Scientific surveys of bird populations in France showed dramatic declines, between one-third and two-thirds, over several decades. This finding follows research in Germany that showed declines of 80 percent in insect populations over the last 40 years. Scientists suspect agricultural practices have caused the drops. Birds eat insects, so the loss of insects might cause bird populations to collapse. The bad news was reported in an article in the New York Times.
The recent (over the last ten years) collapse of many bee populations in the United States may be related to the collapses reported in Europe. No direct relationship has been found.
Nonetheless, we should view these population collapses with alarm. As time passes, more and more ecosystems on Earth are damaged or degraded. This is not a pleasant thought. It is all epitomized by global warming and the great plastic patch in the Pacific ocean. The root cause is overpopulation and consequent overuse of the Earth’s resources. Drastic changes in resource use and conservation are needed to prevent ecological collapse.
There is an exception to the attorney-client privilege if communications with an attorney are used in furtherance of a crime or fraud; that could come into play here as well. And documents related to anything Cohen did on his own — after all, Trump has denied knowing about the payment to Daniels — are likely not privileged if they do not contain attorney-client communications. Documents are not automatically privileged simply because they passed through an attorney’s hands.
–From a Washington Post “opinion” piece about the FBI raid on Michael Cohen’s office and hotel room Monday morning. Mr. Trump stated then, in front of his military chiefs, that the raid was “an attack on America” and the next day, he claimed that “attorney-client privilege is dead”– just more flaming falsehoods from a man who is vying for the title “Father of Lies.”
Some things about Michael Cohen are remarkable. The first, obviously, is that he is of Jewish heritage– Cohens are traditionally a hereditary class of Jewish religious persons (“Cohen” literally means “priest” in Hebrew) who are supposed to interpret the Law (religious law.) The fact that Mr. Trump would employ a Jew may surprise some in the anti-Trump camp who believe that he is prejudiced against Jews (among many other non-German people, mostly of a darker shade.) It is true that Mr. Trump holds massive prejudices, but he also holds tremendous degrees of stereotypy, one of those stereotypes being that Jews are good with money and the law. Based on this stereotype, Mr. Trump is known to employ Jews to handle his money issues as well as his legal issues. He has been known to make statements about not wanting African-Americans to handle his money counting duties– presumably because they “can’t handle” money without it slipping through their fingers into their pockets, among other places.
It is known that Mr. Trump employs people based on such simplistic stereotypes, as well as based on personal acquaintance. For example, he hired his former chauffeur to a high-level Administration position. He is not known to defer to investigations or “due diligence” reviews of persons whom he wishes to hire or retain. This is a bad thing.
In any case, regardless of Mr. Cohen’s heritage, the FBI’s execution of a search warrant on him is a potentially serious turning point in the FBI’s investigation. Mr. Cohen has been Mr. Trump’s lawyer for a long time, and is known to have done a number of questionable things for him, the most famous so far being his payment, allegedly from his personal funds, just prior to the presidential election, of $130,000 to the woman known as Stormy Daniels. The only known connection of “Stormy Daniels” to either Mr. Cohen or Mr. Trump is that she recently came out on “Sixty Minutes” with a tale of a one-night stand twelve years ago between her and Mr. Trump. Unless Mr. Cohen himself received substantial personal services from “Ms. Daniels” there is a substantial suspicion that the payment represented an unlawful campaign contribution, in this case to buy her silence.
Mr. Trump, just a few days ago, claimed that he did not know of Mr. Cohen’s payment to the lady in question. This is odd because of the alleged existence of a contract between the two (Trump and “Daniels”) that specifies said payment and spells out certain actions that she will be obligated to perform (or not perform) in return for that payment. She has come out with the statement that the contract is void because Mr. Trump never signed it, even using the pseudonym by which he is referred to in the document. We can understand why Mr. Trump would not sign such a document; what we have difficulty with is the concept that he thought he could get away with any of this.
The only logical answer to that question is the observation that he has “gotten away with it” many, many times in the past, either by resort to money payments, blank denials, or physical threats, all of which “Ms. Daniels” has alleged in this case. The task before Democrats, liberals, and progressives this November is to make sure that he no longer gets away with it. Whether this is by reducing him to impotence with majorities in the House and Senate or by actual impeachment (preferably of BOTH Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence) in the House is a matter that has not been yet settled. I would favor impeachment of both malefactors, which can readily be drawn out all the way from January 2019 to the next Presidential election in November 2020– for maximum effect.
There is one variable which I cannot confidently predict but fear nonetheless: what happens to the economy between now and then. A crash between now and November is unnecessary but significantly possible– I’m sure the Democrats can win in November without the assistance of the economy. The possibility of Mr. Trump’s actions having a serious negative effect on the economy is very significant, and particularly troublesome in light of the fact that he has “baked in” huge federal deficits as far as the eye can see– despite the current strength of the economy, which in conventional economic thought, should dictate a federal surplus– that is, higher taxes and spending on tangible objects (that is, infrastructure or at least weapons systems.) (I’m following Paul Krugman here, not the right-wing conservative economic “unicorns.”)
(today’s photo is courtesy of pixabay.com and jplenio, and represents “the light at the end of the tunnel”– let us hope that it is not an oncoming train.)
Taken together, these examples amount to a clear pattern of catastrophic losses, colossal mismanagement, gross negligence, and stupendous incompetence of 1.)TRUMP and his partners at best; he might have been aware of some of what was going on and turned a willful blind eye or he might have been in on it, and though there is no evidence to support this other than his considerable and risky efforts to obstruct investigations into these dealings, the sheer number of them is enough to suggest some level of complicity on TRUMP’s part personally, the only other reasonable explanation being that he is a gigantic fool.
This quote comes from an article under the imprint “LinkedIn” titled “Think you know how deep Trump-Russia goes? Think again– this chart/info will blow your mind” by Brian Frydenborg published July 17, 2017. The attached chart shows photos of over sixty individuals, sequentially numbered starting with 1)TRUMP. The article goes into mind-numbing detail and describes an astounding number of “complete failures” of deals to build hotels, all subverted by colossal “mistakes” or fraud– take your pick.
In each case, Mr. Trump was backed by figures associated with organized crime, starting with Simion Mogilevich, the “boss of bosses” of the Russian underworld. In each case, large amounts of money were simply thrown away, usually in Mr. Trump’s direction, in failed attempts to buy, lease, and develop properties all over the world. In most cases, innocent parties were duped and swindled; in most cases, finished hotels were never delivered; in other cases, hotels opened for business and closed within a year, collapsing in bankruptcy.
In the first case, “MOGILEVICH starts up a fake company called YBM Magnex International in Pennsylvania in 1995 that would be used to perpetrate a massive stock fraud worth $150 million on the Toronto Stock Exchange.” In the 1980’s, Mr. Trump had personally sold five apartment units in Trump Tower to David Bogatin, the brother of the CEO of what would become YBM Magnex. In the second case, “FELIX SATER [ the son of Mikhael Sheferovsky (aka Michael SATER)]was involved in an at least $41 million (and up to $60 million) stock fraud and money laundering scheme and ran it in the mid-1990s from an office in II.) 40 Wall St., another TRUMP-owned property. We know this scheme involved the Russian mafia, but the details of that case remain sealed because SATER later cooperated with the U.S. government on national security issues…”
The article goes on and on with case after case of Russian mafia-connected individuals using Trump properties to launder money, in amounts denominated in millions of dollars. There is simply no reasonable possibility that Trump can have been unaware of the character and business dealings of individuals who bought his properties or leased his name to use on properties.
So when someone tells you there is no evidence connecting Donald J. Trump with the Russian government, point them to this article showing a dense web of connections between Trump, the Russian mafia, and the actual Russian government. Only a willing blindness to Trump’s corruption born from a desire to see his most basic and inhumane policies implemented can account for the denial of his indebtedness to Russian mobsters as an explanation for slavish devotion to Vladimir Putin. This country cannot afford to have a malignantly narcissistic and dangerously psychopathic inveterate liar who is clearly hopelessly in debt to Russian organized crime as a chief executive… but we knew that already. What comes next, the slow unravelling of a corrupt administration, will have a negative effect on national morale. Continued support from Republican authority figures will only make matters worse. Persistent, die-hard support from the 30-40% of people who are fully susceptible to Fox “News” propaganda will cause a further deterioration of public trust. Trump’s desperate attempts to obstruct the Mueller investigation and New York State Attorney’s Office investigations will have additional negative effects. Trying to fire Mueller or other figures in the FBI, using national security crises to distract attention, or other unanticipated diversionary tactics, could cause national crises of unimaginable proportions.
I am reminded of the atmosphere surrounding the House impeachment hearings of Richard Nixon in the summer of 1974– and the maneuvering by Mr. Nixon and his “enemies” that led up to the beginning of those hearings. Following the Arab oil embargo of 1973, the United States was in a vulnerable position and many feared that additional disruptions could occur. We can ill afford this sort of commotion, but that is what is going to happen.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
Quote of the Day: Novichok has Already Killed: Ivan Kiveldi, Head of Rosbusinessbank, in 1995
According to this Russian-language website, thoughtfully translated by Google, the nerve agent “Novichok” [loosely translated as “Newbie”] was used in the “poisoning of the head of Rosbusinessbank Ivan Kivelidi in 1995” and the associated poisoning and illness of numerous other people who entered his office while the substance was apparently applied to the mouthpiece of his telephone receiver.
The crime was conveniently found to be done by Chechen terrorists and other foreign criminals, but the testimony of a Professor Leonid Rink was featured in this web article on the site “Novaya Gazeta” in Russian, published on March 22, 2018. The testimony was originally given in 199-2006 in association with an investigation. Professor Rink claimed that he “received” the poison in the course of his work at a government-run research institution and later sold it to a ring of criminals who used it for their own purposes. Rink worked as head and leading investigator at the “State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology” and says that, in those days after the collapse of the USSR they weren’t being paid their salaries and were desperate for money (1994)… so he sold a small quantity of the substance to a criminal who had demanded such a thing from him on pain of death (you know, the mafia way)… and this lead to the deaths of Ivan Kiveldi and his secretary, and serious poisonings for numerous other people who went in the room where Kiveldi and his secretary Zara Ismailova died, even briefly. Why the head of a major bank should have to die was not explained, but it is somehow assumed that he stood in the way of some criminal plan.
A similar scenario could have been behind the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal. A small quantity of the poisonous substance could have been synthesized and then smeared on his doorknob by knowing or unknowing accomplices. It is even possible that a binary version may have been developed, making the application less risky.
The principal criminal plan that seems to envelop the name of Donald J. Trump is the institution of money laundering. For many years, criminal gangs have been whitewashing their profits by purchasing large apartments at inflated prices in places like Trump hotels, of which there are money all over the world. Then they don’t bother to actually live in those apartments, leaving empty shells that consume no water or other resources– making an ideal tenant for the owner, Donald J. Trump. That is the easiest explanation for why a particular known Russian gangster purchased five apartments for five million dollars and left them empty.
There is abundant evidence that Donald J. Trump, after bankrupting two casinos, became persona non grata to the usual New York, national, and even international money lenders– the big banks. There is also a large quantity of circumstantial evidence that Mr. Trump benefited from the sale of his name for promotional purposes to known gangsters. The only thing lacking is clear, convincing evidence that Mr. Trump knowingly participated in a criminal conspiracy to launder money in a particularly blatant way. The lack of direct links between Mr. Trump and dirty money, despite the numerous and open associations with famous Russian gangsters, is not surprising.
From the New Republic, for those who believe that the Russia investigation is a total “nothing burger”:
President Boris Yeltsin’s shift to a market economy was so abrupt that cash-rich gangsters and corrupt government officials were able to privatize and loot state-held assets in oil, coal, minerals, and banking. Yeltsin himself, in fact, would later describe Russia as “the biggest mafia state in the world.” After Vladimir Putin succeeded Yeltsin as president, Russian intelligence effectively joined forces with the country’s mobsters and oligarchs, allowing them to operate freely as long as they strengthen Putin’s power and serve his personal financial interests. According to James Henry, a former chief economist at McKinsey & Company who consulted on the Panama Papers, some $1.3 trillion in illicit capital has poured out of Russia since the 1990s.
. . .
[speaking of Simion Mogilevich: ]
“He uses this wealth and power to not only further his criminal enterprises,” the FBI says, “but to influence governments and their economies.”
In Russia, Mogilevich’s influence reportedly reaches all the way to the top. In 2005, Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian intelligence agent who defected to London, recorded an interview with investigators detailing his inside knowledge of the Kremlin’s ties to organized crime. “Mogilevich,” he said in broken English, “have good relationship with Putin since 1994 or 1993.” A year later Litvinenko was dead, apparently poisoned by agents of the Kremlin.
Which brings us right up to today. Litvinenko was murdered in 2006 with polonium, a radioactive synthetic element, a crime that could only be carried out with the resources of a nuclear state: Russia. Little was made of his death at the time, but now, just a few weeks ago, another ex-Russian agent survived an assassination attempt with “Novichok”– an advanced chemical warfare agent with seemingly incredible powers. A solid, it is lethal at doses of roughly 10 milligrams– less than 1/30 the weight of an aspirin tablet. It is persistent, and English scientists believe it was smeared on the victim’s front door knob, where he and his daughter were exposed. They both were found unresponsive, with symptoms of atropine-like nerve poisoning: drooling, pinpoint pupils, and coma. Even survivors of sublethal doses of this agent do not recover well; they are often impaired for the rest of their lives with severe depression and weakness.
The Russians are the only known government in the world to have sponsored the development of these nerve agents, which were never known to have been used. It appears that a small supply was manufactured some years ago (perhaps between 1973 and 1990) and hoarded up for uses such as the one to which it was put on March 4, 2018. On that date, former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were discovered in a public park, on a park bench, in Salisbury, UK, unconscious and suffering from symptoms of atropine-like nerve poisoning. A policeman who responded to the scene also fell ill from similar symptoms. Yulia Skripal has recovered consciousness and is talking, but her father is in more guarded condition. It is now suspected that others may have died from the same or similar agents in the past and have mistakenly been thought to have died of natural causes.
The bottom line is that Russia is controlled by a kleptocratic autocracy which has taken over since the fall of the Soviet Union, a government run by a mafia-like organization that is extending its tentacles of dirty dealing and death through-out the world, including to subvert and enslave relatively free countries like the United States. The US is under attack from Russia, and the “boss of bosses”, Simion Mogilevich, a highly intelligent, patient, but completely corrupt and potentially murderous “don” is the godfather, with Vladimir “the Impaler” Putin in day-to-day command of the onslaught on our somewhat civilized institutions.
So here you are: Russia has succeeded in subverting the government of the United States and, as a result, there have been installed leaders who are attempting to turn back the clock on human rights, civil rights, the rights of people of color, the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgender people, and the rights of women to control of their own bodies. The only answer to this attack and near-overthrow of representative, humane, progressive government is to declare open war on Russia– a cold war, but a war nonetheless. The first strike in this war will be at the ballot box with votes for Democratic leaders who can reverse the retrogressive policies of the Russian-entangled Republicans and strike a blow for freedom all over the world.
The article linked and quoted at the top of this column in the New Republic describes most of what is known and suspected about Donald J. Trump’s entanglement with the Soviet and Russian governments, from as early as 1987. This article on linkedin.com will definitely make your brain explode with incredibly detailed information about the labyrinthine interconnections between Mogilevich, all his intermediaries, and Donald J. Trump and his family. The friendly relations between Donald and the Don go way back and are as thick as the cables holding up the Golden Gate Bridge. Most of what Donald has done for the Don in the past is simple money laundering, but with his election to the presidency his breadth of subversion has dramatically increased.
Post-Script: Just for personal enjoyment, to make your day more entertaining and relieve your stress, there is the superbly eloquent poetic jeremiad “The Trumpiad”— a very long, closely-researched, profusely illustrated with satiric cartoons, poetic tour de force describing the history of the Trump (nee Drumpf) family in crime and draft dodging (yes, Donald J. Trump’s grandfather Friedrich was a draft-dodger in his home country of Germany and was deported to the US for same, but not until he’d made his fortune running whorehouses in the gold-stricken Yukon) (Donald’s father Fred was a slumlord who made trashy, whites-only segregated housing a fixture of New York and New Jersey) (and Donald was dumped into military school because he assaulted one of his teachers in grade school, among other defiant, violent acts) from the late nineteenth century to March 29, 2018, due to be updated soon, I hope.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and Makalu)
Quoting from the New York Times:
“Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than other nations, but rather in her ability to repair her faults,” Justice Ginsburg said.
. . .
Bedecked in a multicolored collar that reflected the diversity of the 201 new citizens before her, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg presided over a naturalization ceremony on Tuesday at the New-York Historical Society, treating her rapt audience to a history lesson, one crackling with life and liberty.
Justice Ginsburg told them that her own father arrived in this country at 13 with no fortune and no ability to speak English, and yet, she would soon be administering the oath of citizenship to them as a member of the highest court in the land.
Across the packed rows of seats at the historical society’s Upper West Side theater sat people from 59 countries, with first names like Islam, Hussein, Kazi, Angie and Sunday, and with professions as diverse as pastors and pediatric cancer doctors. Two men from Guinea sat in the third row and learned they were both named Mamadou Alpha Diallo, both taxi drivers.
“We are a nation made strong by people like you,” Justice Ginsburg said.
. . .
(today’s photo is courtesy of pixabay.com and jplenio, and represents “the light at the end of the tunnel”– let us hope that it is not an oncoming train.)
An article in the opinion section of the NYT describes the unexpected side effects of certain compounds used in the manufacture of modern foodstuffs– chemicals like trehalose, saccharin, and Tween-80. These synthetic (in most cases) chemicals are used for many purposes, primarily as sweet-tasting substitutes for sugar, emulsifiers, and additives designed to lengthen the shelf-life of otherwise perishable foods. The following post summarizes the information that forms the basis for this NYT opinion article.
First, trehalose appears to select for particularly aggressive forms of the toxic bacterium, Clostridium perfringens, which causes a potentially lethal diarrhea in humans treated with antibiotics to which they are resistant (primarily clindamycin, cephalosporins, and fluoroquinolones.) This was not a problem when trehalose was too expensive to be added to foods. However, perhaps twenty-five years ago, a new method of synthesis of trehalose was developed which dramatically lowered the cost (from $700 a kilogram to $3.) Trehalose is valued because it has the ability to retain large amounts of water and keep foods moist on the shelf– it is used by some microbes to prevent damage from freezing.
The presence of even low concentrations of trehalose selects for a virulent strain of C. difficile which can cause severe or even lethal diarrhea, particularly after competing microbes have been removed by the administration of antibiotics. Since the introduction of large quantities of trehalose to foodstuffs, a new “epidemic” strain of C. difficile has appeared and dramatically increased the incidence of toxic diarrhea. This strain is often resistant to the new fluoroquinolone antibiotics such as ofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, and levofloxacin. A study in Nature shows that mice fed trehalose are more often killed when they are challenged with C. difficile strains that have this new ability to metabolize trehalose.
Second, emulsifiers like polysorbate-80 and carboxymethylcellulose can thin the mucus barrier that lines our intestines and can induce gut microbes to produce proteins that cause inflammation. This inflammation is associated with metabolic syndrome, a form of obesity that is a precursor to diabetes. Maltodextrin is a food thickener that does this, plus it enhances the growth of a strain of Escherichia coli that is associated with Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory gut condition that is extremely debilitating.
Third, artificial sweeteners like saccharin and sucralose that taste sweet but are supposed to contribute nothing to our calorie counts, can be metabolized by some microbes. Studies have shown that saccharin and other artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiome (our intestinal bacteria.)
The bottom line is that, when we consume chemicals that we cannot metabolize, this selects for the growth of intestinal microbes that can do the job for us. A classic example is the presence of gut microbes that can metabolize seaweed constituents in Japanese people. Most world populations do not normally eat seaweed, and they cannot digest it to generate food energy. The Japanese people, however, have long eaten seaweed as a significant part of their diets, and their gut microbes have adapted by evolving the ability to digest seaweed. It is likely that this has occurred quite simply, by the co-ingestion of microbes living on seaweed that are able to break it down. As a result, people with this population of microbes gain calories and nutrition from consuming seaweed, whereas people without it miss out.
This information may make you less likely to consume foods containing these chemicals. That would be logical, but it may be difficult to avoid some of these things and still eat ice cream or drink soda pop. The NYT opinion article also recommends that you consume more soluble fiber, in foods such as “nuts, legumes, and vegetables.” I heartily endorse this recommendation. In addition, you may still be able to eat ice cream if you make it yourself or find a brand that does not contain any of these chemicals.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and Alexas_Fotos)
The reality is that the modern Postal Service has been set up to be a hybrid — part government agency with a mission of universal service, part private enterprise with a mission not to lose money, overseen by an independent regulator whose job is to make sure that the two missions are held in proper balance. Unfortunately, that is a reality that is way too complicated for our president to understand.
This quote comes from an article by Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post published April 6, 2018 about the costs and profits of the Postal Service in relation to its contract with Amazon, which is now its biggest package customer. (Again, this article came to me courtesy of Microsoft’s news aggregation feature and made it unnecessary for me to obtain a subscription to the Post.)
Naturally, both Amazon and the Postal Service feel that they are getting a good deal on their contracts. The Postal Service uses Amazon to defray the costs associated with its delivery of first class mail, on which the Service has a monopoly and on which they appear to be losing a great deal of money. Amazon uses the Postal Service to provide a low-cost, seven day a week delivery service that covers every address in the country, no matter how remote. Both benefit from the arrangement: Amazon saves money, and the Postal Service is provided with volume essential to maintaining its all-encompassing delivery obligation.
Expecting Mr. Trump to understand these subtleties is akin to expecting a cat to speak. His true motivation for his specious and superficial attacks on Amazon and the Postal Service is related to the fact that the head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, also owns the Washington Post. The Post has been “attacking” Mr. Trump with merciless investigative reporting since before he became a candidate for high office. Despite the newspaper’s uncovering a wealth of derogatory information, not to mention damning evidence of collusion, corruption, incompetence, conniving, favoritist, anti-democratic behavior and speech, Mr. Trump still managed to manipulate the election process in his favor. He is now using his bully pulpit to savage Mr. Bezos and his web sales service in addition to claiming that his newspaper’s evidence is “fake news.”
Mr. Trump seems not to realize or not care that his tweets and executive orders are disrupting commerce, the normal activities of government, the stock market, and the lives of people all over the world. His only motivation appears to be derogation of his enemies and elevation of his friends to high places. We can only hope that a large enough majority of the American electorate will wake up in time to stop him before he completely perverts American society.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and MichaelGaida)
“The average citizen thinks that the penitentiary is the place where criminals go to.
Actually, the penitentiary is the place where criminals come from.”
–Erle Stanley Gardner
“The Court of Last Resort: The True Story of a Team of Crime Experts Who Fought to Save the Wrongfully Convicted” was published a year ago (April 11, 2017) by Open Road Media and is available on Amazon as a paperback for $15.99 (or somewhat less)… it had sixteen reviews when I checked this morning. The book was originally published in 1952 and Gardner died in 1970 (according to one of the reviews.) This edition is updated and expanded (it says.)
I will try to get a copy of this book. You probably should too.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and aitoff)
This from Medpage today on April 3, 2018:
The California-based owner of a national network of insulin infusion centers for people with diabetes was arrested Monday on federal public corruption charges, including bribery, racketeering, healthcare fraud, and wire fraud.
A federal grand jury in Alabama indicted G. Ford Gilbert, CEO of Sacramento-based Trina Health, as well as an Alabama legislator and a lobbyist, for their roles in an alleged scheme to win insurance coverage for the chain’s unique brand of diabetes treatment.
…
The indictment said Gilbert “came up with a plan to push a bill through the Alabama Legislature’s 2016 session that would require Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama to cover the treatments.” The insurance company in 2015 had denied reimbursement for Trina Health’s three Alabama clinics, which had operated in 2014 and 2015 in Fairhope, Foley, and Birmingham.
…
The charges said Gilbert made payments to Alabama House Majority leader Micky Hammon, a Republican who had agreed to lobby for the bill. Hammon pleaded guilty in federal court on mail fraud charges in an unrelated case and is serving a three-month prison sentence. Because of that conviction, he was not included in Monday’s indictment.
…
U.S. Attorney Louis V. Franklin said the other defendants, both in Alabama, are state Rep. Jack D. Williams, 60, of Vestavia Hills, and lobbyist Martin J. “Marty” Connors, 61, of Alabaster.
Franklin’s news release said Gilbert hired Connors — former chairman of the Alabama Republic Party — to lobby on behalf of the bill, and Connors recruited Williams, who chaired the Commerce and Small Business Committee of the Alabama House of Representatives. Connors asked Williams to hold a public hearing on the bill. The bill failed.
“Williams also knew of the payments to Hammon and acted in part to help Hammon, who as everyone in the scheme knew, was experiencing grave financial problems,” according to the news release.
[a comment:]
— MCG Doc
The CPT Code based reimbursement, or the “fee for service” model is fundamentally based and fraudulent. The decision to cover a procedure or a test is not based on the clinical and scientific merits, but based on how to best protect the status quo. For example, the high false positive rates of stress imaging tests, CTAs have been proven by major studies of nearly 1,000,000 real world patients. They generate 60+% false positive and at least 10% false negative cases sending millions of patients to unnecessary interventional procedures such as coronary angiograms and stunting. What does the industry do, they continue protect and reimburse these useless tests.
[another comment:]
— mark vanhusen, md
dr mcg….all great points. here is what I have found though locally. pt comes in great story and strong FH of CAD and very obese and stress echo refused by insurance co. frustrating so I refer to cardiology pronto and test gets ordered. these insurance co decisions are pathetic. and just added to healthcare costs and am I going to get on the phone to plead for this test…nope refer and let the insurance pay for even more care. cant wait to retire to get away from this stuff.
Further exploration (visiting the Trina Health web site) reveals that “insulin microburst treatment” is a new form of insulin infusion– intravenously, over a period of an hour, repeated three times in one day; treatments are repeated from once a week to once a month. The web site states that the initial treatment may be repeated twice over two days. The site claims that complications of diabetes are reversed and the patient’s sense of “well being” is restored after a few treatments. The site further claims that the treatment is covered by Medicare and private insurance… which is where we came in.
Apparently, from the web site materials, Mr. Gilbert had a daughter who developed type I (insulin-dependent) diabetes at age 2; she had what is known as “brittle” diabetes, in which wide swings in blood glucose and frequent episodes of severe hyperglycemia occur. Such patients are usually treated with an “insulin pump”, which is a device worn in a pouch with a connection to a subcutaneous needle, through which insulin is infused on a schedule; newer insulin pumps respond to changes in blood glucose with increases and decreases in insulin dose.
The clinic treatment, (“Artificial pancreas treatment”) however, uses insulin given intravenously, which produces an immediate response (the liver is insulin’s first target organ) “within four seconds”– the liver releases enzymes and absorbs glucose from the blood, converting the glucose to glycogen for storage. Peripheral tissues (individual cells, particularly in muscle) respond to insulin by absorbing more glucose and using the mitochondria to metabolize glucose and produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the compound that is used throughout the body directly for energy to run metabolic processes.
The Trina web site claims that its intravenous insulin treatments heal the “sick” mitochondria and that the effect of a few hours of intravenous insulin delivery is maintained for a week to four weeks (the interval between clinic treatments.) The treatments would appear to take at least half a day, suggesting that only well-to-do and/or unemployed persons could conveniently make use of them.
These treatments are apparently FDA-approved, although this may be a loophole.
The whole thing smells like a scam, including (on the Trina web site) testimonials and a glowing report about the developer, Mr. Gilbert, who has now been arrested for bribing an Alabama state legislator.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and Alexas_Fotos)
Conrad Theodore Seitz 