Thursday, April 09, 2015

Are prescription drugs destroying America? Why is the government protecting the legal drug dealers? Is anybody listening? Does anybody care?

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America's Collective National Trip - Legal Prescription Drugs

Perhaps the fallout of the Germanwings A320 airplane crash in France caused by a depressed and psychotic co-pilot on prescription drugs should be a wake up call to America.  You are not safe in society now that 70% of Americans are on prescription drugs.

Over the years, I have closely followed the relationship between "isolated" cases of extreme violence and prescription drugs, and more often than not, the perpetrator of the crime was on some type of prescription drug, just like the pilot who killed 150 people.

From mass murders in schools to suicide airplane crashes, the world has gone crazy and we need to know the role prescription drugs are playing in this nightmare.

It was forty-five years ago when then Vice President Spiro Agnew declared that America was on a collective national trip because of the increasing abuse of prescription drugs along with the use of illegal drugs.


Jun 17, 1971

Nixon Begins War on Drugs

President Richard Nixon coins the phrase, "War on Drugs," promising in a major speech to defeat "public enemy number one in the United States.  If we cannot destroy the drug menace, then it will destroy us."

That was forty-four years ago that America launched a war on drugs, both illegal drugs, and the pre-occupation of Americans with legal prescription drugs.

Drug statistics, conveniently, it may seem, run about five years behind in reporting.
     
 
Prescription drug use
Percent of persons using at least one prescription drug in the past 30 days: 48.5% (2007-2010)
Percent of persons using three or more prescription drugs in the past 30 days: 21.7% (2007-2010)
Percent of persons using five or more prescription drugs in the past 30 days: 10.6% (2007-2010)

Physician office visits
Number of drugs ordered or provided: 2.6 billion
Percent of visits involving drug therapy: 75.1%
Most frequently prescribed therapeutic classes:
Analgesics
Antihyperlipidemic agents
Antidepressants


Hospital outpatient department visits
Number of drugs ordered or provided: 285.1 million
Percent of visits involving drug therapy: 74.4%
Most frequently prescribed therapeutic classes
Analgesics
Antidiabetic agents
Antihyperlipidemic agents

Hospital emergency department visits
Number of drugs ordered or provided: 286.2 million
Percent of visits involving drug therapy: 80.3%
Most frequently prescribed therapeutic classes
analgesics
Antiemetic or antivertigo agents
Minerals and electrolytes


The report -- titled "Health, United States 2013" -- found the percentage of Americans taking prescription drugs has increased dramatically.  During the most recent period, from 2007 to 2010, about 48% of people said they were taking prescription medication, compared with 39% in 1988 to 1994.

Prescription drug use increased with age. About one in four children took one or more prescription drugs in the past month, compared to nine in 10 adults 65 and older, according to the study.

"This is really not earth-shattering news. There's an increasing number of people with chronic illnesses, and the primary management tool available for dealing with chronic illness is medication," said William Lang, vice president of policy and advocacy for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.



One in 10 Americans said he or she had taken five or more prescription drugs in the previous month. That raises concerns about potential drug interactions, said Anne Burns, senior vice president for professional affairs at the American Pharmacists Association.

"We know that the number of adverse drug events a patient is likely to experience increases as the number of medications they are taking increases," Burns said. "You've got everything from potential interactions between medications to timing issues taking a variety of medications throughout the day."


People who took five or more drugs in the past month tended to be older. Only 10.8 percent of people taking that many drugs were between 18 and 44, while 41.7 percent were between 45 and 64 and 47.5 percent were 65 and older.

Drugs to manage cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease and kidney disease are the most widely used medications among adults, the CDC report found.

In particular, the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs among people 18 to 64 has increased more than six-fold since 1988-1994, due in part to the increased use of statins.  Also, nearly 18 percent of adults 18 to 64 took at least one cardiovascular drug during the past month.


The CDC report noted some headway in efforts to combat the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Prescriptions of antibiotics for cold symptoms during routine medical visits declined 39 percent between 1995-1996 and 2009-2010.

But the report also found a tripling of overdose deaths due to prescription narcotics. Painkillers taken among people 15 and older caused 6.6 deaths for every 100,000 people in 2009-2010, compared with 1.9 deaths per 100,000 in 1999-2000.

There has been a fourfold increase in antidepressant use among adults, but Holmes said that's not necessarily a bad thing.


Seeking help for a mental health disorder isn't as stigmatized as it once was, she noted. In addition, companies have introduced more effective antidepressants, and researchers have found that antidepressants also can be used to treat panic and anxiety disorders.

"If antidepressants enable people to function fully in their social roles, that's a good thing," Holmes said.

All that said, prescription drug use has spiraled out of control since 2010 as health officials now say antibiotics, antidepressants, and opioids are used by seven out of ten people.  

Drug overdose death rates have never been higher. In the United States alone, 100 people die from drug overdoses every day, most of them caused by prescription drugs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has officially declared prescription drug abuse in the US an epidemic.


Antibiotics -

Number one on the list of prescribed drugs, we continue to be subject to levels of antibiotics far in excess of our needs, and the shift of antibiotics to animal feed from human treatment assures our contamination for years to come, even if we stop taking antibiotics for a toothache, and for many other reasons.

It is also important to note that antibiotics are frequently used in settings where they will not provide any benefits. An example of this sort of inappropriate use of antibiotics is for viral infections, such as the common cold. In fact, there is a tendency for patients to believe that if they are ill with an "infection", an antibiotic is the solution. Well, it's not always.

As recently reported in the news, For The Love Of Pork: Antibiotic Use On Farms Skyrockets Worldwide.
   

The love of meat is exploding in Asia, and with it, comes antibiotic consumption by chickens (top) and pigs (bottom). Green represents low levels of drug used; yellow and orange are medium levels; and red and magenta are high levels.

Pig farmers around the world, on average, use nearly four times as much antibiotics as cattle ranchers do, per pound of meat. Poultry farmers fall somewhere between the two.

That's one of the conclusions of a study published Thursday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It's the first look at the amount of antibiotics used on farms around the world — and how fast consumption is growing.

The numbers reported are eye-opening.  In 2010, the world used about 63,000 tons of antibiotics each year to raise cows, chickens and pigs, the study estimated. That's roughly twice as much as the antibiotics prescribed by doctors globally to fight infections in people.

"We have huge amounts of antibiotic use in the animal sector around the world, and it's set to take off in a major way in the next two decades," says the study's senior author, Ramanan Laxminarayan, who directs the Center for Disease Dynamics Economics & Policy in Washington, D.C.

In all cases, since we know the over-use of antibiotics increases drug resistance in cells in our bodies, which make us susceptible to many new mutant, drug-resistant bacteria and virus's such as staff infections and others.  It may also be a contribution factor to increases in well known diseases like cancer.


Antidepressants - Feel Good Medicine

Antidepressants Aren't Taken By The Depressed; Majority Of Users Have No Disorder

Depression’s increase in the U.S. has been persisting for years, and it’s going on decades. And while the increase in antidepressant use has followed a predictably similar path, not all cases can be explained by the parallel rise in disease. Many people, in fact, take antidepressants regardless of a diagnosis.


A new study published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry reports some 69 percent of people taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the primary type of antidepressants, have never suffered from major depressive disorder (MDD). Perhaps worse, 38 percent have never in their lifetime met the criteria for MDD, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, social phobia, or generalized anxiety disorder, yet still take the pills that accompany them.

In a society that is increasingly self-medicating itself, capsules, tablets, and pills are turning from last resorts to easily obtained quick fixes. Between 1988 and 2008, antidepressant use increased nearly 400 percent. Today, 11 percent of the American population takes a regular antidepressant, which, by the latest study’s measure, may be a severe inflation of what’s actually necessary.


Opioids - Pain Killers
Although many types of prescription drugs are abused, prescription opioids take the lead. Chronic pain is frequently treated with prescription opioids, the clinical use of which nearly doubled from 2000 to 2010. This increase was accompanied by a rise in opioid abuse; it’s estimated that over two million people in the US currently abuse prescription opioids. Nearly 75% of prescription drug overdoses are caused by prescription opioid painkillers; these drugs are involved in more deaths than cocaine and heroin combined. In 2010, pharmaceutical drug overdoses were established as one of the leading causes of death in the US; drug overdoses were more lethal than firearms or motor vehicle accidents.


If you take any of the following you could be subject to drug abuse.

Opioids include:
Fentanyl (Duragesic®)
Hydrocodone (Vicodin®)
Oxycodone (OxyContin®)
Oxymorphone (Opana®)
Propoxyphene (Darvon®)
Hydromorphone (Dilaudid®)
Meperidine (Demerol®)
Diphenoxylate (Lomotil®)

Central nervous system depressants include:
Pentobarbital sodium (Nembutal®)
Diazepam (Valium®)
Alprazolam (Xanax®)

Stimulants include:
Dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine®)
Methylphenidate (Ritalin® and Concerta®)
Amphetamines (Adderall®)


The Most Popular Drug in America is an Antipsychotic—and No One Really Knows How it Works

The Raw Story – November 16, 2014

By Martha Rosenberg

Does anyone remember Thorazine? It was an antipsychotic given to mentally ill people, often in institutions, that was so sedating, it gave rise to the term “Thorazine shuffle.” Ads for Thorazine in medical journals, before drugs were advertised directly to patients, showed Aunt Hattie in a hospital gown, zoned out but causing no trouble to herself or anyone else. No wonder Thorazine and related drugs Haldol, Mellaril and Stelazine were called chemical straitjackets.

But Thorazine and similar drugs became close to obsolete in 1993 when a second generation of antipsychotics which included Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Geodon and Abilify came online. Called “atypical” antipsychotics, the drugs seemed to have fewer side effects than their predecessors like dry mouth, constipation and the stigmatizing and permanent facial tics known as TD or tardive dyskinesia. (In actuality, they were similar.) More importantly, the drugs were obscenely expensive: 100 tablets of Seroquel cost as much as $2,000, Zyprexa, $1,680 and Abilify $1,644.


One drug that is a close cousin of Thorazine, Abilify, is currently the top-selling of all prescription drugs in the U.S. marketed as a supplement to antidepressant drugs, reports the Daily Beast. Not only is it amazing that an antipsychotic is outselling all other drugs, no one even knows how it works to relieve depression, writes Jay Michaelson. The standardized United States Product Insert says Abilify’s method of action is “unknown” but it likely “balances” brain’s neurotransmitters. But critics say antipsychotics don’t treat anything at all, but zone people out and produce oblivion. They also say there is a concerning rise in the prescription of antipsychotics for routine complaints like insomnia.

They are right. With new names and prices and despite their unknown methods of action, Pharma marketers have devised ways to market drugs like Abilify to the whole population, not just people with severe mental illness. Only one percent of the population, after all, has schizophrenia and only 2.5 percent has bipolar disorder. Thanks to these marketing ploys, Risperdal was the seventh best-selling drug in the world until it went off patent and Abilify currently rules.


More manipulations

Just as Big Pharma has camped out in Medicare and Medicaid, living on our tax dollars while fleeing to England to avoid taxes, Pharma has also camped out in the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

Arguably, no drugs have been as good for Big Pharma as atypical antipsychotics within the military. In 2009, the Pentagon spent $8.6 million on Seroquel and VA spent $125.4 million—almost $30 million more than is spent on a F/A-18 Hornet.


Risperdal was even bigger in the military. Over a period of nine years, VA spent $717 million on its generic, risperidone, to treat PTSD in troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet not only was risperidone not approved for PTSD, it didn’t even work. A 2011 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found the drug worked no better than placebo and the money was totally wasted.
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Why Pharmaceutical Companies are Protected from Liability - Why Obama and Congress Refuse to Fix the Law - Why You Stand Alone

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Have you ever heard the phrase "stand alone"?  Well when it comes to the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical field, everyone in America is standing alone, abandoned by your representatives in Congress and the Administration of President Obama.


If you should happen to have serious injury from taking FDA approved drugs, or even death, the Obama Administration, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the FDA, are your enemy.  They ignore the need to fix liability on behalf of the consumers, and have built a shield of protection around the billions of dollars taken from consumers by industry giants.


In case there is any confusion, pharmaceutical company revenues reached about $750 billion in 2014, and will exceed $1 trillion in just five years according to the FiercePharma web site.  Here are some revenue and lobbying charts showing the extent of political influence in politics in America.  Note how over the years both parties receive about the same amount of money.






Here is a good description of how the pharmaceutical companies got this multi-billion dollar shield of protection by the US government.  Obama and Congress can fix this regulatory quirk at any time but are they rushing to help the consumer by holding drug companies liable, of course not, and that means Democrats and Republicans alike.

Filing Dangerous Drug Lawsuits for Harmful Side Effects

If you've suffered a serious illness or injury from taking a dangerous drug, whether prescription or over-the-counter, you may be wondering what legal rights you have. Who do you file a drug lawsuit against? Common questions include:
  • Can I sue the pharmaceutical company who made the drug?
  • How about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approving it?
  • Is my doctor liable for prescribing the drug?
  • Does the pharmacy share any responsibility?
Let's discuss the options...


U.S. Food and Drug Administration

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is "responsible for protecting the public health by regulating human and animal drugs, biologics (e.g. vaccines and cellular and gene therapies), medical devices, food and animal feed, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation."

Most people think the FDA approves all drugs on the market today, but that's not true. Some drugs are not subject to FDA approval (ex. "compounded" drugs), and others are only reviewed after they're put on the market. Read more about the FDA approval process here.

Since the FDA was created, thousands of dangerous drugs have entered the market and caused harmful side effects, including serious illnesses and wrongful deaths. While the FDA has become better at finding potentially dangerous drugs, many have slipped through their fingers and made it to market.

You might think that if the FDA approved a dangerous drug which caused you harm, you'd be able to sue the FDA for their negligence. Unfortunately, the FDA is a government agency, therefore it has sovereign immunity. Sovereign immunity is a legal privilege stating government agencies can't be sued (unless they allow it, which rarely occurs).

Pharmaceutical Drug Companies

Before 2013, drug companies could be sued if their drug caused serious adverse side effects, injury, illness, or death. They paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in drug lawsuit settlements and jury verdicts.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court made a historical decision. In the case of Karen Bartlett vs. U.S. Merck and Co. and Mutual Pharmaceutical Company, the Supreme Court ruled that once the FDA approves a drug, individuals are prohibited from suing the drug's manufacturer, even if it's proven that the drug caused harm!

In the Bartlett case, the plaintiff took the drug Sulindac, which allegedly caused her to suffer gangrene in her right arm as a result of "toxic epidermal necrolysis." The Supreme Court ruled that, because the FDA approved the drug Sulindac, the manufacturer has immunity from private and class action lawsuits.

Basically, the ruling stated drug manufacturers have a right to rely on the FDA approval system, and once a drug is FDA approved, pharmaceutical companies can't be sued. Otherwise, the court said, why does the FDA exist at all?

What this means to you is, if you've suffered a serious side effect or illness from an FDA approved medication, you are barred from filing a lawsuit against the manufacturer. (Supreme Court rulings are rarely overturned, but in the future it may happen.)


Doctors and Pharmacists

While you may not be able to file a lawsuit against the FDA or a drug manufacturer, you can sue your doctor or pharmacy if they prescribed a dangerous drug which caused you harm.

Physician Liability
There's a difference between drug lawsuits and medical malpractice lawsuits. A lawsuit based on illness or injury caused by a doctor's negligence in prescribing medication, falls under the category of medical malpractice.

By law, doctors are held to a very high standard of care in the medical community. When a doctor deviates from the medical standard, and as result a patient is injured, the doctor is considered negligent, and therefore liable for any resulting injuries.

When a patient can prove a doctor's negligence was the direct cause of his injuries, the patient may be entitled to compensation for his or her damages. In extreme cases of negligence, an injured or deceased patient's family may be entitled to punitive damages.

Pharmacy Liability
Pharmacists have a legal duty of care when prescribing medications. They receive extensive training in pharmacology and must be familiar with every drug they dispense. This includes knowing about potentially harmful interactions between drugs when taken together.

It's up to the pharmacist and doctor to work together to make sure a prescribed drug will not injure the patient. In today's day and age however, communication between a doctor and pharmacist is often limited. The one who suffers most is the patient.

As a patient and customer, you have a right to rely on the expertise of your doctor, and the pharmacist who filled your prescription. When they fail to protect you from harm and you suffer injuries, you have a right to seek compensation.

Example: Doctor and Pharmacist Negligence
Vic was previously diagnosed with celiac disease, which means his body can't metabolize gluten. When gluten is introduced to someone with celiac disease, they can suffer nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and even life-threatening intestinal damage.

Vic went to see Dr. Neglushent complaining of weakness and lethargy. Vic was very careful and lived a gluten-free lifestyle, and the doctor knew Vic suffered from celiac disease.

Dr. Neglushent prescribed the drug Palagluden. Vic asked Dr. Neglushent if Palagluden contained gluten, and was told it did not. When Vic went to pick up his prescription, he asked the pharmacist if Palagluden contained gluten, and was told no. There was also no indication on the pill bottle that the drug contained gluten.

After taking Palagluden for 3 months, Vic collapsed and was hospitalized due to a ruptured large intestine. It turned out the drug Palagluden in fact did contain large amounts of gluten, used as a binding agent.

Vic successfully sued Dr. Neglushent for medical malpractice and the pharmacy for negligence. In the lawsuit, the pharmacy blamed the doctor, and the doctor blamed the pharmacy. The court said both defendants knew, or should have known the drug Palagluden contained gluten, and ruled in Vic's favor.

The Role of Attorneys

Any kind of drug lawsuit requires professional legal representation. Doctors and pharmacies rarely admit to fault, and are often defended by large insurance companies with deep pockets. Only an experienced personal injury attorney has the skills to handle a case like this. An attorney can take depositions, subpoena records, hire expert witnesses, and more.

If you've suffered a serious side effect or illness due to a drug, seek the counsel of an attorney in your area as soon as possible. Save the pill bottle, your receipts, and your medical records (to verify the treatment you required as a result of the drug). Bring all your evidence with you when meeting with attorneys.


Case Study:

Dangerous Medication Interaction
Here we look at a case where the victim suffered harmful side effects from taking two drugs together. Although a doctor prescribed the medications, liability falls on the manufacturer because of inadequate warnings.

Media On Right And Left Ignore The Truth About Vaccines

Cliff Kincaid, February 5, 2015

They bash each other over vaccines, but ignore what's really at stake.

NBC accuses Republicans of accepting bad “science” on vaccines, while Fox News fires back, accusing liberals of spreading bad “science” on vaccines. Each side is trying to score partisan political points. The message from both sides is that vaccines are completely safe. But that message is absolutely and demonstrably false.

As I noted in a recent column, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program exists to compensate victims of vaccines. The latest Statistics Report shows nearly 4,000 claims were awarded financial damages.

Why do both sides of this “debate” pretend that vaccine-related injuries do not occur? Why not just report the facts? It doesn’t take a lot of work to dig them out.

Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) tells me that she has given more than 100 interviews in the last two weeks on the subject of the measles outbreak, but that the media simply will NOT report on the existence of this federal program and the implications for the subject of vaccine safety.

“Vaccines are the only pharmaceutical products that government mandates and completely indemnifies,” she notes. She is referring to federal legislation that takes legal responsibility for their actions away from the companies making the vaccines.

“I’ve been talking about it in every interview I do and I have been bringing it up. But whenever I talk about liability protection for the companies—that this is the only pharmaceutical product that is mandated by government and indemnified by government—they [the media] don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

Observers believe the glaring omission reflects the power of pharmaceutical companies or their advertising agencies in the major media. It is in the interest of these companies to make pariahs out of those favoring vaccine choice by playing down—or even suppressing—questions about vaccine safety.

Simply put, the evidence and history show that the vaccine makers have been given total liability protection for injuries and deaths caused by government-mandated vaccines. Vaccine safety is not “settled science,” as we have been hearing repeatedly in the media. To the contrary, for purposes of the law, vaccines are considered sometimes unsafe, even deadly.

The “Vaccine injury table” associated with the legislation includes a list of the injuries, disabilities, illnesses, conditions, and deaths resulting from the administration of such vaccines.
But why is it so difficult for the media to report on the existence of these health problems?

The vaccines that are covered include:
  • diptheria and tetanus vaccines
  • pertussis vaccines
  • measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines
  • polio vaccines
  • hepatitis A vaccines
  • hepatitis B vaccines
  • Haemophilus influenza type b polysaccharide conjugate vaccines
  • varicella vaccines
  • rotavirus vaccines
  • pneumococcal conjugate vaccines
  • seasonal influenza vaccines
  • human papillomavirus vaccines
  • meningococcal vaccines
As I reported in my column, the one exception to this drumbeat of misleading and inaccurate coverage about “vaccine safety” is on the local level, where correspondent Michael Chen of ABC 10 News in San Diego, Calif., noted a case of a boy who suffered serious injuries, including fever, seizures, nervous tics, and autism, as a result of two vaccines. The mother, almost in tears as she described what happened to her son, was paid $55,000 in damages through the federal program. But the damage award didn’t cover the autism diagnosis. She said she wished she had more thoroughly researched the safety of vaccines.



The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program grew out of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. Fisher explains what happened: “The companies threatened Congress that they were going to leave the people without any childhood vaccines if they did not get liability protection. The companies wanted this liability protection and it was mainly for losses at that time for DPT and oral polio vaccine. MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccine at that point was a relatively new combination vaccine.”

The DPT vaccine had been associated with brain inflammation and brain damage, while polio paralysis can be caused by the vaccine.

Fisher explains what the federal protection means for the companies: “Nobody who makes or profits from the sale of the vaccine, nobody who regulates the vaccine, who promotes the vaccine, who votes to mandate the vaccine—nobody is accountable or liable in a civil court of law in front of a jury of our peers when we get hurt because we’ve been told we have to take it, or when the vaccine fails to work.”

The compensation program, with total liability protection for injuries and deaths caused by government-mandated vaccines, was upheld by the Supreme Court in a 2011 case in which vaccines were acknowledged to be “unavoidably unsafe.”

My column actually underestimated the total financial damages paid through the program. The figure is actually $2.8 billion to the victims or the families of victims themselves.

Liberal and conservative media are trying to make political points over who’s right and wrong about vaccine safety. But Fisher says people who support her group and vaccine choice come from across the political spectrum and include Democrats, Republicans, libertarians, and independents. In the media, however, each side is trying to smear the other side, as if there is a partisan divide.

The coverage has led to cases of strange bedfellows, such as the George Soros-funded blog Think Progress running a story praising Megyn Kelly of Fox News under the headline, “Megyn Kelly Speaks Up For Mandatory Vaccination On Fox: ‘Some Things Do Require Big Brother.’”
Indeed, Kelly defended mandatory vaccines, saying, “…some things do require some involvement of Big Brother.”

What she and many others in the media have consistently ignored is the role of Big Brother in shielding the companies making the vaccines from the side effects of their products.

As I asked in my column: If there are no problems associated with vaccines, then why did Congress pass the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which created a national Vaccine Injury Compensation Program?

The media on the left and right have no answer to this question. So they pretend there is no debate or dispute over the safety of vaccines. They simply point fingers about one side or the other being guilty of ignoring what they pretend is settled science.

The only thing “settled” about the science is that while vaccines work for a large majority of people, they can also cause serious health problems, even death, for some.

The commentators who ignore the truth are either lying or so utterly ignorant that they should not be in a position of offering “news” on a national basis. Whatever the case, the public is being denied the facts about decisions affecting the lives of their children. Fortunately, the public can go to sites like www.aim.org and the National Vaccine Information Center for information that is being denied to them.

A troubling aspect of the current debate is how people in the media act like experts on subjects that they know so little about. They seem to think that by huffing and puffing and sounding authoritative, they will be taken seriously. They have large staffs which seem incapable of making phone calls or doing elementary research.

If news organizations on the left and right can’t even dig out the facts in life-and-death matters involving children, then what can they be trusted to report accurately on?

Read more at http://www.westernjournalism.com/media-right-left-ignore-truth-vaccines/#DORlMDtShYacYZMs.99

Sunday, April 05, 2015

Danica Patrick sizzles on and off the track in NASCAR

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Danica Patrick - Lightning Rod - Marketing Machine - Trail Blazer - and another Wisconsin Cheesehead

We love Danica Patrick because we love anyone who can turn the world upside down which is just what she is doing in NASCAR.

Just another day at the office for lovely Danica is surviving 200 miles per hour crashes into walls, emerging from a wall of flames unscathed, being the only woman in the sea of bad boys of NASCAR racing, and appearing on magazine covers.


Here are some of the latest news reports on the Golden Girl of racing, who just had a birthday on March 25 and is now just 33 years old.


Mar 29, 2015, 8:02 PM EDT


For those who don’t think Danica Patrick is improving in her third full-time season in the Sprint Cup Series, here are some numbers to consider:

Sunday tied her second-best finish (Kansas, spring 2014) in a Sprint Cup race, one spot lower than her career-best sixth at Atlanta Motor Speedway last September.

With a seventh in Sunday’s STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway, Patrick made the biggest jump of any driver in the Sprint Cup standings, from 23rd to 16th, and is tied with Jeff Gordon and Carl Edwards at 115 points behind series leader and her Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, Kevin Harvick.

“I’m proud of everyone for not giving up and for keeping their head in the game, and the pit crew did a good job,” Patrick said. “They were frustrated last weekend after making a mistake on the last stop, and it’s team effort, you know.”


Admittedly, Patrick’s race Sunday was not perfect, either.

“I (made) mistakes at the very end, too,” she said. “I’m not going to lie, I was glad there was not a yellow at the very end coming to the white. I was glad for that.”
Earlier in the race, her No. 10 Chevrolet was tight.

“We just weren’t very good to start,” Patrick said. “We took a chance and stayed out on a yellow, and we were front row, and I bet I looked like an idiot out there.

“I spun the wheels on the start and hung on a little bit, but then ended up going backwards in a hurry.

“I said before the race started that we can be down here but we can still come back, and if we get there, let’s just keep digging and let’s find something.”

Patrick made a strong move late in the race when she deftly avoided being collected in a multicar wreck, swerving to the right to miss a spinning Paul Menard.

“That’s kind of the way it goes at Martinsville,” she said. “I think all four corners are banged up. … (The) 27 got sideways and he was just completely sideways in front of my car, and luckily I had slowed down enough and swerved to the right.

“It’s all a matter of luck, too. I could have got drilled from the back and hit into the car. I could have swerved to the right and had somebody clip my right rear and spun, somebody could have been out there.

“Crashes are about observing where you’re at and making a good decision about where to go, but they’re also about luck. I got lucky that there was nothing in my way to get around that one. That would have probably wrecked my day.”




FASTER THAN VIRAL

Danica Patrick: Why Her Fans Just Can’t Get Enough

A marketing machine. A spokesperson. A competitor. A trail blazer. The best female race car driver of all-time. Danica Patrick has been called them all.  Being one of the most successful female drivers in a male dominated sport comes with notoriety and if one thing is for sure, fans just can’ t get enough of Danica Patrick.


The Early Years – Danica Patrick’s love affair with racing began at the early age of 10. The thrill of competing in Go-Kart races in her home state of Wisconsin led to her desire to pursue different outlets for racing. A journey that would take her overseas and back home again.

At the age of 16, Patrick moved to England and joined the British National Series. In three years of racing there, Patrick had minor success (including a second-place finish in Britain’s Formula Ford Festival) and she decided to advance her racing career by returning to the United States.

Though she never won a race in the Toyota Atlantic Championship series, Patrick consistently placed in the top three and finished third overall in the championship. Based on those results, in 2005 Patrick’s sponsor Rahal Letterman Racing decided it was time to have Patrick make the jump to IndyCar Racing.


Indianapolis Here She Comes

On May 29th, 2005, Danica Patrick became the fourth woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500. This alone was enough to make headlines and turn Patrick into a pop culture/sports personality, but it was clear that Patrick wanted more. Patrick led for 19 laps of her first Indy 500 and eventually finished fourth, the highest finish of any woman at the time to have participated in the race.

Out to prove that she was much more than just a token female in a man’s world, Patrick raced well enough in 2005 to win the Rookie of the Year for IndyCar racing. Later, in 2009, she would go onto finish third in the Indy 500 and end up in fifth place overall in the IndyCar Series.

Then, in 2011,knowing that she was one of the best drivers in her sport, Patrick made another change. As the ambitious always do, Patrick wanted to challenge herself and compete with the best in the world.


NASCAR: The Big Time

Patrick began her NASCAR career in the Nationwide Series. Racing in her GoDaddy.com car, Patrick finished fourth in the Sam’s Town 300 Nationwide Series race, the highest finish ever for a woman in NASCAR. Adding to her accolades, in 2013 Patrick became the first woman to win a pole position for a NASCAR race when she qualified for the Daytona 500. In the race itself, Patrick led for a few laps and eventually placed 8th, the highest a female has ever placed in the history of that race.

Though Patrick’s NASCAR career has been checkered and sometimes filled with controversy, she continues to impress. In 2014, in a career already filled with firsts, Patrick led six laps in the race at Talladega. She finished in 22nd place at the race which was the best finish ever by a female driver at Talladega.

Patrick’s first two years in the Sprint Cup have also brought her Top 30 overall finishes in the Cup standings.


Non-Racing Highlights

Opportunities have come along for Patrick to market and brand herself. She has been a spokesperson for GoDaddy.com for years and did commercials for Secret deodorant in 2005 and 2006. Her acting has carried over in a guest appearance on CSI:NY and she voiced herself on an episode of The Simpsons. Patrick has graced the cover of numerous magazines, including Sports Illustrated. She even has appeal to kids, as she was selected favorite female athlete in 2008 and 2012 at the Kids Choice Awards.

Through it all, Danica Patrick has proven that she is out to be much more than a trail blazer. She not only wants to be respected, but she wants to be competitive. Patrick will not just show up and be known as that “female” driver. She is going to go toe-to-toe with the best around. For that, she earns respect. Patrick is willing to be competitive, laugh at herself, work hard, and seek to accomplish her goals all while maintaining her position as a public figure and role model. For these reasons, Danica Patrick continues to be someone the fans just can’t get enough of.


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Danica Patrick got a top ten finish at Martinsville last week and hopes to make it two in a row at Texas, crediting her success to her relationship with her crew chief:

"I think it's really good. I think we have a lot of fun, but we also do good work."

Danica Patrick is a lightning rod in the sport that is NASCAR. Everything that Patrick says and does gets the utmost attention whether it really should or not. Patrick is a female athlete in a sport that has long been dominated by men, that alone puts her in the spotlight. Moreover, Patrick is also a marketing machine which thrusts her even further into the public eye. Whether you support Patrick or not; the only fair way to judge her is based on her numbers and six races into her third full season her numbers simply don’t lie.

Patrick is slowly but surely becoming a better driver and there really isn’t any arguing it. Many critics are quick to point out that she has never won a race or finished in the top-five in 88 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events and they would be correct. In fact, if I was trying to argue that Patrick is one of the sports greatest drivers those folks could easily use that argument against me. However, I’m not making that argument because she isn’t one of the greatest drivers in the sport but she is becoming better.


Let’s take a look at some numbers that Patrick has piled up since 2012.

Average Starting Position:
2012 – 36.1
2013 – 30.1
2014 – 22.3
2015 – 20.0 (through six races)

Average Finishing Position:
2012 – 28.3
2013 – 26.1
2014 – 23.7
2015 – 19.3 (through six races)


Every year Patrick has improved her average qualifying and finishing positions. Six races into 2015 both of those stats are the highest that they have ever been in her career.

She has also improved some of her other numbers across the board which can be seen below. Please note that she only ran 10 races during the 2012 season.


Lead Lap Finishes
2012 – 1
2013 – 12
2014 – 19
2015 – 4 (through six races) She is on pace for 24 this season.

Laps Led
2012 – 0
2013 – 5
2014 – 15
2015 – 0 (through six races)

Top-10 Finishes 
2012 – 0
2013 – 1
2014 – 3
2015 – 1 (through six races) She is on pace for six this season.


Coming into 2015 she has had more finishes on the lead lap, more laps led and more top-10 finishes each season that she is in NASCAR. Through six races this season she is on pace to finish the season with a new best in finishes on the lead lap and top-10 finishes in a single season. Once again, Patrick is improving every single season thus far. Is it possible that she could take a nosedive and not have a good 2015 for the rest of the year? Sure, anything is possible but her numbers don’t suggest that will be the case.

Aside from the stats mentioned above, Patrick is also on pace to set personal bests for number of laps completed and the number of miles driven in a single season. Like the majority of her stats, those numbers also have gotten better each season that she has been racing.


Those who are against Patrick will always be against her. Some of the common critiques are that some feel that a woman has no place in NASCAR while others feel that she is just her to make money for SHR and that she is overhyped in every sense of the word. For those that don’t believe she belongs in the sport because of her sex; well that’s an entirely different conversation and those folks need to realize that it’s 2015.

When it comes to the marketing thing; NASCAR is all about marketing. The cars, the drivers, the sponsors, the names of the races; it’s all marketing. Denny Hamlin, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. all make commercials and do a lot of marketing for their teams and sponsors. When it comes to NASCAR marketing is the name of the game and if your driver has something to offer than it’s a win-win for everyone.


As far as being overhyped goes? Some fans often confuse overhyped with overexposed. Patrick is nowhere near overhyped because nobody is out there talking about how she is going to win races and championships. Just because she gets a lot of media coverage, TV time and interviews it doesn’t mean that there are suddenly expectations for who to achieve greatness. Patrick isn’t overhyped, certain fans just feel that she is overexposed and as a result that line has been blurred.

Again, if you want to fairly judge Patrick and where she is in NASCAR the only way to do it is by looking at her numbers. Numbers and stats don’t lie. The bottom line when it comes to Patrick is that she keeps getting better. Will she ever win races and championships? Who knows, but her future success or failures don’t erase what she has accomplished and the improvements that she has made up to this point.


Patrick is slowly but surely becoming a better driver and there really isn’t any arguing it.
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