RaidersNewsNetwork: USA Today Reveals Financial Conflict re. S1082

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Misty L. Trepke

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http://www.raidersnewsnetwork.com/full.php?news=5409

 

U.S. Senators Financially Enslave Americans As Indentured Servants

To Big Pharma

Added: May 16th, 2007 8:18 AM

 

by: Mike Adams

 

The facts found in the report are almost as astonishing as the

source of the report itself: USA Today, a mainstream media giant in

the United States, has revealed the apparent financial conflict of

interest by U.S. Senators who voted against the infamous S.1082

reimportation amendment. That amendment would have ended Big

Pharma's monopoly over U.S. consumers and ultimately saved American

citizens, businesses and governments tens of millions of dollars by

allowing them to import medicines from other nations with approved

safety records (such as Canada or Japan).

 

But 49 Senators voted against the amendment, defending the Big

Pharma monopoly that continues to force Americans to pay the highest

prices in the world, by far, for medicines. As I've documented in my

book, Natural Health Solutions and the Conspiracy to Keep You From

Knowing About Them, some pharmaceuticals are marked up 500,000% or

more over the cost of their ingredients!

 

What could have prompted these 49 Senators to vote to protect the

profits of drug companies? Follow the money and you'll find your

answer. As it turns out, nearly every one of the 49 Senators who

voted against drug reimportation has accepted money from drug

companies. USA Today reported the top offenders who voted against

the bill, along with the dollars they've accepted from drug

companies since 2001:

 

U.S. Senators' Drug Money

Richard Burr, R-N.C.

$520,694

 

John Kerry, D-Mass.

$304,888

 

Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.

$281,040

 

Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

$259,699

 

Orrin Hatch, R-Utah

$241,850

 

Max Baucus, D-Mont.

$199,000

 

Tom Carper, D-Del.

$183,794

 

Mike Enzi, R-Wyo.

$174,338

 

Notice that these Senators represent both major political parties,

and there's even one independent in the mix. Consumers should

remember that no political party will defend the people against

powerful corporations. Ultimately, lawmakers on both sides of the

aisle will sell out in order to protect their own power and

reelection funds.

 

As Rima Laibow (www.HealthFreedomUSA.org) observed in a recent e-

mail update to her readers, it's amazing just how cheaply the U.S.

Senators have been bought off! For a few hundred thousand dollars --

the profits from only a couple hundred prescription drug users --

these Senators appear to have been either strongly influenced or

outright bribed to kill a measure that would have saved Americans

tens of billions of dollars and finally freed the American people

from the financial stranglehold of Big Pharma.

 

These Senators, of course, all insist they were voting to protect

the " safety " of Americans, claiming that medicines imported from

other countries are dangerous. But medicines bought right here in

the United States are killing 100,000+ Americans each year! Do these

Senators somehow imagine drugs bought in the U.S. are safer than the

same medicines purchased somewhere else? Do they suffer under the

illusion that paying more for prescription drugs somehow makes them

safer?

 

When it comes down to it, none of the arguments against drug

reimportation hold water. The killing of the amendment was done for

one simple, uncomplicated reason: to protect the safety of Big

Pharma profits by forcing Americans to pay monopoly prices for their

medicines.

 

Modern-day Indentured Servants

The whole price fixing scam brings to mind a relevant term from

American history: Indentured servants. These indentured servants

were people who agreed to work a farm or plantation for a period of

4-7 years in exchange for passage to America. But dishonest

plantation owners played a cruel trick on the indentured servants:

They had to buy their farm tools and supplies from the plantation

owner. But they couldn't pay cash since they didn't have any money,

so they were forced to extend their work commitment in exchange for

tools and supplies.

 

A shovel, for example, might cost you another month on the farm. A

set of work clothes might cost you two months more. Little by

little, the plantation owner enslaved the indentured servants in a

never-ending cycle of debt that could only be repaid by a lifetime

of work ending in death and bankruptcy.

 

Sound familiar? Americans are trapped in a lifetime of medical debt

being paid to wealthy drug corporations. If you live in America and

need medicine, the FDA and Big Pharma are doing everything in their

power to make sure you have no choice but to buy it from " the

company store " -- the monopoly-controlled U.S. pharmaceutical market

that's basically in the business of ripping people off by selling

them dangerous synthetic chemicals.

 

Need to control your blood sugar? That's a few thousand dollars a

year. Have high cholesterol? Another few thousand. Got cancer? Fork

over several thousand dollars each month for yet more chemicals sold

at monopoly prices to a nation of health consumers who have been

financially enslaved as Indentured Servants. I once talked to a

cancer patient who was about to fork over $14,000 per injection for

an experimental cancer drug! That person's life savings would have

been wiped out in just one month while enriching the richest

corporations in the world: drug companies.

 

Modern medicine is the new indentured servant plantation. Same scam,

different crop. The American people are once again being worked to

death by greedy businessmen who only wish to increase the size of

their own profits, regardless of how many people have to be

exploited or destroyed along the way. And 49 U.S. Senators seem to

whole-heartedly approve of this financial enslavement of the

American people. They voted, on the record, to propel a profiteering

price scheme operated by a criminal conspiracy masterminded by the

FDA and Big Pharma.

 

Republican Senators who voted for the financial enslavement of the

American people

Lamar Alexander

Robert Bennett

Kit Bond

Jim Bunning

Richard Burr

Saxby Chambliss

Tom Coburn

Thad Cochran

Norm Coleman

Bob Corker

John Cornyn

Michael Crapo

Elizabeth Dole

Pete Domenici

Michael Enzi

Lindsey Graham

Judd Gregg

Chuck Hagel

Orrin Hatch

Kay Bailey Hutchison

Johnny Isakson

Jon Kyl

Richard Lugar

Mel Martinez

Mitch McConnell

Lisa Murkowski

Pat Roberts

Arlen Specter

Ted Stevens

John Sununu

Craig Thomas

George Voinovich

John Warner

 

Democratic Senators who voted for the financial enslavement of the

American people

Max Baucus

Evan Bayh

Maria Cantwell

Thomas Carper

Edward Kennedy

John Kerry

Mary Landrieu

Frank Lautenberg

Blanche Lincoln

Robert Menéndez

Barbara Mikulski

Patty Murray

Ben Nelson

Jay Rockefeller

Kenneth Salazar

 

Corporate imperialism at work

One thing that these Senators have demonstrated quite convincingly

is that the rich get richer in America, especially when rich

Senators protect the rich drug companies at the expense of the

increasingly impoverished American people.

 

In my opinion every one of the Senators listed here should be voted

out of power at the next available opportunity. But of course, Big

Pharma can buy off the replacements just as easily. There's no end

to the cash being generated by this illegal price fixing scheme

that, by any sane standard, would have long ago been classified as

an organized crime racket and prosecuted under the RICO Act.

 

The real problem, then, is not necessarily dishonest Senators who

would sell out their countrymen (and women) for a few dollars from

Big Pharma. The real problem is that corporations are allowed to

financially influence lawmakers in the first place! The problem is

the lobbying and campaign finance structure that allows virtually

all lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to be so easily and

cheaply bought off (or at least strongly influenced) by corporate

interests. Lobbyists are far too influential in Washington, and in

fact, the Corporation itself has become dangerous to the health,

safety and future of the American people. (View the documentary: The

Corporation at http://www.TheCorporation.com )

 

Even if these 49 Senators actually sold out the American people, and

even if they resigned tomorrow (which they would never think of

doing, of course), their replacements would be just as easily

corrupted by a system of corporate control over U.S. lawmakers that

has turned the United States into a Plutocracy -- government by the

wealthy elite, where the corporations and the government become one

entity that exploits the productivity of the population to enrich

the few.

 

As I pointed out in a previous article about this betrayal by U.S.

Senators, many of our lawmakers have become adversaries of the

people and are now openly fighting for the expansion of profits and

power for mega-corporations while steamrolling the interests and

freedoms of the American people. In a very real sense, they have

openly betrayed the American people they claim to represent. They

have devolved into corporate imperialists who aim to shore up their

own power by sacrificing the interests of those they have sworn to

protect -- the voters who gullibly put them into power in the first

place.

 

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About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and

technology pioneer with a passion for sharing empowering information

to help improve personal and planetary health He has authored and

published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guies, and

books on topics like health and the environment, reaching millions

of readers with information that is saving lives and improving

personal health around the world. Adams is a trusted, independent

journalist who receives no money or promotional fees whatsoever to

write about other companies' products. In 2007, Adams launched

EcoLEDs, a maker of energy efficient LED lights that greatly reduce

CO2 emissions. He also launched an online retailer of

environmentally-friendly products (BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a

portion of its profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's also

the CEO of a highly successful email newsletter software company

that develops software used to send permission email campaigns to

rs. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive

director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501©3 non-profit

organization, and pursues hobbies such as Pilates, Capoeira, nature

macrophotography and organic gardening.

 

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