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For students who need to borrow for college, federal loans are almost always the best deal. But a new study finds that more than 1 million community college students - a disproportionate number of them minorities - can't get such loans because their schools decline to participate in the federal loan program.
These community colleges have their reasons - including trying to protect students from borrowing too heavily.
But the report, to be released Thursday by the California-based Project on Student Debt, argues that such schools are denying students an important benefit. It said students who can't get federal loans may have to work more or take on private loans and credit card debt.
The findings were criticized by national groups representing community colleges and financial aid administrators, as well as people who work at some of the colleges. They note community colleges are usually far cheaper than four-year schools, so it's reasonable for some schools to tell students they shouldn't be borrowing.
"I'm really concerned about default rates, and ... that students would see the dollar signs and not use it for educational purposes and maybe get in over their heads," said Brenda DiSorbo, director of financial aid for all of the Central Georgia Technical College.
The report comes at time of intense focus on federal aid programs like subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans, which together accounted for about $50 billion in financial aid last year.
The credit crisis and subsidy cuts have forced dozens of lenders and guarantors out of the federally backed loan business, and the government is drawing up plans to ensure students can get such loans for school next fall.
So far, there's no evidence eligible students won't be able to secure loans because of the credit crunch. But this new report highlights students who can't get federal loans because of the school they attend.
Affected students amount to just one in 10 community college students nationwide, but at least 47 percent of students in four states - Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and Louisiana.
In Montana, 95 percent of white community college students attend schools where they can get federal loans, compared with just 8 percent of American Indians.
In Tennessee, the figure is 87 percent for white community college students but just 45 percent for blacks. Nationally, black community college students are more than twice as likely as whites to attend schools that don't offer federal loans.
Low-income students "are the students who have the most to gain from having access to the federal loan program," said Bob Shireman, executive director of the Institute for College Access and Success, which operates the Project on Student Debt. "The rates are low and fixed. There's no credit check."
Nationally, community college tuition and fees average $2,361 per year, according to the College Board - about one-third what public four-year colleges cost. After receiving aid, most community college students pay only a few hundred dollars for classes, and often use leftover aid from Pell Grants for things like books.
At South Texas College in McAllen, financial aid Director Miguel Carranza said he can't be sure but he believes few students take out private loans. Offering federal loans would be unnecessary and potentially harmful.
"I come from a four-year institution - that's what you see there," he said. "You make the loans available, and whatever they qualify for, it's not enough."
But despite rising concerns about student debt, sometimes loans are a better option if they help students work less at outside jobs and finish a degree or transfer. At community colleges that offer federal loans, about 10 percent of students use them.
"Denying them federal loans does not prevent them from borrowing, it just forces them to take out other loans that are more expensive," Shireman said.
Colleges' concerns are understandable. If they are sanctioned by the government for disbursing too many loans that default, they can lose access to all federal aid programs - a disaster for any community college. But Shireman believes community colleges that have opted out of the loan program overstate the risk of such punishment.
In a statement, the American Association of Community Colleges said concerns about student debt are why some schools don't participate - not fear of being sanctioned.
But, it added, "institutional review of their policies in this area could be timely."
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Doubts Voiced About US Anti-Missile Plan
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Washington - A group of prominent scientists who have been critical of missile defense plans told lawmakers Wednesday that a system being built by the United States cannot protect the country.
They also questioned whether the Defense Department has misled the public and European allies about the system's capabilities.
"The program offers no prospect of defending the United States from a real-world missile attack and undermines efforts to eliminate the real nuclear threats to the United States," Lisbeth Gronlund, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told lawmakers at a House oversight hearing on the missile defense program, according to prepared testimony. Gronlund's group has long expressed skepticism about missile defense.
The hearing was called by the panel's chairman, Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., who has sought to step up oversight of the missile defense program since the Democrats took control of the House last year. Missile defense traditionally has drawn more support from Republicans.
Tierney said the testimony from the witnesses raises questions about current missile defense spending levels. He pointed to congressional projections of $213 billion to $277 billion for the program between now and 2025.
"We need to all ask ourselves, whether you're a conservative Republican or a liberal Democrat, are we wisely spending the taxpayer's money here?" Tierney said.
The Bush administration has sought to deploy a working missile defense system while it is testing the parts, arguing that there is an urgent threat from hostile countries developing intercontinental missiles, such as Iran and North Korea.
The program has been a major source of rising tension with Russia, which opposes U.S. plans to build part of the system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Jeff Kueter, the president of the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington and a Republican witness at the hearing, told the panel the program is making progress and already has limited abilities to counter ballistic missiles.
"Even in their current form, the elements of the U.S. missile defense system offer options heretofore unavailable," he said. "With further research, development and testing, the accuracies and capabilities of these systems will only improve."
The other witnesses said that recent tests of the system, to take out long range missiles in mid-flight with ground-based interceptors, have been unrealistic. They said the defenses can be easily overcome by countermeasures, such as decoys deployed along with warheads on the missiles.
Washington - A group of prominent scientists who have been critical of missile defense plans told lawmakers Wednesday that a system being built by the United States cannot protect the country.
They also questioned whether the Defense Department has misled the public and European allies about the system's capabilities.
"The program offers no prospect of defending the United States from a real-world missile attack and undermines efforts to eliminate the real nuclear threats to the United States," Lisbeth Gronlund, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told lawmakers at a House oversight hearing on the missile defense program, according to prepared testimony. Gronlund's group has long expressed skepticism about missile defense.
The hearing was called by the panel's chairman, Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., who has sought to step up oversight of the missile defense program since the Democrats took control of the House last year. Missile defense traditionally has drawn more support from Republicans.
Tierney said the testimony from the witnesses raises questions about current missile defense spending levels. He pointed to congressional projections of $213 billion to $277 billion for the program between now and 2025.
"We need to all ask ourselves, whether you're a conservative Republican or a liberal Democrat, are we wisely spending the taxpayer's money here?" Tierney said.
The Bush administration has sought to deploy a working missile defense system while it is testing the parts, arguing that there is an urgent threat from hostile countries developing intercontinental missiles, such as Iran and North Korea.
The program has been a major source of rising tension with Russia, which opposes U.S. plans to build part of the system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Jeff Kueter, the president of the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington and a Republican witness at the hearing, told the panel the program is making progress and already has limited abilities to counter ballistic missiles.
"Even in their current form, the elements of the U.S. missile defense system offer options heretofore unavailable," he said. "With further research, development and testing, the accuracies and capabilities of these systems will only improve."
The other witnesses said that recent tests of the system, to take out long range missiles in mid-flight with ground-based interceptors, have been unrealistic. They said the defenses can be easily overcome by countermeasures, such as decoys deployed along with warheads on the missiles.
Second Mistrial in "Liberty City 7" Case
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By Julienne Gage
Miami - A federal judge in Miami declared a second mistrial Wednesday in the case of six men accused of plotting to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower, and attack other targets, when a second jury failed to reach a verdict on the charges.
The decision is a setback for the Bush administration, which had touted the case as an example of the government's ability to prevent terrorist attacks but has failed to win convictions in two attempts.
U.S. District Judge Joan A. Lenard scheduled a hearing for next Wednesday at which the government is to announce whether it will seek to retry the men.
The defendants have widely been referred to as the Liberty City Seven because authorities say the men originally charged were conducting their activities in a warehouse in Liberty City, a predominately black, low-income neighborhood in northeastern Miami.
In December, after nine days of deliberation, a jury in Miami acquitted one defendant, Lyglenson Lemorin, of all charges and said it was deadlocked on the charges against the group's leader, Narseal Batiste, 33, who led a sect known as the Moorish Science Temple. It also deadocked on five others, leading Lenard to declare a mistrial.
The other defendants were Patrick Abraham, Burson Augustine, Rothschild Augustine, Stanley Grant Phanor and Naudimar Herrera.
The second trial, which ended Wednesday after 13 days of deliberation, proved equally fruitless. The prosecution had based its case on hundreds of FBI audio and video recordings, including one that showed the men pledging allegiance to al-Qaeda. The oath-taking ceremony was led by an FBI informant, known as Brother Mohammed, posing as an al-Qaeda operative.
But Batiste testified that he was merely trying to con the informant out of $50,000 that was to be used to finance the "plot." Further, the government was not able to prove that the group had any weapons, ammunition or explosives on them at the time of their arrest in June 2006.
So far, the government has had a mixed record with regard to domestic terrorism trials. It had gained some convictions such as that of Jose Padilla, the former Chicago gang member who was found guilty in August 2007 of participating in a South Florida-based al-Qaeda support cell. There have been some notable setbacks, including the mistrial declared last October after a Dallas jury deadlocked on charges that the leaders of the Holy Land Foundation, at one time the nation's largest Islamic charity, had funneled millions of dollars to terrorists.
Local law experts and civil rights advocates in Miami weren't surprised by this second mistrial.
"I think it shows how tarnished the government's credibility is here in our community," said Bruce J. Winick, a professor at the University of Miami law school. "I think this was a case of premature prosecution. They should have surveilled more carefully and for longer to see if this plot was really going anywhere or if it was simply a bunch of poor unfortunates rising to the flavorful bait of someone who's spreading around $50,000."
Oath-taking to a terrorist organization is relevant evidence, but in and of itself, it is an act protected by the First Amendment, said Winick, explaining that the jury had to decide if the defendants would have come up with such a plot on their own. "It was like a little movie put together by a government informant."
By Julienne Gage
Miami - A federal judge in Miami declared a second mistrial Wednesday in the case of six men accused of plotting to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower, and attack other targets, when a second jury failed to reach a verdict on the charges.
The decision is a setback for the Bush administration, which had touted the case as an example of the government's ability to prevent terrorist attacks but has failed to win convictions in two attempts.
U.S. District Judge Joan A. Lenard scheduled a hearing for next Wednesday at which the government is to announce whether it will seek to retry the men.
The defendants have widely been referred to as the Liberty City Seven because authorities say the men originally charged were conducting their activities in a warehouse in Liberty City, a predominately black, low-income neighborhood in northeastern Miami.
In December, after nine days of deliberation, a jury in Miami acquitted one defendant, Lyglenson Lemorin, of all charges and said it was deadlocked on the charges against the group's leader, Narseal Batiste, 33, who led a sect known as the Moorish Science Temple. It also deadocked on five others, leading Lenard to declare a mistrial.
The other defendants were Patrick Abraham, Burson Augustine, Rothschild Augustine, Stanley Grant Phanor and Naudimar Herrera.
The second trial, which ended Wednesday after 13 days of deliberation, proved equally fruitless. The prosecution had based its case on hundreds of FBI audio and video recordings, including one that showed the men pledging allegiance to al-Qaeda. The oath-taking ceremony was led by an FBI informant, known as Brother Mohammed, posing as an al-Qaeda operative.
But Batiste testified that he was merely trying to con the informant out of $50,000 that was to be used to finance the "plot." Further, the government was not able to prove that the group had any weapons, ammunition or explosives on them at the time of their arrest in June 2006.
So far, the government has had a mixed record with regard to domestic terrorism trials. It had gained some convictions such as that of Jose Padilla, the former Chicago gang member who was found guilty in August 2007 of participating in a South Florida-based al-Qaeda support cell. There have been some notable setbacks, including the mistrial declared last October after a Dallas jury deadlocked on charges that the leaders of the Holy Land Foundation, at one time the nation's largest Islamic charity, had funneled millions of dollars to terrorists.
Local law experts and civil rights advocates in Miami weren't surprised by this second mistrial.
"I think it shows how tarnished the government's credibility is here in our community," said Bruce J. Winick, a professor at the University of Miami law school. "I think this was a case of premature prosecution. They should have surveilled more carefully and for longer to see if this plot was really going anywhere or if it was simply a bunch of poor unfortunates rising to the flavorful bait of someone who's spreading around $50,000."
Oath-taking to a terrorist organization is relevant evidence, but in and of itself, it is an act protected by the First Amendment, said Winick, explaining that the jury had to decide if the defendants would have come up with such a plot on their own. "It was like a little movie put together by a government informant."
Pentagon Records Detail Prisoner Abuse by US Military
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By Lara Jakes Jordan
Washington - Military interrogators assaulted Afghan detainees in 2003, using investigation methods they learned during self-defense training, Pentagon documents released Wednesday show.
Detainees at the Gardez Detention Facility in southeastern Afghanistan reported being made to kneel outside in wet clothing and being kicked and punched in the kidneys, nose and knees if they moved, according to the documents.
A 2006 Army review concluded that the detainees were not abused but that the incident revealed "misconduct that warrants further action."
The documents, which were turned over Wednesday evening to the American Civil Liberties Union, focus on the 2003 death of Afghan detainee Jamal Nasser, who died in U.S. custody at the Gardez facility.
The documents detail interrogation techniques used on eight detainees, including Nasser, who were suspected of weapons trafficking.
The Army review found that abuse did not cause Nasser's death. But the documents include interviews with some interrogators who acknowledged slapping the detainees - a technique they learned during survival training at the Army's SERE school. SERE stands for Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape.
"You say you gave permission for (redacted) to hit detainees during interrogations; did you have a memorandum or order from your higher headquarters authorizing that?" a military criminal investigator asked one of the interrogators, according to a November 2004 transcript among the more than 300 pages of documents.
"No, I did not have a memorandum and had not seen one," the interrogator answered, according to the transcript. "I used tactics that were used in SERE."
The investigator continued: "Did you see (redacted) hit detainees during the interviews?"
"Yes, open or closed slaps, not punches," the interrogator answered.
In another interview that day, according to the documents, the Army investigator asks whether "you ever heard of a tactic of pouring cold water or a water and snow mix on persons captured?"
"They do spray cold water on prisoners," the interrogator answered, referring to SERE lessons. That interrogator was unaware, however, of men in his unit pouring cold water over the detainees, as the Afghans later complained.
ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said such interrogation techniques are taught at SERE schools only to show soldiers how to withstand them from enemy captors. She called the methods, when used together, a form of torture.
"They were intended to be defensive methods, not offensive methods," Singh said. "This raises serious questions about the interrogation methods that were being applied in Afghanistan."
SERE methods were also used on detainees by military interrogators in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Singh said.
The Pentagon and the Army did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday evening.
The 2004 criminal inquiry of Nasser's death was among a string of probes into alleged abuse of prisoners in U.S. jails in Afghanistan.
Trying to deflect the kind of scandal that followed the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan ordered a review of their secretive network of about 20 jails at bases across Afghanistan.
Nasser was among eight detainees who were held at Gardez for between 18 and 20 days. The Army concluded he died of a stomach ailment.
By Lara Jakes Jordan
Washington - Military interrogators assaulted Afghan detainees in 2003, using investigation methods they learned during self-defense training, Pentagon documents released Wednesday show.
Detainees at the Gardez Detention Facility in southeastern Afghanistan reported being made to kneel outside in wet clothing and being kicked and punched in the kidneys, nose and knees if they moved, according to the documents.
A 2006 Army review concluded that the detainees were not abused but that the incident revealed "misconduct that warrants further action."
The documents, which were turned over Wednesday evening to the American Civil Liberties Union, focus on the 2003 death of Afghan detainee Jamal Nasser, who died in U.S. custody at the Gardez facility.
The documents detail interrogation techniques used on eight detainees, including Nasser, who were suspected of weapons trafficking.
The Army review found that abuse did not cause Nasser's death. But the documents include interviews with some interrogators who acknowledged slapping the detainees - a technique they learned during survival training at the Army's SERE school. SERE stands for Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape.
"You say you gave permission for (redacted) to hit detainees during interrogations; did you have a memorandum or order from your higher headquarters authorizing that?" a military criminal investigator asked one of the interrogators, according to a November 2004 transcript among the more than 300 pages of documents.
"No, I did not have a memorandum and had not seen one," the interrogator answered, according to the transcript. "I used tactics that were used in SERE."
The investigator continued: "Did you see (redacted) hit detainees during the interviews?"
"Yes, open or closed slaps, not punches," the interrogator answered.
In another interview that day, according to the documents, the Army investigator asks whether "you ever heard of a tactic of pouring cold water or a water and snow mix on persons captured?"
"They do spray cold water on prisoners," the interrogator answered, referring to SERE lessons. That interrogator was unaware, however, of men in his unit pouring cold water over the detainees, as the Afghans later complained.
ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said such interrogation techniques are taught at SERE schools only to show soldiers how to withstand them from enemy captors. She called the methods, when used together, a form of torture.
"They were intended to be defensive methods, not offensive methods," Singh said. "This raises serious questions about the interrogation methods that were being applied in Afghanistan."
SERE methods were also used on detainees by military interrogators in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Singh said.
The Pentagon and the Army did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday evening.
The 2004 criminal inquiry of Nasser's death was among a string of probes into alleged abuse of prisoners in U.S. jails in Afghanistan.
Trying to deflect the kind of scandal that followed the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan ordered a review of their secretive network of about 20 jails at bases across Afghanistan.
Nasser was among eight detainees who were held at Gardez for between 18 and 20 days. The Army concluded he died of a stomach ailment.
Merrill Lynch to cut 4,000 jobs after $6.5bn writedown
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Merrill Lynch, the world’s largest stockbroker, is to cut 4,000 jobs after writing-off a further $6 billion (£3 billion) on toxic assets and making its third consecutive quarterly loss.
The broker, which has already written off $24 billion since the sub-prime mortgage crisis broke last year, said its first-quarter net loss was $1.96 billion compared with net profit of $2.16 billion in the first three months of 2007. Analysts had estimated a loss of $1.72 billion. Over the same quarter, revenues plunged by 69 per cent to $2.9 billion.
Merrill Lynch has reduced its staff numbers by 1,100 to 63,100 employees during the first quarter. However, it will cut numbers by a further 10 per cent by reducing support staff as well as employees in markets and investment banking where fees fell by 40 per cent in the first quarter.
Despite the losses, John Thain, chairman and chief executive at Merrill Lynch, maintained that the brokerage remained "well-capitalised"
In December, Merrill Lynch raised $7.5 billion in cash to shore up its finances by selling a near 10 per cent stake for $6.2 billion to two investors – Temasek Holdings, the Singaporean state-run fund, and Davis Selected Advisors, an American fund manager. It raised the remaining sum by selling part of its lending business to GE Capital.
Commenting on today's results, Mr Thain said: "Despite this quarter's loss, Merrill Lynch's underlying businesses produced solid results in a difficult market environment."
The first-quarter write-downs included $2.6 billion to account for the falling value of mortgage-backed securities, such as collateralised debt obligations, or pools of bonds.
Merrill Lynch is currently being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into how the bank accounted for its sub-prime mortgage investment portfolio. At the same time, federal prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into the Wall Street firm.
The SEC had been scrutinising Merrill Lynch informally since October to establish whether the brokerage knew more than it revealed to shareholders about the value of its sub-prime investments before announcing its third-quarter results.
Prior to announcing its third quarter results, the bank said it expected write-downs on its assets to top $5 billion. In fact, Merrill Lynch wrote-off $8.4 billion, resulting in a $2.24 billion loss that cost Mr Thain's predecessor, Stan O’Neal, his job. In the fourth quarter, $16 billion of write-downs left Merrill with an overall loss of $9.8billion for the period.
The bank revealed today that it reduced the value of bond insurance contracts by $3 billion, and lowered the value of leveraged loans, made to finance private equity deals, by $925 million.
Merrill revealed its results a day after JPMorgan announced $5.1billion of first quarter write-downs and provisions and gave warning that its credit-related losses would probably continue to grow through the remainder of the year, or beyond. Citigroup is due to report its first quarter results tomorrow.
Merrill Lynch, the world’s largest stockbroker, is to cut 4,000 jobs after writing-off a further $6 billion (£3 billion) on toxic assets and making its third consecutive quarterly loss.
The broker, which has already written off $24 billion since the sub-prime mortgage crisis broke last year, said its first-quarter net loss was $1.96 billion compared with net profit of $2.16 billion in the first three months of 2007. Analysts had estimated a loss of $1.72 billion. Over the same quarter, revenues plunged by 69 per cent to $2.9 billion.
Merrill Lynch has reduced its staff numbers by 1,100 to 63,100 employees during the first quarter. However, it will cut numbers by a further 10 per cent by reducing support staff as well as employees in markets and investment banking where fees fell by 40 per cent in the first quarter.
Despite the losses, John Thain, chairman and chief executive at Merrill Lynch, maintained that the brokerage remained "well-capitalised"
In December, Merrill Lynch raised $7.5 billion in cash to shore up its finances by selling a near 10 per cent stake for $6.2 billion to two investors – Temasek Holdings, the Singaporean state-run fund, and Davis Selected Advisors, an American fund manager. It raised the remaining sum by selling part of its lending business to GE Capital.
Commenting on today's results, Mr Thain said: "Despite this quarter's loss, Merrill Lynch's underlying businesses produced solid results in a difficult market environment."
The first-quarter write-downs included $2.6 billion to account for the falling value of mortgage-backed securities, such as collateralised debt obligations, or pools of bonds.
Merrill Lynch is currently being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into how the bank accounted for its sub-prime mortgage investment portfolio. At the same time, federal prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into the Wall Street firm.
The SEC had been scrutinising Merrill Lynch informally since October to establish whether the brokerage knew more than it revealed to shareholders about the value of its sub-prime investments before announcing its third-quarter results.
Prior to announcing its third quarter results, the bank said it expected write-downs on its assets to top $5 billion. In fact, Merrill Lynch wrote-off $8.4 billion, resulting in a $2.24 billion loss that cost Mr Thain's predecessor, Stan O’Neal, his job. In the fourth quarter, $16 billion of write-downs left Merrill with an overall loss of $9.8billion for the period.
The bank revealed today that it reduced the value of bond insurance contracts by $3 billion, and lowered the value of leveraged loans, made to finance private equity deals, by $925 million.
Merrill revealed its results a day after JPMorgan announced $5.1billion of first quarter write-downs and provisions and gave warning that its credit-related losses would probably continue to grow through the remainder of the year, or beyond. Citigroup is due to report its first quarter results tomorrow.
Pentagon confirms prisoner abuse
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By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Military interrogators assaulted Afghan detainees in 2003, using investigation methods they learned during self-defense training, Pentagon documents released Wednesday show.
Detainees at the Gardez Detention Facility in southeastern Afghanistan reported being made to kneel outside in wet clothing and being kicked and punched in the kidneys, nose and knees if they moved, according to the documents.
A 2006 Army review concluded that the detainees were not abused but that the incident revealed "misconduct that warrants further action."
The documents, which were turned over Wednesday evening to the American Civil Liberties Union, focus on the 2003 death of Afghan detainee Jamal Nasser, who died in U.S. custody at the Gardez facility.
The documents detail interrogation techniques used on eight detainees, including Nasser, who were suspected of weapons trafficking.
The Army review found that abuse did not cause Nasser's death. But the documents include interviews with some interrogators who acknowledged slapping the detainees — a technique they learned during survival training at the Army's SERE school. SERE stands for Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape.
"You say you gave permission for (redacted) to hit detainees during interrogations; did you have a memorandum or order from your higher headquarters authorizing that?" a military criminal investigator asked one of the interrogators, according to a November 2004 transcript among the more than 300 pages of documents.
"No, I did not have a memorandum and had not seen one," the interrogator answered, according to the transcript. "I used tactics that were used in SERE."
The investigator continued: "Did you see (redacted) hit detainees during the interviews?"
"Yes, open or closed slaps, not punches," the interrogator answered.
In another interview that day, according to the documents, the Army investigator asks whether "you ever heard of a tactic of pouring cold water or a water and snow mix on persons captured?"
"They do spray cold water on prisoners," the interrogator answered, referring to SERE lessons. That interrogator was unaware, however, of men in his unit pouring cold water over the detainees, as the Afghans later complained.
ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said such interrogation techniques are taught at SERE schools only to show soldiers how to withstand them from enemy captors. She called the methods, when used together, a form of torture.
"They were intended to be defensive methods, not offensive methods," Singh said. "This raises serious questions about the interrogation methods that were being applied in Afghanistan."
SERE methods were also used on detainees by military interrogators in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Singh said.
The Pentagon and the Army did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday evening.
The 2004 criminal inquiry of Nasser's death was among a string of probes into alleged abuse of prisoners in U.S. jails in Afghanistan.
Trying to deflect the kind of scandal that followed the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan ordered a review of their secretive network of about 20 jails at bases across Afghanistan.
Nasser was among eight detainees who were held at Gardez for between 18 and 20 days. The Army concluded he died of a stomach ailment.
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Military interrogators assaulted Afghan detainees in 2003, using investigation methods they learned during self-defense training, Pentagon documents released Wednesday show.
Detainees at the Gardez Detention Facility in southeastern Afghanistan reported being made to kneel outside in wet clothing and being kicked and punched in the kidneys, nose and knees if they moved, according to the documents.
A 2006 Army review concluded that the detainees were not abused but that the incident revealed "misconduct that warrants further action."
The documents, which were turned over Wednesday evening to the American Civil Liberties Union, focus on the 2003 death of Afghan detainee Jamal Nasser, who died in U.S. custody at the Gardez facility.
The documents detail interrogation techniques used on eight detainees, including Nasser, who were suspected of weapons trafficking.
The Army review found that abuse did not cause Nasser's death. But the documents include interviews with some interrogators who acknowledged slapping the detainees — a technique they learned during survival training at the Army's SERE school. SERE stands for Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape.
"You say you gave permission for (redacted) to hit detainees during interrogations; did you have a memorandum or order from your higher headquarters authorizing that?" a military criminal investigator asked one of the interrogators, according to a November 2004 transcript among the more than 300 pages of documents.
"No, I did not have a memorandum and had not seen one," the interrogator answered, according to the transcript. "I used tactics that were used in SERE."
The investigator continued: "Did you see (redacted) hit detainees during the interviews?"
"Yes, open or closed slaps, not punches," the interrogator answered.
In another interview that day, according to the documents, the Army investigator asks whether "you ever heard of a tactic of pouring cold water or a water and snow mix on persons captured?"
"They do spray cold water on prisoners," the interrogator answered, referring to SERE lessons. That interrogator was unaware, however, of men in his unit pouring cold water over the detainees, as the Afghans later complained.
ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said such interrogation techniques are taught at SERE schools only to show soldiers how to withstand them from enemy captors. She called the methods, when used together, a form of torture.
"They were intended to be defensive methods, not offensive methods," Singh said. "This raises serious questions about the interrogation methods that were being applied in Afghanistan."
SERE methods were also used on detainees by military interrogators in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Singh said.
The Pentagon and the Army did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday evening.
The 2004 criminal inquiry of Nasser's death was among a string of probes into alleged abuse of prisoners in U.S. jails in Afghanistan.
Trying to deflect the kind of scandal that followed the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan ordered a review of their secretive network of about 20 jails at bases across Afghanistan.
Nasser was among eight detainees who were held at Gardez for between 18 and 20 days. The Army concluded he died of a stomach ailment.
Ron Paul: US Fed Responsible for the Credit Crisis
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By Congressman Ron Paul
By Congressman Ron Paul
There has been a lot of talk in the news recently about the Federal Reserve and the actions it has taken over the past few months. Many media pundits have been bending over backwards to praise the Fed for supposedly restoring stability to the market. This interpretation of the Fed’s actions couldn’t be further from the truth
The current market crisis began because of Federal Reserve monetary policy during the early 2000s in which the Fed lowered the interest rate to a below-market rate. The artificially low rates led to over investment in housing and other malinvestments. When the first indications of market trouble began back in August of 2007, instead of holding back and allowing bad decision-makers to suffer the consequences of their actions, the Federal Reserve took aggressive, inflationary action to ensure that large Wall Street firms would not lose money. It began by lowering the discount rates, the rates of interest charged to banks who borrow directly from the Fed, and lengthening the terms of such loans. This eliminated much of the stigma from discount window borrowing and enabled troubled banks to come to the Fed directly for funding, pay only a slightly higher interest rate but also secure these loans for a period longer than just overnight.
After the massive increase in discount window lending proved to be ineffective, the Fed became more and more creative with its funding arrangements. It has since created the Term Auction Facility (TAF), the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF), and the Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF). The upshot of all of these new programs is that through auctions of securities or through deposits of collateral, the Fed is pushing hundreds of billions of dollars of funding into the financial system in a misguided attempt to shore up the stability of the system.
The PDCF in particular is a departure from the established pattern of Fed intervention because it targets the primary dealers, the largest investment banks who purchase government securities directly from the New York Fed. These banks have never before been allowed to borrow from the Fed, but thanks to the Fed Board of Governors, these investment banks can now receive loans from the Fed in exchange for securities which will in all likelihood soon lose much of their value.
The net effect of all this new funding has been to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the financial system and bail out banks whose poor decision making should have caused them to go out of business. Instead of being forced to learn their lesson, these poor-performing banks are being rewarded for their financial mismanagement, and the ultimate cost of this bailout will fall on the American taxpayers. Already this new money flowing into the system is spurring talk of the next speculative bubble, possibly this time in commodities.
Worst of all, the Treasury Department has recently proposed that the Federal Reserve, which was responsible for the housing bubble and subprime crisis in the first place, be rewarded for all its intervention by being turned into a super-regulator. The Treasury foresees the Fed as the guarantor of market stability, with oversight over any financial institution that could pose a threat to the financial system. Rewarding poor performing financial institutions is bad enough, but rewarding the institution that enabled the current economic crisis is unconscionable.
Dr. Ron Paul
Project Freedom
Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent voting record in the House of Representatives: Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill.
Feds to collect DNA from every person they arrest
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By EILEEN SULLIVAN
The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency — a move intended to prevent violent crime but which also is raising concerns about the privacy of innocent people.
Using authority granted by Congress, the government also plans to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are detained, whether they have been charged or not. The DNA would be collected through a cheek swab, Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said Wednesday. That would be a departure from current practice, which limits DNA collection to convicted felons.
Expanding the DNA database, known as CODIS, raises civil liberties questions about the potential for misuse of such personal information, such as family ties and genetic conditions.
Ablin said the DNA collection would be subject to the same privacy laws applied to current DNA sampling. That means none of it would be used for identifying genetic traits, diseases or disorders.
Congress gave the Justice Department the authority to expand DNA collection in two different laws passed in 2005 and 2006.
There are dozens of federal law enforcement agencies, ranging from the FBI to the Library of Congress Police. The federal government estimates it makes about 140,000 arrests each year.
Justice officials estimate the new collecting requirements would add DNA from an additional 1.2 million people to the database each year.
Those who support the expanded collection believe that DNA sampling could get violent criminals off the streets and prevent them from committing more crimes.
A Chicago study in 2005 found that 53 murders and rapes could have been prevented if a DNA sample had been collected upon arrest.
"Many innocent lives could have been saved had the government began this kind of DNA sampling in the 1990s when the technology to do so first became available," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said. Kyl sponsored the 2005 law that gave the Justice Department this authority.
Thirteen states have similar laws: Alaska, Arizona, California, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
The new regulation would mean that the federal government could store DNA samples of people who are not guilty of any crime, said Jesselyn McCurdy, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
"Now innocent people's DNA will be put into this huge CODIS database, and it will be very difficult for them to get it out if they are not charged or convicted of a crime," McCurdy said.
If a person is arrested but not convicted, he or she can ask the Justice Department to destroy the sample.
The Homeland Security Department — the federal agency charged with policing immigration — supports the new rule.
"DNA is a proven law-enforcement tool," DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said.
The rule would not allow for DNA samples to be collected from immigrants who are legally in the United States or those being processed for admission, unless the person was arrested.
The proposed rule is being published in the Federal Register. That will be followed by a 30-day comment period.
By EILEEN SULLIVAN
The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency — a move intended to prevent violent crime but which also is raising concerns about the privacy of innocent people.
Using authority granted by Congress, the government also plans to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are detained, whether they have been charged or not. The DNA would be collected through a cheek swab, Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said Wednesday. That would be a departure from current practice, which limits DNA collection to convicted felons.
Expanding the DNA database, known as CODIS, raises civil liberties questions about the potential for misuse of such personal information, such as family ties and genetic conditions.
Ablin said the DNA collection would be subject to the same privacy laws applied to current DNA sampling. That means none of it would be used for identifying genetic traits, diseases or disorders.
Congress gave the Justice Department the authority to expand DNA collection in two different laws passed in 2005 and 2006.
There are dozens of federal law enforcement agencies, ranging from the FBI to the Library of Congress Police. The federal government estimates it makes about 140,000 arrests each year.
Justice officials estimate the new collecting requirements would add DNA from an additional 1.2 million people to the database each year.
Those who support the expanded collection believe that DNA sampling could get violent criminals off the streets and prevent them from committing more crimes.
A Chicago study in 2005 found that 53 murders and rapes could have been prevented if a DNA sample had been collected upon arrest.
"Many innocent lives could have been saved had the government began this kind of DNA sampling in the 1990s when the technology to do so first became available," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said. Kyl sponsored the 2005 law that gave the Justice Department this authority.
Thirteen states have similar laws: Alaska, Arizona, California, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
The new regulation would mean that the federal government could store DNA samples of people who are not guilty of any crime, said Jesselyn McCurdy, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
"Now innocent people's DNA will be put into this huge CODIS database, and it will be very difficult for them to get it out if they are not charged or convicted of a crime," McCurdy said.
If a person is arrested but not convicted, he or she can ask the Justice Department to destroy the sample.
The Homeland Security Department — the federal agency charged with policing immigration — supports the new rule.
"DNA is a proven law-enforcement tool," DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said.
The rule would not allow for DNA samples to be collected from immigrants who are legally in the United States or those being processed for admission, unless the person was arrested.
The proposed rule is being published in the Federal Register. That will be followed by a 30-day comment period.
The Supreme Court Brings Back the Death Penalty
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By Liliana Segura
By Liliana Segura
The Supreme Court just made a decision that will send prisoners across the country to their deaths.
In a 7 to 2 ruling, it upheld lethal injection as currently carried out as Constitutional, ending a de-facto moratorium on state-sanctioned murder.
Executions in the United States had been on hold since last September, when the Court decided to take on the case of Baze v. Reese. At stake was the question of whether Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol violates the 8th Amendment prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment." The three-drug killing technique or some version of it -- a paralytic, a barbiturate, and a dose of potassium chloride -- is used in 35 out of 36 death penalty states. (Nebraska, whose sole method of execution used to be electrocution, ruled the electric chair unconstitutional this past February.) As states froze their execution machinery to await the justices’ ruling, not a single execution was carried out for seven months. Last-minute stays of execution aside, it was a glimpse into what the United States might look like without the death penalty.
Baze represented a critical development in death penalty litigation, the first time the Court has considered a specific method of execution since it upheld the firing squad in 1878. Ever since the Supreme Court’s last-minute intervention in the case of Florida death row prisoner Clarence Hill -- he was strapped onto a gurney with intravenous lines in his arms -- in January 2006, the stage had been set for a showdown on lethal injection. When the Court ruled later that year that prisoners could appeal their death sentences based on the possibility that lethal injection is cruel and unusual, a wave of appeals swept the country.
Now, those prisoners have lost significant legal footing and with it, very possibly, the right to live. "While the opinion appeared to leave open a chance that some further challenges could be made to the use of lethal drugs under a specific procedure in another state," explained Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog soon after the decision came down. "...The opinion also appeared to mean that the three drugs now used in all of those jurisdictions do not, alone or in combination, fail the Court’s new standard."
In other words, the country’s preferred execution method is now insulated by a legal precedent.
This is a serious blow to death penalty opponents who hoped that disabling the death machinery would lead to abolishing it. It is also, in many ways, the result of a frustrating failure of legal strategy. The attorneys who argued Baze did so on very narrow grounds, contending that Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol is broken, but not beyond repair. "One needs a person trained in monitoring anesthetic death to participate in the process," defense attorney Donald Verrilli suggested, not only encouraging the controversial notion that medical professionals have a role in carrying out executions, but also encouraging the Court to treat botched executions as an aberration; freak accidents that rarely occur. "The Court has held that an isolated mishap alone does not violate the Eighth Amendment," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the decision. But states from California to Florida have had lethal injections go horribly wrong in recent years; with states often secretive about their execution procedures -- and many not keeping data on file about them -- how "isolated" these incidents are is largely unknown.
Lethal injection is often described as a "three-drug cocktail." The first drug is the barbiturate sodium thiopental; the second, a paralytic called pancuronium bromide, and the third, potassium chloride, which stops the heart. The technique has been favored by death penalty supporters who find appeal in its medical veneer. In theory, if the drugs are administered correctly, the victim will die quickly and painlessly. But in reality, executioners, contrary to the assumption of many, usually have little or no medical training. If they wrongly administer the first drug, the result can be grisly.
Take the case of Joseph A. Clark, a death row prisoner in Ohio. On the day of his execution in May 2006, it took the execution team 22 minutes to find a vein -- a not uncommon problem. Shortly after the catheter was finally inserted, Clark’s vein collapsed and his arm began to swell, at which point, he lifted his head. "He said ’It don’t work, it don’t work, it don’t work, it ain’t working,’ about five times," one witness later described. At that point, the gurney was concealed by curtains. Thirty minutes later, there was "moaning, crying out and guttural noises." An hour and a half after the start of the execution, Clark was dead.
Then there are instances where the paralytic drug can make it impossible to tell if something has gone wrong. Since a paralyzed prisoner cannot cry out or move if in pain, clues that he or she suffered only come with the autopsy. In the case of Florida prisoner Angel Diaz in December 2006, he started to move following the first drug, "squinting and grimacing as he tried to mouth words," according to the Death Penalty Information Center. "A second dose was then administered, and 34 minutes passed before Mr. Diaz was declared dead. At first a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Corrections claimed that this was because Mr. Diaz had some sort of liver disease. After performing an autopsy, the Medical Examiner, Dr. William Hamilton, stated that Mr. Diaz’s liver was undamaged, but that the needle had gone through Mr. Diaz’s vein and out the other side, so the deadly chemicals were injected into soft tissue, rather than the vein." Angel Diaz was quite literally tortured to death.
The cruel irony is that the paralyzing agent is totally pointless; serving no purpose aside from masking the effects of the lethal chemicals on a prisoner’s body. In fact, veterinarians long ago decided not to use it for the that very reason. But death row prisoners, despite being human beings, do not inspire the humane treatment that animals do -- and twisted logic is offered to keep the paralyzing drug in place. "The purpose it serves," argued Roy Englert, the attorney representing Kentucky before the Court, "is the purpose of dignifying the process for the benefit of the inmate and for the benefit of the witnesses." In reality, it is used to "dignify the process" for the benefit of the state. It makes murder look a little less murderous.
For legal experts, the Baze decision is not a major surprise and in fact, contains some interesting language about the future of death penalty litigation. ’’I am now convinced that this case will generate debate not only about the constitutionality of the three-drug protocol, and specifically about the justification for the use of the paralytic agent, pancuronium bromide, but also about the justification for the death penalty itself,’’ wrote Justice Stevens, who nonetheless concurred with the decision. Justice John Paul Stevens, who also ruled with the majority, actually went on to call for an end to the death penalty, saying it is "becoming more and more anachronistic." The variety of opinions expressed by the justices -- a "plurality" in legal terms -- in the rather glib interpretation of one expert blogger, "provides a little something for everyone." Unfortunately, for prisoners granted a temporary reprieve by the seven-month-long de facto moratorium, what the decision provides is death.
As they have since the return of the American death penalty in 1976, defense attorneys will find new legal arguments to try to spare their clients’ lives. But how many prisoners will die before another opportunity arrives like the one presented by Baze? How many of them are on death row because they are poor or black? How many of them are innocent?
As Marlene Martin, executive director of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty says, "I think of people like Troy Davis, Rodney Reed and Timothy McKinney -- all on death row, all African American, all poor and almost all surely innocent. What does this decision mean for them and the countless others like them?" As executions resume in a country with more than 3,000 people on death row -- whose names are unknown to the vast majority of Americans -- it is a question not enough people are willing to ask.
Liliana Segura is a staff writer, editor of Rights & Liberties Special Coverage, and a board member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.
Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation
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By Onnesha Roychoudhuri
By Onnesha Roychoudhuri
While we’ve now become accustomed to the barrage of prescription drug commercials on prime-time TV, it’s jarring to learn that this advertising is legal only in the United States and New Zealand. The pharmaceutical industry doesn’t just target Americans directly, but also spends roughly $25,000 per physician per year. With the aid of information from data mining companies, a pharmaceutical representative knows exactly how many prescriptions for what medication a doctor has written, allowing the industry to individually target them.
How Americans came to this fraught relationship with the pharmaceutical industry and its drugs -- particularly antidepressants -- is the subject of Charles Barber’s new book, Comfortably Numb. A veteran of mental health programs in homeless shelters and a lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, Barber trains his eye to the confluence of science and culture that have led to the widespread prescribing of medications once reserved for the most serious cases.
While the field of neuroscience continues to churn out new data about the way our brains work, Barber is quick to remind us how much more is yet to be understood. Barber recently spoke with AlterNet about how less sexy treatments like social interventions and therapies can be just as effective in changing the brain.
Onnesha Roychoudhuri: What led you to write the book?
Charles Barber: When I started in the mental health field in the late ’80s there wasn’t really a name for what I did. If I talked to professional, educated people, they didn’t understand psychiatric diagnoses or medications. Then, 10 years later, people were very up on diagnoses, they were sympathetic to what I was doing, and there was now a name for the field: mental health. Many of them were taking the same medications that my clients were. There was a series of events over the late ’80s and early ’90s that set all that up. The main thing being Prozac and its cousins Paxil and Zoloft, which became totally mainstream; the TV advertising of drugs in the mid-’90s, well-known figures going public with their clinical depression, and a lot of subsequent pop culture stuff: The Sopranos and A Beautiful Mind, for example. All of this brought psychiatry, particularly medications, into the fore.
OR: Can you talk about your involvement in the mental health field and what it has enabled you to observe?
CB: I fell into the field for a lot of different reasons. I worked in psychiatric homeless shelter programs for about 10 years in New York -- Bellevue being the most well-known. So I was working with the really seriously mentally ill, many of whom had been in and out of prisons and state psychiatric facilities and homeless shelters. What I found was that psychiatry, at least for certain diagnoses, has confused the really serious forms of the illness with the far lesser forms. The best example is depression. Many of the folks that I worked with suffered from severe depression. I make the distinction in the book between big "D" depression and small "d" depression. In its severe forms, it’s an absolutely brutal, horrific and malevolent illness where people are at dire risk of hurting themselves.
It’s jarring to go to a cocktail party and hear people talking about being bummed out or hear that they’re going through a divorce, and their family doctor put them on an antidepressant. There has been a confusion and conflation of this diagnosis that confuses serious disorders with far lesser conditions or, in many cases, life problems. We’ve medicalized a lot of life issues that are not mental illnesses.
OR: Just to be clear, this book is not about medication as a "bad" thing.
CB: Absolutely not. I think I make clear in the book that for serious disorders, I’ve seen the medications work really, really well. However, there are often side effects that the field has overlooked and is becoming more aware of these days. And these medications still don’t work a good percentage of the time for people with serious disorders. My critique is that the further you get away from serious or moderate disorders, where you’re treating nondisorders or marginal disorders with medication, the risk/reward calculus of the medications becomes more iffy -- particularly antidepressants.
When the SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressants like Prozac and Zoloft and Paxil first came out, they were considered pretty much side-effect-free, largely because the previous generation of antidepressants had a lot of side effects. But in the past few years, people have become more aware that they have more side effects. These effects are seen most when people are getting on and off the drugs.
OR: You write that, in 2002, more than 11 percent of American women and five percent of American men were taking antidepressants. I was struck by the high percentages, but also the fact that more than 1 in 10 women are on these medications.
CB: Depression does affect women more than men, and the marketing has capitalized on that. So women’s magazines are a place where you see a lot of ads for antidepressants and sleep aids. The U.S. accounts for two-thirds of the market for antidepressants. I don’t think anybody knows the exact utilization figures, but the finances are largely driven by the U.S. It’s a very American phenomenon in that most of the drugs were developed here. Also an American thing is the television advertising of drugs, which is illegal everywhere in the world except for New Zealand and the U.S.
OR: Throughout the book, you connect what’s going on culturally with what’s going on scientifically. You write, for instance, that SUVs and SSRIs have similar stories.
CB: That was referencing a point that Malcolm Gladwell made in an article in the New Yorker on SUVs and how many American products have been guilty of what he calls "over-performance." In other words, what they’re maximally capable of doing is much more than we really need on a day-to-day basis. SUVs can drive you up the Himalayas, but really we just need them to go to the grocery store. The same can be said of the antidepressants. They can be wonderful for people that really need them, but they’ve been indiscriminately given out to people and the utility is arguable. It’s this very American thing of focusing on the technology and sexy high-tech solutions, and not really looking at what is really needed.
OR: You say that the drugs came along at a culturally ripe moment, at a time when we had socially and politically moved away from collectively approaching problems.
CB: The arrival of Prozac in 1988 was a perfect storm, culturally and just in terms of the drug itself. In the ’70s Valium paved the way for Prozac. It was the first psychiatric drug for anxiety that became mainstream. The earlier generation of antidepressants had a lot of side effects and could be fatal in overdose, and Prozac seemed very clean by contrast. It was the first drug that you didn’t have to be crazy to take. You could be a judge or a journalist and take Valium and obviously millions of people did. It entered the culture, from the Rolling Stones’ "Mother’s Little Helper," Valley of the Dolls to celebrities talking about their Valium use.
Culturally, the ’80s were the time when we gave up on collective enterprises of doing things. The country had experienced multiple recessions, and there was a sense that a college education really didn’t get you a good job anymore. With the Reagan revolution, it was time to straighten up and "pull up your bootstraps" and do things as individuals. I think that transferred into how we took our drugs. There’s not such a huge difference between illicit and licit drugs. In the early part of the ’60s, when there was a spiritual aspect to the drug taking, people took drugs together. One of the hallmarks of the Prozac revolution is that people take them individually, and even the treatment is individualized. It used to be that if you were taking a psychiatric drug, you were probably working with a therapist, and now the large majority of people taking psychiatric drugs are in no ongoing dialogue with a caregiver.
OR: As a contrast to the American cultural relationship to antidepressants, you talk about the sale of SSRIs in Japan.
CB: There wasn’t really a term for depression in Japan. The drug companies invented one [kokoro no kaze, or "one’s soul catching cold"]. There weren’t any sales of antidepressants in Japan until the late 1990s, because they didn’t really think that depression was that much of a problem. I’m sure people were depressed in Japan, and part of it was probably underreported, but in any case, there was a different attitude. A cultural minister in Japan said they didn’t really think of depression, in its milder forms, as anything bad. Rather, they saw it as a sign of awareness and artistic sensitivity.
The drug companies put on a brilliant advertising campaign and, sure enough, the sales of antidepressants went up five-fold in a very short time. But our American sensibility is to be uncomfortable with unhappy feelings and root them out as quickly as possible. I want to be very clear not to romanticize suffering, but there can be a utility to some difficult emotions.
The American notion of happiness is a very recent phenomenon in human history. You could argue that only since WWII and really since the ’60s and ’70s has happiness been the goal. Ironically, I think if you set happiness to be your primary goal, it tends not to work out very well. The late Canadian novelist Robertson Davies said that happiness is a byproduct, and that you become happy when you’re engaged in productive activity or when you’re in a relationship with someone you love. So this idea that we have to be happy is a highly American thing and highly problematic concept.
OR: The British health [service] recommendations reveal a pretty different relationship to depression.
CB: The clinical guidelines to the National Health Service for mild depression recommend watchful waiting, diet and exercise, self-help and counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, and then if all those things don’t work, to try antidepressants. Our de facto practice in the United States is pretty much the opposite. I think a critical development that coincides with the Prozac entry into the culture is that family doctors now prescribe most antidepressants. It used to be that psychiatric drugs were primarily prescribed by psychiatrists. Family doctors just realistically aren’t going to know cognitive behavioral therapists to refer people to. Or they don’t know the research on diet and exercise on even severe depression. So, managed care is yet another factor in the move towards the quick and expedient approach, which is hastily writing antidepressant prescriptions rather than plumbing the larger issues.
OR: And you say that only 20 percent of those prescribed a medication then have a follow up.
CB: The reality is that in most cases a family doctor is writing the prescription, and maybe you’ll see them six months or a year later. In most cases, no one is really following the treatment. There are people who have difficulties going on and off the medication, and it seems to me irresponsible that there’s no regular monitoring. I would argue that psychiatrists should really be the people prescribing and monitoring, as well as therapists who will be talking to a patient about how the drugs are going and then can relay that to a doctor.
OR: In the analysis of the FDA under the Bush administration, you quote a scientist who says, "There is a remarkable amount of pressure placed on reviewers to find creative ways to approve problematic drugs." This was an eerie echo of the drive to find intelligence to justify the Iraq war. Also disconcerting was the information on the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA). Can you explain its impact?
CB: This dates to the early ’90s. Before then, the money for drug evaluation was public money. Now, about 50 percent of the money to evaluate drugs is paid for by the drug companies. In the latest iteration of PDUFA, it even called for some of the drug company money to pay for the rent at a new FDA facility in Silver Spring. The fact that the drug companies are paying the bills can affect one’s judgment. I would call for two reforms: One would be getting the drug ads off television and fully public financing of FDA drug evaluation.
OR: How successful are those TV ads in increasing demand?
CB: I think they’ve been extraordinarily effective. The evidence shows that they influence patient habits and prescribing habits. They also focus on the top 20 or so blockbuster drugs -- a billion or more in sales. We all know the names of these: Nexium, Prozac, Zoloft, Lipitor. They have become household names and at times household staples. The fact that they’re advertised next to toothpaste and Chevrolet makes them seem like they’re toothpaste and Chevrolet. But drugs are powerful agents.
While illicit drug use has declined among younger people in the last 10 to 15 years, the abuse of prescription drugs has soared. Part of that is their omnipresence, and part of it is the perception of kids who grow up on these ads that make the drugs seem like toothpaste.
At a more technical level, there are studies showing that when doctors are asked for antidepressants, they’re more likely to prescribe them even if the patient isn’t genuinely depressed. The patient request makes a huge difference. The advertising of drugs is unpopular among many doctors, because they feel like patients have really incomplete and naive information about the drugs and yet put pressure on them to prescribe it.
OR: You also talk about how there is so much money going into these drugs that there is a pressure to come up with as many uses for the drug as possible. You cite the irony of Zoloft’s slogan "No. 1 for millions of reasons."
CB: Drug companies can’t advertise for diagnoses that aren’t FDA prescribed, but there has been a huge expansion of diagnosis. The first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) came out in the 1950s, and it had 50 or 60 diagnoses; the latest one has over 300. There is also off-label prescribing, which means prescribing by an individual doctor for use that’s not FDA approved. That has also gone up a lot.
OR: You also write that it seems as though diagnoses follow the pills available to treat them.
CB: Over the course of the ’90s, SSRIs were allowed to be prescribed for a number of conditions. I think at a cultural level, when Valium was king in the ’60s and ’70s, if people talked about a kind of societal disorder, it was anxiety. It was the "age of anxiety." Then, when Prozac was king in the 1990s, if people talked about a broad issue, it was depression. And so our perception of what bothers us follows the drugs that are most in currency at that time.
OR: You mention the dramatic increase of diagnoses in the DSM. Can you give some examples of what diagnoses are now included?
CB: For example, adjustment disorder is a diagnostic category in the DSM, and essentially it’s having a difficult time dealing with a major life change. There are categories such as "phase of life problem" and "sibling relational problem." These might be very painful issues, but are they mental illnesses? A hundred years ago psychiatry included a lot of treatments that were brutal, but it concentrated on serious disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression. Psychiatry has been sufficiently diluted by the expansion of diagnosis and the way that it has entered the culture, that we’ve created people with far lesser conditions and arguably no conditions whatsoever.
The great irony is that there hasn’t been much traction in people with severe mental illness -- the kind of people that I’ve worked with. The rates of their retention and treatment haven’t really improved much in the last 20 years. You could argue that your chances of being in treatment go up as the severity of your condition goes down. I think there should be an emphasis, in any branch of medicine, on the most ill people first. In psychiatry, it has sort of been the opposite of that.
OR: In addition to the $22 billion that the pharmaceutical industry spends a year to market directly to doctors, I was shocked to read about the role that data mining plays in targeting doctors with marketing.
CB: The level of access struck me as remarkable. Data mining companies track individual doctors and what they’re prescribing, and then sell this information to pharmaceutical companies. They can then target doctors. Nobody knows about this, least of all the patient.
OR: We all know about the massive scope of the pharmaceutical industry and yet, despite all this money, you talk about how there haven’t been many new drugs. Rather, we’re seeing a lot of what you call "me-too" drugs that are slight variants of the same old thing. It echoes the publishing industry in terms of larger companies not wanting to take chances on anything new when they have a formula for what makes a lot of money.
CB: They call it the "pipeline problem." There haven’t been many breakthrough drugs in psychiatry. The breakthrough drug happened in the 1950s with Thorazine, and most of the anti-psychotics have been variations one way or the other on that original. It’s so expensive to develop a drug that it’s much easier and economically reasonable to just play with existing paradigms. The creativity of new drugs has come from small biotech firms and universities. The big industry has been stuck in these existing paradigms for the most part.
I think the other part of it is moving away from really severe conditions that only affect a very small portion of people. It’s more profitable to hit a larger market base with people with lesser conditions or lifestyle issues. So, some of the big drugs of recent years arguably are not really about serious disorders, they’re about lifestyle issues: Viagra, Cialis, Lipitor, and antidepressants. You’re going to hit 10 percent of the population as opposed to the 2 percent that have serious depression.
OR: Throughout the book, you talk about the irony that, in the neuro-science age, psychotherapy can now be viewed as a biological treatment along with pharmaceuticals.
CB: There are a lot of very simple, straightforward approaches to depression and anxiety that can be very effective either alongside of or apart from medications, but they’re not marketed like the medications, and they don’t sell.
In a study done in 1993 at UCLA, antidepressants were given to people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Half of the patients they gave the antidepressants to and the other half they gave cognitive therapy, which is also a proven treatment for OCD. Then they did brain scans, and they found that, in the part of the brain that is associated with OCD, the activity levels had been reduced in very similar ways. There have now been many studies using the brain technology showing that psychosocial interventions and psychotherapy are capable of changing the brain in similar and different ways as the drugs. In other words, to dismiss psychotherapy as unscientific and having no durable or easily assessable impact is no longer the case. That’s not really understood by the public and even in the field there’s still this notion of "hard science" and then the rest of the people who do this mushy headed stuff that isn’t consequential.
OR: You write extensively on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Can you give a quick explanation of what it entails?
CB: It’s usually 12 to 15 highly focused, goal-oriented sessions, in which the patient collaborates with the therapist to look at the thoughts, beliefs and attitudes behind their anxiety or depression. It has also been proven to be effective for a range of conditions like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), insomnia and OCD. It allows the patient to analyze what the core beliefs are behind their issues and to look at ways of replacing them or examining them in a more accurate way. The founder of cognitive therapy found that there were a great deal of cognitive distortions or thinking errors associated with his depressed patients. They particularly had a very negative view of themselves, the future, and the world, but a lot of it based on erroneous perceptions: thinking that if something bad happened, it was always related to them. When it’s successful, cognitive therapy allows the patient to clear up some of those thinking errors, and that can have a direct effect on mood. It has since been generalized to many conditions and is the most empirically validated form of psychotherapy in the world.
OR: I think these notions of a "cure" are in part propagated by oversimplified science journalism. In the book, you write that "in just one edition of the Times, four articles appeared, each of which offered genetic and neurological explanations for behavior that a decade or two ago likely would have been analyzed in social or cultural terms. What’s the risk in couching these behaviors in genetic and neurological terms?
CB: In the ’90s, these terms and concepts started showing up like "hard-wired" for some behavior. Mental illnesses were thought of as the product of chemical imbalances, or that you’re genetically programmed a certain way. Those concepts have completely entered the culture, and you can’t pick up a publication without some latest genetic explanation of, for instance, schizophrenia. Writing about the science and talking to scientists, you learn that it’s more complicated that that. Genetic transmission can be heavily influenced by the environment itself, and so these cartoonish versions of what directs our behavior are facile. The best scientists are not prone to making these sweeping and simplistic judgments.
Eric Kandel, probably the most eminent psychiatrist in this country, writes a lot about the social influence on genes. This can be very dangerous to think of in such simple terms. In psychiatry in particular, it sets up this division of a house divided against itself: genes versus environment, psychotherapy versus drugs, or nature versus nurture. The sophisticated thinkers understand that these things work together in an infinite dance.
The pendulum is always swinging, and in the last 20 years or so it has been genetic focused. The leading genetic researcher on depression talks about depression being 50 percent genetic; that means it’s 50 percent environmental. But the way the studies are reported, it’s all hard wired and chemical imbalance-related. These things are just cartoons of the science. There is no clear chemical imbalance for any mental illness. There is no one to one relationship between any neurotransmitter.
OR: The research you cite in the book points to the fact that the brain has an incredible capacity to create new neural connections. At the same time, I recall that one study showed that the placebo effect has increased 7 percent each decade. This seems like a fascinating example of the power of faith in medicine.
CB: And also just the perception of psychiatric drugs having more and more entered the consciousness. Prozac is portrayed as a wonder drug, so people taking it think, wow, it has got to be doing something. It absolutely speaks to the cultural ways in which we regard science. These are incredibly influenced by the social dialogue. In the mid-’90s, the term "chemical imbalance" became en vogue. I was running facilities for people with severe mental illness, and a client would say to me, "I can’t go to my treatment program today, because I’ve got a chemical imbalance." There’s a social context to all of this that is not written about much.
Onnesha Roychoudhuri is a San Francisco-based writer and editor. She has written for AlterNet, the American Prospect, Salon, Mother Jones, Truthdig, In These Times, Huffington Post, and Women’s eNews.
Gaza fighting kills 20 Palestinians, including 5 children
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By DIAA HADID
Gaza combat kills 20 Palestinians, including news cameraman; 3 Israeli soldiers die in ambush
Israel struck hard against targets in Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 20 Palestinians in a day of heavy fighting that also saw three Israeli soldiers killed in a Hamas ambush.
Several civilians were among the dead — including five children and a Reuters cameraman killed while covering the conflict, according to Palestinian officials.
The surge in violence came after a relatively quiet month and threatened to unravel an Egyptian effort to mediate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
Wednesday's death toll was the highest since a broad Israeli military offensive in early March killed more than 120 Gazans, including dozens of civilians. Since then, Israel and Hamas appeared to be honoring an informal truce, though punctuated with Palestinian rocket attacks, some Israeli airstrikes and minor border skirmishes.
That changed dramatically Wednesday, with widespread violence even though there was no unusual or recent large-scale attack.
In the day's deadliest incident, an Israeli helicopter fired four missiles at targets near the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, witnesses said. At least 12 Palestinians, including five children ages 12-15, were killed, said Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Fadel Shana, a Reuters TV cameraman, was also killed along with two bystanders, apparently in an airstrike in the same area, as he was filming Israeli tank movements.
Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger called for an investigation into the death of Shana, 23. The Israeli military did not confirm its forces were responsible.
Palestinian militants ambushed an Israeli ground force in northern Gaza, killing three soldiers, the military said. The soldiers entered Gaza in pursuit of two Hamas militants who planted a bomb near the border and were ambushed by another Hamas force, Israeli defense officials said.
More troops went in to the area and came under mortar fire from militants. The army said it responded with an airstrike and identified hitting militants in the Bureij area.
In other Gaza clashes, five Palestinian militants were killed, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military said late Wednesday that its forces had withdrawn from Gaza.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the "Israeli aggression in Gaza" and urged all sides to "cooperate with Egyptian efforts to reach a truce to halt the bloody cycle of violence." Abbas is visiting Moscow and has talks scheduled with President Bush in Washington next week.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the violence cast doubt on Egyptian cease-fire efforts. "There can be no discussion of a truce in the midst of these crimes," he said, threatening revenge against Israel.
A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo for planned talks with Jimmy Carter on Thursday, and Hamas officials said the meeting would add legitimacy to their group. The former U.S. president's meetings with Hamas officials has drawn stiff criticism from the U.S. and Israel, but Carter insists it is preferable to talk to all sides of the conflict.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev called the Hamas ambush that killed three Israeli soldiers a "provocation," describing Israel's military operations as "defensive."
"The only logic here is that Hamas wants to sacrifice the civilian population of Gaza in order to advance its extremist and hateful agenda," he said.
The ambush was near the Nahal Oz terminal used by Israel to pump fuel into Gaza. The fuel supply was cut off last week after two Israeli civilians were killed in a Palestinian attack on the terminal — the only source of fuel for Gaza.
Israeli officials initially said fuel deliveries would be suspended longer because of Wednesday's ambush. But just hours after the attack, Israel resumed some shipments to Gaza's 1.4 million residents. It was not immediately clear why the decision was reversed.
Mahmoud Khuzandar, deputy director of the Gaza fuel station owners association, said eight truckloads of fuel were delivered. He said half was cooking gas and the rest was diesel fuel for Gaza's only power plant.
The fuel deliveries were expected to provide minor relief to the Gaza Strip, though they were only a tiny fraction of what the impoverished territory needs, Khuzandar said.
Israel has been cutting back on fuel and other basic supplies allowed into Gaza for months, trying to pressure Gaza's Islamic Hamas government to stop rocket attacks.
Hamas is committed to Israel's destruction, and Israel, the U.S. and European Union consider Hamas a terrorist group.
Hamas seized control of Gaza last June from forces loyal to Abbas. Its continued control of the territory, along with the near-daily fighting with Israel, has jeopardized Mideast peace efforts led by the U.S.
Israel hopes to reach a peace agreement with Abbas' West Bank government by the end of the year, as both sides promised Bush last November. But Israel says it will not carry out any accord until Abbas regains control of Gaza.
After the Reuters cameraman was killed, other cameramen rushed to the scene and found his jeep on fire, with Shana's body lying next to it. They said the jeep was marked "press" and the cameraman was wearing a flak jacket identifying him as a journalist.
As colleagues rushed toward Shana, another missile was fired, said Wissam Nassar, a photographer with the Maan news agency. "There was an airstrike. We were thrown back, myself and another person."
Dozens of Palestinian journalists converged on the hospital where Shana was pronounced dead. Shocked, many still carrying their cameras, they wept and leaned on each other for support.
The Palestinian Journalists Union declared a one-day strike for Thursday to protest the killing.
Despite near daily Israeli-Palestinian violence, casualties among journalists are rare. Only three others have been killed covering the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1992, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
By DIAA HADID
Gaza combat kills 20 Palestinians, including news cameraman; 3 Israeli soldiers die in ambush
Israel struck hard against targets in Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 20 Palestinians in a day of heavy fighting that also saw three Israeli soldiers killed in a Hamas ambush.
Several civilians were among the dead — including five children and a Reuters cameraman killed while covering the conflict, according to Palestinian officials.
The surge in violence came after a relatively quiet month and threatened to unravel an Egyptian effort to mediate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
Wednesday's death toll was the highest since a broad Israeli military offensive in early March killed more than 120 Gazans, including dozens of civilians. Since then, Israel and Hamas appeared to be honoring an informal truce, though punctuated with Palestinian rocket attacks, some Israeli airstrikes and minor border skirmishes.
That changed dramatically Wednesday, with widespread violence even though there was no unusual or recent large-scale attack.
In the day's deadliest incident, an Israeli helicopter fired four missiles at targets near the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, witnesses said. At least 12 Palestinians, including five children ages 12-15, were killed, said Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Fadel Shana, a Reuters TV cameraman, was also killed along with two bystanders, apparently in an airstrike in the same area, as he was filming Israeli tank movements.
Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger called for an investigation into the death of Shana, 23. The Israeli military did not confirm its forces were responsible.
Palestinian militants ambushed an Israeli ground force in northern Gaza, killing three soldiers, the military said. The soldiers entered Gaza in pursuit of two Hamas militants who planted a bomb near the border and were ambushed by another Hamas force, Israeli defense officials said.
More troops went in to the area and came under mortar fire from militants. The army said it responded with an airstrike and identified hitting militants in the Bureij area.
In other Gaza clashes, five Palestinian militants were killed, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military said late Wednesday that its forces had withdrawn from Gaza.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the "Israeli aggression in Gaza" and urged all sides to "cooperate with Egyptian efforts to reach a truce to halt the bloody cycle of violence." Abbas is visiting Moscow and has talks scheduled with President Bush in Washington next week.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the violence cast doubt on Egyptian cease-fire efforts. "There can be no discussion of a truce in the midst of these crimes," he said, threatening revenge against Israel.
A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo for planned talks with Jimmy Carter on Thursday, and Hamas officials said the meeting would add legitimacy to their group. The former U.S. president's meetings with Hamas officials has drawn stiff criticism from the U.S. and Israel, but Carter insists it is preferable to talk to all sides of the conflict.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev called the Hamas ambush that killed three Israeli soldiers a "provocation," describing Israel's military operations as "defensive."
"The only logic here is that Hamas wants to sacrifice the civilian population of Gaza in order to advance its extremist and hateful agenda," he said.
The ambush was near the Nahal Oz terminal used by Israel to pump fuel into Gaza. The fuel supply was cut off last week after two Israeli civilians were killed in a Palestinian attack on the terminal — the only source of fuel for Gaza.
Israeli officials initially said fuel deliveries would be suspended longer because of Wednesday's ambush. But just hours after the attack, Israel resumed some shipments to Gaza's 1.4 million residents. It was not immediately clear why the decision was reversed.
Mahmoud Khuzandar, deputy director of the Gaza fuel station owners association, said eight truckloads of fuel were delivered. He said half was cooking gas and the rest was diesel fuel for Gaza's only power plant.
The fuel deliveries were expected to provide minor relief to the Gaza Strip, though they were only a tiny fraction of what the impoverished territory needs, Khuzandar said.
Israel has been cutting back on fuel and other basic supplies allowed into Gaza for months, trying to pressure Gaza's Islamic Hamas government to stop rocket attacks.
Hamas is committed to Israel's destruction, and Israel, the U.S. and European Union consider Hamas a terrorist group.
Hamas seized control of Gaza last June from forces loyal to Abbas. Its continued control of the territory, along with the near-daily fighting with Israel, has jeopardized Mideast peace efforts led by the U.S.
Israel hopes to reach a peace agreement with Abbas' West Bank government by the end of the year, as both sides promised Bush last November. But Israel says it will not carry out any accord until Abbas regains control of Gaza.
After the Reuters cameraman was killed, other cameramen rushed to the scene and found his jeep on fire, with Shana's body lying next to it. They said the jeep was marked "press" and the cameraman was wearing a flak jacket identifying him as a journalist.
As colleagues rushed toward Shana, another missile was fired, said Wissam Nassar, a photographer with the Maan news agency. "There was an airstrike. We were thrown back, myself and another person."
Dozens of Palestinian journalists converged on the hospital where Shana was pronounced dead. Shocked, many still carrying their cameras, they wept and leaned on each other for support.
The Palestinian Journalists Union declared a one-day strike for Thursday to protest the killing.
Despite near daily Israeli-Palestinian violence, casualties among journalists are rare. Only three others have been killed covering the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1992, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Chemical in Plastic May Harm Human Growth
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By Marla Cone
A federal report finds "some concern" that fetuses, babies and children are at risk from bisphenol A. But plastics industry officials see no serious risk.
A controversial, estrogen-like chemical in plastic could be harming the development of children's brains and reproductive organs, a federal health agency concluded in a report released Tuesday.
The National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, concluded that there was "some concern" that fetuses, babies and children were in danger because bisphenol A, or BPA, harmed animals at low levels found in nearly all human bodies.
An ingredient of polycarbonate plastic, BPA is one of the most widely used synthetic chemicals in industry today. It can seep from hard plastic beverage containers such as baby bottles, as well as from liners in cans containing food and infant formula.
The federal institute is the first government agency in the U.S. to conclude that low levels of BPA could be harming humans. Its findings will be used to help regulators at federal and state environmental agencies to develop policies governing its use.
The draft report followed an 18-month review that was fraught with allegations of bias, heated disputes among scientists and the firing of a consulting company with financial ties to the chemical industry.
Some scientists suspect that exposure early in life disrupts hormones and alters genes, programming a fetus or child for breast or prostate cancer, premature female puberty, attention deficit disorders and other reproductive or neurological disorders.
In its new report, the National Toxicology Program, which reviewed about 500 laboratory animal experiments, concluded that there was "some concern" that fetuses, babies and children were at risk from BPA. It rated as "negligible" the concern for adults.
When animal fetuses or newborns are exposed, BPA "can cause changes in behavior and the brain, prostate gland, mammary gland and the age at which females attain puberty," the agency's draft report says.
"These studies only provide limited evidence for adverse effects on development and more research is needed to better understand their implications for human health," it said. "However, because these effects in animals occur at bisphenol A exposure levels similar to those experienced by humans, the possibility that bisphenol A may alter human development cannot be dismissed."
Plastics industry representatives stressed that the agency found "no serious or high-level concerns." They call the lab animal experiments inconclusive and flawed.
Steven G. Hentges of the American Chemistry Council's polycarbonate/BPA group said the findings "provide reassurance that consumers can continue to use products made from bisphenol A."
"The limited evidence for effects in laboratory animals at low doses primarily highlights opportunities for additional research to better understand whether these findings are of any significance to human health," he said.
In the key area of reproductive health, the agency reported more concern about the potential dangers to children than its advisory panel did.
The advisory panel in August found "minimal" concern about effects on the prostate and puberty after siding with the plastics industry and disqualifying many animal studies that showed effects. That drew criticism from scientists who conducted the research.
But in the new report, the National Toxicology Program overruled its panel, elevating its finding about human prostates and puberty to "some concern." It also for the first time expressed concern about effects on human mammary glands, which the panel had not addressed.
The findings "break new scientific ground" by validating the low-dose animal tests, said Anila Jacob, senior scientist at Environmental Working Group, an activist group. It "reflects a significant body of science showing that BPA may play a larger role than previously thought in a host of common health problems, including prostate cancer, breast cancer and early puberty," she said.
Frederick vom Saal, a reproductive scientist at University of Missouri-Columbia who studies BPA, said the new report was "very, very much in line" with a consensus statement signed by 38 scientists last year that said the chemical could be harming babies' brains and reproductive tracts.
"This is going to ripple around the world," vom Saal said. "The bottom line is there really is a convergence of opinion that is occurring."
Canada is expected soon to declare BPA a toxic substance, which would be followed by proposals to control its use. California and other states have considered but not adopted bans on BPA in products.
A year ago, the Los Angeles Times reported that the government was basing its BPA decision on a summary of the science drafted by a private company, Sciences International, which had financial ties to more than 50 chemical companies and groups. The company was then fired. National Toxicology Program officials audited the report and found it unbiased, so it was used to reach its conclusions.
The National Toxicology Program will accept public comments on its draft report until May 23, and it will be reviewed by a new scientific panel in June.
By Marla Cone
A federal report finds "some concern" that fetuses, babies and children are at risk from bisphenol A. But plastics industry officials see no serious risk.
A controversial, estrogen-like chemical in plastic could be harming the development of children's brains and reproductive organs, a federal health agency concluded in a report released Tuesday.
The National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, concluded that there was "some concern" that fetuses, babies and children were in danger because bisphenol A, or BPA, harmed animals at low levels found in nearly all human bodies.
An ingredient of polycarbonate plastic, BPA is one of the most widely used synthetic chemicals in industry today. It can seep from hard plastic beverage containers such as baby bottles, as well as from liners in cans containing food and infant formula.
The federal institute is the first government agency in the U.S. to conclude that low levels of BPA could be harming humans. Its findings will be used to help regulators at federal and state environmental agencies to develop policies governing its use.
The draft report followed an 18-month review that was fraught with allegations of bias, heated disputes among scientists and the firing of a consulting company with financial ties to the chemical industry.
Some scientists suspect that exposure early in life disrupts hormones and alters genes, programming a fetus or child for breast or prostate cancer, premature female puberty, attention deficit disorders and other reproductive or neurological disorders.
In its new report, the National Toxicology Program, which reviewed about 500 laboratory animal experiments, concluded that there was "some concern" that fetuses, babies and children were at risk from BPA. It rated as "negligible" the concern for adults.
When animal fetuses or newborns are exposed, BPA "can cause changes in behavior and the brain, prostate gland, mammary gland and the age at which females attain puberty," the agency's draft report says.
"These studies only provide limited evidence for adverse effects on development and more research is needed to better understand their implications for human health," it said. "However, because these effects in animals occur at bisphenol A exposure levels similar to those experienced by humans, the possibility that bisphenol A may alter human development cannot be dismissed."
Plastics industry representatives stressed that the agency found "no serious or high-level concerns." They call the lab animal experiments inconclusive and flawed.
Steven G. Hentges of the American Chemistry Council's polycarbonate/BPA group said the findings "provide reassurance that consumers can continue to use products made from bisphenol A."
"The limited evidence for effects in laboratory animals at low doses primarily highlights opportunities for additional research to better understand whether these findings are of any significance to human health," he said.
In the key area of reproductive health, the agency reported more concern about the potential dangers to children than its advisory panel did.
The advisory panel in August found "minimal" concern about effects on the prostate and puberty after siding with the plastics industry and disqualifying many animal studies that showed effects. That drew criticism from scientists who conducted the research.
But in the new report, the National Toxicology Program overruled its panel, elevating its finding about human prostates and puberty to "some concern." It also for the first time expressed concern about effects on human mammary glands, which the panel had not addressed.
The findings "break new scientific ground" by validating the low-dose animal tests, said Anila Jacob, senior scientist at Environmental Working Group, an activist group. It "reflects a significant body of science showing that BPA may play a larger role than previously thought in a host of common health problems, including prostate cancer, breast cancer and early puberty," she said.
Frederick vom Saal, a reproductive scientist at University of Missouri-Columbia who studies BPA, said the new report was "very, very much in line" with a consensus statement signed by 38 scientists last year that said the chemical could be harming babies' brains and reproductive tracts.
"This is going to ripple around the world," vom Saal said. "The bottom line is there really is a convergence of opinion that is occurring."
Canada is expected soon to declare BPA a toxic substance, which would be followed by proposals to control its use. California and other states have considered but not adopted bans on BPA in products.
A year ago, the Los Angeles Times reported that the government was basing its BPA decision on a summary of the science drafted by a private company, Sciences International, which had financial ties to more than 50 chemical companies and groups. The company was then fired. National Toxicology Program officials audited the report and found it unbiased, so it was used to reach its conclusions.
The National Toxicology Program will accept public comments on its draft report until May 23, and it will be reviewed by a new scientific panel in June.
Pentagon Seeks Authority to Train and Equip Foreign Militaries
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By Thom Shanker
Washington - Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Congress on Tuesday to grant the Pentagon permanent authority to train and equip foreign militaries, a task previously administered by the State Department, and to raise the annual budget for the effort to $750 million, a 250 percent increase.
Gates said that rapidly building up the armed forces of friendly nations to combat terrorism within their borders was "a vital and enduring military requirement" and one that should be managed by the Defense Department.
Representative Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat who is the Armed Services Committee chairman, voiced apprehension over "what appears to be the migration of State Department activities to the Department of Defense."
But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who testified with Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, expressed full support for plans to make the Defense Department the lead agency for what is known as the Global Train and Equip Program, which emphasizes rapid assistance.
The State Department also would benefit under a parallel proposal that would double the budget, to $200 million, for a program aimed at assigning civilian experts to work overseas alongside or instead of the military. That joint Pentagon-State Department effort would be led by the State Department.
The new budget proposals would not do away with traditional State Department efforts, including Foreign Military Financing, which are intended to develop relationships and ensure access over a longer period of time.
Three years ago, in an effort to more rapidly assist allied militaries, Congress authorized the Pentagon to develop the Global Train and Equip Program, but that authority expires at the end of September.
The current program has paid for parts and ammunition used by the Lebanese Army against terrorist threats in a Palestinian refugee camp as well as for helicopter spare parts, night-vision devices and night-flight training for Pakistani special forces fighting suspected members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda along the Afghan border, Gates said.
The separate State Department program that is aimed at civilians has already developed local police forces in Haiti and improved health and education programs in Colombia. The increased budget was requested to expand efforts to assign civilians to conflict zones, or potential conflict zones, to carry out tasks that now sometimes fall to military personnel.
State Department officials also said Tuesday that a cable had gone out within the last two weeks to all Foreign Service officers alerting them to the need to fill about 300 positions in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming year. If sufficient volunteers do not come forward for those hardship posts, the cable said, the State Department has the authority to compel diplomats to serve in those two countries.
The department issued a similar warning last year but was able to fill the hardship posts with volunteers.
By Thom Shanker
Washington - Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Congress on Tuesday to grant the Pentagon permanent authority to train and equip foreign militaries, a task previously administered by the State Department, and to raise the annual budget for the effort to $750 million, a 250 percent increase.
Gates said that rapidly building up the armed forces of friendly nations to combat terrorism within their borders was "a vital and enduring military requirement" and one that should be managed by the Defense Department.
Representative Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat who is the Armed Services Committee chairman, voiced apprehension over "what appears to be the migration of State Department activities to the Department of Defense."
But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who testified with Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, expressed full support for plans to make the Defense Department the lead agency for what is known as the Global Train and Equip Program, which emphasizes rapid assistance.
The State Department also would benefit under a parallel proposal that would double the budget, to $200 million, for a program aimed at assigning civilian experts to work overseas alongside or instead of the military. That joint Pentagon-State Department effort would be led by the State Department.
The new budget proposals would not do away with traditional State Department efforts, including Foreign Military Financing, which are intended to develop relationships and ensure access over a longer period of time.
Three years ago, in an effort to more rapidly assist allied militaries, Congress authorized the Pentagon to develop the Global Train and Equip Program, but that authority expires at the end of September.
The current program has paid for parts and ammunition used by the Lebanese Army against terrorist threats in a Palestinian refugee camp as well as for helicopter spare parts, night-vision devices and night-flight training for Pakistani special forces fighting suspected members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda along the Afghan border, Gates said.
The separate State Department program that is aimed at civilians has already developed local police forces in Haiti and improved health and education programs in Colombia. The increased budget was requested to expand efforts to assign civilians to conflict zones, or potential conflict zones, to carry out tasks that now sometimes fall to military personnel.
State Department officials also said Tuesday that a cable had gone out within the last two weeks to all Foreign Service officers alerting them to the need to fill about 300 positions in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming year. If sufficient volunteers do not come forward for those hardship posts, the cable said, the State Department has the authority to compel diplomats to serve in those two countries.
The department issued a similar warning last year but was able to fill the hardship posts with volunteers.
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