode Island, on nomination of DOD Secretary of Navy) NO
5.      HOGAN: Lawrence Joseph Hogan Jr NO	11. TRUMP: Donald John Trump NO
6.      HUTCHINSON: William Asa Hutchinson II NO	12. WILLIAMSON: Marianne Deborah Williamson NO

 *Commander-in-chief also called Supreme commander exercises supreme command and control over the Armed Forces or Military branches. The position presupposes prior, inherent or requisite “military competencies” residing in a country’s “Executive Leadership” (head of state, head of government).

All is never what it seems.  

Although many Americans boast their “patriotism” with something close to religious fervor, they are not keen on serving their country in active-duty military service (on the many fields or in theaters of aggression) legislated and mandated by executive policy usually of men and women in Washington who never served in those theaters of violence. 

The draft or conscription, which is to say “state-mandated enlistment of people in national service” (mainly a military service), ended in the USA as the Vietnam War Nixon-Ford presidencies were ending (Johnson to Ford Vietnam War (estimated civilian deaths in the hundreds of thousands to two million); estimated combatant deaths: 1,100,000 among North, 250,000 among South; 58,300 U.S. armed forces names listed on Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.).  From Kennedy to Ford none of these men served in theaters of war. Four presidents elected between U.S. Presidents Eisenhower and Carter were attached to the U.S. Navy Reserve. 

During the post- World War II period (1940-1973), in “peacetime” and “conflict,” men in the United States were required “to fill vacancies in the U.S. Armed Forces that could no
t be filled through voluntary means.” 

After that 30-year period, an altered form of conscription was implemented in the United States. This conscription required all 18 to 25-year-old male U.S. citizens, regardless of their residency—and all 18 to 25-year-old documented or undocumented male immigrants residing within the United States— “to register with the Selective Service System.” In addition, there is a contingency-based conscription under the U.S. Constitution of 17- to 45-year-old men and “certain women.” 

Historical Perspective 20^th-21^st Centuries 

Presidents and Military Service 

Twentieth Century U.S. Presidents Not Serving 

27 (1909–1913)	William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
28 (1913–1921)	Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
29 (1921–1923)	Warren G. Harding (1865–1923)
30 (1923–1929)	Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
31 (1929–1933)	Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
32 (1933–1945)	Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

 Twenty-first Century U.S. Presidents NOT SERVING 

42 (1993–2001)	William Jefferson Blythe III (Bill Clinton born 1946)
44 (2009–2017)	Barack Hussein Obama (born 1961)
45 (2017–2021)	Donald John Trump (born 1946)
46 (2021–present)	Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born 1942)

 Twentieth Century U.S. Presidents on-call Registration (Reserves, Guard) 

33 (1945–1953)

Harry S. Truman (1884–1972)

Col.

U. S. Army Res.

 

35 (1961–63)	John F. Kennedy (1917–1963)	Lt	U.S. Navy Res.
36 (1963–1969)	Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973)	Cmdr	U.S. Navy Res.
37 (1969–1974)	Richard Nixon (1913–1994)	Cmdr	U.S. Navy Res.
38 (1974–1977)	Gerald Ford (1913–2006)	Lt Cmdr	U.S. Navy Res.

 

40 (1981–1989)	Ronald Reagan (1911–2004)	CPT	U.S.  Army Reserve
41 (1989–1993)	George H. W. Bush (1924–2018)	Lt	U.S. Navy Reserve

 Twentieth Century U.S. Presidents Active (regular) Service  

26 (1901–1909)	Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)	Col	U. S. Army (Volunteers)
34 (1953–1961)	Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)	General		U.S. Army
39 (1977–1981)	James Earl Carter (born 1924)	Lt		U.S. Navy

 

What is the meaning of “Patriotism”? 

Helen Keller answered the question in a December 1915 speech. This is part of it with minor editing. 

 “I look upon true patriotism as the brotherhood of man and the service of all to all.”

 “The whole world I regard as my fatherland (and) every war … a dreadful feud in the family.”

 “The burden of war falls heaviest on the toilers (who) in vast numbers serve (their masters) and die on the battlefield.”

If these toilers and patriots escape death on the battlefield and return home, they face heavy taxation and a doubled burden of poverty— “robbed of the just rewards of their patriotism” (and) robbed “of the just reward of their labor.”

“The only fighting that saves (lives) is (fighting) that helps the world advance toward liberty, justice and an abundant life for all.”

Composition and Commentary excluding quoted material and individual images

Copyright © Carolyn LaDelle Bennett

Author’s links: www.BennettsAmericanEpitaph.com

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https://insightbeyondtodaysnews.blogspot.com/

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Public officials Tout Cure That Kills

Big Pharma’s Hydroxychloroquine Push

“There’s worrying news around the world of people self-medicating at home with the drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19,” writes Parastou Donyai, professor and director of pharmacy practice, University of Reading (UK).

In the absence of properly conducted scientific studies, lacking US FDA approval (though FDA approvals often seem dodgy) or approval by proper experts in the field who actually know what they are talking about—politicians and media are pushing snake oil cures and quack medicine, unethical physicians and drug industries eager to rake in the proceeds of medical establishment administering or individuals' self-medicating potentially lethal drugs. In the mix is a tangled web of pharmaceutical companies (changing names and acquiring one another, and lawsuits) and politicians kowtowing and pocketing money from these drug companies to carry on lifestyles in luxury.  

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harmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) represents the most powerful drug companies in the United States. Among them is Novartis (Novartis International AG, headquartered in Switzerland), one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, by market capitalization and sales

(total assets as of 2018: $145.563 billion; total equity: $78.692 billion; revenue: $51.900 billion)

Novartis is a full member of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

According to the CRP’s OpenSecrets, a division of Novartis (Sandoz) “donated 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate to the Department of Health and Human Services”; and in March 2020, Bayer “donated one million doses of medical grade chloroquine phosphate to the Strategic National Stockpile.” Drug companies, like cigarette companies, don't give without expecting or exacting a return.  Nothing is free.  And there is this murky record.

 

US v. Novartis

• ·       2005: federal prosecutors opened an investigation into Novartis’ marketing of several drugs: Trileptal, an antiseizure drug; three drugs for heart conditions—Diovan, Exforge, and Tekturna; Sandostatin, a drug to treat a growth hormone disorder; and Zelnorm, a drug for irritable bowel syndrome

• ·       2008: US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a notice to Novartis Pharmaceuticals regarding its advertising of Focalin XR, an ADHD drug, in which the company overstated its efficacy while marketing to the public and medical professionals.

• ·       2010, Novartis agreed to pay $422.5 million in criminal and civil claims and to enter into a corporate integrity agreement with the US Office of the Inspector General.… ‘Federal prosecutors accused Novartis of paying illegal kickbacks to health care professionals through speaker programs, advisory boards, entertainment, travel and meals.’ Company denied wrongdoing.

• ·       2013: federal prosecutors filed two lawsuits against Novartis under the False Claims Act for off-label marketing and kickbacks… Lawsuit 1 ‘accused Novartis of inducing pharmacies to switch thousands of kidney transplant patients to its immunosuppressant drug Myfortic in exchange for kickbacks disguised as rebates and discounts’; Lawsuit 2 ‘Justice Department joins a qui tam, or whistleblower, lawsuit brought by a former sales rep over off-label marketing of three drugs: Lotrel and Valturna (both hypertension drugs), and the diabetes drug, Starlix’— suit joined by 29 US states and the District of Columbia.’

• 2019 [AveXis data integrity scandal]: May: FDA approved drug Zolgensma. June 28: AveXis (a Novartis company) voluntarily disclosed to the FDA that some data previously submitted to the agency as part of the Biologics License Application (BLA) package was false. August: ahead of the FDA’s investigation becoming public, “a senior manager sold stock worth almost $1 million. September 2019: FDA was still preparing its response to the scandal.

Influence Pricing

• Following 2017 inauguration of Donald Trump, Novartis paid $1.2 million to Essential Consultants, an entity owned by Michael Cohen. Cohen was paid monthly, with each payment just under $100,000. Novartis claims it paid Cohen to help it understand and influence the new administration’s approach to drug pricing and regulation.

• 2018: US Senate committee report ‘White House Access for Sale’ revealed that Novartis Ag’s relationship with Cohen was ‘longer and more detailed.’ Novartis initially stated that the relationship ceased a month after entering the $1.2 million contract with Cohen’s consulting firm since the consultants were not able to provide the information the pharmaceutical company needed.  Later discovery found “that then-CEO Joseph Jimenez and Cohen communicated via email multiple times during 2017, which included ideas to lower drug prices to be discussed with the president. According to the report, several of the ideas appeared later in Trump’s drug pricing plan, released in early 2018, in which pharmaceutical companies were protected from reduced revenues.”

Other Nations v. Novartis 

 

• 2013: two Japanese universities retracted several publications of clinical trials that purported to show that Valsartan (branded as Diovan) had cardiovascular benefits, when it was found that statistical analysis had been manipulated, and that a Novartis employee had participated in the statistical analysis without disclosing his relationship with Novartis, only disclosing his affiliation with Osaka City University, where he was a lecturer
• 2018: Novartis began being investigated by Greek authorities for allegedly bribing public officials in the 2006-2015 period.

In March of this year, dark money sources—dark because they are not required under law to disclose their funders their funders—staged “an online petition, a series of Facebook ads and a mass text messaging campaign,” aimed at pushing the US president “to make hydroxychloroquine available” to treat people who had contracted the coronavirus disease.

Politifact, connected with the nonprofit Poynter Institute, looked into Trump’s financial connections with the drug company and found that though the US president has no significant shares in the pharmaceutical company, the “Novartis shares spiked briefly after Trump began touting chloroquine on March 19.” Fact checking online allegations about the president and his associates’ financial connections with the drug company, Politifact wrote that “available evidence does not show any financial link between Giuliani or Trump and Novartis.”

A

nother key player in the hydroxychloroquine-COVID-19 affair is Sanofi S.A., the world’s fifth largest (rated in 2013) pharmaceutical company, by prescription sales; its headquarters in France. Sanofi produces Plaquenil, the brand-name form of hydroxychloroquine.

2018 total assets: €111.408 billion ($121,863,640,800), 2018 total equity €59.035 billion ($64,575,434,750), 2019 revenue €36.126 billion ($39,516,425,100)

In 2005, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded a $97 million contract to Sanofi Pasteur, the Sanofi Group’s vaccines division.

Sanofi is also a full member of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

In 2019, PhRMA spent a record $29.3 million on lobbying and more than 70 percent of its lobbyists reportedly had ridden the revolving door in and out of government.

What is troubling, what is dangerous and irresponsible, is that major public figures are promoting substances for public injection about which they are ignorant— often deliberately ignorant. In the case of the US president, he seems to listen only to his own mutterings.

Though Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have been at the center of debate in recent weeks over which drugs should be used to treat COVID-19, “neither product has strong evidence to support use for this purpose. And small studies reported to date have either had significant flaws or failed to demonstrate effect. Nonetheless, the president can’t seem to stop pushing them, arguing that patients have nothing to lose.”

P

oliticians, investors, merchants, and Joe Schmoes are not scientists or medical researchers yet they are pushing a drug that is not only untested for the condition for which they are pushing it but is known to cause numerous serious side effects, and even death. Some side effects are irritability, headache, weakness, hair lightening or loss, stomach upset, nausea, dizziness, muscle pain, rash and itching; sometimes bone marrow is affected “leading to reduced white blood cells (leukopenia) or platelets (thrombocytopenia) and abnormal red blood cells (anemia); serious eye damage; severe anemia resulting from the rupture of red blood cells; and a worsening of psoriasis.

Other reports show that “Hydroxychloroquine suppresses the immune system and should not be combined with drugs that also suppress the immune system or live vaccines.” It also “may be secreted in [a pregnant woman’s] breast milk and may cause side effects in the infant.”

“

Too much chloroquine is poisonous” and if a person does not receive urgent medical care, the person’s “breathing and heart can stop, or [the person] could slip into a coma. Patients can die very quickly from chloroquine poisoning – within a few hours.” Also “it takes the body a really long time to flush all of the chloroquine out.” Even if the correct dosage is taken “the buildup of chloroquine in the body over many years might still cause damage.”

Also worrisome is that some physicians reportedly “have stockpiled the drugs for personal use, and several hospitals have adopted hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 standard of care” leaving “patients needing the drug for their proven indications (malaria treatment and prevention, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus) … to go without.”

I

n her article at Conversation, Parastou Donyai concludes that though “Chloroquine and hydroxychoroquine have been tested against the novel coronavirus both in the lab, and in patients, none of the studies so far show convincing evidence that chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine work against COVID-19.”

One “patient study claiming hydroxychloroquine is effective in COVID-19 didn’t use a control group, [which] means we don’t know if the results would have been any different without giving hydroxychloroquine. For now, the US Society of Critical Care Medicines has said there isn’t sufficient evidence to recommend the use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine in critically ill adults with COVID-19.”

A

 group of American physicians, bioethicists and drug law experts, cautioned that “As public officials and scientists rush to innovate,

no one should overlook the critical role of strong regulatory protections in supporting our ability to actually figure out which drugs work against COVID-19. Weakening commitment to science and evidence during this crisis truly would be ‘a cure worse’ than the disease.

“There is a great need for rigorously conducted clinical trials on these products and their possible effectiveness in fighting COVID-19. But if physicians continue prescribing them off-label, without regard for appropriate testing, we’ll be left with anecdotes, not evidence.”

Nothing substitutes for rigorous scientific study. Irving Steinberg, in the School of Pharmacy and  Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California wrote “The deliberate steps of scientific investigation, followed by editorial scrutiny, are guardrails [and when] these are disrupted there is a real risk that policy organizations may make consequential mistakes in spite of good intent.…

Proper scientific method and conduct of studies, carefully reviewed publications and cogent post-release interpretations are necessary safeguards that ensure the best and safest medicines are prescribed and provided. 

The pressure and desperation of the moment are forcing researchers and policymakers to be innovative and act quickly, but what is done should stay within the guiding concepts of medical research.

 

Sources

Donyai, Parastou. “Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine: no proof these anti-malarial drugs prevent novel coronavirus in humans.” Conversation. March 26, 2020.   https://theconversation.com/chloroquine-and-hydroxychloroquine-no-proof-these-anti-malarial-drugs-prevent-novel-coronavirus-in-humans-134703

Parastou Donyai is professor and director of pharmacy practice, University of Reading (UK)

The Guardian US. “Trump touts hydroxychloroquine as a cure for Covid-19. Don’t believe the hype.” April 6, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/06/coronavirus-cure-fact-check-hydroxychloroquine-trump

Politifact. “Tweet Says Rudy Giuliani ‘bought $2M in shares of Novartis, a primary supplier of hydroxychloroquine’ in early February.”  April 9, 2020. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/09/tweets/fact-checking-rudy-giulianis-ties-hydroxychloroqui/

Politifact is part of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Poynter Institute

Wikipedia. “Hydroxychloroquine.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxychloroquine

Wikipedia. “Sanofi.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanofi

Wikipedia. “Novartis.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novartis

Steinberg, Irving. “Coronavirus research done too fast is testing publishing safeguards, bad science is getting through.” The Conversation. April 9, 2020 https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-research-done-too-fast-is-testing-publishing-safeguards-bad-science-is-getting-through-134653

Irving Steinberg is dean for faculty, School of Pharmacy; associate professor of clinical pharmacy and pediatrics, school of pharmacy and Keck School of Medicine, Director, Division of Pediatric Pharmacotherapy, Department of Pediatrics at University of Southern California.

Robertson, Christopher, Alison Bateman-House, Holly Fernandez Lynch, Keith Joiner. “In the rush to innovate for COVID-19 drugs, sound science is still essential.” The Conversation. Global Affairs Editor Catesby Holmes. April 8, 2020. https://theconversation.com/in-the-rush-to-innovate-for-covid-19-drugs-sound-science-is-still-essential-134638

Authors: Christopher Robertson, professor of law, University of Arizona; Alison Bateman-House,   research assistant professor, division of medical ethics, New York University Langone Medical Center; Holly Fernandez Lynch, assistant professor of medical ethics, University of Pennsylvania;  Keith Joiner, professor of medicine, economics and health promotions science, University of Arizona.

Monnay, Tatyana. “‘Dark money’ groups pushed Trump to back unproven COVID-19 treatment.” OpenSecrets News. April 8, 2020. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/dark-money-groups-pushed-trump-to-back-hydroxychloroquine/

Tatyana is a Mid-Missouri based multimedia journalist

Voytko, Lisette. “Trump Has ‘Small,’ ‘Distant Link’ To Sanofi, French Drugmaker Of Hydroxychloroquine.” Forbes. April 7, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/04/07/trump-has-small-distant-link-to-sanofi-french-drugmaker-of-hydroxychloroquine/#6fcd279e7260

Lisette Voytko is a New York-based journalist covering breaking news at Forbes.

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