I'm ready for something drastic to be done. Was on the phone with my health insurance provider today for two medical incidents. The first was a bill that they didn't pay because "The doctor is in network but the facility he used wasn't" .. ??? And the other was an emergency room visit to a hospital that was in network but the doctor who saw us was out of network. This is a PPO plan that we pay about $950 a month for. Makes me sick.
I was recently asked what it was that I had asked Moore and what his response had been. Below are my March 24, 2009 email to Moore and his response on March 25.
Dear Patrick
I am working on a blog post regarding disclosure standards relating to opinion columns and am keen to incorporate a comment from you on the issue.
Some of the examples I was going to mention was your column for the Seattle Times http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008651132_opinc21moore.html (and the later version published in the Washington Times) and another in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/02/24/mooreed0224.html <http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/02/24/mooreed0224.html> )
1) Seattle Times/Washington Times
I just wanted to follow up on the comment you posted (https://www.prwatch.org/node/8149#comment-3629 <https://www.prwatch.org/node/8149#comment-3629> ) on the PRWatch website in response to a Spin of the Day https://www.prwatch.org/node/8149
a) Do you agree that it would have been better if you disclosed in the text of those columns or in the brief bio note that you were a consultant to PhRMA? If not, why not?
2) I understand from the AJC that they asked you about who funded the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition and you indicated that the NEI did but they didn't include that in the bio tag.
Again, wouldn't it be better if you pro actively included that disclosure in the text you submit to media outlets?
With thanks
Bob Burton
--------
Bob,
You question the way in which I “disclose” my involvement with (shudder) industry, the maker of most useful material things.
Under every article, op-ed and letter that I write on advocacy for sustainable practices and technologies I footnote in bold font:
“An advisor to government and industry, Dr. Patrick Moore was a co-founder and long-time leader of Greenpeace. He is now Chair and Chief Scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. in Vancouver, Canada.”
This is my disclaimer and my “disclosure”, meaning to disrobe in public I suppose.
I can’t help it if the newspaper or other media outlet decides not to include the disclaimer. Goodness knows I would like to have a veto over the headline they assign to my writings at times.
I have no intention of providing a client list at the end of all my communiqués. I make no bones about the fact that I seek involvement in an advisory and advocacy capacity with organizations, companies, associations and all others who I believe are part of the sustainability equation. Granted I am not in synch with all so-called “consensus” opinions on the pop-environmentalist hit parade. I believe that is because I have an understanding of the history and philosophy of science and of the great span of time we must consider in issues such as climate change and energy.
Science is not guided by consensus other than in the popular press. Science is made by individuals who have great insight and who discover basic truths about the universe that come to be adopted as theory. Climate change science, regardless of Al Gore’s pleadings, has not reached the level of E=MC2. Otherwise the proof would be written down on a piece of paper for all to see. Besides, we are in a global cooling trend. I do not profess to know the answer to this issue, as so many who, much wiser that I no doubt, claim to have a crystal-ball view.
I believe in sustainable forestry; cutting trees and using them, replanting and tending, biodiversity conservation, carbon storage in trees, and where effective, using wood instead of concrete, steel and plastic (essential materials in their own right).
I believe that it would have been a good idea to introduce the genetically modified Golden Rice eight years ago when it was invented as that could have prevented blindness in 500,000 children per year with no adverse effects on the environment (World Health Organization).
I believe nuclear energy is safe and clean and that it has more potential than any other source to replace fossil fuel for electricity production to charge our plug-in hybrids and run our geothermal heat pumps along with all the other uses we have for electricity (where available large hydroelectric is also key).
I believe in recycling of everything from plastic water bottles to used nuclear fuel. It should be illegal to put combustible (carbon-based) materials such as paper, wood, and plastic into a landfill. They should be burned in waste-to-energy plants to make electricity like they do in all of Europe.
I believe the Japanese whalers should stop killing whales in the Antarctic Ocean.
I believe that marine aquaculture has the potential to take fishing pressure off wild stocks, to produce healthy protein and oils more efficiently than land-based farming, and to make us all healthier.
So basically Bob, myself and my colleagues work for the people and organizations we support because they fit into our definition of sustainability. You can question our motives all you want but we will take on the debate any time. We do not work for fossil fuels but we might if they could convince us that our job was to advocate for more sustainable fossil fuel use, i.e. conservation for the future.
I appreciate the fact that you are working for a living and that this entails trying to discredit me and all I stand for. Therefore I can hardly expect you to behave as an ally. I would only ask that you consider the possibility that I am an honest, sincere person who would never knowingly tell a lie. I am learning every day of course (aren’t we all?) so may come back with a change of opinion on some topic duly footnoted sometime soon.
Your line of questioning gives away a rather narrow intention. I prefer interviews that deal with substance rather than innuendo, ad hominem attacks, and guilt by association. Can’t imagine why.
So do your best (worst) old chap, it’s water off a duck’s back. I hope you will find an appropriate “comment” for your blog in my musings.
Honors Bachelor of Science in Forestry and Forest Biology, 1969
Ph.D. In Ecology, 1974
Honorary Doctorate of Science, 2005
Recipient, National Award for Nuclear Science and History, 2009
“Outside a dog, a man’s best friend is a good book. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read”
Groucho Marx
Cheers, Patrick Moore
Greenspirit Strategies Ltd.
The debate about referring to insurers as "insurance companies", or part of the "health care industry", can be solved by simply calling them "the Parasitic Insurance Protection Racket".
[ This next part was sent, accidentally, as comment to the Bill Moyers story also about Wendell Potter. It belongs as comment here.]
Saying that insurers use the same tactics as "tobacco" firms is a shade off-target.
Top for-profit insurers ARE the cigarette industry in that they own billions of dollars of holdings in top cigarette manufacturers...and, for good measure, in manufacturers of tobacco pesticides. Google up "PNHP NEJM insurance tobacco" for info.
This goes far to explain why such insurers use the cigarette makers' own deceptive name for themselves---"Tobacco Companies"...as if they just provide some traditionally-used natural plant product.
Such insurers, and complicit chemical firms involved with the pesticides and chlorine contamination of typical cigarettes, and their allies in government and media, are understandably loath to call cigarette makers "the Pesticide-Contaminated, Chlorine-contaminated, Dioxin-delivering, Radiation-delivering Cigarette Industry". (Rads come from certain fertilizers.) To do so would be a long-overdue disaster for the insurers and the chemical and fertilizer cartels. If Wendell Potter touched on this scandalous angle, Big Insurance may well have already been packing its bags...making way for Single Payer.
Israel could spend 1,000x it's current PR budget and it will not change world opinion. Israel is indeed held to a different standard than the rest of the world. Why? Because, dare I say it, many people hate Israel in general and Jews in particular. While Israel is being dragged across the coals for it's invasion of Gaza in defence of its own people, not a word is being said about the UN and the US's unnecessary invasion of Iraq and the killing of 1 million + Iraqis. China is killing its own people and the world is silent. North Korea is killing it's own and what is being done aside from ineffective political sanctions? Nothing. Ditto with Iran. The middle East in general treats its female polulaltion like animals and the world's response - silence. The world needs to examine its not too subtle motives when dealing with Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. Further they should realize that Jews are a part of the human race not a people apart to be targeted whenever they have a dog that needs to be kicked.
Evin Daly is the editor of www.lookisrael.com
Saying that insurers use the same tactics as "tobacco" firms is a touch off-target. Top for profit insurers ARE the cigarette industry in that they own billions of dollars of holdings in top cigarette manufacturers...and, for good measure, in manufacturers of tobacco pesticides. This goes far to explain why such insurers use the cigarette makers' deceptive name for themselves---"Tobacco companies"...as if they just provide some traditionally-used natural plant product.
Such insurers, and complicit chemical firms involved with the pesticides and chlorine contamination of typical cigarettes, and their allies in government and media, are understandably loath to call cigarette makers "the Pesticide-Contaminated, Chlorine-contaminated, Dioxin-delivering, Radiation-delivering Cigarette Industry". (Rads come from certain fertilizers.) To do so would be a long overdue disaster for the insurers and the chemical and fertilizer cartels. If Wendell Potter touched on this scandalous angle, Big Insurance may well have already been packing its bags...making way for Single Payer.
Israel could spend 1,000x it's current PR budget and it will not change world opinion. Israel is indeed held to a different standard than the rest of the world. Why? Because, dare I say it, many people hate Israel in general and Jews in particular. While Israel is being dragged across the coals for it's invasion of Gaza in defence of its own people, not a word is being said about the UN and the US's unnecessary invasion of Iraq and the killing of 1 million + Iraqis. China is killing its own people and the world is silent. North Korea is killing it's own and what is being done aside from ineffective political sanctions? Nothing. Ditto with Iran. The middle East in general treats its female polulaltion like animals and the world's response - silence. The world needs to examine its not too subtle motives when dealing with Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. Further they should realize that Jews are a part of the human race not a people apart to be targeted whenever they have a dog that needs to be kicked.
Evin Daly is the editor of www.lookisrael.com
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