Capitalism makes us sick

Source

Oh dear! It appears I have hoarding disorder, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning.  It's the new psychiatric condition, "Characterizing people who have persistent difficulty parting with possessions regardless of their value."  I am actually having a serious attack this morning as I am having my old 1988 Sentra towed away after it blew a head gasket.  At the same time, some woodcutters are coming to remove my beautiful Monterrey pine as it's dangerously close to the house.  I am having great difficulty parting with both.

At least I can't be diagnosed with the new "disruptive mood dysregulation disorder" as this is the new diagnosis for children that have three or more tantrums a week for more than a year. 

The American Psychiatric Association voted this last weekend to approve its handbook for mental illness or the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders".  The wording of these various syndromes and disorders affects millions of adults and children as to who gets treated for what or who receives subsidized assistance amounting to billions of dollars in health care spending.

The new definitions include combining Asperger's Syndrome, described as a "mild version of autism" with "pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified" in to one category, "Autism Spectrum Disorder".  The new designation of "disruptive mood dysregulation disorder" (DMDD) for children will hopefully offer an "alternative" to "pediatric bipolar disorder" as apparently, cases of PBD have risen drastically in recent years.  The good news for the drug companies is that prescriptions for antipsychotic medication have risen which is good for profits.

I am not sure my "hoarding disorder" is covered by my medical insurance, I have it bad too. I hate parting with friends and more often than not break in to tears. I gave my old Nissan a pat as the guy towed it off,  and hugged my tree before the arborists got here.   I am a wreck. This is making my restless leg syndrome worse.

I would be interested knowing what the psychiatric manual says about what I call, "overcome by TV advertising syndrome" and "rejection of Christmas music on the radio syndrome". After being bombarded with ads for Halloween candy, black Friday (I just realized I can't really put my finger on what Thanksgiving is really about) and now toys for Christmas which I thought had something to do with a religious celebration, these syndromes should be studied.  "Made sick by sales ads syndrome" is very widespread, especially as all sorts of human emotions and feelings are drawn upon to sell the product and all they want from you is cash.

I have heard of "excessive shyness syndrome" and of course, there are pills for all these ailments including "binge eating disorder".

I remember some 45 years ago visiting a chicken hatchery.  The birds were all scraggly looking and had pecked each other and attacked each other.  The farmer or maybe it would be better to call him and industrialist, said that the stress causes it.  The lights are on all the time and the birds are crowded together like---well, like chickens at a chicken farm.

No one denies there is mental illness, but medicine in a capitalist economy is a business. And like all science, it cannot be seen in isolation, it has a class bias and it is not fashionable or profitable to investigate in a serious way the effect of society on our individual make up, medicine has to create profits.

The alienation, insecurity, individualism and competition  that the capitalist mode of production foster, would make anyone throw a tantrum here and there. It is a credit to the collective, gregarious aspect of human nature that for the most part we feel compassion and solidarity for those in worse shape than we are.  Children see millions of ads in their lifetimes as well as images of death and guns, especially here in the US.  A doctor friend of mine once told me she got a call from a patient about a disease she'd never heard of, the patient saw it on TV as the cure for it was advertised, "Call your doctor and ask her if (whatever pill) is right for you", the ads say.  In many other countries, advertising prescription drugs is forbidden.  

But in order to travel down the road to a more healthy society, we have to eliminate the cause, a system of production that rewards selfishness and individualism in the struggle for profits. We need to replace it with the collective ownership of our resources and a rational plan of production based on what we need to live a secure,  productive life in harmony with the natural world.

I think we'd see much fewer syndromes that way.

The US health care system, a lesson in market failure

Health care per cap spending country comparison (OECD

by Richard Mellor

 "I owe the public nothing"
  JP Morgan

As public services are cut along with the public sector jobs that provide them, and the Obama administration prepares for four more years of privatization policies, the extremely wasteful and inefficient US health care system continues to drain the public purse.  The inefficiency of the private sector is not just laid bare when rescued in times of severe crisis like the recent bank bailout; capitalism survives on permanent welfare handouts through its daily fraud and plunder of society's wealth. It's very existence is based on exploited Labor of course.

The US health care industry from the providers to the drugmakers and manufacturers of medical devices, feeds heavily from the public trough.  US healthcare spending went from from 9% of GDP in 1980 to 16% of GDP in 2008 and an all time high of more than 18% by 2011. The much maligned (by the US media)  Canadian health care system which in 2006 was 10% of Canada's GDP and was 70% funded by the government while the US spent 15.3% in that year with 46% funded by the government.  A major difference with regard to taxpayer funding is that in the US where the system is a business and more market oriented, the fraud and plundering of state resources is rampant and the taxpayer picks up the tab for those who that the market abandons as well.

"Almost every estimate is that 30% of US medical spending is unnecessary, including fraud" says Elliot Fisher, a Dartmouth College medical professor and director of the Dartmouth Atlas on medical disparities. And a federal report published today and reported in the Wall Street Journal claims that hundreds of nursing homes had billed the taxpayer for skilled services that weren't performed.  "They're billing for therapy they don't provide or which the patient doesn't need" says Jodi Nudelman, a New York state official.

This investigation is just the tip of the iceberg and reveals some $1.5 billion in Medicare theft.  The theft is so rampant the capitalist class feels a need to curb some of the excesses. The Obama administration has recovered some $3 .7 billion in stolen taxpayer funds over the last three years. Coupled with this latest find that would build a few schools I think.  It's unlikely that anyone went to jail for such destructive anti-social activity, no three strikes for them, not even ten or twenty strikes for the perpetrators of such felonious activity.

Those (including some mislead workers) who argue that the market has the answer to all things should take note.  This fraud is a result of the market, it is built in to the system, a system based on theft and exploitation.  Despite these minor efforts on the part of the capitalist class to curb some of the excesses and make an example of some of their naughty boys in the aftermath of the crash and the anger that has resulted from it, they will not rectify this problem. Readers may remember that the responsibility for framing the rules and regulations for deep water drilling were handed over by government regulators to the energy companies themselves.  Then we had the BP spill.  While we would not opposes regulation, the capitalist class cannot make the system nice, make it human and nature friendly.

The opportunities for profit making in the US sickness industrial complex are considerable. More than two dozen pharmaceutical companies made more than $1 billion in profits in 2008 while one report by Health Care for America Now, says that America’s five biggest for-profit health insurance companies ended 2009 with a combined profit of $12.2 billion, an increase of 56 percent as 2.7 million people lost their private coverage. Isn't freedom swell?  And we know that most bankruptcies in the US are related to medical expenses.

The market driven US health care system murders more people than all the terrorist groups put together.  I commented on the recent meningitis outbreak another example of market failure with devastating results.  The death toll now stands at 32 with 438 people infected in 19 US states.  The perp was the New England Compounding Center which made the steroids that the victims took for their pain.  Now, the FDA has found that Ameridose, another drug mixing pharmacy has not the best manufacturing practices either and is guilty of numerous violations of US manufacturing standards.  FDA inspectors found microbial contamination and that sterile gowns and equipment weren't sterilized at all. "Insects were observed to be located" in areas where the finished products were packaged and stored and "At least one bird was observed" in the same area the FDA reports.
The FDA claims that complaints of fetal stress, a result of the company's childbirth drug weren't treated seriously.

It turns out that the founder of Ameridose is Barry Cadden, the president of New England Compounding Center responsible for the meningitis deaths. Cadden jumped ship and resigned from Ameridose right after the meningitis hit the news a month ago.  Ameridose hasn't been linked (yet) to the outbreak but we can see how they're all connected these folks. In fact, these are the people that are applauded by the Wall Street Journal, by Forbes Inc and by all the serious journals of capital.  These are the people we owe our existence to because they create profits, therefore jobs.  They also create starvation and misery throughout the world and a small outbreak of meningitis here and there. The entrepreneur is the the good guy in capitalist society, the paragon of virtue and epitome of success.  It's not that they are bad or good though, it's that the system of production, the means by which we produce the needs of society is hostile to a healthy human existence and a healthy planet. 

Now this doesn't come as too much as a surprise.  Most Americans are well aware of the corrupt and ruthless nature of the system, look how many people don't vote and stay clear of politics altogether.  Even those who vote, hate politicians.  The heads of organized Labor offer no explanation for this crisis other than greed in the abstract and the left has no significant influence in the working class whatsoever. The biggest problem is that people do not see a way out.  The occupy movement offered a glimmer of hope and received tremendous support for a while but lost steam under the influence of forces that relied on hidden and unelected leaders and tactics that excluded political action and any serious mass orientation to the working class.

The caring of human beings, of whole populations is a social need and should not be a business. Take the profit out of health care and we will have healthy people and not richer health care carers and other leeches in the sickness industrial complex. The top executives at the nation's five largest for-profit health insurance companies pulled in nearly $200 million in compensation in 2009

A step toward a healthier society and a real health care system would include:

Fully staffed free clinics providing no charge, basic health care in every neighborhood

Free Comprehensive health benefits with an emphasis on preventative care

Vision care, dental and hearing aids . Women’s health care including birth control, morning after pill, and abortion on demand.

Alternative therapies with proven medical benefit such as acupuncture and chiropractic care . Mental

health care with emphasis on counseling, not just prescribing pills

Take the profit out of medical research

Create a publicly owned, democratically controlled organization to do medical research, widening and democratizing the current role of the National Institute for Health . The direction of medical research and the function of care to be made by elected councils of researchers, health care employees, and community members: Unite and Empower Healthcare Workers

Create an industry-wide union of healthcare workers to include every worker in a hospital from the janitor to the surgeon . Improve working conditions for healthcare workers: wages, shift lengths, nurse-to-patient ratios . Free medical education: Nurses, technicians and doctors to serve the public without decades of debt .

Build a United Front direct action movement to drive the corporations and the profit motive out of this crucial social need and through this build an independent worker or Labor Party to strengthen the power of working people, the unions and community organizations*

*Much of this program comes from a Facts For Working People Health Care issue we published in March 2007. For a pdf of this issue send and e mail to we_know_whats_ up@yahoo.com

The guilty won't hang for the meningitis outbreak.

by Richard Mellor

I have often commented on what are reported in the mass media as "natural" disasters or "acts of god".  In my small way, I feel the need to correct them, counter their lies, conscious lies.  Katrina, the BP spill, were not natural disasters or acts of god, they were market induced disasters. They are the results of their precious market at work.  The destruction that takes place in developing countries or the Third World after an earthquake hits is also market induced because capitalism has been unable and unwilling to develop the infrastructure of these societies.

Now in the US we have another blatant market induced crisis that is killing people-----an outbreak of Meningitis. Meningitis is the inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. It is extremely painful and life threatening. As of today, 20 people have died of it and 257 infected according to reports from US health officials.

Investigations confirmed today that the outbreak came from shots, contaminated steroid injections made by the New England Compounding Center.  These are small drug compounding pharmacies that mix certain drugs for people that might be allergic to a compound in the regular prescription for example.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier in the week that the New England Compounding Center has exposed as many as 14,000 people to fungal meningitis.

According to reports in the media, in 1996, David Kessler, a commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration informed the US Congress about the dangers of allowing these small pharmacies to operate what he called a "shadow industry" and warned that the concoctions they mixed that were not regulated in the same way that drug manufacturers are "could result in serious adverse effects, including death."

The compound pharmacies began to grow in the nineties mixing all sorts of drug combinations that are not subject to the strict "sterility standards set by the FDA" that manufactured drugs are required to meet before the agency will approve them for the market. After Kessler's warning and call for tighter control over this industry in 1996, Congress passed a law in 1997 that authorized the FDA to treat the Compounding Industry more like drug manufacturers. Then in 2001, four people died and hundreds were exposed after receiving back pain shots "tainted with meningitis" the WSJ reports. The doctor in charge of one of the pharmacies that dispensed the toxic mix lost his license after the FDA discovered conditions that were not sterile.

But after that, and with the backing of the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, seven pharmacies filed a lawsuit to restrict the FDA's regulatory interference on the grounds that the provision in the regulation on advertising violated the First Amendment.  Amazing how corporations get the same right under the constitution as individuals isn't it. The US Supreme Court agreed and repealed the 1997 law. 

The Wall Street Journal reports that the legislators tried for years to impose stricter controls on these operations but a "Countereffort by the industry and a series of court decision beat that back.".   That tells you whose influence the legislators are under.  But there's more. Between 2001 and the present, the International Academy of Compounding Scientists spent $1.1 million on lobbying, or more accurately bribing politicians to beat back interference in their profit making venture.

The IACP boasted to its members how it successfully defeated a bipartisan bill that would have given the FDA more regulatory power over the industry.  That's a shame, there might be 20 people living today were that effort not successful. 

A 2007 bill that would have given the FDA the power to inspect retail pharmacies that made or dispensed compound medication got nowhere. "Members from 30 companies made 285 visits to congressional offices and warned that tighter regulation would put their industry 'in jeopardy' " the WSJ reports.

So what happened here was that the industry bribed the politicians, threatened cajoled and blackmailed them in to putting the general public at risk.  Big business controls the two parties and the politicians in them and demanded that the interest of industry, of profits, came before human life.

Compared to the other market driven catastrophes, the BP spill, Katrina, Fukishima or foreign wars actually that are all market driven, the meningitis outbreak is small potatoes.  Not for the families of the deceased though I would assume.

What terrifying threats did legislators, grown men and women receive from these 285 bribers?  They probably threatened very little but promised money and favors for their capitulation. They promised them another term next election cycle---they simply called in the chips.

• Ban all lobbying
• For public ownership of the pharmaceutical industry
• For public ownership of the health care industry, take profit out of health care