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A record 84 percent of Americans say they disapprove of the way the Congress is doing its job compared with just 13 percent who approve of how things are going, according to a Washington Post/ABC News public opinion poll…

The disapproval rating for Congress inched up two percentage points since October and reflects a year of lows for Congress that ended in a battle over a temporary extension of the payroll tax cuts for 160 million Americans…

A vitriolic debate leading up to an agreement last summer to allow President Barack Obama to raise the debt ceiling fueled public disgust with Congress and prompted Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency to strip the United States of its stellar AAA rating.

When the parties are considered individually, Democrats in Congress have a 33 percent approval rate, while Republicans have a 21 percent approval rate, the poll found.

Congress will be back in session this week after a holiday break, poised to resume where they left off, with Democratic and Republican negotiators preparing for a new round of talks to extend the payroll tax cut for the rest of the year.

The 84 percent disapproval rate is the highest for Congress in nearly 40 years of polling. The previous high was last October, when 82 percent of poll respondents said they disapproved of the way lawmakers on Capitol Hill were doing their jobs.

I saw a Black Congressman from Mississippi on TV, this morning, who was asked about this poll. His response was – “I think the 13 percent of voters who approve of how Congress now works – are in need of therapy.”

Drug companies have been accused of conning the public in a report that claimed more than four fifths of new medicines offer few benefits.

An estimated 85 per cent of drugs coming onto the market offer only slight advances on existing treatments while having the potential to cause serious harm due to toxicity or misuse, the study concluded…

”Sometimes drug companies hide or downplay information about serious side-effects of new drugs and overstate the drugs’ benefits,” said Prof Donald Light, a professor of comparative health policy at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey.

”Then, they spend two to three times more on marketing than on research to persuade doctors to prescribe these new drugs. Doctors may get misleading information and then misinform patients about the risks of a new drug. It’s really a two-tier market for lemons.”

He alleged that the pharmaceutical industry owned companies in charge of drug testing and provided ”firewalls” of legal protection behind which information about dangers or lack of effectiveness could be be hidden.

Companies were assisted by the ”relatively low bar” for effectiveness that had to be crossed to get a new drug approved…

”A few basic changes could improve the quality of trials and evidence about the real risks and benefits of new drugs. We could also increase the percentage of new drugs that are really better for patients.”

In his paper, Prof Light concluded: “The evidence here indicates that the two-tier market for prescription drugs is the largest and most dangerous market for lemons in modern society. Neither wars nor used car injuries come close.

Nothing that a lot of us haven’t recognized for years; but, it’s always helpful to see legitimate studies provide some ammo against the greedy bastards running the pharmaceutical industry.

I’ve long felt the barrage of advertisements in the mass media for prescription drugs should be outlawed like cigarettes. If they’re beneficial, your physician will have learned about them. Otherwise, the pharma giants are just building artificial demand with their propaganda.

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Why? Because they’re Republicans.

A GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Monday that he expects Republicans to delay for a week the panel’s confirmation vote on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

The Judiciary Committee, which held four days of hearings on Kagan’s nomination before Congress went on its Fourth of July recess, is scheduled to vote on Tuesday.

“It’s just the normal way of doing business,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said when asked why his party would delay the vote, which is permitted by committee rules.

Kagan is expect to be approved by the committee, which includes 12 Democrats and seven Republicans.

You certainly wouldn’t expect the Party of NO to act like the Party of Accomplishment.

A federal advisory panel has voted unanimously that federal drug regulators should approve a medicine that could help prevent pregnancy if taken as late as five days after unprotected sex.

The pill, called ella, sprang from government labs and appears to be more effective than Plan B, a morning-after pill now available over the counter to women 18 and older that gradually loses efficacy after intercourse and can be taken at latest three days after sex. Ella, by contrast, works just as well on the fifth day as the first after sex…

The F.D.A. usually follows the advice of its advisory panels but not always.

There is a dispute is whether the drug works by delaying ovulation (as the pill’s manufacturer claims) or by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting itself in the uterus (as anti-abortion advocates say)…

Neither of which should have a damned thing to do with approval on medical and scientific grounds. Which is all the FDA should be considering.

Even though ella is somewhat more effective and can be taken later than Plan B, the new drug would, if approved, probably do little to solve this epidemic of unplanned pregnancies. Plan B has been available without a prescription since 2006 for women 18 and older, but abortion and unintended-pregnancy rates have remained largely unchanged.

Women who have unprotected sex have about one chance in 20 of becoming pregnant. Those who take Plan B within three days cut that risk to about one chance in 40, and if ella is approved, that risk would be cut further to about one chance in 50…

American mutant religious nut balls will rant and tear their hair over women having another choice, an additional means of controlling whether or not they become pregnant.

A simple scientific task will now have to trudge through the folkways of Congressional opportunism and hypocrisy. If you’re one of our U.S. Readers, consider contacting your Congress-critter and tell ‘em to support reason over ignorance. If you think they’re capable, of course.

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Nearly half of Americans believe the health care reform bill signed by President Barack Obama on Tuesday was a “good thing,” according to a new Gallup poll.

Forty-nine percent of the 1,005 adults polled nationwide Monday said health reform was a “good thing,” compared with 40 percent who said it was bad…

“Passage of health care reform was a clear political victory for President Obama and his allies in Congress,” Gallup’s Lydia Saad wrote in her analysis of the survey, released Tuesday. “While it also pleases most of his Democratic base nationwide, it is met with greater ambivalence among independents and with considerable antipathy among Republicans.”

I’m a second generation poll/survey student. I don’t know anyone in the business who doesn’t consider Gallup’s history as anything other than conservative – for decades.

I’m not certain that I’d include Obama’s allies in Congress as getting much of the credit.

Congressional Democrats were damned with faint praise, with 32 percent of respondents saying they did well in addressing healthcare. Twenty percent judged Democrats’ efforts only fair and 33 percent said they did poorly, results indicated.

Republicans earned high marks from 26 percent of respondents; 34 percent said the congressional GOP did fair and 34 percent said the minority party did a poor job on healthcare.

Reads to me like the Democrats suck! And the Republicans suck more!

Veterans Day Parade – NYC – 1975

Long skittish about forums such as Facebook and Twitter, the U.S. Department of Defense says that it is now OK with social networking services and other interactive Web 2.0 applications. A memorandum released Friday makes it official policy that the agency’s nonclassified network will be configured to provide access to Internet-based capabilities across all Defense components, including the various combat branches.

That’s not to say that the Pentagon is embracing all of the free-wheeling nature of blogs, tweets, and online video. Soldiers, sailors, and airmen will still be expected to refrain from activities that could compromise military actions or undercut readiness.

“Commanders at all levels and heads of DoD components will continue to defend against malicious activity on military information networks, deny access to prohibited content sites (e.g., gambling, pornography, hate-crime related activities), and take immediate and commensurate actions, as required, to safeguard missions (e.g., temporarily limiting access to the Internet to preserve operations security or to address bandwidth constraints),” the Defense Department said in a news release.

The Pentagon says it recognizes that social networks, among other Web capabilities, are useful tools for interaction both within the Defense Department and between the agency and the general public. It is also satisfied with the balance it has struck between network security and use of Internet-based tools…

The military has been using social-networking tools for some time, but policies have not always been consistent across the branches, and officials over time have wavered on how much they were willing to let individuals engage with the likes of blogs, YouTube, Facebook, and the like.

As long as it means I can continue to ignore them. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc., that is.

The Pentagon is always “interesting”.

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Republicans on Wednesday delayed a confirmation vote on attorney general nominee Eric Holder, some demanding assurances he would not prosecute U.S. agents for torture if they thought their methods were in compliance with the law…

With questions about torture and other matters, Republicans invoked their right to delay for one week the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote on Holder, who had already been expected to endure one of the rockier confirmation processes in President Barack Obama’s new cabinet.

Holder still appears virtually certain to eventually win confirmation by the full Senate…

During his confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee last week, Holder broke with the Bush administration and said waterboarding, an interrogation technique that involves simulated drowning, was torture and thus illegal.

Asked if he would prosecute for torture, Holder said “no one is above the law.” But he also quoted Obama about the need to move ahead…

Holder said he would ensure that interrogations complied with treaty obligations and were effective. He pledged to review all Justice Department legal opinions on the matter.

Republicans want forgiveness for torture – I think that’s clear. They’re no different from the “Good Germans” who only “followed orders” while working in concentration camps.