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Today's Stories January 11, 2008 Dave Lindorff Paul Craig
Roberts January 10, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Bob Wing Michael Donnelly David Macaray China Hand Ayesha Ijaz Khan Rannie Amiri Website of the Day
January 9, 2008 Cockburn /
St. Clair Dave Lindorff John Chuckman James Bovard Alan Farago Russell Mokhiber William S. Lind Peter Morici Josh Reubner Mike Roselle Website of the Day
January 8, 2008 Paul Craig
Roberts Russell Mokhiber Robert Fantina Dave Zirin Shamako Nobel John Ross Brenda Norrell Laura Carlsen Patrick Irelan Evelyn J. Pringle Jonathan M.
Feldman Michael Dickinson Website of
the Day
January 7, 2008 Chris Floyd John Blair Uri Avnery Andy Worthington Binoy Kampmark David Macaray Ralph Nader Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Gideon Levy Dave Lindorff Website of
the Day
January 5 / 6, 2008 Douglas Valentine Kevin Young Richard Rhames Saul Landau Marc Lynch Robert Fantina Donna Volatile Jelle Bruinsma Bob Sutcliffe Harvey Wasserman Missy Beattie David Swanson Jacob Hornberger Shepherd Bliss Ron Jacobs Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
January 4, 2008 Cockburn /
St. Clair Jonathan Cook Paul Craig Roberts Stan Goff Dave Lindorff Niranjan Ramakrishnan Allan Nairn Joshua Frank Peter Morici Mary McInnis Website of the Day
January 3, 2008 Fatima Bhutto Pam Martens Joanne Mariner Zoltan Grossman David Domke Norman Solomon Nikolas Kozloff Jacob G. Hornberger Martha Rosenberg Russell Means Website of the Day
January 2, 2008 Jeff Taylor M. Shahid Alam Gary Leupp Paul Craig Roberts Heather Gray Fred Gardner David Macaray Benjamin Dangl
January 1, 2008 Iain A. Boal B. R. Gowani Shahid Mahmood Linn Washington,
Jr. Harvey Wasserman John Ross Website of the Day
December 31, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Tariq Ali Liaquat Ali Khan Wajahat Ali Robert Fisk Ajai Sahni Marwan Bishara Uri Avnery Mark T. Harris Brenda Norrell Website of the Day
December 29 / 30, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Tariq Ali Fawzia Afzal-Khan Gary Leupp China Hand Jacob Hornberger John Chuckman Missy Beattie Ralph Nader Fidel Castro Robert Fantina Greg Moses Catherine Lutz Kristin Van
Tassel Kim Nicolini Phyllis Pollack Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
December 28, 2007 Farzana Versey Wajahat Ali Binoy Kampmark Ayesha Ijaz
Khan Anthony DiMaggio Ray McGovern Jim Goodman Ron Jacobs Russell Hoffman John Murphy Website of the Day
December 27, 2007 Dilip Hiro Murtaza Shibli Stephen Soldz Bill Quigley Paul Craig Roberts Omer Subhani Marjorie Cohn Allan Nairn Jacob G. Hornberger Norman Solomon Patrick Irelan Ben Tripp Website of the Day
Charles Tripp Paul Armentano Rannie Amiri Stanley Heller John Walsh Martha Rosenberg Norman Madarasz Website of
the Day
December 25, 2007 Patrick Cockburn December 24, 2007 Andrea Peacock Tariq Ali Uri Avnery Jill Jameson Steve Melendez Mike Whitney Chuck Munson John Walsh Farzana Versey Richard Neville Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Ralph Nader Andy Worthington Ahmad Faruqui Bill Moyers Rev. William
E. Alberts Timothy J. Freeman Anthony DiMaggio Fred Gardner Paul Krassner Seth Sandronsky William Loren
Katz Michael Dickinson Ron Jacobs David Vest Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
December 21, 2007 John Ross Jacob Hornberger Dick J. Reavis Jeff Cohen
Peter Morici Jack McCarthy Raúl Zibechi Steve Early David Macaray Patrick Bond Lakota Freedom Delegation Website of
the Day
December 20, 2007 David Rosen Alan Farago Laura Carlsen Ashley Dawson Wayne Smith Website of
the Day
December 19, 2007 Saul Landau Paul W. Lovinger Norman Solomon Dave Zirin Marjorie Cohn Sen. Russell
Feingold Sonja Karkar Anthony Papa Christopher Ketcham Davey D Website of
the Day
December 18, 2007 R. F. Blader George Wuerthner Steven Higgs Vijay Prashad David Macaray Ralph Nader Eva Liddell Martha Rosenberg Dave Lindorff Peter Morici Website of
the Day
December 17, 2007 Mike Whitney Tom Barry Uri Avnery Greg Moses Allan Nairn Patrick Bond Stephen Lendman Charles Jonkel Laray Polk Stephen Fleischman December 15 / 16, 2007 Peter Linebaugh Howard Zinn Standard Schaefer Raymond J.
Lawrence Alan Farago Saul Landau Jenna Orkin Ahmad Samih
Khalidi Robert Fantina Missy Comley
Beattie Ramzy Baroud James L. Secor Elijah Wald Website of
the Weekend
December 14, 2007 JoAnn Wypijewski John Ross Jacob Hornberger Andy Worthington Allan Nairn Dave Zirin Dave Lindorff Misty MacDuffee Ben Terrall Dr. Mustafa
Barghouthi Website of the Day
December 13, 2007 Paul Craig
Roberts Mike Whitney Ron Jacobs Norman Solomon Peter Morici Sandy Mayes Franklin Lamb Jacob Hornberger Nadim Rouhana Dave Zirin Website of the Day
Allan
Nairn Alan
Farago Ray
McGovern Winslow
T. Wheeler Evan
Jones James
Petras Joel
Hirschorn Joshua
Frank Sherry
Wolf Dan
Bacher Website
of the Day
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January 11, 2008 The Drug Industry's "Right" to Find Out What Doctors are PrescribingThe First Amendment Gone WildBy ROBERT WEISSMAN The founders of the United States took the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the concepts of free speech and freedom of conscience very seriously. "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech," said Benjamin Franklin. "Information is the currency of democracy," intoned Thomas Jefferson -- one of countless Jefferson odes to the central importance of ideas and free transmission of information in fostering a working democracy. But could they possibly have imagined the twisted purposes to which the First Amendment is put today? Two crucial developments in U.S. constitutional jurisprudence -- the grant of Bill of Rights protections to corporations, and the extension of First Amendment protections to commercial speech -- have enabled corporations to invoke the First Amendment to defend their right to hawk goods, so long as they are legal, by almost any means short of outright lying or clear deception. Now corporations are suggesting the First Amendment should effectively immunize them from government-imposed rules related to the simple commercial exchange of information. This new expansion of the First Amendment to block broad public regulatory powers emerges from efforts in New England to control one of the most insidious pharmaceutical marketing practices. Anyone who watches television in the United States, or reads magazines, is familiar with drug company advertisements to consumers. But these represent a relatively small fraction of industry marketing expenditures. Drug companies devote much more money, and time, to influencing those with the power to prescribe medicines -- as much as $34 billion in the United States, more than eight times what is spent on direct-to-consumer marketing. The most important element of the marketing onslaught directed at doctors is "detailing" -- the activities of the sales representatives who visit doctors constantly, and provide free lunches, free pens, free charts and other free goodies (including, very importantly, free samples). The average primary care physician sees drug detailers more than five times a day. When a sales rep walks into a doctors office, he or she knows a lot about that doctor -- including exactly what medicines the doctor prescribes, and in what quantities. How can this be? Pharmaceutical companies purchase the information from data-mining companies, the largest of which is IMS Health. Pharmacies track what drug is sold to each customer. IMS buys the data from the pharmacies, deletes all patient names, combines it with data that enables the identification of prescribers for each prescription, and aggregates the information. Then, when the drug company representatives cheerfully bound in to a doctor's office, they know exactly what the doctor is prescribing. They know if the doctor prescribes a lot of medicine or a little (drug company reps rate the doctors on a scale of 1-10, or A-F), and whether they go for the rep's company's product or a competitor's or a generic. They know where to focus their efforts, and how to frame their sales pitches. And, as the New York Times explained, quoting an e-mail message from a pharmaceutical executive to company salespeople, they use the data to "hold [doctors] accountable for all the time, samples, lunches, dinners, programs and past preceptorships that you have paid for and get the business!" The sales reps obviously do not have punitive power over the doctors, but they use the prescribing information to exploit and manipulate the social ties built on the giving relationship. Neither doctors nor patients consent to this use of prescribing data, and only a tiny few even know about it. New Hampshire decided to ban this use of the data in 2006. Vermont and Maine followed with similar laws. IMS sued to block implementation of the laws, and won at the U.S. district court level. Judges agreed with IMS that the New Hampshire and Maine laws violate the company's claimed First Amendment rights. The New Hampshire law permits IMS and other data miners to continue to collect prescription data, but they can't use individualized data -- information about specific doctors' prescribing practices -- for commercial purposes. The law is a "speech restriction because it limits both the use and disclosure of prescriber-identifiable data for commercial purposes," District Judge Paul Barbadoro found in the New Hampshire case. This was a misguided determination, challenged by the State of New Hampshire in an appeal argued before the First Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday. Leave aside the merits of providing First Amendment protections to corporations, or to commercial speech. Nothing about the New Hampshire law impinges on the expressive values that the First Amendment is intended to protect. Contends Sean Flynn, the lead attorney for a coalition of public interest organizations supporting the New Hampshire law, "This case is not about speech, it is about industry surveillance of the doctor-patient relationship. New Hampshire acted through its data-mining law to safeguard that relationship, and the public health, by protecting it from industry surveillance and manipulation." Flynn says that if the district court's ruling is upheld, and the principle of commercial speech protections is extended to cover any commercial exchange of text or data, then a host of existing laws are vulnerable to constitutional challenge. These include laws to protect consumer privacy and to mandate disclosure of financial information related to securities transactions. It is very hard to defend government regulations determined to restrict commercial speech. Under Supreme Court rulings, judges must assess whether a commercial speech restriction advances a substantial governmental interest, directly advances the interest and is no more limiting of speech than necessary. In a case like New Hampshire's pharmaceutical data-mining restrictions, the test effectively requires the judge to closely scrutinize a government regulation and decide if it is both a good idea, and the best possible and least speech-restrictive way of achieving a desired ends. It gives the judge unwarranted authority -- comparable, as former Justice Rehnquist noted, to the discredited turn-of-the-20th-century Lochner authority to strike down economic regulations -- and makes it very hard to uphold a challenged regulation. In applying the test, Judge Barbadoro knocked down the New Hampshire law on numerous grounds. There was no legitimate privacy interest involved, he found, especially since there is no evidence of drug sales reps harassing doctors. Pharmaceutical detailing may result in more brand-name and fewer generic drugs being prescribed, at greater expense, but there is no evidence that prescriber data "is being used to propagate false or misleading marketing messages." And, he found, there are other ways the State could aim to curb drug company gifts, counter detailers' messages and educate doctors, and aim to promote greater use of generic drugs. Just to list the judge's findings is to show how much inappropriate power the commercial speech test confers on judges in a case like this. Will the appeals court agree with Judge Barbadoro? We'll know in a few months. Could Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries have imagined the First Amendment being deployed for such purposes? The world has obviously changed in the last 200-plus years, and Jefferson could not have envisioned even the existence of the modern pharmaceutical industry. But he did understand the threat that corporations posed to a working democracy. "I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country," he wrote. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational
Monitor and director of Essential
Action. ![]()
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