Free flights, meals and match tickets can damage patient care, say critics
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/23/health.pharmaceuticals
Drug companies are spending millions of pounds every year on all-expenses-paid trips to conferences around the world for doctors and other hospital staff, in what critics say is a massive marketing exercise dressed up as medical education. ...
JF -- Your comments, for some reason, were flagged as possible spam by our website, and that's why they didn't appear as soon as you entered them. (Funny how you would jump to negative conclusions about our website and organization, and then reject as unwarranted negativity an article based on an in-depth investigation, independent reports and primary documents.)
We appear to agree on one thing -- it's curious that the investigation into America Supports You wasn't conducted and concluded earlier in the program's existence. There were signs of wrong-doing for some time, including the improper fundraising and financial practices reported by the <i>New York Times</i>, <i>Stars and Stripes</i>, NPR and others, and the whistleblower complaints by former General Counsel of the American Forces Information Service Diane Beaver.
One important point (as my last paragraph alludes) is that it's not just the Inspector General's report that found serious problems with ASY under Allison Barber. Though you seem to have read a different IG report than I did... it was full of specifics and documented concerns. And Barber's questions about what was legal or not would come across as more virtuous, if she had heeded the answers she received.
I guess Ms. Farsetta has never once stepped foot into any arena as other than an observer - reporter. Including in responding to my comments on this article.
I've yet to see my comments or a response to them in reference to this obvious witch-hunt reporting. My intention was to draw your attention to the IG report and it's vague inferences to "appearances" and "favoritism" and other non-specifics. Also, the negative painting of Barber's lawful (and dutiful) questions to the DoD Legal beagles "can we ask for sponsorship" was turned around against her in both the IG report and your article. Further I asked if this report were 18 months in the making near the end of the 7 year program...it's obviously a parting shot at the end of an administration rather than a constructive tool. Someone within the DoD, Stars and Stripes, and possibly a disgruntled ASY member organization had an axe to grind and used the media to do it. I saw no attention drawn by this article to the affects of the program on the troops or their families, or the people who joined the effort to serve a purpose of supporting the vets...I read only an assault on the program and people in it using a vaguely worded IG report and Farsetta's own "tilt."
-JF
If we're going to protest armies for profit, then we have to also protest any company which makes weapons of mass destruction. They also use war to make money. Everybody wants to trash Blackwater, but nobody wants to touch the companies in the United States who manufacture chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. One mercenary is not nearly as dangerous as one scientist selling out his skills to make weapons which can kill many, horribly.
Clearly the media has again been used by disgruntled or jealous insiders and gave their prescribed pavlovian response by jumping on this well-timed indictment near the end of the administration to cast dispersion on this program and it's participants. Any IG inspection full of words such as "appears" and other broad generalities should be scrutinized more closely before being promptly binned. Further, motives are clear that by publishing the corporate sponsors highlighted by name in the IG complaint served only to further embarrass the program. Look very closely at the IG report, look at the timelines...if this program (as it is accused) were off the rails two or three years ago, where were the watchdogs then? Sleeping? We don't think so. It's clear from the report and the emails that this is a witch hunt. As the first full paragraph of Farsetta's story illustratres (as an accusation) Barber indeed asked DoD Legals if she could ask for sponsorship of items....to which in some cases they replied 'no' - yet the report makes it appear that her asking the very question was somehow wrong...when in fairness was her job to ask these questions. It's clear she was indeed inquiring to those in the 'system' who were deemed the authority - by the system....and this has been used cheaply against the ASY program. While most projects can be Monday-morning'd into perpetuity, my analysis of this particular story holds several truths: People and corporations are being slandered to harm the project participants and the sponsors (with the cheap addition of the inference of scams, preferential treatment, and so forth) while no (0) reference to the outcomes of the program are given - at all. I think good citizens should expect more from "the Center for Media and Democracy" - and your first lesson before writing another story, Ms. Farsetta, should be watching "Absence of Malice" - and in fairness you should think deeply about where your lead into this story, and your one-sided zeal, originated. Surely the waxy-faced IG guys did not inspire you to slant this to one side.
-JF
Drug giants accused over doctors' perks
Free flights, meals and match tickets can damage patient care, say critics
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/23/health.pharmaceuticals
Drug companies are spending millions of pounds every year on all-expenses-paid trips to conferences around the world for doctors and other hospital staff, in what critics say is a massive marketing exercise dressed up as medical education. ...
If we're going to protest armies for profit, then we have to also protest any company which makes weapons of mass destruction. They also use war to make money. Everybody wants to trash Blackwater, but nobody wants to touch the companies in the United States who manufacture chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. One mercenary is not nearly as dangerous as one scientist selling out his skills to make weapons which can kill many, horribly.
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