Michael Pollan
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 As soon as you do, accountability becomes once again a matter of relationships instead of regulation or labeling or legal liability. Food safety didn't become a national or global problem until the industrialization of the food chain attenuated the relationships between food producers and eaters. That was the story Upton Sinclair told about the Beef Trust in 1906, and it's the story unfolding in China today, where the rapid industrialization of the food system is leading to alarming breakdowns in food safety and integrity. |
Mark Schapiro
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 For the first time, this sector will have to be governed by the rule of law— of accountability and transparency. This is a very significant change for China."20
It is the carrot-stick dynamic, Gislev predicts, that will provide a powerful impetus toward compliance. The EU, not the United States, is China's biggest market. "Most export-oriented economies," Gislev said, "tend to go with the standards of their biggest markets." Gislev estimates that within five years the Chinese will have a substantial set of new laws that will reflect the basic principles embedded in REACH. |
| In response to the corporate scandals that shook the financial worlds on both sides of the Atlantic —ENRON in the United States and the Italian firm Parmalat being among the more high-profile examples—both Europe and the United States passed new measures intended to ensure greater corporate financial accountability. In the United States, the bill known as Sarbanes-Oxley imposed far tighter requirements on corporations to ensure transparency and heighten the distance between corporate auditors and their employers. |
Michael J. Panzner
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 In the summer of 2006, Congress and the Bush administration passed a 907-page pension reform bill spurred in part by the widely publicized losses at the PBGC and growing pressure for more accountability. But rather than strengthening the system, many observers believe the measure will do the opposite. Whether the changes will still allow too many loopholes for pension chicanery or spur companies into watering down or eliminating retirement programs, the eventual fallout will only add to the strain on the pension guaranty system and leave more Americans at risk during their twilight years. |
Mike Adams
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 So, demand accountability and use the power that you have—the power to vote, the power to speak freely, the power to choose—in order to win back your freedoms from a government and a medical conspiracy that has worked hard to take them away from you. When you demand accountability and stand up for your rights as an American citizen (or any nation, for that matter), you have an impact. You will join millions of other individuals who are helping change our society for the better. |
Shannon Brownlee
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 But we don't need professionals who are trained with licenses to hunt for fifty years with no requirements of accountability."
I ask Wennberg if he gets discouraged.
"No," he answers. "But we'll probably keep doing it this way for a few years more."
TWO The Most D angerous Place
On a chilly Tuesday evening in February 2001, eighteen-month-old Josie King arrived at the pediatric intensive care unit of Johns Hopkins Medicine with second-degree burns covering 60 percent of her small body. The accident had happened in a flash. |
| Welch believed in a corporate culture of accountability and in cultivating new leaders from the lower ranks. These values came to be known as "the GE way," and Welch required intensive training for managers in each new firm that GE bought, in order to indoctrinate them. But when other CEOs tried to emulate the GE way, they forgot about creating a common corporate culture. In the same way, managed care companies forgot to import the culture of traditional HMOs when they instituted their cost-saving methods. |
Bill Sardi
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 Where is the accountability?
The costs are calculated
The Journal of the National Cancer Institute asks "When will the U.S. flinch at cancer drug prices?" High hopes are pinned on targeted therapies, drugs that inhibit specific enzymes or pathways, such as Avastin, Erbitux, Tarceva and Iressa, which all became available with "great fanfare." Then came the sticker shock. These drugs are priced at thousands of dollars per month of treatment and are only effective when added to other treatments. "Clinicians are wondering whether these new drugs are worth the cost," said the journal article. |
| We are in the midst of a failed war against cancer with no significant advancements in survival time through the use of surgery, chemo or radiation therapy, no accountability for these failures by public health authorities, the intentional creation of contrary science to confuse the public against vitamin C, and a persistent rejection of the evidence.
The newly published evidence that calls for the use of high-dose intravenous vitamin C therapy has not as yet taken hold. It is not likely oncologists will embrace IV vitamin C therapy. |
Craig Pepin-Donat
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 An unbiased non-profit organization that fights for openness and democratic accountability in government, for the right of consumers to seek redress in the courts; for clean, safe and sustainable energy sources; for social and economic justice in trade policies; for strong health, safety and environmental protections; and for safe, effective and affordable prescription drugs and health care.
The Essential Guide to Prescription Drugs 2006: Everything You Need to Know for Safe Drug Use
James J. |
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
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 In the future, perhaps we will all have made enough educated choices, exercising cumulative veto power as consumers and demanding accountability from government officials and agencies, that that roomful of high school students we imagine talking with their teachers seventy years from now—your great-grandchildren, and mine—won't be pressing teachers as to why we didn't foresee the polluted, disease-laden legacy we were leaving behind. |
Mark Schapiro
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| Indeed, in a system not known for its public accountability, the means of holding local government authorities to the letter of laws written in Beijing are minimal. The State Environmental Protection Administration has just three hundred employees — compared to, say, the EPA, which has some thirty thousand. As Schell suggests, many initiatives from Beijing are flouted in the Chinese provinces. |
Shannon Brownlee
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| But America's industries are undergoing constant change, and in any other arena of our economy we would never tolerate the degree of waste and inefficiency and lack of accountability that's rife in health care.
As we move toward a more efficient, effective system, patients will be the biggest winners of all. As hospitals begin to focus on integrating care, patients will be less likely to fall through the cracks and be deprived of care that they need. They will suffer fewer medical errors, and they will be subjected to less unnecessary, invasive, and potentially dangerous care. |
Michael Pollan
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| Regulation is an imperfect substitute for the accountability, and trust, built into a market in which food producers meet the gaze of eaters and vice versa. Only when we participate in a short food chain are we reminded every week that we are indeed part of a food chain and dependent for our health on its peoples and soils and integrity—on its health.
"Eating is an agricultural act," Wendell Berry famously wrote, by which he meant that we are not just passive consumers of food but cocreators of the systems that feed us. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Calling for transparency and accountability from companies that use pink ribbons to sell products, BCA believes that consumers can and should ask questions about how the money is being raised and where the money is going.
The big question of the campaign this year is which companies are engaging in pink ribbon marketing while manufacturing products that are contributing to the epidemic. Toward this end, BCA is singling out the car, dairy, and cosmetics industries.
"These pinkwashing companies are trying to have it both ways," says BCA Executive Director Barbara A. Brenner. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 That's why we're thrilled to be able to offer a program like this Citizen Journalism project: It empowers individuals to take part in the "information democracy" that makes the internet so important for the future of human rights, free speech, government accountability, corporate ethics and so much more. The internet is the pillar of information freedom today, and even projects like Wikipedia are hugely important for the free flow of information (which is exactly why the traditional old-school media loves to attack Wikipedia!). |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 REPPED: When the mainstream media refuses to print the truth about a significant study detailing the health benefits of antioxidants and, instead, parrots the erroneous conclusions of a pro-pharmaceutical medical association, it's time for citizens to take a stand and demand accountability. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Charles Grassley, a long-time critic of the FDA and a lawmaker who wants to demand new accountability from the FDA over drug safety. There are eleven amendments proposed by Sen. Grassley, and the health freedom community is calling for your support in helping us get those amendments included in the bill.
ACTION ITEM: If you are an American citizens, please call your Senator's office right now and tell them you support the "Grassley Amendments" to S.1082, which is generally referred to as the FDA drug safety bill. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Trust the smaller, independent organizations like PR Watch, Commercial Alert, the Organic Consumers Association, the Government accountability Project and others.
What you do is your own business, but if you want to be engaged in real solutions, turn off your television. Disconnect from cable and reconnect to books and informative Internet sites. Buy organic produce and avoid processed foods. Stop spending money on products made by unethical corporations. (Vote with your dollars.) Demand accountability from your elected officials and representatives (including Judges). |
Too Profitable to CureBrent Hoadley, Ph.D.
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| But, his act(s) of omission should not shield him from accountability when a patient is endangered. Consider these misdeeds and consider responsibility:
• A pharmacist dispenses a vial of Human Regular insulin to a patient. The Type II diabetic patient was prescribed and needed Humulin NPH. Within four days of using the incorrect insulin, the diabetic dies from diabetic coma.
• A Midwest pharmacist was found guilty of diluting a patented chemotherapy drug for cancer patients.
• Over half of all drugs sold in the U.S. are purchased by pharmacy wholesalers. |
| These upper echelon "advocates" are, in many cases, old line AM A doctors merely going along for the ride—hefty salaries, little work, no accountability. They are willing to lobby in Washington to benefit their corporate supporters and equally willing to promote corporate propaganda to their members. Their bread is buttered by the pharmaceutical corporations, not by the dependent membership. |
| When I see you exposing the pharmaceutical corporations for the crimes they commit; when I see you demand accountability for lives lost and corruption spread; when I hear you chastising legislators and regulatory directors for allowing themselves to be bought; then I will know that you are speaking out for the little guy, the common man, American democracy
Summing It Up
Bill Clinton's presidential escapades, the war in Iraq, the ACLU's attack on Christian symbols, the scandal in the priesthood... |
John J. Ratey, MD
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 The external accountability is a powerful way to help you maintain routines such as exercise and to meet your goals.
Jackson establishes structure for himself with his daily runs, and this works on two levels: the regular schedule shapes his time so he doesn't have to think about it, and the exercise itself focuses the brain in all the ways I've mentioned.
It's true that many ADHD kids are more active than their peers — studies show they have less body fat, on average — and I see plenty of adults with ADHD who are already exercising. But they need to be doing more, and on a regular basis. |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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 Furthermore, both Ruskin and Michele Simon, founder of the Center for Informed Food Choices, worry that the plan has no enforcement mechanism, no oversight, and no accountability. "Is Bill Clinton going to run around to every school to make sure the policy gets implemented? Industry isn't interested in having government pass laws telling them what to do, so now they're saying that they're taking care of things voluntarily," contends Simon, a public health attorney. "They want to make it seem like we don't need these laws. |
Shannon Brownlee
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| We could call this strategy CARE, for coordination, accountability, electronic medical records, and evidence.
While the tasks are clear, implementing CARE around the country won't be simple. In order to do it, we have to rethink the way we pay doctors and hospitals. The first step is for Medicare to address the way it overpays for certain procedures, like radiology and bypass surgery, and underpays for less-intensive care. The current system encourages hospitals to invest in expensive doctors and beds and technology that aren't necessarily what patients need. |
Mark Schapiro
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| The Government accountability Office concluded in 2005 that the agency has inadequate test data to make safety assessments, and has permitted the chemical industry too much leeway in keeping information from public view by indiscriminate assertion of proprietary information. The requirements that the EPA include the "costs to industry" in determining whether a substance presents an "unreasonable threat to public health," and that it impose the "least burdensome regulation" (to industry) was a bar that the GOA found too high for effective protection from chemicals' potential harm. |
| Instead, the EPA substituted a series of voluntary programs that the Government accountability Office determined, in November 2005, were ineffective. American companies and recyclers, the GAO concluded in its assessment of large-scale recycling programs, prefer the "more convenient option of simply throwing these products away," and face no disincentives to simply shipping "used electronics ... to overseas buyers with no guarantee that they will be properly handled."" In early 2007, the computer giant Dell indicated its willingness to test out a take-back program, signaling the first U.S. |
Peter J. Whitehouse and Daniel George
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 Yet these treatments can also result in harm to the body and to the pocketbook and many are justifiably skeptical of CAM approaches because they lack the formal accountability of Western medicines. The best advice on selecting CAM treatments really comes down to being an educated consumer and knowing a treatment regimen and its provider well before participating in it.
Despite booming sales figures and mounting popularity in the West, CAM approaches are controversial because of concern about their efficacy, safety, and cost. |
Mark Schapiro
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| China's budding citizens' movement is also finding ways to use the nascent system of environmental laws to provide accountability and enforcement, though often against harsh resistance from local government authorities.
China is now looking inward for more sustainable development strategies—intended to be on full public display during the much-touted "Green Olympics"—and outward for new ideas on which to base its young and evolving system of environmental protections and oversight. |
Michele Simon
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 Corporate accountability Project
Numerous resources on researching corporations and campaign donations. www.corporations.org
Freedom of Information Center
Resources include sample letters on filing "freedom of information act"
(FOIA) requests—for example, to obtain copies of school soda contracts. http://foi.missouri.edu/foialett.html
See also: FOIA Advocates www.foiadvocates.com
The Institute on Money in State Politics
Probably the most comprehensive database on state lobbying money. www.followthemoney. |
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