PODCAST: Back to School — The State of Education in America thumbnail

PODCAST: Back to School — The State of Education in America

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By Family Research Council

Do you know what the first 10 amendments to the constitution are called?

If you said the Bill of Rights, congratulations, you are in the 33% of college graduates that know that fact…yes only 33%.

Host Joseph Backholm is joined by The Washington Stand’s Sam McCarthy. Educators and schools have a powerful influence on what the next generation values and believes. Children spend close to 16,000 hours in the classroom so what are they absorbing?

Sam & Joseph discuss the importance of parents instilling critical thinking and morality within their children. They also highlight the need to go back to the basics of education where parents and educators worked together — not separate — to mold and shape the minds of future generations.

Resources

AUTHORS

Joseph Backholm

S.A. McCarthy

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand podcast is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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‘Huge Victory’: 5th Circuit Rules Against Mailing Abortion Pills and Ignoring Women’s Injuries

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By Family Research Council

The Biden administration suffered a major setback, as a federal appeals court has ruled the abortion industry cannot send the abortion pill through the mail, nor ignore the life-threatening harms suffered by the women who take it. The unanimous decision, which pro-life advocates say could save tens of thousands of lives, likely places the pro-life movement and the abortion lobby on another collision course for the Supreme Court.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, ruled against laxer safety standards placed on the abortion pill by the Obama and Biden administrations. In the case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a collection of doctors and OB-GYNs represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom argued the FDA had negligently abused its expedited approval of the chemical abortion drug mifepristone in 2000 for political purposes.

The panel believed the doctors waited too long to file a legal challenge, as the statute of limitations had likely expired. But it overturned abortion expansions made in 2021 by the Biden administration and in 2016 by the Obama-Biden administration. Wednesday’s ruling:

  • reduces the number of weeks mifepristone may be dispensed from 10 weeks to seven;
  • stipulates that only a physician may prescribe the pill, also known as RU-486;
  • ends telemed abortions by requiring an abortion-minded woman to have three in-person visits with a doctor: the first to confirm pregnancy and to take mifepristone, the second to take misoprostol, and a follow-up to check for adverse effects caused by the chemical abortion;
  • bars abortion pills from being sent through the mail; and
  • mandates that abortionists report all adverse events caused by mifepristone, not merely when the pill causes a woman’s death.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins called the ruling a “significant victory for the health and safety of women.” Former Congressman Jody Hice said the judgment constitutes “a huge, huge victory for the pro-life movement as a whole and for protecting the health of women.”

The Biden administration “unlawfully allowed for mail-order abortions,” ADF senior counsel Erin Hawley told Hice on “Washington Watch” Thursday. “The Fifth Circuit’s decision puts an end to that.” The decision “makes good on the promise of Dobbs” by stopping abortion activists in Democrat-controlled states from shipping mifepristone into pro-life states, eviscerating state pro-life protections for the unborn.

The ruling reversed abortion-expanding executive actions taken by two Democratic administrations. Barack Obama and Joe Biden both moved to change the rules governing the distribution of mifepristone, known as Risk Evaluation and Mitigation System (REMS). In 2016, the Obama-Biden administration said abortionists no longer had to report serious side effects of the abortion pill to the FDA’s Adverse Events Reporting System (FAERS), only deaths. In December 2021, Biden’s FDA allowed the abortion pills to be prescribed online, without a medical check-up to verify the woman does not have an ectopic pregnancy, or that she is pregnant at all. The impact weighed heavily on the panel.

“In loosening mifepristone’s safety restrictions, FDA failed to address several important concerns about whether the drug would be safe for the women who use it,” wrote Judge Jennifer Elrod in the majority opinion. “It failed to consider the cumulative effect of removing several important safeguards at the same time.”

One of the plaintiffs in the case, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologist (AAPLOG), told The Washington Stand the ruling is “a first step towards reprioritizing women’s health over the interests of the abortion industry and its allies within our profession.” FRC senior fellow Meg Kilgannon stressed that, although the abortion pill is “never safe for the baby” — “the baby is going to die” in any abortion — these terms constitute a “huge improvement over” existing practices. Giving abortion pills directly to the mother is “medically much safer for women” than shipping them via the mail, because it “ensures that no third party can have access to them and then further exploit women: a trafficker, a human trafficker, someone who would give these drugs to a woman unbeknownst to her.”

Pro-life advocates “should be cautiously optimistic” as the case moves forward, Rev. Jim Harden of CompassCare told TWS. “Pending the Supreme Court’s review, the drug remains available to women without medical oversight. Furthermore, the abortion industry continues to illegally ship the drug to women’s homes in violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1461 and 1462,” conventionally known as the Comstock Act. Two days after Christmas 2022, Biden’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued an opinion that pharmacies may mail or ship abortion pills to pro-life states.

These measures will not take effect immediately, if at all. The Supreme Court issued a stay requiring the case to be fully adjudicated, possibly all the way to the High Court, before the appeals court ruling can take effect. Justices have not yet indicated if they plan to hear the case without a conflicting ruling from another court.

The panoply of possible harms has multiplied as U.S. chemical abortions in the U.S. doubled between 2011 and 2020. Mifepristone now accounts for 54% of all U.S. abortions, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. The current regimen of unsupervised “mail-order abortion pills put thousands of women and girls at risk of serious complications from abortion pills every year,” said Katie Daniel, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s state policy director.

Studies have documented that the two-drug abortion cocktail causes four times the level of harmful side effects for women than surgical abortions. The FDA documented 4,207 adverse events from mifepristone use — including 26 deaths, 1,045 hospitalizations, 603 events requiring a blood transfusion, and 413 infections between 2000 and 2021. One study found that as many as 35 of every 100 women who ingest both pills will end up in the emergency room. In a pending lawsuit in New York City, a 16-year-old girl swore that mifepristone left her permanently “sick, sore, lame and disabled” — and caused her child, who survived, to be born with “profound birth defects.”

“I’ve personally treated many women for complications from the abortion pill (mifepristone and misoprostol), including performing emergency surgery on a woman who bled for two months after receiving these drugs,” noted Dr. Ingrid Skop, an OB-GYN who serves as vice president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute. “Those promoting unsupervised DIY abortion pills clearly prioritize the deaths of unborn children over the health and safety of women.”

A majority (55%) of women who consider themselves “pro-choice” regret their decision to take mifepristone, according to a national survey from Support After Abortion. One-third of women subjected to a chemical abortion “reported an adverse change” in their lives, such as “depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and thoughts of suicide,” the group found.

Mail-order abortion “lacks any sort of meaningful medical oversight and places women in danger of serious, life-threatening complications, and ends the lives of unborn children,” Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, told TWS. “The FDA has a solemn duty to prioritize health and safety over politics and should be held accountable for failing to do so.”

The Fifth Circuit partially affirmed and partially vacated a stronger decision from U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, who ruled on April 7 that FDA wrongly approved mifepristone in 2000. They allowed the drug to be dispensed according to 2016 standards and allowed a 2019 motion for the name-brand Mifeprex to be dispensed as a generic drug.

Pro-life advocates hope if and when the case comes before the Supreme Court, justices will reconsider mifepristone’s controversial approval in 2000, which they contend took place under political pressure from the Clinton administration. In doing so, they state, the FDA violated the Administration Procedure Act.

“The FDA, just like any other agency, has to follow the rules. They didn’t do that for chemical abortion. They bowed to political pressure,” Hawley told Hice. The courts should view the litigation “not as an abortion case, but as a case in which an agency simply failed to follow the rules.” One of the panel’s judges — Judge James Ho, a Trump appointee — dissented that the FDA’s approval of mifepristone should be reversed, pulling mifepristone off all pharmaceutical shelves.

“The FDA exists to protect Americans from dangerous drugs, yet numerous pro-abortion presidents used the agency as a political tool to promote elective abortion at the expense of pregnant women and their preborn children,” Texas Right to Life president John Seago told The Washington Stand. “We hope the court will take accusations against the FDA seriously and will fairly examine the agency’s negligent and politically-motivated approval of this deadly abortion drug over the last 23 years.”

Multiple levels of the Biden administration immediately registered their outrage at Wednesday’s ruling. A spokesperson for Biden’s Justice Department said the administration “strongly disagrees with the Fifth Circuit’s decision” and “will be seeking Supreme Court review.” Vice President Kamala Harris deemed the decision “a threat to a woman’s freedom.” Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra stated that banning the abortion pill would have “a devastating impact on women’s health” by denying them “the medications they need.”

The Biden administration has lost no chance to push back against the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion to the democratic process for the first time in 49 years. Last July, the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent a guidance to 60,000 pharmacies threatening to take legal “corrective action” against anyone who refuses to dispense the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone to “pregnant people” and explain “how to take” it. Others continually urge the administration to go further. Before the ruling even came down, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) advised the Biden administration to “ignore the ruling” and “keep this life-saving drug on the market,” likening lawlessness to Abraham Lincoln’s actions freeing the slaves.

Deep-blue states including California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, and Washington state have begun stockpiling mifepristone (and in some cases, misoprostol). So-called “abortion sanctuaries” have promised not to prosecute abortionists who mail mifepristone across state lines, in violation of state or federal law. “Because of this, women are more at risk for chemical abortion injury now than ever before,” said CompassCare’s Jim Harden.

If justices agree to take up the decision, yet another Supreme Court ruling on abortion could impact the 2024 elections. Perkins noted that the three-judge panel — Judges James Ho, Cory Wilson, and Jennifer Walker Elrod — were all appointed by pro-life presidents, highlighting how Christians’ votes lead to concrete decisions that save lives. “With two of the justices on the Fifth Circuit appointed by President Trump” — and Elrod named to the court by George W. Bush — “this ruling also underscores the importance of presidential elections,” Perkins said.

Constitutional lawyers vow they will not relent until the abortion pill, which kills children and hurts women, is removed from all venues. “We won’t rest until the FDA and the profit-driven abortion industry are held accountable for the suffering they’ve inflicted on women and girls, as well as the deaths of countless unborn children,” said Daniels.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: RFK Jr.’s Abortion Flip-Flop Reveals Democrats’ Abortion Radicalism

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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Medicaid Paid Doctors to Push Risky COVID Vaccine

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By Catherine Salgado

mRNA vaccine inventor-turned-truth teller Dr. Robert Malone just revealed how Anthem Medicaid was incentivizing doctors to push the dangerous COVID-19 vaccines by promising $50 for every Anthem member aged 5 years and older who got jabbed by Dec. 31, 2022.

So what if 13 million people died worldwide from the vaccines? So what if millions more were vaccine-injured? The federal government was dishing out taxpayer money for every vaccine administered to Anthem members!

I know many people who got themselves or their children vaccinated after their physicians assured them that it was the right thing to do. Some of those people now have vaccine injuries. True believers scoff when one points out that the medical profession has a vested interest in selling ineffective drugs and keeping people sick, but it’s true. And this is just another illustration of how some or even most doctors will ignore any evidence that happens to interfere with their money-making. Honest doctors like Dr. Malone are hard to find these days, it seems.

Malone on Twitter/X:

‘Not only did physicians get bonuses for mass vaccination campaigns based on percentages of patients jabbed, they got an extra $50 per patient as an “incentive”.

“your practice will receive $50 per Anthem member five years of age and older vaccinated by December 31, 2022.”’

It was all about making money, regardless of the risks. So much for the Hippocratic Oath.

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

PODCAST: Great Reset Menu—GMO Food, Bugs and Solar Panels thumbnail

PODCAST: Great Reset Menu—GMO Food, Bugs and Solar Panels

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By Karen Schoen

I am the expert. You will believe me and support me. If you disagree, you will go to jail. Do I tell the truth? NO!  Do I get to make up my own facts regardless. Yes! After all I am from the government and we will now decide your future. You will now get rid of all fossil fuels and all of their products. You will eat what I tell you. Everything I decide you want will be in a 15 minute walk from your home.  Say hello to your new police force of illegal aliens who will make sure you stay in your zone, your new prison.  Are you hungry? You may have to move to Afghanistan where the Taliban converted the heroin producing poppy fields to food while in America we convert our food to solar farms.

Our Marxist Affirmative Action graduates of experts have worked hard to develop your new menu: GMO Food, Bugs and Solar Panels.

You will eat as you are told or face the consequences. Welcome to the new Marxist/Communist/Globalist America.

Think this won’t happen?  Think again.

Florida used to be in the top 5 states producing a variety of food products. Today as I travel through Florida where I used to see corn, peanuts, tomatoes and citrus, I now see solar and wind farms.  So I ask you Gov DeSantis, what do solar panels and wind blades taste like?  Today when all we hear is, there will be food shortages, I want to know, why are you cutting food production? We need more food not less? Why are you cutting CO2 when you know it is needed for plants aka our food? Oh I forgot, “Less people, less problems.”

As I was investigating the stupidity of cutting food production when more food is needed I discovered:

The OBiden administration with the help of the RINOS is subsidizing energy companies guaranteeing them a 10% profit while hamstringing them with regulations and insane permitting so they are forced to turn to inefficient, ineffective expensive renewables.  By outlawing or over regulating appliances and vehicles that rely on natural gas and fossil fuel Globalists insure the fact that their donors who have invested in Green will recoup their investment. We the people will be overcharged.  We will receive overly expensive, inefficient, ineffective electricity and products made with slave labor. (Think Sound of Freedom). Some of those children depending on the country they wind up in, go to the cobalt mines so the Globalists can get their expensive EV batteries.

Of course they tell you this must be done to save the planet and protect Mother Earth (GAIA) You must sacrifice for the common good. You must do your part to make up for all the destruction HUMANS caused Mother Earth.  Wait a minute, No one asks, What harm? I didn’t cause hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, etc. I guess Affirmative action graduates never learned fossil fuel is necessary to produce about 1000 products including solar panels and wind turbines.

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) Globalists, Humans are users. Their addiction is to CO2.  WEF will tell the school children that use of CO2 will cause the destruction of Mother Earth (GAIA). Students will force their parent to abstain from fossil fuel or pay a fine.  OBiden even said he didn’t know why the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was named that when it was really all about funding Green projects.

Globalists will either bankrupt corporations or regulate them out of business or will pay them a subsidy for Green. Globalists will make up new categories to restrict humans and business.  Social Credits aka Personal Carbon Allowance (PCA) for humans and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) scores will give credits or take credits.  Not enough credits, too bad no food or gas for you. As long as we allow the WEF to think they  are the experts the humans will be forced to listen and obey. WEF messages in elementary school so by the time students are adults, they will believe CO2 is destroying the planet, while wind and solar are reliable.

WEF/Globalists/DNC/RINOS know batteries, wind and solar won’t work in extreme cold or heat? WEF doesn’t care. I haven’t figured out how to get solar panels on a jet so they will still have their gas vehicles, jets and ships run on fossil fuel..  Bottom line: Globalists do not want us mobile or talking. Mobility and free speech are freedom and that is out of the question.

Why would you want to make this country dependent on what’s going on in China? In Florida seems as though our absentee, part time Governor taking a full time salary,  DeSantis, would rather hand Florida to China than feed the Florida taxpayer.  Under his public service commission, Florida has no real common sense energy policy. The plan brought to you by the Affirmative Action graduates will give you the inefficient, part time  renewable wind and solar. According to Mike Davis,  $8.6 billion, in the last 3 years spent on solar farms with about $6 billion going to China Chico for solar panels and for battery storage. 16 years of solar plant conversions by the State will cost about $600Billion+ to China instead of American inexpensive reliable natural gas.

Floridians are already stretched with a 29% increase.  By the target of 2045  energy will be  4 times what you pay now. As for Ron’s donors Nextera, PSE, etc. they are covered with a 8 to 10% guaranteed return on that Capital spend to destroy Florida’s current sensible energy plan. The only guarantee Floridians have is all of the energy policies in Florida are pro China. and we will have 70% unreliable energy guaranteeing brownouts, blackouts and higher rates. Why would anyone vote for this policy for America?

Florida rate payers have seen approximately 29% rate hikes in their existing electric bill. Florida currently has 74% of usage of natural gas to generate electricity and natural gas is at record lows. But instead of rates going down or remaining the same they have gone up 29% in order to fund this extremely expensive program of renewables that only comprise less than 4% of our energy today. By 2045 we will be down to less than 30% of stable energy. Instead Floridians will be using 70% of unstable renewable energy. Imagine how lovely it will be during a Heat Alert , or dangerous thunderstorm both which we in Florida have been experiencing for the last 3 months. Do solar panels work when the sun doesn’t shine?

Since I am not an affirmative action graduate I know nothing will work. So we will go back in time when we had NO air conditioning in Florida. Better buy your fans and generators now.

We already have energy shortages today. So we are replacing inexpensive American natural gas with expensive Chinese solar panels and wind blades and lithium-ion batteries. Who is DeSantis paying off with this stupid policy which is harming Floridians? Nextera is one of his largest donors, why are we not surprised?  Florida is only the Sunshine State 80% of the time what happens when it’s cloudy? Florida is only windy part time what happens when there’s no wind? OBiden wants to use Bill Gates’ technology to block the sun. Will solar panels work?

Look at your electric bill times it by 4. Still want to vote for DeSantis?

How much land will be lost to solar farms instead of food? Not to worry, since there is no place to dispose of those useless panels that stopped working, they will be on the menu. Ketchup anyone?

Please read and share Mike Davis article…

Is America Worth Saving?  Its up to you.

Get your kids out of the indoctrination clinics masquerading as Public Schools. Check out goflca.org  MicroSchools.

Remember: Everything is connected. Nothing is random, Everyone follows the same plan. ALL PLANS ARE BASED ON LIES. Globalists must control opposition. Globalists must take away our voice.

Globalists only care about MONEY, POWER and CONTROL. Don’t give them yours. Boycotts work. Stop using their services and products.  Vote the RINOS out. Vote with your fingers and with your wallet. There is a lot you can do.

©2023. Karen Schoen. All rights reserved.

Show: Sat and Sun 7AM ET and 9PM ET on AmericaOutloud.com

Podcasts and Articles: Karenbschoen.com, karenschoen.substack.com,

Don’t Defend Planned Parenthood’s ‘Gender-Affirming Care.’ Defund It. thumbnail

Don’t Defend Planned Parenthood’s ‘Gender-Affirming Care.’ Defund It.

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By Melanie Israel

In post-Roe America, Planned Parenthood is shifting gears. To make up for its lost abortion revenue, it’s expanding its reach into what it calls “transgender hormone therapy.”

The recent spike in these services is telling.

According to their most recent annual reports, most of the nearly 600 Planned Parenthood centers now dispense cross-sex hormones. In 2016, only 32 Planned Parenthood clinics provided similar services.

A 2022 Heritage Foundation analysis found that between one-third and one-half of the centers had entered the gender-bending market. One year later, Planned Parenthood’s newest reports reveal that what it calls “gender-affirming care” increased by 49%. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

Some regions outpaced others. For example, Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio boasts a 544% increase in “transgender services” visits from 2021 to 2022.

Gender ideologues argue this spike in people “identifying” as transgender, nonbinary, and so forth simply reflects a more accepting American culture. But if growing acceptance drives this growth, then liberal areas of the country would, in theory, see a smaller increase in patient visits in the past year compared with conservative areas.

After all, the ever-expanding “Pride” phenomenon started much earlier in dark-blue enclaves, such as Portland, Oregon, and New York City.

That’s not what the data shows, however. Columbia-Willamette, a Planned Parenthood affiliate covering the greater Portland area, nearly quadrupled its “gender-affirming care” visits from 2021 to 2022. So, what caused this 3,063-visit increase? “Increased acceptance” is surely not the answer.

Recent studies have sought to identify the root causes of distress over one’s sex, officially called gender dysphoria. Parent-child conflict, peer influence, social media, and a history of mental health issues might all play a role.

We don’t have all the answers right now. But this uncertainty is surely a good reason to proceed with caution, rather than to dive headlong into these experimental medical interventions.

With more people getting gender interventions at Planned Parenthood and elsewhere, what is the evidence for long-term benefits? Some patients report short-term relief, post-transition. But there is no evidence that those treatments are better than therapeutic solutions.

On the contrary, there’s a growing consensus that irreversible treatments do serious harm to those suffering from gender dysphoria.

The side effects of the cross-sex hormones, some of which are also used to chemically castrate pedophiles, are severe. They include infertility, stunted growth, and an increased risk of depression, blood clots, and cancer.

Research by Heritage’s Jay Greene comparing states that do and do not allow minors to receive hormone therapy without parental consent is sobering.

He found that easy access to these drugs was associated with a higher risk of suicide. This finding contradicts the claim that medical treatments for gender dysphoria are “lifesaving.”

So, how are other countries responding to the irreversible nature of “gender-affirming” hormone therapy and the abysmal post-treatment results for patients? Traditionally liberal Western European nations, such as the U.K., Sweden, and Finland, are now much more restrictive.

Norway’s health authorities are also now moving in the same direction. These decisions, backed by systematic reviews, found no evidence that the benefits of medical treatment for gender dysphoria outweigh the risks. The United States is now an outlier among Western peers in pushing affirmation alone.

With mass uncertainty around both the causes and proper treatment for gender dysphoria, the U.S. should hit the metaphorical pause button on expanding life-altering gender-transition services, not double down on them.

In the past couple of years, many conservative states have moved to protect minors from harmful medical interventions, and more should follow. But the federal government should do its part by eliminating federal funding for gender-altering drugs and surgeries.

Thankfully, some policymakers are stepping up to the plate. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, proposed a bill that would prevent children’s hospitals from receiving  federal tax dollars if they provided gender hormone or surgical procedures to minors in the past year. House Republicans’ 2024 spending bill for the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services says Medicare and Tricare can’t cover gender-transition services.

The Hyde Amendment has for decades kept the federal government from funding abortions. The law should also shield the American taxpayer from supporting gender treatments that have—at best—unknown long-term results on kids.

Congress should defund Planned Parenthood’s latest “gender-affirming” boondoggle and instead fund real health care that doesn’t hurt women and girls, unborn children, and kids struggling with gender dysphoria.

*****

This article was published by Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.

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As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

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How to Think about the Drug Crisis

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By Charles Fain Lehman

Almost nobody is taking America’s drug crisis seriously. To be sure, the ever-mounting deaths attract headlines. They get a mention in the State of the Union, or on the campaign trail. But based on the outcomes, policymakers appear to have more or less given up.

Some numbers put the problem in perspective. After Covid-19, drugs are now the leading driver of America’s steadily declining life expectancy. A reported 111,219 Americans died from a drug overdose in 2021. That figure has risen more or less unabated, and at an increasing pace, since the early 1990s. Back in 2011, 43,544 Americans died from a drug overdose — less than half the 2021 figure. Ten years earlier, in 2001, it was 21,705 — less than half as many again. And the problem keeps getting worse: The 2021 figure is nearly 50% higher than it was in 2019.

Compared to the scale of the problem, our ambitions to meet it are meager. In its 2022 National Drug Control Strategy, the Biden administration set a goal of reducing overdose deaths by 13% over the next two years. That would still mean 83,000 overdose deaths annually — higher than any year before 2020. Thus far, the trajectory is not positive: The National Center for Health Statistics estimates that there were roughly 110,000 overdose deaths in the year ending December 2022 — essentially unchanged from a year earlier.

Of course, President Biden is not uniquely to blame. Overdose deaths rose through the Obama and Trump administrations; the seeds of the crisis were planted as far back as Bill Clinton’s first term. The failure has been ongoing and systematic. It is in part a failure of know-how: Over a century into drug control, we still have only limited ideas about how to abate the harms of drugs. It is also a failure of knowledge. One can easily find out how many people died of Covid-19 last week, but we still have only estimates of how many people died of drug overdoses last year. And of course, it is in part a failure of political will.

But in crucial respects what we face is a failure of understanding. What many people — policymakers and the general public alike — fail to grasp is that today’s crisis is not like crises past. Historically, drug crises were characterized by the (re)emergence of a drug, followed by the spread of addiction and its attendant ills. The problems they caused affected individual and social health — physical illness, social dysfunction, frayed relationships, public disorder, etc. While these still play a role, today’s crisis is predominantly characterized by an unprecedented increase in the drug supply’s lethality. Historical crises inflicted many more or less equally weighty harms — to users’ health, to families, to communities. In this crisis, one problem dwarfs all others: death.

Drugs have changed, probably for good. They now kill their users. Until policymakers internalize this fact, they will not make any progress. A haphazard approach was tolerable when the harms of drug use took time to accumulate. But with tens of thousands being poisoned to death every year, bolder action is required.

THE NEW DRUGS

Humans have long used drugs, to the benefit of some and the detriment of others. But drug crises — society-scale problems caused by drugs — are a relatively recent phenomenon.

The first true drug crisis in American history did not occur until after the Civil War, when tens of thousands of soldiers received morphine via hypodermic needles — both recently invented — and brought the subsequent addictions home with them. In the half-century between that crisis and the first wave of national drug-control legislation, thousands more became addicted. The opiate epidemic did eventually decline, before emerging again in a different form in the late 20th century.

These early drug crises were crises of addiction and its attendant harms, to the user and to those around him. The various postwar drugs of abuse — Benzedrine, for example, and barbiturates — were controlled because they led to undesirable dependency and harmful misbehavior. Similarly, the thousands of soldiers who returned from Vietnam addicted to heroin were a cause for concern, both for the effects of chronic opioid use on users’ health and for the social harms of homelessness and other dysfunctions attending that use. The crack crisis of the 1980s added a wrinkle, insofar as the drug’s sale was associated with particularly violent gang crime. But even then, the problem was the harmful side effects of compulsive drug use. It was not, first and foremost, the fact that drugs killed people.

This is not to say that drugs did not kill people in the past; they certainly did. But compared to other causes of death, drug overdose was uncommon. Between the end of World War II and 1966, data compiled by the Social Capital Project of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee indicate that less than one in 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses annually. As drug use grew more common, overdose death rates rose slightly. But even in the late 1980s — the height of the crack crisis — only about three in 100,000 Americans died from a drug overdose per year. In 1988, the peak year for drug overdose in the ’80s, Americans were roughly three times more likely to die by homicide, four times more likely to die by suicide, and six times more likely to die in a car accident than by overdose.

In the mid-1990s, something changed. Death rates began rising, slowly but exponentially. Between 1990 and 2000, the overdose death rate doubled, from 2.6 per 100,000 to 5.3 per 100,000. The decade between 2000 and 2010 saw another doubling. From 2010 to 2020, the rate tripled, to 29.2 per 100,000 — 10 times the rate in the 1980s, and 30 times the lows of the postwar period.

Drug overdose is now the leading cause of non-medical death in the United States. As of 2021, it was only slightly less deadly than all homicides, suicides, and motor-vehicle fatalities combined. Drugs still cause addiction, of course, and addiction still hurts addicts and society. But, likely for the first time ever, the primary harm of today’s drug crisis is death…..

*****

Continue reading this article, click here, and go to National Affairs.

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Which is More Frightening: Global Warming or Demographic Winter? thumbnail

Which is More Frightening: Global Warming or Demographic Winter?

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By MercatorNet – Navigating Modern Complexities

Ross Douthat holds the dubious distinction of token conservative at the New York Times. Of course, what passes for conservative at the Times doesn’t hold a candle to what’s considered conservative here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Nonetheless, Mr Douthat leads me to believe that his employment notwithstanding, he may be aware that flyover country matters. Word is that he is a practicing Catholic, truly a fish out of water at the once-venerable Gray Lady of American journalism.

Earlier this year Mr. Douthat posted an eminently sensible column, “Five Rules for an Aging World” that should have gotten legs more than it did. Maybe that was because his opening paragraph was a slap upside the head to the smart set:

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who believe the defining challenge of the 21st century will be climate change, and those who know that it will be the birth dearth, the population bust, the old age of the world.

Whoa!

How dare this guy even compare the birth dearth with today’s sacred cow climate change! Does he not want to save the planet? But how about saving humanity? Interestingly, large-scale ecological fearmongering began in the 1960s when the old conservationist movement was co-opted and rebooted as Environmentalism, Inc. Then came global warming gloom-and-doom, now rebranded as climate change, a quasi-religious creed predicting the End Times for secularists everywhere. Keep in mind that climate is always changing, but don’t confuse me with the facts.

Mr Douthat continues:

[I]t’s important for the weird people more obsessed with demography than climate to keep hammering away, because whatever the true balance of risk between the two, the relative balance is changing. Over the last 15 years, some of the worst-case scenarios for climate change have become less likely than before. At the same time, various forces, the Covid crisis especially, have pushed birthrates lower faster, bringing the old-age era forward rapidly.

Demography nerds vindicated in the NYT! Who’d a thought?

What next?

Yes, the world is rapidly ageing, fastest in the Global North. Talk about a Great Reset. Most of society’s institutions are predicated on growth; that is slowly but surely coming to an end. What then?

Mr Douthat has given it some thought. Too bad more elected officials don’t do so as well. The survival of the species depends on the health of the family, which is not on the political class radar screen. More pressing concerns preempt that, such as mollifying moneyed special interests. That’s just how “democracy” works.

So, an ageing world is what we’ve got, and we’re stuck with it for the foreseeable future. As the Boy Scouts say, “Be prepared.”

Generational change

The US government calls our Social Security scheme an “entitlement” program. I guess if you’re required to pay into something your entire career on the basis that you’ll be paid back, then you’re “entitled” to those payments, much as you’re “entitled” to receive goods that you pay for at the corner store.

But the Social Security Trust Fund has been looted (thank you, US Congress), so now we have a ginormous Ponzi scheme of the sort which Bernie Madoff could not have imagined. Every few years steps are taken to keep the Fund solvent. Today the baby boomers, the last generation of above-replacement fertility, are drawing Social Security like nobody’s business.

Boomers are also the last generation to thrive on post-World War II prosperity resulting from US industry not having been bombed to smithereens. Consequently, they hold a disproportionate share of individual wealth. This sets up a generational issue where younger workers bear the burden of a dysfunctional dependency ratio. There is no end in sight, because not enough children are coming along to pay into the system and pick up the slack.

Our ageing world will change everything. Ageing societies lose their dynamism and creativity. With a lack of youngsters coming along, there will be fewer scientists, workers, innovators, and taxpayers. A shrinking workforce will require greater reliance on artificial intelligence; fewer soldiers will mean a military more dependent on high-tech defense.

Infrastructure maintenance costs will rise even if population decreases. Costly bridges, highways and water systems do not shrink along with population. Below-replacement fertility is beginning to reveal these unanticipated costs.

African migration

It is Mr. Douthat’s 5th rule for ageing populations that gets the most attention: “The African diaspora will reshape the world.”

The faster aging happens in the rich and middle-income world, the more important the fact that Africa’s population is still on track to reach 2.5 billion in 2050, and reach four billion by 2100. The movement of even a fraction of this population will probably be the 21st century’s most significant global transformation. And the balance between successful assimilation on the one hand, and destabilization and backlash on the other, will help decide whether the age of demographic decline ends in revitalization or collapse.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the only remaining region with above replacement fertility. Yet fertility there is now falling faster than projections. Uranium-rich Niger, a global flashpoint following the recent military coup, leads the pack with a fertility rate of 6.7. The sub-Sahara region relies on resource extraction and foreign aid. There is high unemployment and a low-skilled workforce.

African migration is indeed reshaping Europe. That has been problematic, as there is thus far no “balance between successful assimilation… and destabilization and backlash.” Importing too many too fast impedes assimilation. Finding employment in deindustrializing Europe is a challenge. Shrinking immigration-resistant East Asian societies do not have massive African or other immigration. Those countries still retain social cohesion, something lost across the multicultural West.

Then there is the culture clash. The traditional African way of life is tribal, less structured and more laidback than that of Europe. Further, militant Islam is robust within their ranks, rattling secularist Europe. Impoverished African enclaves are plagued with crime. Popular resistance to this migration is marginalized as far-right, xenophobic, racist, etc. Meanwhile the globalist political class doubles down, imposing an unwanted multicultural dystopia on their increasingly alienated subjects. The ensuing wage suppression and social tension is totally toxic for families.

Europeans should wake up and smell the coffee before they lose everything.

‘Tis all rooted in demography.

AUTHOR

LOUIS T. MARCH

Louis T. March has a background in government, business and philanthropy. A former talk show host, author and public speaker, he is a dedicated student of history and genealogy. Louis lives with his family in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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5 Ways Doctors Could Get Better Payment From Insurers

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By Justin Nabity @ Physicians Thrive

Physicians and insurance companies have a complicated relationship. They both depend on each other but also seek to maintain their own margins. In the end, it is the patient that typically comes out as the winner regardless of this rocky relationship. That being said, physicians need to be adequately compensated for their work so they can offer even better care to their patients. Here are a few effective ways that doctors can get better payments from the insurance companies they work with.

Upgrading Insurance Contracts

Running a practice is hard enough without having the cash flow to match patient volume. Most doctors will secure insurance rates once and never look at the contract again unless they change payment processors. Using outdated rates not only reduces profit margins but also reduces a doctor’s ability to offer updated patient care. Health insurance is always changing, and it is critical that doctors make sure their insurance contracts change to align with the times. 

Push Back on Excessive Audits

Many commercial insurance companies will tell practices that they can audit payments post or pre-payment of the claims. They may also claim that their right to do so is listed in the contract when it actually isn’t. Too often, these “audits” result in lowered payments. Make sure that if this is listed as a reason for reduced payments, ask for proof of that in the contract. More often than not, it is not contractual and therefore can’t be enforced.

Verify Fee Schedules

Many insurance companies will get rather vague when it comes to fee schedule payouts, especially those that go through Medicare. If the payment is stated to be 100% payer of the fee schedule, take the time to compare CPT codes. This will allow you to see what Medicare allows and what is actually being paid out to you by the insurance company. Often, an insurance company will pay less than what is listed resulting in lost revenue. Always ensure that your insurance contracts follow the medical policies of Medicare as opposed to the insurance company’s policy.

Choose Which Insurance Programs to Participate In

Most common insurance contracts have an appendix listing the programs the insurance company offers. For example, auto insurance liability, physician disability insurance, Medicare, healthcare exchange products, and workers’ compensation, among others. Most doctors are unaware that they have the option of choosing which programs they want to participate in. In order to improve maximum payouts, consider limiting participation in programs that have fees that are set very low, such as some state-limited programs.

Pay Attention to Recoupment

Often, an insurance company will pay out on a claim or batch of claims only to later say a mistake was made. This process is called recoupment. Usually, the mistake is inappropriate coding, and the insurance company will claim a percentage of the total amount of claims reviewed. Not only is this number imprecise, but the claim itself is often inaccurate. Make sure that your insurance contracts give you the right to contest any audits. This will allow doctors the time to double-check that their initial coding is actually correct or if a mistake was made prior to being assessed a fee.

Improving Insurance Payments & Patient Care Effectively

Instead of being unhappy with low insurance payments, doctors can negotiate better rates. This will allow them to spend more time caring for patients and less time worrying about covering the rent. With the suggestions listed above, higher payouts are just a few steps away. 

©2023. Justin Nabity, @PhysicansThrive. All rights reserved.

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1 in 4 High School Students Identify as Homosexual

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By The Geller Report

Almost Half Students at Ivy League University Identify as LGBTQ+ — Doubling the Share.

The poison fruit of radical LGBT education in schools.

At one Ivy, The number of heterosexual students went down 25.2% and homosexual students went up 26% from Fall 2010 to Spring 2023.

1 in 4 high school students identifies as LGBTQ

By Lexi Lonas, The Hill, April 27, 2023:

About 1 in 4 high school students identifies as LGBTQ, according to a report the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released on Thursday, using data from 2021.

In 2021, 75.5 percent of high school students identified as heterosexual, the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) found.

Among high school students, 12.2 percent identified as bisexual, 5.2 percent as questioning, 3.9 percent as other, 3.2 percent as gay or lesbian and 1.8 percent said they didn’t understand the question.

The CDC says the number of LGBTQ students went from 11 percent in 2015 to 26 percent in 2021.

The health organization said a potential reason for the increase in LGBTQ students could be from their wording around students who are questioning their sexuality.
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“Increases in the percentage of LGBQ+ students in YRBSS 2021 might be a result of changes in question wording to include students identifying as questioning, ‘I am not sure about my sexual identity (questioning),’ or other, ‘I describe my sexual identity in some other way,’” the report reads.

Among the high school students, 57 percent have had no sexual contact in their lives, 34.6 percent had sexual contact with someone of the opposite sex, 6 percent had sexual contact with both sexes and only 2.4 percent had sexual contact with only the same sex.

The CDC surveyed 17,508 students in 152 schools across the country……

And this…..

Nearly 40% of students at Brown University identify as LGBTQ+ — doubling the share from 2010

By Alex Oliveira, NY Post, July 10, 2023:

The number of Brown University students identifying as LGBTQ+ has doubled since 2010, according to a new poll from the university’s student paper.

About 38% of students at the Ivy League school identified as either homosexual, bisexual, queer, asexual, pansexual, questioning, or other — more than five times the national rate for adults not identifying as straight.

A similar poll conducted at the school just over 10 years ago found that 14% of the student body identified as being part of the LGBTQ+ community.

The poll was conducted by the Brown Daily Herald, an independent student newspaper at the Rhode Island school, and released in June as a part of a Pride Month special issue.

It is unclear how many students were polled in the survey.

As of fall 2022, Brown had an undergraduate enrollment of 7,222 students and another 3,515 in its graduate and medical programs.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘I Make Love To Men Daily’: Obama’s Letters To His Ex

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Fauci, Collins Bagged 58 Royalty Payments Amid $325 Million Collected By NIH

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By Tyler Durden

Editors’ Note:  This information seems to go even beyond what is called “regulatory capture.” Rule making agencies often lack expertise and hence tend to recruit personnel from the very companies they regulate. Progressives argued that “market failure” required the guiding hand of bureaucrats to correct abuses. However, in this case, regulators actually stand to profit from the companies they regulate, which calls into question conflicts of interest at the highest level. It is beyond just having a mindset favorable to industry, they stand to personally profit. Couple this with Congressmen and Senators making insider stock trades on companies they can influence through legislation. Who then regulates the corrupt regulators? This is corruption at the highest levels of our government, plain and simple, and shows the expected consequences of getting the government so deeply involved in providing healthcare. As Lord Acton long ago noted: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority.

The two longtime directors of the National Institutes of Health and its National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci received 58 royalty payments from companies to license and deploy their products using taxpayer dollars, according to a new release from OpenTheBooks.

On Wednesday, the organization published more than 1500 pages of unredacted records revealing which companies were involved, and which NIH scientists were paid for inventions. The release came after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) battle with the NIH, reports Just the News.

The 56,000 transactions add up to more than $325 million, according to OpenTheBooks, though the individual amounts for each payment and corresponding license are not listed in the records.

Fauci received 37 payments from three companies between 2010-2021: 15 from Santa Cruz Biotechnology, which creates products for medical research including antibodies and made the fifth-most payments in the royalty database; 14 from Ancell Corp., which produces immunology tolls; and eight from Chiron Corp., acquired by Novartis in 2006. -JTN

According to the report, Novartis has received some $17 million in NIH contract payments and $15 million in NIH grants since the acquisition of Chiron. In 2004, Fauci’s NIAID had a contract with the company to develop an avian influenza vaccine.

Collins, meanwhile, who stepped down as NIH director at the end of 2021 before serving as President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 czar, received 21 payments from four companies between 2010 and 2018. Twelve of them came from GeneDX, which received $5 million in federal contract payments – mostly from NIH – since 2008…..

*****

Continue reading this article at Zero Hedge.

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

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Why Prostitution is Not ‘Sex Work’

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By National Center on Sexual Exploitation

Since the 1970s, a tactical and politically driven agenda has been advanced to promote the global sex trade. This agenda has rested on the reframing of prostitution along two seemingly disparate lines, one being the promotion of prostitution as ordinary work, and the other being the promotion of prostituted people as a sexual minority. Although powerful interest groups have expended a great deal of energy and finance in shifting public opinion on both these points, the reality is that neither of these things are true.

Prostitution is neither sex nor work. 

Why Prostitution is Not “Sex”

Sex is a mutual exchange of pleasure, whether it happens within the context of a loving and committed relationship, a brief encounter between strangers, or anything on the spectrum in between. Sexuality is something which is shared in a spirit of mutuality. It is not something ever forced, bought, duped, bullied or coerced.

Pressure, intimidation and compulsion do not happen where mutuality exists, but they happen where ‘consent’ does every day. That is why consent is not a good divining rod for healthy sexuality. The presence or absence of mutuality is the determining factor in a psychologically and emotionally healthy sexual exchange, not consent. 

Mutuality is absent in the context of prostitution. There is none of the sexual giving and receiving that constitutes the reciprocity inherent to a mutually willing sexual exchange. Instead, sexually unwilling and uninterested people (usually female), submit to unwanted sex demanded by other people (almost always male), every day, usually multiples times per day, and because this unwanted sex is actively solicited, it is defined as consensual. The word ‘consent’ therefore creates an illusion; it is a linguistic tool that misrepresents sexual abuse as sex. It is espoused by liberal feminists and other progressives who either don’t know or don’t care to know that they’re endorsing sexual abuse on an industrial scale.

Healthy sexuality can’t be found in the sex trade.

— National Center on Sexual Exploitation (@NCOSE) October 27, 2022

We must hold firm the distinction between sex and sexual abuse, and the clearest way to do it is to hold firm the distinction between consent and mutuality. ‘Consent’ exists in prostitution, and in numerous other human rights violations, if capitulation out of desperation is synonymous with consent; but mutuality does not exist in prostituted sex, and prostituted sex is antithetical to a spirit of mutuality. Mutuality, then, as a concept, reveals the reality of prostitutions unwilling nature. Prostitution does not constitute sex any more than rape does, because in both cases sex is brought about by factors devoid of mutuality.

We must hold firm the distinction between sex and sexual abuse, and the clearest way to do it is to hold firm the distinction between consent and mutuality. ‘Consent’ may exist in prostitution, but mutuality cannot.CLICK TO TWEET

Given prostitution doesn’t constitute mutual sex, it is an absurdity to assign prostituted people the status of a sexual minority. It is, however, a very calculated absurdity. It is also an egregious and indefensible cruelty, considering the decades of research that correlate childhood sexual abuse with prostitution.

Why Prostitution is Not “Work”

Not every activity which is compensated should be dignified by the terms ‘employment’ and ‘work.’ We see and accept this when we’re talking about human rights violations elsewhere, in sweat shops for example. When we examine prostitution however, we see that, unlike sweat shops, it is not the conditions of the ‘labour’ which renders it unviable employment, but every aspect of what passes for labour and, beyond that, the very structure of the framework within which it occurs. Prostitution, as an institution, is abusive in and of itself.

Safe working conditions are integral to any form of employment, but given the very essence of prostitution – not just its conditions of operation or any of the external circumstances that affect it, such as legislation – is harmful in a multitude of ways, prostitution is an irredeemable form of exploitation and in no meaningful way comparable to actual work.

Prostitution is an irredeemable form of exploitation and in no meaningful way comparable to actual work. CLICK TO TWEET

Prostitution does not function like employment on any axis beyond the compensation involved, and even then, it functions very differently. A prostituted person does not enjoy any career progression. Quite the opposite is true. The more experienced a person is in prostitution, the less they are valued and the less they are paid.

A person in actual employment will have gained a wealth of knowledge and experience over the course of twenty years, and be compensated accordingly – a person in prostitution will also have gained a wealth of knowledge and experience, and be considered very close to worthless because of it. A person in actual employment for thirty years will be at the head of their division, or organisation, and often be getting ready to retire with a comfortable and secure pension – a person thirty years in prostitution will be considered utterly worthless and be left bereft, unable to feed themselves. Prostitution operates unlike any actual form of employment at every stage, including its miserable conclusion.

The presentation of prostitution as normal, ordinary employment aligns with the ideological convictions of far-left voices who’ll never have to live it, and it serves the interests of the pimping and trafficking gangs that massively profit from it, but it contributes absolutely nothing of value to the lives of those caught in systems of prostitution worldwide.

There are those heavily invested in presenting prostitution as a matter of sexuality, in order that it can be presented as a matter of sexual freedom and aligned with the rights of sexual minorities. The same people will frame the incongruent argument that prostitution shouldn’t even bear its own name – that it’s valid and acceptable employment and ought to be known as ‘sex work.’ In reality, prostitution is neither sex nor work, much less both at the same time.

Prostitution is neither sex nor work, much less both at the same time. CLICK TO TWEET

ACTION: Ask your Legislators to oppose full decriminalization of the sex trade!

The misleading narrative reframing prostitution as “sex work” has led to increased support for harmful policies that decriminalize pimping, sex buying, and brothel keeping. These policies would hurt survivors and expand the exploitative prostitution marketplace. Please help your legislators understand the true nature of prostitution, and urge them to oppose full decriminalization of the sex trade, by filling out the action form below!

ACTION: Ask your legislators to oppose full decriminalization of the sex trade!

AUTHOR

Rachel Moran

EDITORS NOTE: This NCOSE column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

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Weekend Read: Revolutionary State of Mind

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By Peter Hitchens

Editors’ Note: The debate about legalization may not really be the debate. Smoking tobacco is legal, but restricted. Advertising is banned and its use is now severely frowned upon in today’s culture. Even the tobacco companies themselves must fund education against their own product. But marijuana gets a pass. It is an approved way to ruin your lungs and psyche. With our streets filled with drug-addled people, educational scores and productivity falling, why would we encourage any type of constant public inebriation? You likely know people who would recoil against anything with GMO-related products in their cornflakes but regularly scramble their synapses with pot. In a similar context our schools are riddled with Ritalin. Is marijuana a gateway drug to even worse stuff? Maybe. Once the mind concedes that satisfaction and a sense of peace can be induced artificially, why not move on to even more potent substances? You have conceded already that you can achieve “satisfaction” with life on the cheap, via the wonders of chemistry. No hard choices are required on your part. Why not move on to even more powerful and effective methods to carry out the fraud you have accepted?  The fact is most of the arguments of the legalization crowd ( it will reduce crime, it is benign, no worse than booze, and the state can make money) have proven to be wrong. The worst argument was people will use it anyway. Well, yes, but then again, since legalization, the use of extremely powerful strains has increased markedly. Don’t think use has increased?  Try renting a car in Denver – it will likely reek of marijuana. In Phoenix since recreational marijuana was legalized, dispensaries are almost plentiful as coffee shops. When the societal costs of treatment, lost productivity, and homelessness are figured in, we cannot be sure marijuana is profitable for the government. Besides, is it really all that wise for the government to become a money maker from people’s vices? And for our libertarian friends, to argue against incarceration is one thing, but for those that pride themselves on the embrace of reason, why even hint at the use of something that scrambles the brain, the place where reason is supposed to reside? Eliminate reason, and you have a revolutionary state of mind and a cult, as the author suggests.

As marijuana legalization has failed on its own terms, its proponents must be regarded as revolutionary cultists.

Marijuana is the idol and emblem of a movement and a cult. It is not just a drug, and its enthusiasts, though nowadays they have a lot of money, are no mere lobby. Try to fight them, and you will see what I mean. I have been doing so for more than a decade and I have not even scratched their paintwork. It is quite obvious when you think about it.  By the time I was at college in England, more than 50 years ago, the use of dope was very nearly universal in my generation. I was almost alone among my fellow students, at the fashionable new University of York in northern England, in not being a regular user. And this was because I was that rare thing in those times, a Puritan. As a serious Bolshevik revolutionary, I would do nothing to attract the attention of the police. And in any case, we believed that the proper response to an unjust world was to overthrow its institutions and replace them with our own, not to stupefy ourselves into dozy contentment.

Our planned revolution, an Edwardian-style seizure of power based upon an angry, organized working class led by a revolutionary party, would in fact flop utterly. The very idea of a proletariat became absurd. Even as we conspired and propagandized, the revolutionary movement was shifting and transforming itself into a vast all-embracing attack on the existing Christian culture of the Western nations. And as it turned out, drugs were a central part of that, alongside a complete transformation of sexual morality and family life. Their actual revolution, whose slogan was “Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll” rather than “Workers of All Lands Unite” would succeed beyond all measure.  

There is an astonishing passage in Ian McDonald’s clever book on the songs of the Beatles, Revolution in the Head, that explains this. MacDonald wrote of the 1969 song “Come Together” that “enthusiastically received in campus and underground circles, ‘Come Together’ is the key song of the turn of the decade, isolating a pivotal moment when the free world’s coming generation rejected established wisdom, knowledge, ethics, and behavior for a drug-inspired relativism which has since undermined the foundations of Western culture.”

Allan Bloom, in his once-celebrated, now-forgotten The Closing of the American Mind, made a similar connection between the effect of drugs and their ally, the new music. He said,

In my experience, students who have had a serious fling with drugs—and gotten over it—find it difficult to have enthusiasms or great expectations.

It is as though the color has been drained out of their lives and they see everything in black and white. The pleasure they experienced in the beginning was so intense that they no longer look for it at the end or as the end.

They may function perfectly well, but dryly, routinely. Their energy has been sapped, and they do not expect their life’s activity to produce anything but a living, whereas liberal education is supposed to encourage the belief that the good life is the pleasant life and that the best life is the most pleasant life.

He then made a metaphorical connection between the drugs and the music that goes so closely with them, saying that, as long as they listen to the music on their headphones, “They cannot hear what the Great Tradition has to say. After its prolonged use, when they take it off, they find that they are deaf.” Drugs destroy the old landscape of literature and art and leave blighted minds craving different sorts of satisfaction.

I can remember this going on, the invasion of our young lives by music so utterly distinct from anything that had gone before that it was as if some sort of euphoric substance had been put in the air and the water.  We thought we could hear the Chimes of Freedom flashing, and there was no doubt at all that marijuana was part of this mystical re-evaluation of the world. I recall it more clearly perhaps because I consciously rejected it around the age of 19, turning instead towards Beethoven’s symphonies and the Marxist classics. For me, Petrograd in 1917 took the place of Jerusalem, the source of the world’s most profound myth and of mankind’s most exalted aims. I confess this frankly rather bizarre set of beliefs to explain how it came to be that I was not interested in the phony Holy Communion of the shared marijuana joint, reverently rolled in semi-darkness, ceremoniously lit, and then piously handed round the group of initiates, all of whom were knowingly breaking a law that in those days was sometimes still actually enforced. Who needed the Catacombs?

I thought I had something better than this, and in a way I did. At least my revolution concerned itself with reason, history, and a thirst for justice, however, twisted and misdirected. Theirs was just the ultimate expression of self-pity, the poor bruised soul soothed by the sweet fumes of tetrahydrocannabinol. And by the time I realized I did not have anything better after all, I was adult enough to be suspicious of the drug culture anyway.

It was in the course of trying to combat the campaign for marijuana legalization, over many years, that it came to me that I was not challenging reasonable opponents but fanatics and zealots. I would slog to some campus meeting, armed with carefully-researched facts, mostly about how the law against the possession of marijuana was not in fact enforced. And I would find my opponents, often obviously intelligent people, behaving as if I had never even opened my mouth. I might as well not have turned up. They simply repeated the false claim that I had rebutted, making no attempt to challenge my facts. The mythology of the persecution of drug abusers was an essential part of their lives. It was part of the case for legalization. Therefore it could not be abandoned. Therefore challenges to it must be ignored. What did it matter if it simply was not true? As for the strong circumstantial evidence, and the powerful correlations, which suggested that this might not be the moment to put such a drug on open sale, and to allow it to be advertised, this too was ignored as if it had not been said. Mental illness? There was more evidence that peanuts were dangerous to health (I have been told this in supposedly serious debates).

Then there would be the “What About Alcohol?” segment of the discussion in which the presence of one disastrous legal poison was somehow stated to be an argument for the licensing of a second such poison. And finally, we would reach “What About Portugal?” or “What About Amsterdam?” in an attempt to pretend that the legal changes in these places showed drugs to be harmless, claims now utterly exploded and never very firmly based. Even the Washington Post no longer believes the claims about Portugal and Amsterdam, and recently reported on the squalor and crime in both places. It is equally easy to discover that two civilized law-governed nations, Japan and South Korea, successfully discourage marijuana use by the simple method, formerly common in Western nations, of prosecuting and punishing its possession. But you will find this will make no difference either. The drug legalization advocates will perhaps giggle but certainly change the subject.  It is as if our entire culture had decided to ignore Sir Richard Doll’s discoveries about cigarettes because smoking was so important to our culture.

I am arguing against a fanatical faith with the weapons of reason, the very thing the “New Atheists” claim (in my view falsely) to be doing in their battle against Christian belief. But while anti-God diatribes and sermons won the New Atheists’ praise for their alleged courage, originality, and brio, I receive none of that. Like most other socially conservative positions, opposition to marijuana legalization is increasingly an embattled minority view, pretty much heresy. I struggle to make the case on major broadcast media, and when I do I often find that the officially neutral presenter is (in practice) as opposed to me as the drug advocate against whom I am debating. But in this instance, the heretic wins no credit for his individuality, independence, or defiance of fashion. Rather the reverse.

Those who take up this cause are defying the spirit of the age. And, as so often in such matters, it helps to turn to one of the smarter and more honest thinkers of the new era, Aldous Huxley, to find out what is going on.  His Brave New World, an increasingly accurate prophecy of our hedonist, deliberately irrational, and ignorant civilization, absolutely requires the fictional drug Soma to make it function. In a world where humans have learned to love their own servitude, the mind must be kept from fretting, doubting, experiencing, or expressing discontent. Not only is Soma used to quell a riot among the lower orders, who end up simpering and embracing each other after the police soma sprays have done their work; it silences the questing minds of the elite too. Soma, Huxley explained, had “all the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects…there is always delicious Soma, half a gram for a half-holiday, a gram for a week-end, two grams for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon.”

Don’t you long for some? In Huxley’s world you could ingest it in the form of ice cream, and refusers were liable to end up in exile on the Falkland Islands. But you cannot get it. You will never be able to get it. Huxley suggested that biochemists, hugely subsidized by a drug-loving state, had somehow managed to make it harmless, but that must be a fantasy. It seems to me that the history of all mind-altering drugs suggests that they must exact a hard price for the artificial joy, and for the undeserved rewards, which they provide. But the advocates of drugs want this not to be so, and will not acknowledge that it is so.

And now here comes the point at which the deep revolutionary nature of the marijuana legalization movement emerges. There may be a parallel elsewhere, but in Britain the moment came in London in the summer of 1967. This was around the time of the first rock festival at Monterey, prototype of hundreds of pseudo-religious gatherings of worshippers of the new morality which to me strongly resemble the services of a new religion. A significant member of the London counter-culture, John “Hoppy” Hopkins, was sent to prison in June of 1967, after being caught in possession of marijuana. He insisted on jury trial, knowing that he would as a result face a higher sentence if convicted, and used the occasion to proclaim that marijuana was harmless and that the laws against it should be greatly diluted. The jury found him guilty, and the judge sent him to prison for nine months (much less than the maximum ten years he could, in theory, have gotten), calling him “a pest to society.”

Hopkins was a founder of the then-influential magazine International Times, an organizer of the equally revolutionary UFO Club, and a friend of many in the London world of drugs and music. His arrest and imprisonment created alarm among many fashionable and powerful marijuana users. They feared that the old establishment was at last taking the issue seriously, and they did not like that.  Hopkins’s conviction was swiftly followed by an “emergency meeting” in the back room of the Indica Bookshop, another small fortress of dope culture in the London of the time. There should be a painting of this occasion.

Afterward, a brilliant and witty young American then living in London, Steve Abrams, assembled the mighty coalition that would then set about informally destroying the United Kingdom’s laws against marijuana possession. Abrams was a member of a body that had read Brave New World, yet deliberately called itself the SOMA Research Association, and consciously pursued the aim of a hedonistic social revolution. Abrams recruited the superstar Paul McCartney to the campaign and, within a short time, had assembled a battalion of notables, including all four Beatles, the novelist Graham Greene, and a gallery of London’s great and good, to sign an advertisement in the London Times that was published to general amazement in that then-powerful newspaper, on July 24, 1967. It called for the evisceration of the marijuana laws.

And here is the significant part. The call was heeded. Much of its program would be quite swiftly adopted—often de facto rather than de jure—by both major British political parties, the police, and the courts. The key changes were that possession would be regarded far more lightly than trafficking and that marijuana would now be treated separately from (and more leniently than) the other bogeyman drugs, in those days heroin and LSD, and given a special classification of its own. This is the origin of the common false belief that this drug, many of whose users end up seriously mentally ill for life, is “soft.” It was also the beginning of a long salami-slicing process during which the actual penalties imposed for its possession grew so small they became invisible, and after that, the police simply ceased to notice its presence at all. London in the summertime now smells of marijuana. It was the moment at which modern Britain embraced the complex, contradictory view of drugs—that they are harmless, but that those who hurt themselves and others by their use should be treated as medical victims rather than punished as criminal transgressors; that those who use them should not have their lives ruined by criminal penalties, even though they may ruin their own lives and those of their families with drug abuse. This also goes with the elevation of the idea of “addiction” to official status, thus robbing all drug abusers of free will and undermining any attempt at deterrence.

The defeatist language associated with these defeatist attitudes is often found in the mouths of people who regard themselves as political conservatives. They speak of “soft” drugs, of “addiction” and of “treatment,” quite unaware that by doing so they are spreading the propaganda of the enemy. Some of these also adopt the revolutionary slogan that the “War on Drugs” has “failed,” which requires the acceptance of the fiction that there has ever been any such war. Even Alex Berenson, whose book Tell Your Children has been a potent corrective to much public falsehood about marijuana, concluded that “decriminalization” of marijuana might be a reasonable compromise. Between what and what? 

Legalization has already failed on its own terms. The smiling promise that it would “take the drug out of the hands of criminal gangs” has not been fulfilled. Where it is legal, illegal, untaxed, and unregulated, markets flourish alongside. All that has happened is that marijuana is now also in the hands of greedy businessmen, remarkably like the old “Big Tobacco” types we all claim to dislike so much. Any concession to this lobby is an abandonment of the rule of law and of common sense. Meanwhile, the circumstantial evidence of the dangers, mental illness, criminal violence, the ruin of families, grows—and remains circumstantial because no rich and powerful force has any interest in researching these miseries.

Back in the 1960s, my generation thought we could have a Revolution in the Head. I remember it, the shiver of anticipated pleasure and longing, the Pied Piper’s enchanting tune luring us away from the dull and the work, the dutiful and the ordinary. We thought it would free us. Many still think this and have not noticed, as they skip and dance through the grim gates of the new world, what is written above them—something about abandoning hope, though the lettering nowadays is much obscured by moss and decay—and how strangely dark it looks down there.

*****

This article was published by The American Conservative and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

When the Transgender Movement Kills thumbnail

When the Transgender Movement Kills

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By Family Research Council

The most common question transgender activists use to bully parents into approving their daughter’s lifelong dependency on experimental hormone injections is: “Would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter?”

But the tragic story of Abigail Martinez’s daughter, who took her own life after attempting to transition to life as a boy, proves what a false dichotomy that is.

A hard-hitting new film reveals how the trans movement inflicts death, depression, and familial estrangement in service of the pharmaceutical industry.

The story of Yaeli Martinez forms the heart of “Gender Transformations: The Untold Realities,” an original production of The Epoch Times. Though technically classified as a “docudrama,” the term does not do justice to the reality that plays out on the screen: The majority of the film consists of real people sharing heartbreaking true stories, without an interviewer’s prompting. Through their eyes, the 85-minute Epoch Original production traces the transgender contagion from its funding sources in Big Pharma, to ideologically extremist teachers who radicalize children behind their parents’ backs, to trans activists who brainwash and kidnap minors, to the irreversible damage the industry causes teens and young adults. Abigail Martinez sheds real tears for her daughter’s suicide — and real footage shows trans activists mocking her grief.

The “docudrama” label comes from the movie’s dramatization of the short life, radicalization, and death of Yaeli Martinez. The film renames Yaeli “Evie,” who transitions to “Evan.” But the recreation of Yaeli’s life — which can only be reconstructed, since she stepped in front of a train at age 17 — forms the narrative arc turning patchwork of first-person vignettes into a mosaic picture of lives callously shattered for profit.

Yaeli became indoctrinated in extreme gender ideology through a school LGBT group, where she eventually joined her “friends” in identifying as transgender. One night, Yaeli’s “friends” pulled up outside Martinez’s home, picked her up in an unmarked car, and whisked her away to an unknown location to live with other transgender-identifying young people. “They even took the license plate off of their car,” Martinez remembers.

Things got worse when the government got involved. Yaeli said her mother refused to affirm her identity, causing the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services to put the minor into a group home. A judge would authorize the minor to receive transgender injections against her mother’s will. Eventually, Yaeli — who now identified as “Andrew” — brought her mother back into her life, just as newfound friends began to desert her and reality began to assert itself.

“She told me, ‘Mom, I realized that no matter what I do I’m never going to be like my brother. I’m in pain. I can’t sleep. I can’t concentrate,’” Martinez recalls. “’It’s not working the way that I thought.’”

One day in 2019, law enforcement gave Martinez the news that her daughter had committed suicide. “I was screaming. I said, ‘No, I want my daughter,’” Martinez later told The Daily Signal. She pleaded to be able to spend time with the body of her daughter, whom she had not seen since the child ran away.

“The gentleman from the funeral home told me there’s nothing really that you can see or recognize,” Martinez recalled.

All that remained of her child’s legacy was the undying hatred of the radical LGBTQ movement. The movie includes real footage of Martinez sharing her story, as trans activists yell, “Cry more!” and “What a sob story!”

After removing a child from a loving home and transitioning her, the Los Angeles government refused to acknowledge any responsibility for Yaeli’s death. “We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Andrew M., as well as to the LGBTQIA community which advocates relentlessly to protect its youngest and most vulnerable members from such tragedies,” responded the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.

The statement said nothing about the role of the transgender movement — top to bottom — in creating the tragedy.

That story falls to Martinez and the movie’s ensemble of grieving parents, whistleblowing therapists, investigative journalists, and remorseful detransitioners.

The origin story of transgenderism’s social contagion begins by tracing the money back to the Big Pharma companies that manufacture these drugs. “If you’re going to look for anything in this country, you’re going to follow the money, because it will always tell you the truth. Who’s funding these LGB organizations?” asked writer and investigator Jennifer Bilek. “What I found was a whole lot of very, very powerful moneyed people in the highest echelons of finance, Pharma, and technology.” Dr. Katherine Welch, a concerned physician, agrees that pharmaceutical companies “fund the activists and the NGOs to stir up a lot of passion.” Then the companies ask for emergency use authorization, based on “a mental health crisis among our youth.” Thanks to their combination marketing-and-lobbying efforts, there is now “a $1.5 billion industry for surgery alone,” said lawyer Erin Friday. “And I think that’s an underestimate.”

The trail extends to dishonest researchers, such as John Money, and subject criteria set by organizations such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). The academic cohort produces the shoddy research trumpeted by the media, entertainment industry, and school officials. When Erin Friday learned her daughter had secretly begun identifying as a boy at school, administrators told her, “We need to be a safe space” for her child. “By extension, I’m unsafe,” said Friday.

The message promptly filters down to young people. A few confess to being amazed at the virtually godlike power they hold over their own bodies. “When I went into the Planned Parenthood building to [talk about] the surgery … I could pick from 25 sets of breasts,” said detransitioner David Bacon. “I could build myself.”

But most seek to rebuild themselves from a trauma, or they naïvely believe the transgender industry’s claims that the silver bullet for their depression lies at the end of a needle. Continually hearing the (scientifically inaccurate) mantra that children who identify as transgender will commit suicide if not immediately “affirmed” caused at least one woman to become profoundly depressed. “It made me feel even more hopeless, because I thought there was no way to accept myself. I had to get these painful surgeries and take hormones,” said detransitioner Catt Catinson. Her psychological evaluation “affirmed me immediately” and “just sort of overlooked my eating disorder” and childhood sexual abuse. Abel Garcia received the same treatment, even after telling them, “I might be autistic” and that he felt unsure whether he identified as transgender.

“The worst part, honestly, is that I was allowed to do all this, and that nobody was willing to stop me and have a second opinion,” says Garcia. “Instead, I was affirmed, I was love-bombed. I was allowed to destroy my body.”

So, was Yaeli Martinez, to whom the movie is dedicated.

“This pain never goes away,” says Abigail Martinez. “You breathe and you can feel the pain.”

Yet the movie ends with the hope that some victims of the transgender industry survive long enough to live as their authentic selves, the ones reflected by their biology. “It took me about a year to fully deprogram from gender identity ideology,” said Cattinson. “I feel like it was the act of deprogramming, just changing my beliefs, that allowed me to recover from my depression.” Now, she has reconnected with the family her embrace of gender ideology estranged. “It’s been very healing, having that family connection again. We can just be together and love each other.”

That gives hope to Pamela Garfield-Jaeger, a therapist and social worker who believes adults caught up in the transgender movement “didn’t realize just how harmful this was.” One day, Americans will look back at this chapter as “a dark time in our history, but I don’t think this is going to last.”

But until then, the testimony of Martinez and other grieving families torn apart by extreme transgender ideology, preserved in this Epoch Original, reveals the incalculable consequences when darkness triumphs, even briefly.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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“Detransitioner” Chloe Cole testified to this effect at a recent hearing in the House of Representatives.

Dr. Jennifer Bauwens testifies at the Congressional hearing, explaining the ethical issues regarding gender transition procedures and urging the subcommittee to act on behalf of children.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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The FDA Can Say—and Do—Anything It Wants

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By John Droz, Jr.

For example, they can’t be sued for providing false or dishonest information.

This is an extraordinarily important commentary!

The gist of a current court case that you’ve likely never heard of, is that three heroic doctors are suing the FDA about the loss of their jobs, about their careers being derailed, about the loss of their reputation — all because their professional, scientific opinion as to what was in the best interest of their patients, was different than the political agenda of the FDA. (Here is a bit of background.)

What is at stake here could not be more significant, and it applies across the board to EVERY federal agency. The question is: do federal agencies have the unsupervised right to replace Science with political science? Put another way: can they act dishonestly, incompetently, etc. with essentially no meaningful consequences?

Here is the doctors’ Complaint. Although it was filed a year ago, it is only now being heard this week — and some fascinating audio clips have emerged. There are three judges on a panel, asking the attorney representing the FDA some probing questions.

Five of these short audio clips (3-5 minutes each) are posted here. (The recording of the full proceeding is here.)

IMO some of the key takeaway revelations (so far) are:

1 – The FDA claims that their published warnings are little more than offhand observations. For example, their slamming of Ivermectin was just casual commentary.

Note the title here, on this FDA page which is STILL up! It says “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19”.

Note 1: This is a deceptive headline because that article is mostly saying: a) citizens should not self-medicate, and b) using any veterinary medications can be dangerous. Both of these are legitimate concerns. So, if the FDA was honestly trying to benefit the public their heading should be: “Why You Should Not Self-Medicate Using Veterinary-Grade Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19”. BIG DIFFERENCE!

Note 2: This FDA page has changed quite a bit over time. Here is the 2021 version.

Note 3: The current page makes outright false statements like: “Ivermectin has not been shown to be safe or effective for these indications.” I’m one of the few people who has taken the time to put together a spreadsheet of ALL the studies on ALL the major COVID early treatment therapies: see it here.

There have now been 99 Ivermectin scientific studies, and the overall early treatment effectiveness is 62%. IVM’s extensive safety record is extraordinary, with adverse effects (e.g., see here) in the ballpark of only one in a million usages!

Now, also on my spreadsheet, compare what the FDA has approved for early treatment of COVID-19 therapy: Paxlovid = 32% effective with these adverse safety issues, and Molnupiravir = 16% effective with these problematic safety issues!

Despite these LARGE benefits of Ivermectin in effectiveness and safety, the FDA continues to say that “Ivermectin has not been shown to be safe or effective” for early treatment of COVID-19. This is stunningly inaccurate.

Note 4: Even though the FDA now has access to 99 Ivermectin studies, their statement against Ivermectin is stronger now than when the page originally appeared in 2021! IMO this is what happens when a federal agency feels that there is no meaningful oversight, so effectively they can say anything they want.

2 – The FDA says that Courts have no business in reviewing anything they say or do!

Considering the above facts in #1, it’s obvious why this would be their self-serving position. Listen carefully to the second short audio clip, where the FDA’s attorney appears to say that the FDA’s communication to the public can be knowingly false, dishonest, etc. with no oversight or consequences — even when deaths result!

Regretfully, to date, the courts have played along with this game of charades. For example, the Chevron case is frequently cited by non-aggressive attorneys to say that courts will stay out of determining whether FDA processes, documents, and claims are legal, accurate, honest, warranted, etc.

However, that is an oversimplified opinion. Even the Chevron case states that the FDA’s actions must be “reasonable” — but that is rarely argued. BTW, the case we are discussing here would never have been filed if the doctors’ attorneys bought into the bogus idea that federal agencies have unlimited deference. Kudos to them that they did not accept that absurd argument!

Maybe I’m overly optimistic, but based on the judges’ questions and comments in these clips, it seems to me that this case might eventually upend Chevron. That would be EXTRAORDINARILY beneficial for US citizens, as it would apply to all national policies: from immigration to education, energy to climate change, etc.

3 – The FDA asserts that the only recourse that US citizens have about even egregious errors and deceptions by the FDA is through the “political process.” Astounding!

4 – The FDA indicated that the “political process” means that citizens need to elect a competent and attentive President, whose responsibility it is to see that the FDA acts responsibly — or else. The flip side is that when we do not have such a President, all federal agencies have a four-year time period to wreak whatever political havoc that suits them — again, across the board, and without real consequences to the guilty parties.

5 – The FDA’s attorney implied that there would be no compensation given for inaccurate or knowingly false FDA statements — including those that lead to Americans unnecessarily dying — other than an FDA person may lose their job.

6 – Based on these select audio clips, the fact that hundreds of thousands of Americans likely died needlessly due to the FDA’s COVID actions and inactions (see here), was not fully addressed. Hopefully, this will be brought up in this trial.

7 – In clip #3, the FDA attorney makes the startling claim that the FDA has the authority to give citizens medical advice! How is that possible when they know nothing of the medical history of any American citizen? Further, once they assert that right, how is a conflict resolved between what the FDA says and what a citizen’s medical provider says? That is one of the major issues in this important case.

8 – In clip #4, the FDA attorney acknowledges that doctors have lost their jobs, etc. due to their scientific conclusions on such matters as Ivermectin, and their science-based actions that they believed were in the best interest of their patients. However, the FDA attorney then stated that no losses, etc. were due to anything the FDA did. (!)

Note that a lot of the bad behavior with the FDA (and CDC) would be reduced if the Medical Establishment refused to play politics and instead supported real Science for the public. Regretfully, that has not happened and the COVID-19 fiasco exposed this ugly underbelly. See my Report on the COVID failings of the Medical Establishment.

In another Report, I compared the FDA’s approval process for Remdesivir to Ivermectin. This appears to show stunning incompetence at the FDA.

I have made this point before, but it’s worth repeating. The war we are engaged in is that powerful Left-wing forces (exterior and from within) are trying to take America down. One of their primary strategies to do this is to replace Science with political science. That is what this case is about, as the FDA is specifically arguing that they have the right to scrap Science and substitute political science — with impunity!

Draw your own conclusions, but to me, this case is like a Molotov cocktail thrown into the Federal Government bureaucracy. Astoundingly, all three branches of our government are complicit with this nonsense.

Some obvious questions that need to be answered and fixed are: 1) How did Congress give pharmaceutical companies such broad protections against self-serving unscientific actions? 2) How did the Executive branch allow agencies like the FDA to be run by parties that they are supposed to regulate? 3) How did our Judicial system allow bad actor agencies to arrange to have no real legal oversight?

Considering that these failings are applicable to multiple federal agencies, is there any question why such things as COVID policies (and energy, and climate, and education, and immigration, and elections, etc., etc.) are a disaster?

Hopefully, this lawsuit will crack open the door to fixing this horrific mess.

PS — What needs to be done now :

1) Competent attorneys should file friend of the court briefs to support this nationally important case. Overturning the Chevron precedent would have extraordinarily positive benefits for almost ALL US citizens.

2) Competent federal legislators should introduce a “Save America” bill (aka Agency Oversight Act). This legislation will reign in ALL federal agencies, by providing timely and meaningful oversight (plus real penalties) to them all.

©2023. John Droz, Jr. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: EPA’s New Climate Rule Would Cause Rolling Blackouts In Huge Swath Of America, Analysis Finds

Nature’s Proximal Origin [Covid] Paper Was a Work of ‘Fraud and Scientific Misconduct,’ Say Scientists Demanding a Retraction thumbnail

Nature’s Proximal Origin [Covid] Paper Was a Work of ‘Fraud and Scientific Misconduct,’ Say Scientists Demanding a Retraction

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By Jon Miltimore

A trove of recently published documents reveals that authors of the Proximal Origin paper believed that the lab leak scenario was not just possible, but likely.

A growing number of people, including prominent scientists, are calling for a full retraction of a high-profile study published in the journal Nature in March 2020 that explored the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

The paper, whose authors included immunology and microbiology professor Kristian G. Andersen, declared that evidence clearly showed that SARS-CoV-2 did not originate from a laboratory.

“Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” the authors wrote in February.

Yet a trove of recently published documents reveal that Andersen and his co-authors believed that the lab leak scenario was not just possible, but likely.

“[The] main thing still in my mind is that the lab escape version of this is so friggin’ likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario,” Andersen said to his colleagues, according to a report from Public, which published a series of Slack messages between the authors.

Anderson was not the only author who privately expressed doubts that the virus had natural origins. Public cataloged dozens of statements from Andersen and his co-authors—Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes, and Robert F. Garry—between the dates January 31 and February 28, 2020 suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 may have been engineered.

” …the fact that we are discussing this shows how plausible it is,” Garry said of the lab-leak hypothesis.

“We unfortunately can’t refute the lab leak hypothesis,” Andersen said on Feb. 20, several days after the authors published their pre-print.

To complicate matters further, new reporting from The Intercept reveals that Anderson had an $8.9 million grant with NIH pending final approval from Dr. Anthony Fauci when the Proximal Origin paper was submitted.

The findings have led several prominent figures to accuse the authors of outright deception.

Richard H. Ebright, the Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University, called the paper “scientific fraud.”

“The 2020 ‘Proximal Origin’ paper falsely claimed science showed COVID-19 did not have a lab origin,” tweeted Ebright. “Newly released messages from the authors show they did not believe the conclusions of the paper and show the paper is the product of scientific fraud and scientific misconduct.”

Ebright and Silver are among those pushing a petition urging Nature to retract the article in light of these findings.

Among those to sign the petition was Neil Harrison, a professor of anesthesiology and molecular pharmacology at Columbia University.

“Virologists and their allies have produced a number of papers that purport to show that the virus was of natural origin and that the pandemic began at the Huanan seafood market,” Harrison toldThe Telegraph. “In fact there is no evidence for either of these conclusions, and the email and Slack messages among the authors show that they knew at the time that this was the case.”

Dr. Joao Monteiro, chief editor of Nature, has rebuffed calls for a retraction, The Telegraph notes, saying the authors were merely “expressing opinions.”

This claim is dubious at best. From the beginning, the Proximal Origin study was presented as authoritative and scientific. Jeremy Farrar, a British medical researcher and now the chief scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), told USA Today that Proximal Origin was the “most important research on the genomic epidemiology of the origins of this virus to date.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking from the White House podium in April 2020, cited the study as evidence that the mutations of the virus were “totally consistent with a jump from a species of an animal to a human.” Fact-check organizations were soon citing the study as proof that COVID-19 “could not have been manipulated.”

Far from being presented as a handful of scientists “expressing opinions,” the Proximal Origin study was treated as gospel, a dogma that could not even be questioned. This allowed social media companies (working hand-in-hand with government agencies) to censor people who publicly stated what Andersen and his colleagues were saying privately—that it seemed plausible that SARS-CoV-2 came from the laboratory in Wuhan that experimented on coronaviruses and had a checkered safety record.

Indeed, even as media and government officials used the Proximal Origin study to smear people as conspiracy theorists for speculating that COVID-19 might have emerged from the Wuhan lab, a Defense Intelligence Agency study commissioned by the government questioned the study’s scientific rigor.

“The arguments that Andersen et al. use to support a natural-origin scenario for SARS CoV-2 are based not on scientific analysis, but on unwarranted assumptions,” the now-declassified paper concluded. “In fact, the features of SARS-CoV-2 noted by Andersen et al. are consistent with another scenario: that SARS-CoV-2 was developed in a laboratory…”

Despite the many problems with the study’s findings, Monteiro continues to resist calls for retraction—perhaps because Monteiro himself publicly inferred that the lab leak hypothesis was a conspiracy theory in March, 2020.

Whatever the case, it remains unclear how long Monteiro can resist calls for a retraction in face of overwhelming evidence of scientific misconduct.

“There can be no doubt the Proximal Origin authors consciously and inappropriately downplayed the #COVID19 research-related origin hypothesis and coordinated efforts manipulating media coverage,” said Jamie Metzl, a former Clinton administration official and a WHO expert advisory committee on human genome editing appointee.

Why there was such intense pressure to declare that SARS-CoV-2 was of natural origin is obvious today.

The federal government was funding risky coronavirus research at Wuhan Institute of Virology, which would make officials complicit to some degree in a leak of a deadly virus. This is no doubt why the government had an interest in funding the study, which gave them a measure of control over its results.

“Jeremy Farrar and Francis Collins [then director of the National Institutes of Health] are very happy. Works for me,” Holmes Slacked his colleagues after the pre-print was submitted.

The Proximal Origin paper increasingly looks like a whitewashing job, and some influential people have noticed.

“This is a huge scandal,” said statistician and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver. “Scientists like @K_G_Andersen believed a lab leak was extremely plausible, if not likely, they concocted a plan to deceive the public about it, and they’ve been caught red-handed.” 

Silver is not wrong; yet so far, no one has been held accountable. 

This lack of accountability is concerning, and to understand why it’s worth consulting age-old concepts of power and justice. As FEE’s Dan Sanchez has observed, power is not the mere exertion of unjust force. True power lies in the use of force and the absence of any accountability.

“Systematically getting away with it—or impunity—is where power truly lies,” wrote Sanchez.

In his famous work Republic, Plato showed what raw power looked like. The legendary “Ring of Gyges” did not make one strong. It made one invisible. This did not mean the wearer could do anything he wanted, but it did mean he would never be held accountable for his acts of injustice.

This is the most frightening part of raw state power. The greatest danger is not that people will act unethically. It’s not even that state actors will commit crimes to serve “a greater good.” The real danger begins when people are not held accountable—even when they are caught “red-handed.”

*****

This article was published by FEE, The Foundation for Economic Education, and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

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Shocking Photo of Jill Biden at ‘Mannys’ Drag Queen Event

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By Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D.

A recent photo of Jill Biden in San Francisco was just posted online, you will find it below. The Bidens hide a lot of things in their life but one topic not at all hidden or quiet is their divisive political agenda. Family and traditional values which helped make America strong are not welcomed with the Bidens and their like. Jill Biden is not timid parading her political, social, and personal values for all to see.

According to the Manny’s Instagram page, “Manny’s is unapologetically queer and unapologetically political. This photo says it all – San Francisco queens meeting the First Lady of the United States of America in a civic meeting space in the Mission District of my fair city of San Francisco.”

Jill Biden poses for a group photo with representatives from Manny’s, a “civic and political events space; San Francisco town hall looking to effect change.”

Jill Biden Courts Drag Queens: ‘This Photo Says It All’

By: Hannah Bleau, 7 Aug 2023:

First Lady Jill Biden is wielding her influence in the public sphere by meeting with drag queens while Americans suffer from rising prices and crime under her husband’s administration.

A photo recently surfaced showing Jill Biden posing with drag queens at the San Francisco event space Welcome to Manny’s. The event space describes itself as a “community focused meeting and learning place” that encourages meetings and engagement with “civic leaders, elected officials, artists, activists, changemakers, and each other.”

Welcome to Manny’s shared an image of Jill Biden flanked by five drag queens, declaring that the event space is “unapologetically queer and unapologetically political.”

“This photo says it all – San Francisco queens meeting the First Lady of the United States of America in a civic meeting space in the Mission District of my fair city of San Francisco,” the event space wrote.

Keep reading

Ponder this…at a time when parents across the country are criminalized for fighting against the sexualization of their children by schools, a “family” events hosted and featuring drag queens is acceptable. Jill Biden is front and center as to what side she stands with in the continued desecration of the family unit.

May mom’s and dad’s continue to stand in defense of the God-given gift their children represent.

©2023. Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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Jill Biden Courts Drag Queens: ‘This Photo Says It All’

Biden Regime Concedes No Evidence Behind Recommendation for 6 COVID Booster Shots a Year thumbnail

Biden Regime Concedes No Evidence Behind Recommendation for 6 COVID Booster Shots a Year

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By The Geller Report

What’s different than any of their other Covid policies?

There was never any science behind their totalitarian, injurious horror.

This regime is evil and dangerous.

Biden Admin Concedes No Evidence Behind Recommendation for 6 COVID Booster Shots a Year

By Zachary Stieber, August 7, 2023:

President Joe Biden’s administration concedes that there is no scientific evidence to support an apparent recommendation to receive as many as six COVID-19 booster shots in a year.

After Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Biden appointee, wrote in a social media post on Nov. 29, 2022, that people should get vaccinated “if it’s been over 2 months since your last dose,” the Functional Government Initiative (FGI) filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents supporting the statements.

The watchdog organization then sued after the administration didn’t comply with timelines laid out in the law.

FGI asked for, among other documents: “Any scientific support relied on by Secretary Becerra when approving or issuing the tweet recommending that all Americans receive a booster shot every two months” and “any study, synopsis, or similar statement or document of scientific, academic, or government research on whether a bi-monthly booster shot will effectively prevent the transmission or susceptibility to COVID-19 and known active variants as of November 2022.”

It also asked for internal communications regarding Mr. Becerra’s statements.

In a new response, the government said it had no evidence to support Mr. Becerra’s recommendation.

“The department reviewed 1,263 pages of potentially responsive records captured in the agency’s search for this FOIA request. After a careful review of these records, I determined the 1,263 pages were not relevant to your request,” Alesia Williams, an official in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told FGI.

“The lack of a single of a single record supporting Secretary Becerra’s bold public health recommendation for six COVID boosters a year is a startling development,” Pete McGinnis, a spokesman for FGI, said in a statement.

“It is tremendously irresponsible for the government’s chief health official to fire off tweets recommending frequent injections of a new vaccine booster apparently based on no academic or scientific support,” Mr. McGinnis added.

“How can the public be assured that the agency is ‘following the science’ on other important public health matters when it demonstrates such clear disregard for basic scientific integrity standards on an issue as important as COVID vaccine shots?”

The group noted that Mr. Becerra, a lawyer by training, lacks a background in health. Doctors typically lead that department.
Booster Recommendations

As newer COVID-19 variants have emerged, the vaccines have performed increasingly worse. Federal officials inside HHS first cleared booster shots in 2021 due to the flagging effectiveness, and have since authorized and recommended additional shots.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: Pfizer: “Nobody Was Forced to Have a Vaccine”

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Diamond and Silk were right AGAIN. Vindicated, Liberated, Exonerated.

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We were Vilified, Criticized, Humiliated, Ridiculed. Our brand was tarnished and our… pic.twitter.com/DoCi0Jd82w

— Diamond and Silk® (@DiamondandSilk) August 8, 2023

Biden Admin Concedes No Evidence Behind Recommendation for 6 COVID Booster Shots a Year.

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡https://t.co/nsEdIAQlQY

— Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis) August 8, 2023

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

U.S. Authorities On Alert After Discovering New Chinese Migrant Smuggling Route in Florida thumbnail

U.S. Authorities On Alert After Discovering New Chinese Migrant Smuggling Route in Florida

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By Dr. Rich Swier

Federal authorities are growing increasingly concerned about a route Chinese migrants are utilizing to make their way to Florida illegally, according to an internal federal intelligence report obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The report states that law enforcement lacks information regarding who is coordinating the smuggling between the Bahamas and Florida, where the migrants are being staged in the Bahamas and why Chinese migrants are choosing the Caribbean island. It also references recent incidents of Chinese nationals entering Florida illegally via the Bahamas.

There have been five such incidents of Chinese migrants attempting to “self-smuggle” from the Bahamas, according to the report. One incident took place on July 16 and involved a group of six Chinese migrants.

View Document #1 obtained by Jennie Taer//Daily Caller News Foundation

“The Chinese purchased a Bahamian registered vessel in GBI and tested the capabilities before leaving and being interdicted in Palm Beach. All 6 Chinese migrants were repatriated to the Bahamas,” the report stated of the latest interdiction.

Document #2 obtained by Jennie Taer//Daily Caller News Foundation

Border Patrol agents stationed in Florida have seen a spike in arrests of illegal migrants from China, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.

Agents apprehended 27 illegal migrants from China in Florida between October 2022 and June, up from 5 in all of fiscal year 2022 and 7 in fiscal year 2021, according to the data. It is unclear, however, how many of the total number of Chinese migrants caught by Florida authorities used the Bahamian smuggling route.

Federal authorities at the U.S.-Mexico border also recorded a recent uptick in encounters of Chinese migrants crossing illegally. Between October 2022 and June, Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 14,000 illegal migrants from China at the southern border, compared to roughly 1,900 in all of fiscal year 2022, according to federal data.

“Right now in China there’s extreme pessimism, especially among people in their 20s about the future of their country, so it’s understandable that they’re leaving and they’re trying to get into the United States. And, you know, these are people who are relatively middle class, so it shows you the problems in Chinese society are severe,” China expert Gordon Chang previously told the DCNF of the surge in Chinese migrants crossing the southern border.

“When I first saw that the surge in Chinese migrants, that’s the thought that came to my mind that these are either Ministry of State Security agents or Chinese military, who are coming to this country to commit acts of sabotage against the US,” Chang added.

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Illegal Immigration Surges After Biden Admin Takes Victory Lap Over Border Numbers

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Medical Malpractice Insurance – Everything You Need To Know As A Physician thumbnail

Medical Malpractice Insurance – Everything You Need To Know As A Physician

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By Justin Nabity @ Physicians Thrive

All content presented here and elsewhere is solely intended for informational purposes only. The reader is required to seek professional counsel before beginning any legal or financial endeavor.

For those working in the healthcare industry protecting yourself is essential. Malpractice insurance for doctors is an extra but essential expense that most physicians dread. Medical malpractice insurance helps to protect physicians, nurses, radiologists, and other physicians in the event a malpractice claim is filed. This coverage helps to pay for defense against the claim, investigate the facts surrounding the incident, and in some cases pay for out-of-court settlements. Let’s take a more thorough look at malpractice tail coverage and malpractice insurance so that you can make an informed coverage decision.

Key Points:

  • Medical malpractice insurance helps to protect physicians and healthcare facilities in the event of a claim.
  • Any healthcare provider who works directly or indirectly with patients should consider coverage.
  • Managing risk in the medical field is the best way to reduce the chance of a claim being filed.
  • More than one type of medical malpractice insurance may be needed depending on the facility and physician’s specialty.

Understanding Medical Malpractice

Medical mistakes are responsible for the untimely death of at least 250,000 people annually. In the United States alone, medical malpractice has been listed as one of the top five leading causes of death. Malpractice can occur in many forms ranging from misdiagnosis to negligence in the operating room that leads to death. Though no physician sets out to harm their patient, sometimes mistakes happen. Malpractice insurance for doctors helps to mitigate the cost associated with litigation due to medical malpractice claims.

Definition of Medical Malpractice

By definition, medical malpractice is considered any omission or act that is performed by a medical professional or doctor. The acts or omissions need to have occurred during the treatment of the patient, and the acts or omissions must be outside of the normal range of practice. This is specifically referred to as medical negligence. When negligence results in injury, harm, or death, it is considered medical malpractice. Medical negligence may occur during the treatment, diagnosis, care, or aftercare of a patient. It may also occur more than once or during several steps of the medical process. Medical malpractice law is a form of tort law that further falls under the banner of personal injury lawsuits.

Common types of Medical Malpractice

There are thousands of medical mistakes made each year. The majority of these mistakes are preventable, and a significant number of them do not result in injury. That being said, physicians look for the best medical malpractice insurance because mistakes can lead to injury which frequently results in a malpractice lawsuit. Some of the most common types of medical malpractice include:

  • Errors with medication – Physicians may prescribe the wrong dosage or type of medication for a patient’s ailment. A nurse may also administer an incorrect medication or dosage that leads to injury or worse. Errors additionally include prescribed medications that cause harm when consumed.
  • Lack of treatment – Doctors who have properly diagnosed a patient but fail to follow medical norms to treat their condition may be negligent. A failure to follow up or care for the patient that results in injury or a worsening of the condition equally qualifies. If a physician fails to treat a patient after a diagnosis, it is also negligence.
  • Mistakes during surgery – Surgical mistakes such as leaving sponges or tools inside of the body following surgery are common errors. Performing an operation on the wrong side of the body and performing surgery on the wrong patient are also frequent forms of malpractice. These are especially difficult for patients who use a medical loan to pay for treatment.
  • Injuries during birth – Birth-related claims are among the most standard form of malpractice suits. Nerve damage, spinal cord injuries, shoulder dystocia, cerebral palsy, and more are some of the top birth-related mistakes made in the medical field.
  • Improper diagnosis – The failure to properly or correctly diagnose a patient is the top mistake made in the medical field. Cancer and heart attacks are the most often misdiagnosed ailments that can lead to critical injuries or even death.

How Does Medical Malpractice Insurance Work

Any business that offers healthcare-related services will need to have some form of medical malpractice insurance. A few different medical malpractice insurance types cover a business as a whole and physicians or healthcare workers as individuals. Malpractice tail coverage is also included under this insurance type. This form of business insurance works by covering the facility and/or the healthcare provider in the event that a patient files a claim of negligence.

Medical malpractice coverage as business insurance will cover the physician or facility, even one purchased with a medical practice loan. When a claim is filed, it will cover the legal cost of defending against the claim as well as any judgment or settlement that results from the patient’s claim. Businesses that take out medical practice loans are often required to maintain malpractice insurance as a form of asset protection. Instead of the hospital or healthcare professional paying for defense out of their own pocket, it is covered by insurance.

For example, a practicing physician may see a patient in their clinic that is exhibiting signs of a heart attack, however, the physician fails to treat the illness despite making a diagnosis. The patient then goes into cardiac arrest and falls into a coma, which could have been prevented with basic care. In this instance the patient’s family or the patient, if they recover, can file a malpractice claim due to failure to treat. If malpractice insurance for doctors is held by the physician, the policy will cover the cost of defending against the claim, or the payout due for settling with the family/patient due to the negligence claim.

What Does Medical Malpractice Insurance Cover?

Medical malpractice insurance types and malpractice insurance costs may differ depending on the insurance company providing coverage and the entity being covered. However, medical malpractice insurance in general covers a specific range of issues. A policy will cover general expenses that are incurred in the defense and settlement of a malpractice suit. In the event that a physician, nurse, healthcare worker, or business is found liable, it will also cover the cost of damages up to a certain point. Other covered expenses include:

  • Compensatory and punitive damages
  • Arbitration expenses
  • Court cost
  • Lawyer fees
  • Medical damages

It is worth noting that malpractice insurance won’t cover illegal activities, sexual misconduct, or unauthorized medical record alterations.

Who Needs to Pay Medical Malpractice Insurance?

Medical malpractice insurance companies offer coverage for a variety of professionals. Malpractice insurance for doctors that work in clinics and hospitals is the most common. Any healthcare professional that interacts directly or indirectly with patients should also have medical malpractice insurance. Healthcare workers who offer care in private clinics, private practices, or who offer care in residential healthcare facilities also can benefit from malpractice coverage. It is also common to see medical malpractice insurance for nurses who are in charge of monitoring patients in both private practices and larger hospitals.

Why Medical Malpractice Insurance is Necessary for a Medical Practice

Professional liability insurance or medical malpractice insurance is essential for physicians and private medical practices alike. There are seven states in which every private practice and physician is required to hold valid insurance if they plan to offer medical services to patients. For medical practices and healthcare professionals working within them, medical malpractice insurance can help pay for the cost of defense. Coverage will also help cover the cost of damage in the event a claim is successful.

Legally, private practices must carry some form of medical malpractice insurance. This is mainly due to the sheer number of people who will be interacting with patients. In the event that a patient is accidentally harmed, malpractice coverage will protect the business as a whole and the individual either partially or in full. That being said, certain members of staff may need to hold their own coverage in addition to the blanket coverage held by the practice. Further, it is important to review medical malpractice insurance requirements by state to ascertain if coverage types are required for private practice.

How Much Does a Medical Malpractice Insurance Cost?

In general, a typical physician will spend close to $8,000 per year on medical malpractice insurance coverage. Of course, the cost of coverage depends on medical malpractice insurance types and also the amount of coverage needed. The actual location of the provider or business will also play a part in the cost of coverage. The amount, liability limits, and past claims activity may also cause the rates to increase or decrease. OB/GYNs, urologists, otolaryngologists, and surgeons tend to have the highest rates due to how frequently claims are filed against them. The premiums for these specialties can range anywhere from $30k to $50k per year.

Medical Malpractice Insurance vs Professional Liability Insurance

Medical malpractice insurance and professional liability insurance are both important forms of coverage. However, they do differ greatly in fundamentally important ways.

Medical Malpractice Insurance

A medical malpractice insurance policy will help pay for the cost of building a defense, attorney’s fees, settlements, and judgments. Specifically, these charges must arise from a claim that relates to patient injury or death.

Professional Liability Insurance for Medical Professionals

Professional liability insurance is also called errors and omissions insurance. This form of insurance covers any mistakes made during regular business activities, but it doesn’t cover losses from medical equipment financing mistakes. For example, if a patient claimed that their HIPPA rights were violated, this policy would be used to defend against the claim.

Medical Malpractice Insurance vs General Liability Insurance

Medical malpractice insurance and general liability insurance both help protect business owners from financial harm, but there are differences.

Medical Malpractice Insurance

Medical malpractice insurance covers harm caused by medical neglect by a healthcare professional. For example, if a patient visits a dentist for tooth extraction, but the wrong tooth is removed, malpractice insurance will cover the claim.

General Liability Insurance for Medical Professionals

General liability insurance policies cover accidental damage to property and physical injuries inflicted on others. For example, if a patient falls in the restroom of a clinic due to a wet floor, a general liability policy will cover the claim.

How to Choose the Right Medical Malpractice Insurance Coverage?

When it comes to malpractice insurance, there are two main types to consider. Either claims-made insurance or occurrence insurance. The most common form is claims-maid, however, choose a policy type that best fits your practice model. Choosing the right insurance carrier for your business is also important. Practices that are for-profit and have plenty of income should opt for a commercial provider.

Captive insurance companies are often owned by a single owner, such as a hospital. This can make the coverage easier to manage. There are other types to choose from as well. Practices or healthcare facilities that cover multiple specialties will need to find a company that offers a broader range of coverage. You can even find a company that offers startup business insurance and malpractice insurance.  Before settling on a provider, think about the location, growth potential of the practice, and the specialties housed within the business.

Where to Get Medical Malpractice Insurance for Your Practice

These are only a few of the medical malpractice insurance companies on the market. Searching for medical malpractice insurance requirements by state is the best way to find a provider that meets your needs and your budget.

  • Proliability Insurance is a great all-rounder company that offers coverage up to 5 million. It offers coverage for a range of healthcare providers and practice types.
  • Dentist advantage offers coverage up to 6 million and is available in all states. Certain coverage types cost extra, but this company is the best option for dentists.
  • NSO is an ideal company for nurses looking for medical malpractice coverage. They are available in every state and offer limits of up to 6 million. This company only provides coverage for nurses.
  • SVMIC is among the top choices for practicing physicians. They offer coverage limits of up to 12 million, however, they are only available in a limited number of states in the southeast.
  • HPSO offers policies all over the country for a variety of providers. It is a great choice for therapists, and the coverage can travel with the provider. The limits go up to 3 million.

How to File a Medical Malpractice Insurance Claim

Filing a malpractice claim is not easy. The rules for filing vary between states and also between private practices and larger hospitals. Start by speaking with a skilled lawyer who has ample experience in medical malpractice law. Check the statute of limitations to ensure that the deadline for filing has not passed. For some, the clock starts when the injury is discovered, for others it starts at the actual time of the injury.

The lawyer will then proceed with the pre-lawsuit requirements such as going through the review boards, filing a notice of intent, and getting expert opinions on the injury. A notice will be given to medical malpractice insurance companies prior to proceeding to court. This will give the insurance company a chance to research the claim and even settle outside of court if they prefer. It is important to comply with any pre-suit requirements to avoid claim denial. The most common reasons a claim is denied is due to a lack of provable causation, the statute of limitations has passed, and the patient actually remedied the problem despite negligence having occurred.

Tips for managing Medical Malpractice risks in a Medical Practice

Malpractice claims are common, but they don’t have to be a regular part of a practice’s business model. Reducing the risks by ensuring satisfied, happy clients is the best way to cut down on claims. Always make a point of communicating well with patients during their actual visit, and over the phone, if they call. Create a safe and healthy work culture which in turn will support patient safety. Keeping strict records of treatment, visits, diagnoses, and care is another way to cut down on malpractice claims.

There should always be firm policies and procedures that are followed that will help reduce the risk of mistakes and mishaps. Data privacy is also critically important. This applies to both physicians and their supplemental staff. Make a habit of documenting each visit with the patient in real time. Note their concerns and your suggestions, as well as any courses of treatment suggested. If in doubt, don’t hesitate to pull in an expert or a fresh set of eyes for a second opinion. Following the differential diagnosis process is also a strong method of avoiding malpractice claims.

Final Word

Overall, malpractice insurance costs will end up being less than paying for a defense in the event of a lawsuit. Even when a private practice is not at fault the harm to its reputation can cause financial harm. Researching a claim, defending it in court, or settling it out of court is also a costly endeavor. For most private practices and private physicians, the cost of mounting a defense can be enough to sink a practice. The best medical malpractice insurance will help private practices to continue operating while a claim is being investigated and processed.

Doctors, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and their allied staff are typically the types of professionals that need malpractice insurance. Checking out medical malpractice insurance quotes in your area will help ensure that your business has the right type and amount of coverage when you need it the most. It is also important to help reduce the risk of having a malpractice claim filed, to begin with by managing risk efficiently.

Is medical malpractice insurance obligatory?

In almost every state it is required by law to carry some form of medical malpractice insurance obligatory. Some states, such as California, do not require doctors to secure malpractice insurance in order to practice. Individual hospitals or clinics may ask physicians to carry insurance even if it is not legally required by the state. The specific coverage amounts will vary between states and medical facilities.

Who doesn’t have to get malpractice insurance?

Physicians in certain states are not required to secure malpractice insurance, however, it is always a good practice to do so. Those who work in healthcare but do not have direct access or interact directly with patients typically don’t need malpractice insurance.

What is the medical malpractice law in the United States?

In the US, medical malpractice law refers to treatment providers and doctors being held liable for patient harm. This harm must have been incurred when said provider rendered their services in a manner that was negligent. Patients must show proof that the service provider rendered negligent care that results in harm or injury.

©2023. Justin Nabity @Physicians Thrive. All rights reserved.

Leftists Attack, Then Blame Responding Conservatives as Culture War Aggressors thumbnail

Leftists Attack, Then Blame Responding Conservatives as Culture War Aggressors

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By Family Research Council

Old dogs sometimes do learn new tricks. And President Joe Biden is so pleased with his latest attainment — criticizing Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) for delaying military promotions over the Pentagon’s illegal abortion policy — that he is showing it off just about everywhere. This month, Biden has bashed Tuberville’s courageous, one-man stand at a joint press conference with the president of Finland, a speech about “Bidenomics,” and a Civil Rights Symposium.

Tuberville, the president keeps insisting, is “jeopardizing our national security over domestic social issues.” Biden also suggested Tuberville was stubbornly refusing to negotiate, saying, “I’d be willing to talk to him [Tuberville] if I thought there was any possibility he would change his ridiculous position on this.”

Biden’s factually challenged attack doesn’t even approximate the spirit of the actual situation. “I’ve said all along, Tuberville wrote in June, “that I will drop my hold on unanimous consent under only two conditions: Democrats can follow the law or change the law.” In reality, the Biden administration is the party guilty of injecting domestic culture wars into the national security conversation, when last year it decided the Department of Defense (DOD) would cover abortion-related expenses, in violation of federal law. And the Biden administration is the party guilty of stubbornly refusing to modify its policy to allow military promotions to continue.

“All Tommy Tuberville is doing is standing up for the law,” remarked Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah).

Yet Tuberville is the one under attack.

This is not an isolated phenomenon. Examples abound of left-wing ideologues blaming conservatives for culture wars started by the Left.

The ongoing controversy over PEPFAR reauthorization illustrates the same pattern. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is a successful, bipartisan program combatting HIV and AIDS among Africa’s poorest inhabitants. The program’s five-year, $30 million reauthorization expires in September, and pro-life groups are now urging against a straight reauthorization, without additional pro-life protections. Naturally, the Left is blaming conservatives for politicizing a previously bipartisan policy.

In a lengthy report, The Washington Post painted a dire picture, suggesting Republicans were jeopardizing the future of PEPFAR over “allegations that the program’s funding is being used to indirectly support abortions — claims that health advocates, Democrats and PEPFAR officials say are baseless.” The 54-paragraph article devotes three clauses to describing pro-life concerns with PEPFAR. Meanwhile, its “experts” allege that “it’s really about the larger politics around abortion, electoral politics, and the partisan divide,” “populism, nationalism, and polarization have undermined domestic collective action and solidarity,” and “it’s just dumbfounding to me that the charge has been taken seriously.” According to their narrative, pro-life stalwart Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) is a villain who switched positions to oppose PEPFAR.

Whether it’s at The New York Times, Politico, or Voice of America, the rest of the Democrats’ cheer squad is chanting in unison with this mischaracterization.

There’s more to the story they aren’t telling. In 2021, President Biden rescinded the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance Policy (PLGHA), which opened the door for organizations that carry out or promote abortion to obtain PEPFAR funding. Then in September 2022, the State Department published a document titled, “Reimagining PEPFAR’s Strategic Direction.” Under this strategic “reimagining” — on which Congress never voted — “PEPFAR will integrate HIV programming into strengthened public health systems to manage … sexual reproductive health, rights, and services ….” It would also “strengthen coordination between PEPFAR and other U.S. government global health and development programs, including for … sexual and reproductive health and rights … LGBTQI+, and human rights” (emphasis added). In other words, the Biden administration has unilaterally reinvented PEPFAR as a vehicle to promote abortion and its radical LGBT agenda.

Pro-life opposition to PEPFAR began after the State Department published it “reimagining” strategy. But the Left and the media are accusing pro-lifers of politicizing the issue.

Another controversy is over the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an annual, must-pass bill to fund the military. The version passed by House Republicans included amendments which banned taxpayer funding of gender transition procedures, pornographic books in DOD schools, flying Pride flags on military property, and the creation or funding of DEI offices.

Yet again, Democrats depicted Republicans as culture war aggressors. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan responded that an “extreme group of Republicans” — the bill passed 219-210 with four Democrats voting in favor — had passed “a set of amendments that try to mix domestic social debates with … the security needs of our nation,” and that these amendments were “never getting to the president’s desk.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the House-passed NDAA “race to the bottom … partisan legislation that has zero chance of passing.” The Senate passed a version of the NDAA that includes none of these amendments, and the two chambers will have to iron out their differences in conference.

But one feature gives away the game: all of these Republican amendments aim to prohibit the military from doing things it shouldn’t be doing, and which for centuries it didn’t do. These amendments would have been meaningless 30 years ago when the military did none of these things. The Biden administration, aided by a Democrat-controlled Congress from 2021-2022, initiated, expanded, or un-moth-balled (from the Obama era) these policies. House Republicans are merely endeavoring to claw back a tiny fraction of the woke expansion.

And Republicans are taking fire for trying to restore normalcy in the military.

This pattern is not restricted to the federal government. In recent years, state legislators have acted to protect children from gender reassignment procedures and LGBT indoctrination in schools. They have enacted protections for women’s private spaces from male intrusion and women’s sports from male domination. They have protected conscience rights, official ID documentation, and curriculum from trans ideology. Each legislative measure responds to leftist aggression attempting to politicize and dominate a new aspect of life. As thanks, left-wing advocacy groups slander these state legislators, depicting them as hateful bigots who “attack LGBTQ rights.”

No, it’s LGBT ideologues who are attacking the very fabric of society.

Progressives expand the culture war into a new aspect of life, conservatives mobilize a response to restore normalcy, and the media behaves as if conservatives were the Mongol Horde of culture wars. Like naturally-occurring spirals or Fibonacci sequences, once this pattern is recognized, it suddenly begins to appear everywhere. The Left behaves like the child who punches his brother while mom’s back is turned, then pays his third sibling to tell his version of events.

Alas, this tripartite pattern should surprise no one who is acquainted with the meaning of the words “progressive” and “conservative,” and who is acquainted with the Left’s revolutionary roots. Swallowing false accusations is simply part of the price the defenders of civilization must pay. But it doesn’t mean that we have to shut our eyes to the fixed game the Left tries to play.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

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— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) August 5, 2023

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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