Bulletin Board 200912
Use the comments of this post during this month if you have things you would like to bring to people’s attention and are not sure where else to post them. I’ll make a new Bulletin Board each month for free posting.
Have at it, communicate and keep up the good fight!
Cheers,
-WalterJ
This came to me from
FARFA- you may want to leave comments…Esbee
Some of you may already know about this, but I just got a heads up about two concept papers that USDA published — one on bovine TB and one on bovine brucellosis. Comments are due DECEMBER 4.
Both papers claim that the lack of a national animal ID system has hampered disease response. They state: “VS is proposing that official animal ID and electronic movement certificates be used for animals leaving affected herds or zones to ensure compliance with necessary testing requirements.” (p.6)
In addition to the implications of pushing NAIS, there are two other portions of the proposals that may be of concern to folks: (1) switching to a zone approach, and (2) using policy documents to set specific regulatory requirements. There are also some positive aspects, such as a greater focus on imports. I’m attaching both papers, and you can submit comments at:
Brucellosis: text
TB: text
Note that these are just concept papers, not proposed rules. Sorry that I don’t have proposed comments on the NAIS portion yet, but I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of the concept papers without delay.
Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance
www.farmandranchfreedom.org
Phone: 512-243-9404
Toll free: 866-687-6452
Comment esbee — December 1, 2009 @ 5:34 pm
I’d simply like to bring Marti Oakley to your attention. She’s another champion of liberty in Wisconsin in the spirit of the Henwhisperer and the Animal Wattress.
text
On the 30th of November Miss Oakley was interviewed by Derry Brownfield, which may be accessed via Derry’s archives at GCNLive dot com.
It sounds bad in Wisconsin.
peaceably
Comment Mr Dirty Nails — December 2, 2009 @ 10:03 am
Mandatory Human Microchip included in Healthcare Bill ?
FROM NAIS STINKS…
htext
text
I have read pp 1001-1006 of the bill. On page 1001 you will find the clause that speaks of the implantable device(nanochip).
text
Buried deep within the over 1,000 pages of the massive US Health Care Bill (PDF) in a non-discussed section titled: Subtitle C-11 Sec. 2521†National Medical Device Registry, and which states its purpose as:
The Secretary shall establish a national medical device registry (in this subsection referred to as the registry) to facilitate analysis of postmarket safety and outcomes data on each device that (A) is or has been used in or on a patient; and (B) is a class III device; or (ii) a class II device that is implantable.Â
In a real world speak, according to this report, this new law, when fully implemented, provides the framework for making the United States the first Nation in the World to require each and every one of its citizens to have implanted in them a radio-frequency identification (RFID) microchip for the purpose of controlling who is, or isn’t, allowed medical care in their country.”
Please spread this info far and wide. Do you want this???
MANDATORY MICROCHIPPING IN HEALTH CARE BILL
Implantable Radiofrequency Transponder System for Patient Identification and Health Information
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Hosea 4: 6 My people perish from a lack of knowledge.
Comment esbee — December 2, 2009 @ 4:48 pm
Without knowing all the details of that section of the health care bill, it may not be as insidious as it sounds. Implantable devices include pacemakers, artificial hearts, etc. Since some of theses devices can be subject to problems or recalls, a registry of who has what is not a bad idea.
Comment Barbara — December 2, 2009 @ 6:33 pm
If you would like to read the latest Amicus Brief in the Wisconsin premise registration cases, Walter has kindly made the document available on this site (see link below) Over 20 farming, ranching, and consumer groups signed as Amici in support because this is obviously much bigger than just Wisconsin. Nobody should have to go through what some of our fellow farmers in Wisconsin are being forced to go through with these prosecutions. It might be small comfort that they have widespread support throughout the country when it is their door the wolf is at, but we support them just the same. In Michigan, where there has already been FORCED RFID tagging of cattle that also requires ‘Voluntary’ premise registration, many fear there will be more prosecutions like this if the constitutional argument regarding religious freedom doesn’t prevail in Wisconsin.
That constitutional argument regarding religious freedom is key in this case, and the analysis in the brief speaks for itself.
link
What is an Amicus, or Amici? Who can file an Amicus Brief in a court case?
Amicus curiae
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Amicus curiae or amicus curiæ (plural amici curiae or amici curiæ respectively) is a legal Latin phrase, literally translated as “friend of the court”, that refers to someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information on a point of law or some other aspect of the case to assist the court in deciding a matter before it. The information may be a legal opinion in the form of a brief, a testimony that has not been solicited by any of the parties, or a learned treatise on a matter that bears on the case. The decision whether to admit the information lies with the discretion of the court.
Some people (not Paul Griepentrog), immediately wrote emails using profanity and personal attacks against those filing this brief when learning about it, even without reading it yet. There has even been claims that the 22 organizations signing in support are somehow exploiting those being prosecuted in Wisconsin. Such infighting, especially when based on personalities, such as the personal attacks using profane language, does not serve our cause.
We might disagree on some issues, but all of us against NAIS have much in common. We have enough to fight without fighting each other.
Mike Murphy
Comment Mike Murphy — December 6, 2009 @ 9:15 am
Something you might enjoy sending to your congressmen that seems to sum up the whole mess of NAIS - Enjoy.
A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California
when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy
“If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?”
Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, “Sure, Why not?”
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the
area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg=2 0, Germany .
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.
Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, “You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.”
“That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,” says Bud.
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then Bud says to the young man, “Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?”
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, “Okay, why not?”
“You’re a Congressman for the U.S. Government”, says Bud.
“Wow! That’s correct,” says the y uppie, “but how did you guess that?”
“No guessing required.” answered the cowboy.. “You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and
you don’t know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep. …
Now give me back my dog.
[This is a popular story that has appeared in many forms over the decades. A goody and an oldie with a distinct twice of reality in it. -WJ]
Comment manure mover — December 12, 2009 @ 11:26 am
Interestingly enough, all but the first link in #3 are now dead ends.
Comment Mr Dirty Nails — December 16, 2009 @ 8:11 am
Such a good site. I am saving this page.
Comment Sitesell — December 18, 2009 @ 4:56 am
CHIP THE ANIMALS
CHIP THE PATIENTS
CHIP THE CITZENS
TRACK IT ALL
CONTROL
BENEFITS ONLY TO THOSE WHO COMPLY.
FREEDOM GOODBYE
WORLD AP NEWS FEED:
Emergency health alerts for the Facebook generation? The nation’s ambulance crews are pushing a virtual medical ID system to rapidly learn a patient’s health history during a crisis - and which can immediately text-message loved ones that the person is headed for a hospital.
The Web-based registry, invisibleBracelet.org, started in Oklahoma and got a boost this fall when the state’s government made the program an optional health benefit for its own employees.
Now the iBracelet attempts to go nationwide as the American Ambulance Association next month begins training its medics, who in turn will urge people in their communities to sign up.
For $5 a year, basic health information and up to 10 emergency contacts are stored under a computer-assigned PIN number that’s kept on a wallet card with your driver’s license, a key fob or a sticker on an insurance card.
It’s a complement to the medical alert jewelry that people with diabetes, asthma and a host of other conditions have used for decades to signal their needs in an emergency.
And it comes as the American College of Emergency Physicians is trying to determine just what information is the most critical for medics and ER doctors to find when you’re too ill or injured to answer questions, so that competing emergency-alert technologies don’t miss any of the essentials.
“Too many times, we don’t have the information to help us treat the patients correctly,” says James Finger, president of the American Ambulance Association, the largest network of emergency medical service providers.
Not everyone who should wear a medical alert bracelet does, costing EMS workers precious minutes determining, for example, if someone’s incoherent because he’s having a stroke or because he’s a diabetic with dangerously low blood sugar.
Even someone too healthy for those bracelets may have some condition that could help emergency workers make a faster diagnosis, avoid a medication reaction - or track down their next-of-kin faster.
The question is how to make sensitive medical data easily accessible to emergency workers without violating federal health-privacy laws. Options range from simple bracelets to pricier key-chain flash drives, implanted microchips - and call-centers that relay stored health records and notify relatives when an alarm or medic’s phone call activates the system.
Rapid family notification is crucial, says Stephen Williamson, president of Oklahoma’s Emergency Medical Services Authority - and one reason his EMS provider recently trained to use the new Invisible Bracelet.
A medical alarm necklace Williamson bought for his mother promptly called an ambulance when she fell, but didn’t alert him as promised until 11 hours after he learned of her hospitalization on his own.
And when his wife suffered a brain aneurysm a year ago, Williamson called 911 and got her in the ambulance - only to freeze, unable to remember how to contact their daughters.
“I’m in the business of emergencies. … But I just stared at my phone. I couldn’t figure out for, honest to God, five minutes it seemed like, ‘What do I do?’” Williamson recalls. “I’d much rather have known that’s being handled and left for the hospital.”
Enter the iBracelet. Only authorized medics can access a Web site that reads the PIN and opens the health info they use to treat. Then, with a push of a button, the medic chooses an area hospital for transport. Simultaneously, the up to 10 people listed to be notified by text or e-mail get that message.
EMS providers couldn’t show data yet on how well it works. But nearly 100,000 people have enrolled since the service opened in Oklahoma in April, says Noah Roberts of the Tulsa-based Docvia health software company, and the University of Oklahoma is preparing to use it for a campus registry.
The ultimate goal is an electronic medical record for everyone, available no matter where they are, says Dr. Andrew I. Bern, an ACEP board member and emergency physician in south Florida.
That’s years away. Until then, ACEP is preparing recommendations for the most important information to overcome what Bern calls “the limited real estate” on emergency bracelets and wallet cards, and the problem of outdated information when people forget to update their records.
No one’s immune: 120 million people needed emergency care last year, Bern notes. So in choosing whichever of today’s emergency-information systems most fits your lifestyle, he stresses to keep it up to date.
“You have to be a partner in this whole process, gathering the information,” he says. “If it’s not current, it’s not that useful.”
Comment Nanna — December 21, 2009 @ 4:10 pm
And another swine flue vacine recalls:
Dugmaker MedImmune is recalling nearly 5 million doses of swine flu vaccine because the nasal spray appears to lose strength over time, federal health officials announced Tuesday.
The vaccine recall is the second this month caused by declining potency and comes as public health officials urge millions of Americans to get vaccinated against swine flu.
The action affects more than 4.6 million doses, but the vast majority have already been used, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Agency officials said the vaccine was strong enough when it was distributed in October and November.
APNews
Comment walterj — December 23, 2009 @ 3:02 pm