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Advertising and Jacobsen’s Book

May 18, 1995
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Hucksters, barkers, hawkers unite. In your relentless quest for new surfaces for your advertisements, could you imagine these places? Air Force One flies all over the world — consider using the side of the president’s plane to advertise Timex watches. How about a billboard on the Washington Monument featuring the newest new detergent? Haven’t we…

Ebola Virus and TB

May 12, 1995
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With the best-seller, Hot Zone and the current movie Outbreak as background, the real outbreak of the Ebola virus is in Kikwit, a city of 600,000 in Zaire. Already dozens have perished from what physicians describe as tissue failure, organ failure, and suffocation with blood flowing from ears, eyes, mouth and other orifices. This lethal…

Negative Effects of NAFTA and GATT

May 5, 1995
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The broken promises from the GATT and NAFTA trade agreements that Washington approved are beginning to bore holes in the pockets of American consumers and workers. Some prices of medicines will go up an estimated $6 billion according to a study by scholars at the University of Minnesota. They arrived at this figure by calculating…

Maggie Kuhn

April 27, 1995
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Ask yourself, do you know anyone in American history who, after retiring at age sixty five, proceeded to organize a national movement that helped greatly to change public attitudes on matters of importance? Only one person comes to mind — Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers, who passed away on April 22 at the…

Congress Jeopardizing Rights of Wrongfully Injured

April 20, 1995
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Senator Robert Byrd has been exceptionally busy of late defending the United States Constitution, especially those sections on the prerogatives of Congress vis-à-vis the Executive Branch. Strange as it may seem, there are very few Senators or Representatives who take strong and enduring stands to defend our Constitution against hairbrain, impulsive legislation. In the past…

Medical Computerization May Lead to Genetic Discrimination

April 17, 1995
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The computerization of patients record and other health care information is spreading through cyberspace and raising serious questions of what rights of privacy can be invoked by people treated by doctors and hospitals. There is no proprietary right under federal law to your health records and the states offer a patchwork of laws and no…

Wrongdoers Lobby Prevailing on Tort Reform

April 12, 1995
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When Members of Congress return from their spring break they will begin deliberations on legislation designed to limit the rights of judges and juries to punish corporate and individual wrongdoers. The attacks on the powers of judges and juries have no foundation. There is no evidence that judges and juries are out of control. There…

AMA and Med Mal

March 29, 1995
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There are many humane, compassion physicians in this country the American Medical Association and its state affiliates are giving bad name. Behaving like a large mob out of control, the AMA is in a frenzy to get the U.S. Senate to shove it to Americans victimized by bad doctors. No matter how serious the human…

Gingrich Republicans Attacking Democracy

March 23, 1995
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It looks like the American people are getting wise to what the Newt Gingrich Gang in Congress are up to well before the supposedly knowledgeable Washington pundits and columnists. The polls are turning sharply against Gingrich’s extremist and corporatist Contract with America because people sense that lots of economic, health, safety, environmental and access to…

Celebrity Air Bag Pledge

March 16, 1995
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For over thirty years our criticisms of the auto industry’s aversion to engineering known safety systems in their vehicles was coupled with positive recommendations for simple corrections that would save lives and dollars. From time to time, a reporter or editor would ask why we do not praise the auto companies when they do good?…