Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.

Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.

She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.

"The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public."

I.R.S. Agents Feel Pressed to End Cases
From the New York Times
Excerpt: The head of the Internal Revenue Service faces questions in Congress today about auditors’ complaints that they are being forced to close corporate cases prematurely, allowing billions in tax dollars to go unpaid.

In interviews, these revenue agents warned that unless they were free to pursue what their instincts tell them, their focus would end up being only on known abuses, and new ones created by the tax advice industry would go undetected.

The agency countered that it had increased the number of companies whose tax returns it examined by a fourth since 2001, even though the number of auditors was virtually the same.

Agency officials said this was accomplished by cutting back slightly on audits of the very largest companies, which produce more than 80 percent of all corporate profits, while increasing audits of those with assets of $10 million to $250 million. At the same time, the officials say, they have shortened the average time to complete an audit from almost two years in 2001 to less than 18 months last year.

I.R.S. officials say the auditors who are complaining are mostly older agents unwilling to adopt new approaches.

More

Labels: agency, irs

Fired Attorney was Investigating CIA Corruption
From US News & World Report
Excerpt: On May 11, 2006, Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, sent a confidential E-mail to the White House counsel's office regarding the "removal and replacement" of U.S. attorneys whose four-year terms had expired, including the U.S. attorney in San Diego, Carol Lam: "The real problem we have right now with Carol Lam," Sampson wrote, "that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires."

So what was the "real problem" that Sampson thought the administration had with Lam?

U.S. News has learned that on May 10, one day before Sampson's E-mail to the White House counsel's office, the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego alerted the Justice Department that the FBI would execute search warrants in two days for the No. 3 official at the CIA, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, in connection with the spiraling corruption probe into former Republican Rep. Randall "Duke" Cunningham of California.

Now Democratic members of Congress want to know whether that alert triggered Sampson's E-mail and whether Lam's firing and those of seven other federal prosecutors were politically motivated. Sampson's E-mail, sent one day after the alert, raises serious questions as to whether the CIA tried to intervene in a politically charged investigation and tried to get Lam fired. More

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, CIA, corruption

Effects of Chickenpox Vaccine Fade Over Time: Study
From Scientific American
Excerpt: Merck's chickenpox vaccine Varivax not only loses its effectiveness after a while, but it has also changed the profile of the disease in the population, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

The study confirmed what doctors widely knew -- that the vaccine's protection does not last long.

And with fewer natural cases of the disease going around, unvaccinated children or children in whom the first dose of the vaccine fails to work have been catching the highly contagious disease later in life, when the risk of severe complications is greater, they said.

More

Labels: health

Congress loads up $20 billion in pork

From the Washington DC Examiner
Excerpt: Congress has loaded up President Bush's request for "emergency" spending on the Iraq war with more than $20 billion in "pork" for members' districts.

Money for peanut storage in Georgia, spinach growers in California, menhaden in the Atlantic Ocean and even more office space for the lawmakers themselves is included in what has ballooned into a $124 billion war bill.

"This emergency supplemental bill has more ornaments hanging over our many branches of government than the White House Christmas tree," Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., said.

Originally, Bush asked for $105 billion in emergency funding. Democratic leaders say they want to grant the request to continue funding the war despite their desire to end it.

"We have provided all of the money the president requested- and more," boasted House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer. More

Labels: congress, iraq, spending

FDA Rules Override Warnings About Drug
Cattle Antibiotic Moves Forward Despite Fears of Human Risk
From the Washington Post

Excerpt: The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency's own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous for people.

The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine's last defenses against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has been approved in the United States for use in animals.

The American Medical Association and about a dozen other health groups warned the Food and Drug Administration that giving cefquinome to animals would probably speed the emergence of microbes resistant to that important class of antibiotics, as has happened with other drugs. Those super-microbes could then spread to people.

Echoing those concerns, the FDA's advisory board last fall voted to reject the request by InterVet Inc. of Millsboro, Del., to market the drug for cattle.

Yet by all indications, the FDA will approve cefquinome this spring. That outcome is all but required, officials said, by a recently implemented "guidance document" that codifies how to weigh the threats to human health posed by proposed new animal drugs.
More

Labels: agency, FDA, health

Hospital Officials Knew of Neglect
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.

A procession of Pentagon and Walter Reed officials expressed surprise last week about the living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares faced by wounded soldiers staying at the D.C. medical facility. But as far back as 2003, the commander of Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is now the Army's top medical officer, was told that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds, according to interviews.
More

Labels: health, iraq, troops, veterans