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Mollie Hemingway Hits a Home Run
I readily admit it, folks. I miss Mollie. But she has not disappeared, and she has a piece on The Federalist website that you should all read.
To begin with she has discovered the woman in charge of the Ebola crisis. Her name is Dr. Nicole Lurie; and, some time ago, she was appointed Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for — drumroll, please — Preparedness and Response; and her job is to “lead the nation in preventing, responding to and recovering from the adverse health effects of public health emergencies and disasters, ranging from hurricanes to bioterrorism.” Here is what Mollie reports:
As National Journal rather glowingly puts it, “Lurie’s job is to plan for the unthinkable. A global flu pandemic? She has a plan. A bioterror attack? She’s on it. Massive earthquake? Yep. Her responsibilities as assistant secretary span public health, global health, and homeland security.” A profile of Lurie quoted her as saying, “I have responsibility for getting the nation prepared for public health emergencies—whether naturally occurring disasters or man-made, as well as for helping it respond and recover. It’s a pretty significant undertaking.” Still another refers to her as “the highest-ranking federal official in charge of preparing the nation to face such health crises as earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, and pandemic influenza.”
There is only one problem. Ms. Lurie has not recently appeared in the news — which, Mollie speculates, may have to do with a scandal she was involved in back in 2011, when a fat no-bid contract for smallpox vaccine was given to a firm controlled by Obama donor Ron Perelman, which has quite recently gone bankrupt. This recent development may be especially awkward for Lurie — given that there was another company seeking that contract, which was then busy developing a “treatment now being used on Ebola patients.”
Mollie also has some embarrassing things to say about the supposedly underfunded Centers for Disease Control, which controls “a $12.5 billion slush fund . . . used to fight the privatization of liquor stores,” and she wants us to know about the funding provided the National Institutes of Health — much of it back in the bad old days of George W. Bush — for research aimed at heading off bioterrorism and pandemics.
See, in 2004, Congress passed The Project Bioshield Act. The text of that legislation authorized up to $5,593,000,000 in new spending by NIH for the purpose of purchasing vaccines that would be used in the event of a bioterrorist attack. A major part of the plan was to allow stockpiling and distribution of vaccines.
Just two years later, Congress passed the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, which created a new assistant secretary for preparedness and response to oversee medical efforts and called for a National Health Security Strategy. The Act established Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority as the focal point within HHS for medical efforts to protect the American civilian population against naturally occurring threats to public health. It specifically says this authority was established to give “an integrated, systematic approach to the development and purchase of the necessary vaccines, drugs, therapies, and diagnostic tools for public health medical emergencies.”
Last year, Congress passed the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013 which keep the programs in effect for another five years.
If you look at any of the information about these pieces of legislation or the office and authorities that were created, this brand new expansion of the federal government was sold to us specifically as a means to fight public health threats like Ebola. That was the entire point of why the office and authorities were created.
In fact, when Sen. Bob Casey was asked if he agreed the U.S. needed an Ebola czar, which some legislators are demanding, he responded: “I don’t, because under the bill we have such a person in HHS already.”
And that is not all — for Mollie then takes a look at the way our tax dollars are spent:
Of course, between the fiscal years 2000 and 2004, NIH’s budget jumped a whopping 58 percent. HHS’s 70,000 workers will spend a total of $958 billion this year, or about $7,789 for every U.S. household. A 2012 report on federal spending including the following nuggets about how NIH spends its supposedly tight funds:
- a $702,558 grant for the study of the impact of televisions and gas generators on villages in Vietnam.
- $175,587 to the University of Kentucky to study the impact of cocaine on the sex drive of Japanese quail.
- $55,382 to study hookah smoking in Jordan.
- $592,527 to study why chimpanzees throw objects.
Last year there were news reports about a $509,840 grant from NIH to pay for a study that will send text messages in “gay lingo” to meth-heads. There are many other shake-your-head examples of misguided spending that are easy to find.
Someone should get that girl on a podcast! I, for one, want to know more about “the impact of cocaine on the sex drive of Japanese quail.”
Published in General
Is the Republican party making sure the electorate knows about all this?
I think well of Mollie Hemingway, but she can’t do it alone.
Plus, I’ve heard there are elections coming up, which should be the perfect time for a political party to hang a lantern upon the corruption and incompetence of the other side.
Yes, Mollie did an outstanding service with that piece. Thefederalist.com should be on everybody’s daily read (after Ricochet of course).
LOLOLOL, ROTFLMAO. Xennady, you’re such a kidder. As far as I can tell the Republican Party is for the most part AWOL on this issue.
> Mollie Hemingway: I, for one, want to know more about “the impact of cocaine on the sex drive of Japanese quail.”
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I’ve done my own research on this, and I have to say, it’s impressive.
No fears. This from the Office of the Surgeon General: http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/ebola.html
To be clear, Ebola is hard to contract:
You can only get Ebola from:
Mollie has a very big bat, rarely misses and should be playing for the Orioles tonight as they face the KC Royals . But alas, she won’t be pinch-hitting and we may win.
The whole government has been turned into a Chicago ward, graft and jobs programs for the previously unemployable nephews and nieces of the graft machine. who else would hire Jonathan Dach, Susan Rice, Jen Psaki ad nauseum, ad infinitum
Everything has turned into cash transfers and a patronage scheme lubricated by the gullible libs in the bureaucratic leviathan that appreciates a bribe and hopes for social change. They have been played worse than the rest of us. Imagine Lois Lerner’s disappointment ( somewhat allayed by her pension) !
I read Mollie’s piece earlier today–linked from Instapundit–and was blown away as much by the writing as the reporting. Totally gives the lie to the idea that government has been cut to the bone. Brava!
a $702,558 grant for the study of the impact of televisions and gas generators on villages in Vietnam.
I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that they hook up the TVs to the generators, start the generators, and watch the TVs.
Before I go on, I’m going to need a grant.
Every time one of these “public servants” are paraded out to demand MORE funding so they can perform the fundamental reason their department is in existence I feel like I have been dropped into Jim Geraghty’s book The Weed Agency.
I read Mollie’s piece first thing this morning and I must say I was Shocked! Shocked! to discover that the Ebola Czar was no where to be found. She had to cash in her chips before she could weigh in on the crisis…
I am in the fed research game, and I know that sometimes these research project titles and abstracts seem silly. Sometimes they are silly, but sometimes these projects produce very good fundamental science, which goes on to produce very important technologies, medical treatments, and/or innovations that lead to economic growth. The problem is that it is impossible to know which are which.
Most of the general public have very little idea about the scale of federal research. Honestly, as a conservative this area has been the hardest for me to figure out, and if scientists are honest they know that a better balance between private and public funding for research is needed. The question is how to get from here to there.
The Federalist has no credibility with me. Just take a look at their write-up on Wikipedia!
Woodrow Wilson and The Progressives strike again!
I read the book when it came out in hardcover. Highly recommend it.
What would the GOP’s argument be? “Hey, we passed a huge increase in HHS/NIH spending that was frittered away?”
I suspect that at least some of the politicians from Kentucky are aware of this wonderful opportunity to advance science. I believe that at least some of the politicians from Kentucky are Republicans.
I am wondering how UK got the cocaine?
Do others get grants that include cocaine?
Who is the supplier?
Just asking.
Thanks for sharing, Dr. Rahe. Mollie’s article is now on my facebook page, doing the job that Republican politicians won’t: defending Republicans.
-E
OK, I don’t doubt you, but isn’t this like interstellar commerce? How can you make money smuggling bushmeat into the US?
I guess they fly sushi around the world, but they’re selling it in high-end restaurants and charging top dollar.
Capitalism is an amazing thing…
I know, I know. I’m crazy to even think for a second that the Republican party will do anything at all to respond to lies made by the party they supposedly oppose- such as telling the people what actually happened.
What was I thinking to suggest that the utterly worthless Republican party establishment would contradict anything claimed by the left?
I’ve posted both your Ebola articles and Molly’s on my FB page, and shared with more people. One way or another the word will get out.
#BringBackOurMollie
Thanks everyone for the kind words. Even after years of covering the federal government, the incompetence and waste remain surprising.
I gather that you will soon be visiting Hillsdale. I look forward to having coffee with you.
In all fairness I think there’s a natural reason to study the sex drive of cocaine-using Japanese quail — I think it’s one of the next target Demographics for the Democratic party. “Vote as if your avian parts depend on it.”
In all fairness I think there’s a natural reason to study the sex drive of cocaine-using Japanese quail — I think it’s one of the next target Demographics for the Democratic party. “Vote as if your avian parts depend on it.”
In all fairness I think there’s a natural reason to study the sex drive of cocaine-using Japanese quail — I think it’s one of the next target Demographics for the Democratic party. “Vote as if your avian parts depend on it.”