Small Arms Treaty of 2012 – Elimination of the Second Amendment

May 17, 2012

By Sara Noble

“The majority’s exegesis has utterly failed to establish that as a matter of text or his­ tory, “the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home” is “elevate[d] above all other interests” by the Second Amendment. Ante, at 64.”
-Justice Stevens, Dissenting Opinion, 2008 District of Columbia vs. Heller

The U.N. wants to take firearms from the U.S. electorate. The U.N. nations do not bear arms and have been actively trying to eliminate our second amendment through a small arms agreement which will become an international small arms treaty. It is at our doorstep.
Look at the forces here and abroad working to trample our freedoms -

When the SCOTUS voted on 2nd Amendment law, District of Columbia vs. Heller, in June 2008, Justice Stevens, who wrote the dissenting opinion with Justice Breyer, said, as quoted above, that we do not have any constitutional right to self-defense. As shocking as this is, it is more shocking to consider that the Supreme Court of the United States was one vote away from taking away our second amendment.
Remember the following Barack Obama quote repeated by Mrs. Brady, who became a strong anti-gun advocate after her husband was shot alongside Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981 -

I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled the president telling them. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.” ~ Barack Obama, May, 2011, referencing gun control

Barack Obama moves stealthily to implement what he believes to be right in defiance of the will of the people.
The movement in the United States to ban guns is real and it goes much further than fair and reasonable regulations. Despite a 2nd amendment, D.C., Chicago and NYC have banned guns. It certainly has done nothing for D.C. and Chicago and NYC crime is on the uptick.
Many believe that Fast & Furious was a concerted effort by Holder and Clinton to close in on the 2nd amendment. Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton continually claimed that Mexico’s guns are from the U.S..  At the same time, the U.S. government was supplying guns to the drug cartels without Mexico’s knowledge and with almost no effort to track the guns.
Sloppy work or concerted effort? You decide.
Heritage had an interesting piece from previous Fast & Furious testimony by Holder. Holder used the opportunity to further his extreme “gun control” agenda and lied about there being a law that already covers it. I shouldn’t say he lied, maybe he had another memory lapse. Dementia?

Attorney General Eric Holder used his testimony before a House committee to tout the need for new gun control laws to prevent “gun walking,” or the transportation of firearms across the Southern border. But he – and members of the committee – ignored existing laws that already accomplish Holder’s ostensible goals.

“That is why we need a stronger gun trafficking law,” Holder said in response to questions about recourse against officials who signed off on the gun walking tactic. The tactic was integral to Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed the transportation of roughly 2,500 firearms into Mexico, often with not just the knowledge but the facilitation of federal law enforcement officials, where those guns were given to violent drug cartels.

Many Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where Holder was testifying for the sixth time on Fast and Furious, echoed the attorney general’s calls for greater gun control. Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) touted legislation they introduced, which would make suspected “straw purchases” – the purchases of guns to be handed off to others – illegal.

Holder called that bill “a good place for us to start.”

But neither Holder nor committee members mentioned the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a federal law already on the books that appears to criminalize the precise conduct undertaken by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in Operation Fast and Furious. Read here: Heritage 

Senator Rand Paul has called for opposition to what now appears to be a new attempt at circumventing our constitution with the signing of a small arms treaty that would essentially eliminate the second amendment.
The Center for American Progress lamely tries to insist the treaty doesn’t exist when it clearly does – it just hasn’t been signed – yet.

The following facts will bring you from 2009 to present day -

In October, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reversed the policies of previous Presidents and stated that she would enter into talks with the international community about signing a small arms treaty as long as it was done by consensus. (With a Democratic Senate, anything Hillary signs will be signed by the Senate if it goes to the Senate floor.) [Reuters]
Her feigned insistence on consensus is not going to hold water because the international community will not stand for it and she knows it. Consider the following statement by the UN policy advisor -

“Governments must resist US demands to give any single state the power to veto the treaty as this could hold the process hostage during the course of negotiations. We call on all governments to reject such a veto clause,” said Oxfam International’s policy adviser Debbie Hillier.

The proposed legally binding treaty would tighten regulation of, and set international standards for, the import, export and transfer of conventional weapons.
The treaty they are talking about basically bans all privately-held semi-automatic weapons. Make no mistake, any treaty with the U.N. will require us to abide by their gun requirements. The UN does not allow a 2nd amendment.
The following is from the UN Disarmament site. Using the worst scare tactics, the U.N. is aiming at the elimination of small arms throughout the world -

Worldwide scourge
The illicit trade in small arms, light weapons and ammunition wreaks havoc everywhere. Mobs terrorizing a neighbourhood. Rebels attacking civilians or peacekeepers. Drug lords randomly killing law enforcers or anyone else interfering with their illegal businesses. Bandits hijacking humanitarian aid convoys. In all continents, uncontrolled small arms form a persisting problem.

Weapons of choice
Small arms are cheap, light, and easy to handle, transport and conceal. A build-up of small arms alone may not create the conflicts in which they are used, but their excessive accumulation and wide availability aggravates the tension. The violence becomes more lethal and lasts longer, and a sense of insecurity grows, which in turn lead to a greater demand for weapons.

Most present-day conflicts are fought mainly with small arms, which are broadly used in inter-State conflict. They are the weapons of choice in civil wars and for terrorism, organized crime and gang warfare.  Read more: U.N.

I ask you, why would the U.N. want a small arms treaty with a free nation that has a second amendment? If we lose this amendment, what’s next? Oh, of course, the 1st, 4th, 5th and 10th are undergoing some overhaul under this administration as we speak.
So what has happened since 2009 when Hillary signed the agreement? In May, 2010, Obama announced his support for the UN Small Arms Treaty (you know, the one that Center for American Progress claims does not exist).
Former Secretary of State Bolton responded -

“After the treaty is approved and it comes into force, you will find out that it has this implication or that implication and it requires the Congress to adopt some measure that restricts ownership of firearms,” former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton warns. “The [Obama] administration knows it cannot obtain this kind of legislation purely in a domestic context. … They will use an international agreement as an excuse to get domestically what they couldn’t otherwise.”

In 2011, information began to leak out -

Last month a U.N. committee met in New York and signed off on several provisions, including the creation of a new U.N. agency to regulate international weapon sales, and require countries that host firearms manufacturers to set up a compensation fund for victims of gun violence worldwide.

Tom Mason, who represented the World Forum on the Future of Sports Shooting at the U.N. conference, told FoxNews.com the provisions are worrying.

“No, there are no black helicopters. There is no secret treaty that Hillary Clinton has signed,” Mason said. “But on the other hand, the treaty is a significant threat to gun owners. I think the biggest threat may be the body that would administer the treaty,” he added, referring to a new U.N agency the treaty would create, to be called the “Implementation Support Unit.” Read more: Fox World

Obama is currently negotiating Four Dangerous Treaties and one of them is the Small Arms Treaty. Obviously, our Democratic Senate will sign it. The excuse is that the illegal gun trade comes from the Unites States. The arms going around the world have nothing to do with the guy down the block, USA – it is the communist countries exporting small arms, not individuals in the United States. The only reason for the treaty is to enact U.S. gun control.
There is a disarmament conference at the U.N. each year and I want you to take a look at the countries who are going to be involved in our small arms initiative and ask yourself why we would even consider entering into talks with these people. UN Confrence Speakers
The following also comes from the U.N. site in case you have any doubt that the U.N. is against any type of private ownership of small arms -

Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW)

Small arms include hand guns, pistols, rifles, sub-machine guns, mortars, grenades, light missiles. Light weapons include heavy machine guns, mounted grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank guns, and portable launchers of anti-tank missile. The illicit proliferation of SALW poses a grave danger to international security and stability, and threatens the lives of millions around the world every year. Key issues in the combat against SALW include marking, tracing, collecting, and destroying small arms; child soldiers; women and gun violence; trade controls and arms brokers; development and public health. Read more: UN

Will the U.S. one day have those marvelous U.N. peacekeepers patrolling our streets to keep us safe as they do in the Congo and around the world. They themselves are continuously blamed for vicious and unspeakable atrocities, atrocities we have helped fund. Many of these cases have been proven true. Check out YouTube if you don’t believe.

Read about Barack Obama on gun control.

Earlier this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the Obama Administration will be working hand-in-glove with the UN to pass a new “Small Arms Treaty.”
Disguised as an “International Arms Control Treaty” to fight against “terrorism,” “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates,” the UN Small Arms Treaty is in fact a massive, GLOBAL gun control scheme.
Prior small arms treaties have done the following and a new one will undoubtedly do the same -

1. Enact tougher licensing requirements, making law-abiding Americans cut through even more bureaucratic red tape just to own a firearm legally;
2. CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL “unauthorized” civilian firearms (all firearms owned by the government are excluded, of course);
3. BAN the trade, sale and private ownership of ALL semi-automatic weapons;
4. Create an INTERNATIONAL gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun CONFISCATION.

Now, we have come the present day threat -

The United States has joined 152 other countries in support of the Arms Trade Treaty Resolution, which establishes the dates for the 2012 UN conference  (July 2-27 2012) intended to attack American sovereignty by stripping Americans of the right to keep and bear arms.
Working groups of anti-gun countries are scripting language for the conference this year, creating a blueprint for other countries when they meet at the full conference.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. The left-wing sites paint anyone who believes the treaty is a threat to the second amendment as “fringe” elements within the population. Remember when Center for American Progress insisted there is no treaty when there obviously is one? Was that a conspiracy theory or a conspiracy?
Read more about Barack Obama’s views on gun control: Forbes 

Help Rand Paul: NAGR.org

Breaking: Florida Will Defy Eric Holder On Foreign Voters

PJ Media

It looks like Florida plans to defy Eric Holder’s order (sent through radical DOJ lawyer Elise Shore) that the state stop purging Florida voter rolls of ineligible foreigners.  More:

Despite a Justice Department letter, objections from county elections officials and evidence that a disproportionate number are voters of color, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner’s office planned to continue scrubbing the election rolls, a spokesman said Friday. Gov. Rick Scott (R) ordered the search for potentially ineligible voters.

“We have an obligation to make sure the voter rolls are accurate and we are going to continue forward and do everything that we can legally do to make sure than ineligible voters cannot vote,” said Chris Cate, a spokesman for Detzner. “We are firmly committed to doing the right thing and preventing ineligible voters from being able to cast a ballot. We are not going to give up our efforts to make sure the voter rolls are accurate.”

Justice Department officials declined to comment on Florida’s plans.

Will Florida stand fast, or cave in?  Florida has a winning case here.  Firstly, the statutes allowing the purge have already been precleared. DOJ will have to climb onto the far limbs of Presley vs. Etowah County in claiming the way Florida conducted the foreign voter purge must be submitted to DOJ for approval.  Second, if Section 5 allows the Attorney General to stop states from ensuring that citizens of foreign countries don’t vote for President, I doubt Holder will find much support on the Supreme Court.

Third, if Florida stands fast, expect wide popular support against an unpopular Attorney General, but only if Floridians call their Secretary of State and support him.  Also expect citizens groups to intervene on behalf of Florida and election integrity.

Holder faces another danger.  The more he appears to assert unconstitutional federal power, the more states will push back against his overreach – including increasing defiance.  The Voting Section only has so many lawyers.  At some point, it can pick only so many fights.  Worse yet, if you are a supporter of Section 5 as a protection against genuine racial discrimination, the stupid fights Holder is picking to placate his radical lawless base may unravel the statute. Even supporters of Section 5 should urge Holder to stand down and let Florida clean up their voter rolls of dead people and foreigners.

Environmental justice: A new movement to restrict your movement

Construction work proceeds on express lanes on the Capital Beltway in Northern Virginia, where traffic congestion ranks among the worst in the nation. Arlington County filed suit to prevent the toll lanes from being built inside the Beltway, citing environmental justice concerns for its minority and low-income residents.Photo Credit:Transurban/Fluor Corp.

When most people talk about President Obama's influence on America, they mention reforming health care, repealing "don't ask, don't tell" or ending the war in Iraq.

But a nearly unknown executive order could have a greater impact on the future of America than all of those things combined, potentially giving the federal government power to control every project in the country.

The obscure memorandum of understanding, based on a long-forgotten executive order signed by President Clinton in 1994, marries the issues of environmentalism and social justice. The federal government can use the laws from one to control the other.

Seventeen federal agencies signed the Aug. 4, 2011, memorandum  — a clear indication of its widespread implications. By signing it, “Each Federal agency agrees to the framework, procedures, and responsibilities” of integrating environmental justice into all of its “programs, policies, and activities.”

This integration was the topic of the State of Environmental Justice in 2012 Conference held April 5 in Crystal City, Va. The low-key conference featured speakers who are key players in the movement, offering a rare glimpse into how the federal government intends to use this new tool as an instrument of power and control over the lives of every American.

Environmental justice has already stopped transportation projects in their tracks by using Title VI, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial "discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

Mr. Obama explicitly suggests using Title VI to achieve environmental justice in his memorandum.

“This is all about integrating environmental justice into the transportation decision-making process,” said conference speaker Glenn Robinson, director of the Environmental Justice in Transportation Project at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

The president had taken steps to integrate environmental justice into transportation even before he wrote the memo. In 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency joined with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation to create the HUD-DOT-EPA Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

This partnership, according to the"Environmental Justice and Sustainability Reference Deskbook," “marks a fundamental shift in the way the federal government structures its transportation, housing, and environmental policies, programs and spending” to include environmental justice concerns.

James Cheatham, director of the Office of Planning at the Federal Highway Administration, is listed as an environmental justice contact in this book, which EPA published in December 2010. At the conference, he explained that the movement's early focus on transportation was no accident.

“Transportation is that vital link that moves our economy one way or another,” he said.

But what do civil rights have to do with transportation projects? When combined with environmentalism, they can stop almost anything.

Last year, an environmental justice claim prevented the state of Virginia from installing express toll lanes to help alleviate traffic congestion on Interstate 395 in Arlington County. The county alleged that the state had violated a series of laws that Mr. Obama suggested as enforcement tools for environmental justice.

First, emissions from vehicles operating in the toll lanes would have violated the Clean Air Act. And, since the lanes would have run mostly through a low-income minority community, they also violated Title VI by discriminating against residents who live there.

The lanes also would have violated the National Environmental Policy Act, according to Arlington County Attorney Stephen A. MacIsaac.

“What NEPA requires is a study of traffic impacts, air quality impacts and impacts on disadvantaged and minority communities … and we felt like that wasn't an adequate review,” Mr. MacIsaac said.

Mr. MacIsaac insisted that the county's lawsuit did not allege racial discrimination, even though traffic studies projected that mostly affluent white people would use the HOT lanes, which he referred to as “Lexus lanes.”

But conference speaker Sharlene Reed, community planner at FHWA, suggested conferees adopt exactly that strategy for filing project-stopping lawsuits.

“If environmental justice is looking at minorities and low income," she asked, "can you actually afford to utilize this road, or are you being disadvantaged as a result of them having a price associated with it?”

Like Mr. Cheatham, Ms. Reed is listed as an environmental contact in the HUD-DOT-EPA Partnership. She helped develop "EPA's Action Development Process: Interim Guidance on Considering Environmental Justice During the Development of an Action," published in July 2010.

All told, the HOT lanes lawsuit cost Arlington County taxpayers about $2 million, Mr. MacIsaac said. Fearing a long, expensive court battle, the Virginia Department of Transportation dropped Arlington from the project and began an intensive environmental review.

Arlington County government considers this a victory, but James Corocan, head of the chamber of commerce in neighboring Fairfax County, has a different take on it.

“It's businesses and citizens that are going to pay for this government's decision not to move forward with the HOT lanes,” Mr. Corocan said. “It's a shame for Arlington, because other areas are going to leave them behind when it comes to moving traffic around. … When businesses are looking at where do they want to locate, obviously access is key.”

He said he had talked to several Arlington business leaders who would have welcomed HOT lanes in their county.

Paul Driessen, senior policy fellow at the Center for Defense of Free Enterprise, said one of the dangers of environmental justice is that it gives the federal government power to make decisions that should be made by the people affected by them.

“There's a huge element within the environmental community, … within the various government agencies and so forth, of desire to control what people can or can't do,” Mr. Driessen said.

Mr. Driessen said he lamented the fact that environmental regulations placed “so many controls” over “free markets that have advanced us in so many ways. We're really holding back entrepreneurship. People are not investing because they don't know what the next round of regulations is going to do.”

But conference speakers lauded the use of Title VI in this way.

“File a complaint under the Title VI Administrative Enforcement Process if you cannot get the results that you want in other ways,” advised Marc Brenman, a former senior policy adviser to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Mr. Brenman recounted how he did just that to stop a train route from being extended from downtown Oakland, Calif., to Oakland International Airport. He alleged that the project violated Title VI because it better served whites than minorities since the trains would pass by so many low-income minority neighborhoods along the way.

And, as environmental contractor Alexander Bond reminded the group, there are plenty of other laws people can use the same way as Title VI.

“The American Disabilities Act, the National Restorative Preservation Act for some visually impaired people, … [there is] lots of room built into this process for bringing environmental justice to the table,” said Mr. Bond, a senior associate at energy and environmental contractor ICF International in Fairfax.

Mr. Corocan disputed environmentalists' claims that HOT lanes would worsen air quality in Arlington, since the same number of cars will be on the road anyway, only now they will travel at a slower pace. That, if anything, will increase pollution.

David Almasi, executive director of the National Center for Public Policy Research, did not find this surprising at all. Environmental justice claims very rarely have anything to do with actually helping anyone, he said.

“They're not thinking about economic consequences to the everyman, but they're pushing environmental justice not in my opinion as a way to help a minority community but as a way to play the race card and make their arguments harder to fight,” Mr. Almasi said.

Another thing that makes environmental justice hard to fight is the vague terms EPA uses to define it, according to Mr. Driessen.

“The EPA's agenda is so broad, it's used to advance any new regulation that they have conceived of over this little bit in the past administration,” he said.

Conference speaker Eloisa Reynault, transportation, health and equity program manager at the American Public Health Association, described public health and transportation as issues married by environmental justice. 

Ms. Reynault said the combined cost of four chronic problems — traffic deaths and injuries, obesity, lack of physical activity, and air pollution — cost taxpayers an estimated $478 billion per year. She assured conferees that environmental justice could offset those costs by addressing health and safety issues "connected to transportation."

She said that while "car travel is sedentary travel," getting to the bus or train stop often requires walking. She also asserted that a lack of public transit in low-income communities causes greater air pollution and, in turn, more lung disease. Another example? Car accidents, since minorities are often "overrepresented" in traffic fatalities and injuries.

Under these definitions, members of a low-income or minority community could file a Title VI complaint by claiming that lack of access to public transportation made them fat and sick — and win.

The wide scope of environmental justice also makes it easier for government offices to share funds to achieve it.

Just ask conference speaker Kim Lambert, environmental justice coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“Because there’s no resources for most federal agencies, you’ve got to go to someone who has money," Lambert told conferees. "I’ve got to beg for their resources, I’ve got to show there’s a nexus between environmental justice and the community."

If Ms. Lambert wants money from a well-funded project to go toward her cause, all she needs to do is show a relevant link to the admittedly broad category of environmental justice. She said she does this often with her department, the Bureau of Fish and Wildlife.

"I work directly with the director of Fish and Wildlife," she said. "At my level I shouldn’t be. But I make sure I am getting right to him.

"Fish and Wildlife — which is one of the smaller bureaus — that’s the job that pays me. My passion, though, is civil rights.”

Read more:http://times247.com/articles/39environmental-justice-part-i-how-civil-rights-can-control-a-transit-project5#ixzz1wf9rDNa8

Hospitals fight drug scarcity, fear patients harmed

A bottle of prescription medication rests on a counter at a pharmacy in New York December 23, 2009.

Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson

By Anna Yukhananov

WASHINGTON | Sat Jun 2, 2012 8:59am EDT

(Reuters) - At the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, pharmacists are using old-fashioned paper spreadsheets to track their stock of drugs in short supply - a task that takes several hours each day.

Most of the hospital's medicines - with usage estimated at $100 million a year - are tracked by automated systems that allow for quick reorders when the supply runs low. But these automated systems, designed to help the hospital avoid purchases and storage costs of unused pills and vials, do not work if it is uncertain when the next batch of drugs will come in.

A few hundred medicines make the list of drugs in short supply: anesthetics, drugs for nausea and nutrition, infection treatments and diarrhea pills. A separate list has scarce cancer drugs for leukemia or breast cancer.

"Now we have to go through the pharmacy and count those drugs on a daily basis ... to make sure we don't run out," said Ed Szandzik, director of pharmacy services at the hospital for over a decade.

The growing scarcity of sterile, injectable drugs is one of the biggest issues confronting hospitals across the country, and will be a key issue at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago this weekend.

Health officials blame the shortages on industry consolidation that has left only a handful of generic manufacturers of these drugs, even as the number of drugs going off patent is growing. Some drugmakers have been plagued by manufacturing problems that have shut down multiple plants or production lines, while others have stopped producing a treatment when profit margins erode too far.

Some medicines have been periodically short in the past, doctors and pharmacists say, but the number of drug shortages has escalated in recent years, jumping from 56 in 2006 to 250 last year, according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration figures.

Generic drugmakers like U.S.-based Hospira Inc and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, an Israeli company, say they are building new facilities to prevent future shortages.

But in the meantime, pharmacies around the country are counting pills, begging neighboring hospitals for extra supplies and scouring the Internet for news of additional supply disruptions.

When rumors surface of an impending shortage, some pharmacies rush to buy up more than they need, likely leading to bigger shortages, analysts and other pharmacists said.

All of this requires regular attention from hospitals to manage the crisis. At Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., pharmacists and administrators meet weekly to discuss just how dire the situation is for different medicines.

"Every Wednesday before we have that (meeting), I have a bit of anxiety," said Ursula Tachie-Menson, acting chief of the hospital's pharmacy division. She spends about 30 percent of her time each week addressing shortage-related problems.

"Out of all the (21) years I have been practicing, these drug shortages have been one of the biggest challenges," she said.

EARLY WARNING SYSTEM

The FDA has been acting under an October executive order from President Barack Obama to fill in the gaps. It has had success getting an early warning from drug companies when they foresee a new shortage, allowing the agency to persuade other manufacturers to increase their production or look overseas to guarantee supply.

"I can tell you that there's not a single company I'm aware of out there that isn't talking to the FDA," said David Gaugh, head of regulatory sciences at the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, referring to the trade group's members.

The FDA said early notification has helped prevent shortages of 128 drugs in six months. It also estimates the rate of new shortages is slowing, with half the number of new scarce drugs this year compared with 2011.

There are currently about 130 drugs in short supply listed on the FDA's website.

But surveys and anecdotes keep piling up, showing doctors' efforts to find scarce drugs have not become easier. This month, a website for U.S. oncologists, MDLinx, surveyed 200 doctors and found more than 90 percent of them have experienced shortages of key cancer drugs.

CANCER, ANESTHESIA AND NUTRITION

A clinical nutrition group, the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN), found that 70 percent of its 800 members who responded to an online survey, said they had seen shortages of adult injectable multi-vitamins, used for basic nutrition for patients with intestinal issues. ASPEN members responding to the survey included doctors, nurses and pharmacists.

More than a quarter were not giving their patients multi-vitamins because of the shortages, placing them at risk of severe vitamin deficiencies that can lead to issues like anemia, due to a lack of folate, or scurvy, which happens when people do not get vitamin C.

In extreme cases, a deficiency of a type of B vitamin called thiamine can lead to cardiac arrest or death.

"This is an act of daily living for people now," said Jay Mirtallo, president of the group. "How that can be acceptable, I don't understand."

When a drug is not available, doctors have to seek alternatives, which may not work as well or cost more money. Others have to ration limited supplies of a life-saving treatment to only those who need it most.

Dr. Steven Allen, a specialist in blood cancers at North Shore University Hospital in New York, recently treated a young woman who had suffered several relapses of a life-threatening cancer known as acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Allen found a combination that involved thiotepa, an older drug his patient had not tried and could tolerate.

"When I ordered it, I was informed that there was none available, and it couldn't be obtained," said Allen, also chair of the committee on practice at the American Society of Hematology. He substituted a similar drug, but one that the woman had already taken. "We tried to make up a dose that was equivalent to thiotepa and hoped for the best. ... But I think it may have compromised her care."

On May 14, the FDA announced it would allow temporary imports of thiotepa made by Italian company Adienne Pharma & Biotech, to relieve manufacturing delays at Bedford, Ohio-based Bedford Laboratories, a unit of the private German company Boehringer Ingelheim that is the only approved manufacturer for the United States. Bedford said in April it did not know when further shipments would be available once its supplies ran out.

Imports have not helped anesthesiologists like Dr. Jason Soch, who hears about a new shortage nearly every week during his rotations at several surgical centers in Philadelphia. These are often "workhorse" drugs such as fentanyl, midazolam and propofol, used every day during surgery.

"It seems like as soon as one drug is no longer in shortage, we get an email from the hospital pharmacist that they're on their last box of another," he said.

Every disruption forces doctors to change dosing, or give new drug combinations they may not be as familiar with.

"I didn't envision this when I went to anesthesia," Soch said. "I'd figured we'd have whatever we needed."

SCRAMBLING FOR A FIX

The problem has inspired some creative solutions, like a drug shortages mobile application called RxShortages that allows medical and pharmacy staff to track new drug shortages posted on websites, including the FDA's. Mick Schroeder, a pharmacy resident who created the app, said it has been downloaded about 25,000 times.

Brooke Bernhardt, an oncology pharmacist at Texas Children's Hospital, said she checks RxShortages at least once a day.

"Unfortunately, at any point we expect a drug to go on back order," she said.

Szandzik, the pharmacy director at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, admits he would buy a larger quantity of drugs than usual if it became available.

"If I have to get one or two months' supply, I'll buy it, because our patients need it," he said. "Hoarding is in the eye of the beholder."

Some distributors and manufacturers prevent hoarding by allocating drugs based on historical demand. Other pharmacists say it is natural to want to buy more to ensure supply.

"Why did it ever have to get to this point in the first place?" Szandzik asked. "It takes a lot of hours, a lot of labor, a lot of luck to make sure our patients are safe. ... And I don't see it getting better for a while."

(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Jackie Frank and Jan Paschal)

REAL HISTORY: THE FOUNDING OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE

In 1910 Senator Nelson Aldrich, JP Morgan and a few other influential bankers took a private railcar to a remote and exclusive club on Jekyll Island, GA. There they hatched the plan that eventually became the Federal Reserve Banking System.

The latest Real History documentary featured on “Real News” examines the fiscal crisis that led to the idea of the Federal Reserve, the elite group of bankers and statesman who met to form the central banking system, and the lack of documentation surrounding their meeting and how they came to plan the institution we know today. Here’s a clip from the documentary that aired on Real News Friday:

See Video ~ The Real News

SEE THE LETTER THE DOJ SENT TO FLORIDA DEMANDING IT STOP PURGING NON-CITIZENS FROM VOTER ROLLS

The Blaze

On Thursday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) demanded the state of Florida stop its efforts to purge non-citizens from its voting rolls. A letter sent to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner alleges the process violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.

The major charge of the letter reads:

Talking Points Memo (TPM) breaks it down:

The Justice Department sent a letter to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner Thursday evening demanding the state cease purging its voting rolls because the process it is using has not been cleared under the Voting Rights Act, TPM has learned.

DOJ also said that Florida’s voter roll purge violated the National Voter Registration Act, which stipulates that voter roll maintenance should have ceased 90 days before an election, which given Florida’s August 14 primary, meant May 16.

The Miami Herald further explains that “Under the Voting Rights Act, Florida needs federal approval before it makes changes to voting because five Florida counties – Monroe, Hillsborough, Collier, Hardee and Hendry – had minority-voting troubles decades ago.” It also notes what has been done so far:

So far, Florida has flagged 2,700 potential noncitizen voters and sent the list to county elections supervisors, who have found the data and methodology to be flawed and problematic. The list of potential noncitizen voters – many of whom have turned out to be lawful citizens and voters – disproportionately hits minorities, especially Hispanics.

About 58 percent of those flagged as potential noncitizens are Hispanics, Florida’s largest ethnic immigrant population, a Miami Herald analysis found. Hispanics make up 13 percent of the overall 11.3 million active registered voters.

Independent voters and Democrats are the most likely to face being purged from the rolls. Republicans and non-Hispanic whites are the least likely.

“We are firmly committed to doing the right thing and preventing ineligible voters from being able to cast a ballot,” said Chris Cate, spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Detzner, responded to the Herald.

TPM Docs: DOJ Demands Florida Stop Voter Purge

‘ROTTEN EGG BILL’: WOULD UNIFORM STANDARD FOR HEN CAGES CRIPPLE CHICKEN INDUSTRY?

The Blaze

(Photo: AP/Charlie Neibergall)

Last week, seven Senators proposed legislation that would standardize the size of cages for egg-laying hens across the country in an effort to allow for eggs to be sold across state lines. Although this may sound like a win-win — both for the hens and those distributing eggs — others in the agriculture industry — and some animal rights groups — are up in arms over the bill.

The bill was sponsored with bipartisan support and is also backed by the Humane Society of the United States and Egg Producers United.

“This legislation will help ensure the American consumers continue to have a wide variety and uninterrupted supply of eggs at affordable prices,” Gene Gregory, president of United Egg Producers, said in a statement provided by the Humane Society. “Our industry is being endangered by the growing patchwork of differing and contradictory state laws and ballot initiatives that are impeding the free flow of interstate commerce in eggs that is so vital to grocers, restaurateurs, food manufacturers and consumers.”

The Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments of 2012 proposes giving white hens no less than 124 square inches of space and brown hens no less than 144 squre inches within the next 15 to 18 years. Currently, most hens get 67 square inches. The legislation would affect more than 280 million hens in the United States.

The Poultry Site reports the Humane Farming Association being “outraged” over the bill. The HFA, according to its campaign website Stop the Rotten Egg Bill, is against the proposed legislation because it keeps hens in cages — instead of “free range” as it would prefer. It even produced this short, dramatic animation in opposition of the bill:

The HFA and others also take issue with the fact that the legislation would “preempt state laws [saying it] is a direct assault upon egg laying hens, voters, and states’ rights,” HFA Director Bradley Miller said. He told The Poultry Site that the industry is “seeking to establish egg factory cages as a national standard that could never be challenged or changed by state law or public vote.”

Even those in other parts of the agriculture industry oppose the bill. The National Pork Producers Council, the American Farm Bureau, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the National Turkey Federation are among them. National Hog Farmer reports these groups and others are concerned the proposed legislation could lead to other bills that would affect their livestock.

“My biggest concern with H.R. 3798 is that outside groups with no knowledge of the industry will be dictating my livelihood and potentially compromising the welfare of my livestock,” President of the National Cattleman’s Beef Association J.D. Alexander said. “This legislation creates a slippery slope. Today, it’s egg farmers but tomorrow it could be any other segment of animal agriculture and we’re not going to let that happen.”

The Hill reports senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), who introduced the legislation, saying the “patchwork” of state laws affecting egg distribution in its current state hinders interstate commerce:

“As states with disparate standards continue to protect their own egg producers by banning the sale of eggs from States with lower or no standards, a complicated web of state laws will impair interstate commerce.”

A similar bill has already been introduced in the House.