The facts thusfar (and kudos to Shay Totten who almost single-handedly brought this issue out): Burlington Chief Administrative Officer Jonathan Leopold took it on himself to cut a $17 million loan (yes, that’s taxpayer money) to Burlington Telecom (the city-run telecom entity) without seeking approval from the Board of Finance or City Council. As a result, BT is now violating its “certificate of public good” issued by the state by not repaying the loan within 60 days (as well as by not expanding its network as promised). Given the current state of affairs, there is no guarantee that the citizens of Burlington are going to get that money back. These facts are not in dispute.

There are four elements to this that should surprise no one. First of all, that Leopold would engage in such an astonishing breach of ethics and rules. He’s historically just done what he wants to.

Second, that Bob Kiss doesn’t really give a damn if Leopold breaks the rules, as he’s consistently done whatever he can to keep Burlington Telecom protected from oversight and transparency. All I can assume is that its just another case of some on the left who decide the rules are there to control bad guys, and since they’re not bad, the rules don’t apply.

Third, that David O’Brien would be a drama queen about all this, leaping at the chance to be the hero and hoping that people will be distracted from his Fairpoint legacy, and other failures. He also wants the Douglas administration gold star award by giving Burlington the black eye ANR couldn’t manage.

Fourth, that the Burlington Free Press would jump on the pound-the-City bandwagon. They too look for any excuse to hammer the mayor’s office, and this one was gift wrapped.

Given these last two elements, why City officials would just hand their enemies a loaded gun and point it at their own temples like this is beyond me.

But what I really don’t understand is why the Burlington City Council went limp on all this. That’s the real mystery here, and the biggest breach of public trust in play. You can’t unite that crew over anything, but putting their own imprimatur on this behavior… this is what brings Republicans, Democrats, Independents and Progressives together? This? (And given the copious use of “executive sessions” shielded from public scrutiny, transparency is not a watchword for this crowd.)

On October 5th, the City Council just shrugged at the brewing scandal. No consequences, no nothing. Just its approval for the mayor’s office to seek to retroactively change the rules to accomodate the behavior, with broad promises that they’d report in more. Washington DC politics as usual, eh?

The only one who dissented was the biggest lightning rod on the Council; Ed Adrian. Adrian is a solid liberal, but is loathed by Progressives over his aggressive Democratic partisanship. So loathed by the Prog crowd in fact, that Progressive Representative David Zuckerman threw him out of his farm’s CSA over political differences. That’s some bad, bad feelings – and the marquee illustration of just how much worse the Prog-Dem thing is in Burlington as compared to the rest of the state.

So while its an interesting exercise in political anthropology to observe some of those folks who so loathe Adrian try to deal with the fact that he’s the only one looking good in all this, the fact is Adrian is the only one looking good in all this. Period. In his recent op-ed in the Free Press on the matter, Adrian comments:

On October 5, 2009 the Burlington City Council and the residents of Burlington learned for the first time the magnitude of the problems facing BT and just how much had been done in their name in their name to BT over the past year: 

1) Burlington’s Chief Administration Officer (CAO) knew as early as August, 2008 that BT’s Certificate of Public Good (CPG) issued by the Public Service Board (PSB) required any monies temporarily loaned to BT from taxpayer funds and other city revenues (“pooled cash”) needed to be paid back within 60 days;

2) Mayor Kiss’s CAO withheld this information from the City Council for at least 13 months;

3) the CAO has continued to authorize, without City Council approval, millions of dollars out of the City’s “pooled cash” funds for periods longer than 60 days thereby violating the CPG and the City Charter.

[…]

Five days after filing a petition with the PSB to amend BT’s Certificate of Public Good to allow the City to lend taxpayer dollars to BT, the Kiss Administration asked for the Council’s approval retroactively. I asked that a vote on the resolution be delayed for approximately one month to give both the City Council and the public time to learn more about and better understand the impacts of allowing taxpayer monies to be used to support BT on an ongoing basis. The Mayor opposed my request and it was defeated by a wide majority.

[…] It may be that voting occurred as it did precisely because the Council has not been given the information that it needed to act and was unwilling as a body to question the Mayor’s intentions.

Hard to argue with that.

But the mystery remains as to why the rest of the City Council fell all over itself to enable Leopold (and Kiss’s) bad behavior at their own expense. Perhaps the leaked video from that very City Council meeting can shed some light on this phenomenon…

From Senator Susan Bartlett’s gubernatorial campaign:

[…] David Heller will serve as Bartlett’s political media consultant and handle all of her campaign advertising; Alan Secrest will serve as her campaign pollster; and John Bauer will work on message development, fundraising and data management.

[…] Heller is one of the top political media consultants and campaign strategists in the Democratic Party. As president of Main Street Communications, an award-winning political consulting firm, Heller has compiled the best won-loss record among media consultants in the Democratic Party in terms of helping candidates win election to the U.S. Congress. Heller’s clients have won 10 out of 13 general election open seat races for Congress. He was instrumental in the election of Gov. John Baldacci (D-Me.).

Over the years, Heller has helped elect or re-elect more than twenty-five different Members of Congress, including many from some of the nation’s most Republican-leaning districts. Heller has helped elect and re-elect Members of Congress as diverse as U.S. Reps. John Olver (D-Mass.), John Lewis (D-Ga.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) and John Yarmuth (D-Ky.). ).

Handling the campaign’s polling is Alan Secrest of Cooper & Secrest Associates, one of the nation’s largest and most successful survey research firms. They have elected or reelected more than 300 Members to Congress, as well as Governors and Senators in six states.

Bauer served as Campaign Manager for Jeb Spaulding’s first election as Treasurer, winning a primary where Spaulding was out-spent 2.5 to 1. He also worked as Finance Coordinator for the Vermont Democratic House Committee, Field Director of Vermonters for Dean and as Secretary of the Vermont Democratic Party. He spent the last two years as Marketing Director for Umiak Ltd.

If she’s hiring, she must be raising money.

In the ongoing saga regarding Burlington Telecom being given $17 million by the City of Burlington, in contravention of the company’s Certificate of Public Good, Burlington City Councilor Ed Adrian today called on Mayor Kiss to place Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Jonathan Leopold on administrative leave.

Adrian lays out the case for leave with straightforward language:

The CAO’s own public admissions in respect to BT, clearly establish the following facts: 1) he deceived the Council (the corporate board for BT) by omission; 2) for a period of at least six (6) months; 3) that he purposefully and willfully violated BT’s certificate of public good; 4) by moving millions of dollars from the City’s cash pool. Again all of this was done without approval (i.e. a vote) by the Council. Please note that when I indicate that CAO Leopold acted illegally, I am not alleging that he has engaged in any criminal wrongdoing; however, it is entirely clear that he intentionally violated the CPG, thus breaking the law and thereby acting illegally.

Burlington Telecom has provided a great service to the city of Burlington. This fact is not being questioned – even if some of those involved in the situation may have a tendency to fight against any organization whose primary goal is providing public benefit without skimming off tons of corporate profit.

The question of the moment is: How should the city deal with it’s Chief Administrative Officer single-handedly appropriating millions of dollars to an entity without approval of the City Council (and the questions that arise from the City Council’s retroactive acquiescing to such action)?

(Full text of Adrian’s letter follows)

For those looking to read more, additional details can be found at 7-Days and Vermont Daily Briefing.

COUNCILOR ED ADRIAN

35 BROOKES AVENUE

BURLINGTON, VT 05401

(802) 233-2131

Mayor Bob Kiss

Room 34, City Hall

Burlington, Vermont 05401

RE: Administrative Leave for CAO Jonathan Leopold

Dear Bob:

Based on his public statements about the actions he has taken since bringing the

management of Burlington Telecom (BT) into the CAO’s office in November 2007, I am

respectfully asking you to initiate a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding

the management of BT and to place CAO Jonathan Leopold on unpaid administrative

leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

I do not take my responsibility in writing this letter lightly and I do so only after having

consulted with many attorneys and dozens of thoughtful members of the community. I

also understand that, because I am the messenger, you may see this letter as “political

maneuvering.” While partisan politics is not at all my motivation in writing this letter, the

process in and of itself makes this a political situation. I have consulted with Ken Schatz

and asked him what it would take to initiate proceedings against a department head.

Attorney Schatz has advised me that disciplinary proceedings with respect to department

heads are controlled by City Charter Section 129, which essentially provides that only the

City Council and/or the Mayor may initiate disciplinary proceedings against a department

head. Thus, unlike “at will” or union employees, disciplinary action against department

heads are “politicized” by the plain language of the City Charter which only allows

elected officials to take such action.

With that being said, I wish that this letter were coming from someone other than me. I

hope you understand that whatever I do and however I do it, it is because I think it is in

the best interests of my constituents and the City as a whole. It is thus after weeks of

careful thought and consideration that I am respectfully requesting that you place CAO

Jonathan Leopold on unpaid administrative leave pending a full investigation into the

circumstances surrounding the handling of Burlington Telecom.

The CAO’s own public admissions in respect to BT, clearly establish the following facts:

1) he deceived the Council (the corporate board for BT) by omission; 2) for a period of at

least six (6) months; 3) that he purposefully and willfully violated BT’s certificate of

public good; 4) by moving millions of dollars from the City’s cash pool. Again all of this

was done without approval (i.e. a vote) by the Council. Please note that when I indicate

that CAO Leopold acted illegally, I am not alleging that he has engaged in any criminal

wrongdoing; however, it is entirely clear that he intentionally violated the CPG, thus

breaking the law and thereby acting illegally.

The CAO’ s own statements conclusively establish that he misappropriated millions of

taxpayer dollars and mislead the Council and the public for an extended period of time

about this illegal diversion of city funds. If these admissions do not by themselves

demonstrate dereliction of the CAO’s official duties, meriting an imposed absence

pending the outcome of an investigation, than it is difficult to imagine what does.

Certainly your own precedent in suspending a City employee pending the investigation of

issues involving far less money and infinitely less jeopardy to taxpayers demands this

action at the very least.

Bob, we are at a crucial turning point in Burlington’s history. BT may still be a viable

venture for Burlington, but it has become clear to me over the last month that it has been

mismanaged and that the CAO is responsible for this mismanagement. Success can never

be claimed if it is founded on illegality. For the people of Burlington, the City, and BT I

would encourage you to move forward and support a leave of absence for the CAO and

an independent investigation that will determine the mistakes that were made and keep

BT from making similar errors in the future.

Please do not hesitate to give me a call at 233-2131 if you have any questions or

concerns. I hope that you, I, and the rest of the Council will be able to work together to

continue to move BT and the City forward. For now, I remain,

Very truly yours,

s Ed Adrian

Ward 1 City Councilor

Cc: City Councilors

Anyone who has ever struggled to pay the bills with minimum wage jobs can relate to the predicament so many Vermonters are in when they or their kids get a cold or the flu.  Taking a couple of days off and keeping the kids home just makes good sense, but not if it means there won’t be a paycheck at the end of the week.

As we contemplate the threat posed by the H1N1 flu virus, could anyone doubt that it serves the public good for sick people to stay home from work? Yet, many Vermonters have no choice but to work through an illness because less than half of all private sector employees are entitled to paid sick leave.  Those without this benefit are generally the least able to afford losing a paid day, and are often from the service sector where they necessarily come in contact with the public the most.  So we all suffer as a result of their inability to take paid sick leave when necessary.  And what about the children of those workers who have no paid family leave?  When a child gets sick or should visit  a healthcare professional, how often does the parent have to choose between caring for the child’s immediate healthcare needs and a very necessary pay check for the entire family?  Any parent can tell you that infections brought home from school are the plague of every family with school age-children.   Furthermore, with an aging population that is less and less likely to be able to afford assistance outside of the family, it is more important than ever that we begin to build into employment  some level of mandated family leave so that workers can meet the most basic needs for assistance of their elderly parents.

The impact of neglected illness and family stress on productivity is pretty universally recognized. Still, we haven’t yet made it mandatory that every full-time worker be entitled to a reasonable number of paid sick days and/or family leave. A bill that is currently before the Vermont House (H382) would go a long way toward correcting that deficiency.  Have a look at the bill and see if you don’t think that we should be able to do this much for our fellow Vermonters.

so why aren’t the DC Democrats listening? (Maybe they are? Can we get it in more than name only?)

New polling results released by the Washington Post.

First the numbers you’re going to hear about on the “news”: The nation is evenly divided when it comes to supporting or opposing the changes in health insurance being proposed by the Obama administration and Congress. 45% of the Washington Post-ABC News poll said they support the proposed changes, but 47% are opposed.

Now you know what you’ll hear … let’s get on to the real story.

10/18/09 – Summary Table

a. Expanding health care coverage to people who don’t have it now                              

b. Controlling the costs of health care overall

8. Would you support or oppose having the government create a new health insurance plan to compete with private health insurance plans? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?

You don’t see this very often. VPR reports (no link that I can find) that Bernie is lending support to librarians who are frustrated with Senator Leahy and the PATRIOT Act reauthorization that emerged from his Judiciary Committee. The reauthorization makes few changes to the post-9/11 rules allowing federal authorities to go on “fishing expeditions” through citizens’ library records. Interestingly, Sanders was a co-sponsor of Leahy’s original PATRIOT modification bill. It’s an unusual split between our sitting Senators, and Leahy defends the bill as the best he could move to the floor, given Republican intransigence.

Maybe Leahy is correct. Maybe this is the best he could’ve gotten through his committee. If so, what does that say about this Democratic majority? As with the health care issue, Leahy’s laying so much of the blame on Republicans rings quite hollow – especially with conservative Democrat Dianne Feinstein wielding so much power in the Senate Judiciary Committee in these matters. And the library provisions are far from the only problems with the Patriot reauthorization. From The American Prospect:

The bill passed by the Judiciary Committee, which Feingold derisively referred to as the “prosecutor’s committee,” left the senator “scratching his head” as to “how a committee controlled by a wide Democratic margin could support the bill it approved.” Civil-liberties advocates were especially surprised by Sen. Patrick Leahy, who proposed a much milder set of reforms than Feingold but eventually voted for a bill that didn’t have them. As Marcy Wheeler noted, Feinstein and Leahy had derided the 215s and NSLs as “fishing expeditions” back in 2005 during the last reauthorization. But that, after all, was when the GOP was still in charge.

Prospect writer Serwer notes that there are a few positives in the bill, such as changing procedures on military commissions to bring them closer to a civilian judicial standard – but only so far. Commissions are now institutionally enshrined (despite talk of sunset provisions) for the indefinite future, including provisions that now make the US the only other nation besides Rwanda that can try minors for war crimes.

And yes, much – if not all – of the onus on this goes right back to the White House, where the Obama administration has strongly opposed moving towards a pre-Bush civil rights regime on many levels – and whose push on even the bill’s modest reforms, found voice through an unlikely, although strangely appropriate in this case, agent – conservative Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions.

Like so many other Bush-era excesses, Washington Democrats are taking ownership of the federal assault on the 4th amendment as well.

Vermont’s Commissioner of Education, Armando Vilaseca, is determined to take your kids school days away from you. His latest gig in central Vermont is encouraging Montpelier city’s high school and U-32 to pursue something neither district is actually pursuing: a merger.

(While Vilaseca pushes for a political win in the guise of a merged supervisory district, the two boards are actually talking about sharing resources – not legal oversight.)

Local control is the best known phrase that gets in the way of Vilaseca’s dream of lordship over our public school system, but a lesser known phrase is also at play.

Local accountability would disappear along with the last remnants of local control. Under Vilaseca’s dream, parents would lose the easy accessibility of a school board made up of neighbors, and this is important.

As a local school board member I am available. People know who I am, and they know how to reach me. Folks know I am approachable and I will listen regardless our personal feelings towards each other. If I am not reflecting local community values I can be persuaded to change or acquiesce.

All of this is important because I help make decisions that directly affect the day to day treatment of their kids. Our school board sets the school’s policy and direction on where resources should be directed, whether to hire an extra teacher on short notice, was that incident involving bullying something that should result in expulsion or merely a talking to, where will the school buses stop and more.

The same expectations of communications and responsibility back to the community member are lost with physical distance and lack of personal acquaintance.

There are a lot of practical problems with Vilaseca’s desire to force centralized command and control on our local school systems (well beyond today’s already often burdensome set of demands). How many hours per day on a school bus are too many? Why wouldn’t we be able to save more by making liberal use of modern day communications for the likes of distance learning? If we need to be reducing school staff to more closly align with fewer students (something that is not true across the board by the way), why does the state keep sending us new programs and policies to implement?

And my biggest question: where in Vermont has school district consolidation resulted in a less expensive system?

“Parents who live in Middlesex drive through Montpelier to get to their high school,” [Vilaseca] said. “Whether that’s right or wrong, is there a better way?” (Education chief says merger talks should continue, Times Argus, 10/19/09)

Yes, there is a better way Mr. Vilaseca. That better way would be for those Middlesex parents who would prefer their kids attend the Montpelier school be given that right. Better yet … a high school local to the Middlesex community that uses any number of concepts enabled by today’s ability to easily make use of audio/video and other types of electronic sharing. Consolidation is not a part of it at all.

And Vilaseca’s club? He has the authority to redraw supervisory district lines … well not exactly. According to Title 16, Chapter 3, Section 165 of Vermont’s statutes that privilege rests with the State Board of Education.

We have enough issues with maintaining cohesive communities. We don’t need to add centralized command and control Soviet style governance over our for now local school systems.

Production Delays and Public-Relations Problems Plagued the Ford Administration’s 1976 Swine Flu Vaccination Program — and a Media Frenzy Over the Deaths of Three Elderly People Just Hours After They Took the Vaccine Only Made Matters Worse, Triggering a Widespread Fear That the Vaccine Was Unsafe

In this archival photo, a woman receives a swine flu vaccination with the use of a jet injector by a doctor as part of a nationwide, government-sponsored campaign in 1976 to vaccinate all Americans from the threat of a swine flu pandemic. But the program was plagued by delays in producing the vaccine and collapsed into disarray after a media frenzy over the deaths of three elderly people just hours after receiving the vaccine triggered widespread fears that the vaccine was unsafe. The fiasco forced the federal government, under then-President Gerald Ford, to call a halt to the $400 million program.  (Photo courtesy Centers for Disease Control)

(Posted 5:00 a.m. EDT Monday, October 19, 2009)

(Updated 2:30 a.m. EDT Tuesday, October 20, 2009)

By SKEETER SANDERS

As a growing number of children, teenagers and college-age young adults have come down with the H1N1 swine flu — and the number of new cases is likely to rise dramatically this winter — fewer than half of Americans say that they’re planning to receive the new H1N1 swine flu vaccine, according to recent polls.

It’s a trend that is leaving many health professionals worried that the death toll from H1N1 will also rise dramatically.

Even as supplies of the regular seasonal flu vaccine has fallen behind the demand, the public’s skepticism over the H1N1 vaccine has persisted, despite warnings that the number of H1N1 cases already has reached pandemic proportions.

=========================

=========================

Unlike the seasonal flu, which strikes indiscriminately and is especially hazardous to the elderly, the H1N1 swine flu is striking mostly young adults, teenagers and pre-teen children.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta says a total of 86 children under 18 years of age have died from the 2009 H1N1 virus since it first surfaced last March, the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat told reporters in a briefing on Friday.

Eleven of those deaths were reported just in the past week, Schichat said.

Distribution of the vaccine against the H1N1 virus is now under way, with priority being given to to those considered at high risk, including health care workers, pregnant women and children. But the CDC says some deliveries of vaccine will be delayed because production is lower than expected.

This has caused shortages of both the seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccines, forcing many hospitals, employers, schools and colleges to postpone or cancel scheduled flu-shot workshops.

But officials clearly do not want to trigger a panic.

DESPITE THREAT OF H1N1, A PERSISTENT WORRY ABOUT SAFETY OF VACCINE

Despite the growing threat that H1N1 poses, however, a growing number of Americans are shying away from taking the H1N1 vaccine. Even many health care workers are reluctant to be immunized, with a recent survey by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases finding that only 42 percent of health care workers are getting  themselves immunized.

The reason: Persistent concerns about whether the H1N1 vaccine is safe.

It’s a concern that dates back more than 30 years — ever since a U.S. government-sponsored swine flu vaccination program in 1976 collapsed in disarray amid production delays, public-relations problems and a wave of fear generated by a frenzy of media coverage of three elderly people who died within hours after taking the vaccine.

To make matters worse, it was soon discovered that people who were administered the H1N1 vaccine back then had an increased risk of developing a rare neuromuscular disease. More than 500 people did develop the disease, 25 of whom died from it.

That discovery forced the federal government, under then-President Gerald Ford, to call a halt to the program, which cost taxpayers over $400 million, and to pay out millions more in compensation to the families of those who died after taking the vaccine.

GETTING PUBLIC TO TAKE H1N1 FLU SHOTS A ‘TOUGH SELL’

“I’m genuinely baffled,” Arthur Kellermann, an emergency medicine physician at the Emory University School of Medicine, told National Public Radio. “The public has developed this odd sense of complacency. The only thing that comes to my mind is photos of people standing on the seawall of Galveston hours before [Hurricane Ike] hit.”

For public health officials and the medical community, convincing more people to take the H1N1 vaccine is going to be a tough sell. Part of the problem is the lack of availability — for now — of  both the H1N1 and regular seasonal flu vaccines caused by production delays.

But the greatest obstacle may be the lingering memory of the 1976 swine flu vaccination debacle. A recent survey by the Harvard University School of Public Health found that nearly a third of Americans expressed concerns about the safety of the new H1N1 vaccine.

“If [the] vaccines work, then those who have been vaccinated have nothing to fear,” said Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, in an interview with the America Online News Service.

But Fisher is not convinced that the H1N1 virus is as serious a threat as federal health officials claim it is.

“Does this particular strain of influenza warrant the amount of money we’re spending and this campaign the government is waging?” she asked rhetorically. “Federal health officials are making a mistake. There’s been an overreach. People don’t appreciate being bullied. A lot of people are starting to stay away from doctors. There’s a paradigm shift occurring.”

That Fisher is skeptical of the federal government’s handling of the H1N1 threat can’t be dismissed as mere partisan sniping, although to be sure, there are some — most notably right-wing radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh — who have used the H1N1 threat to score political points against the Obama administration.

But the 1976 swine flu fiasco hasn’t faded from the public consciousness even after 33 years –and isn’t likely to fade any time soon.

DEATHS AT FORT DIX TRIGGERED FEAR OF SWINE FLU PANDEMIC

During the first two months of 1976, about 500 recruits at the U.S. Army base at Fort Dix, New Jersey fell ill with flu-like symptoms, despite having been vaccinated against several flu viruses that were circulating at the time.

On February 5, one recruit died within 24 hours after he fell ill and four of his fellow soldiers were later hospitalized. Two weeks after the soldier’s death, health officials announced that the cause of death was a new strain of the swine influenza A virus — H1N1. The virus was detected only from January 19 to February 9 and never spread beyond Fort Dix.

At the same time, however, a second swine flu strain, H3N2, was discovered and appeared to be related to the virus involved in the 1918 “Spanish Flu” pandemic — the most lethal in the planet’s history — that felled over a billion people worldwide, killing over 22 million.

Although neither virus spread beyond Fort Dix, public-health officials were nonetheless alarmed by what they saw as an imminent threat of another global flu pandemic. Led by then-CDC Director Dr. David Sencer, they strongly urged Ford to launch a program to have every person in the U.S. vaccinated for the disease.

Ford agreed. But the program was doomed from the start.

For one thing, the fear that the world in 1976 was about to experience a repeat of the 1918 pandemic was based on the erroneous assumption that it was caused by H1N1, when in fact, the 1918 pandemic — which killed a half-million Americans — was actually caused by the avian flu virus, H5N1.

Moreover, as noted by The Washington Post, of the 500 soldiers at Fort Dix who had been infected with swine flu, only one of them died — which raised questions about just how lethal the disease really was. And not only did the swine flu viruses not spread beyond Fort Dix, there were no cases of swine flu reported throughout the summer of 1976 in the Southern Hemisphere — where it was winter and where flu outbreaks would have been expected.

THE 1976 SWINE FLU IMMUNIZATION FIASCO: WHAT WENT WRONG

On October 1, 1976, the immunizations against swine flu began. Within ten days, approximately 40 million people had received the vaccine, mostly through newly-designed compressed-air vaccination guns instead of traditional needle injections.

All seemed to go well, until the news broke on October 11 that three senior citizens in Pittsburgh who received the vaccine that day died just a few hours later. That set off a media frenzy, with news outlets speculating, without a shred of evidence, that the deaths were caused by the vaccine.

As it turned out, the three deaths were from other causes that had nothing to do with the H1N1 vaccine. But the damage was done. The public came to believe that the vaccine caused the three elderly people’s deaths. And that belief persists to this day.

That was bad enough. What really killed the vaccination program was the discovery in November 1976 that the H1N1 vaccine increased the risk of developing a paralyzing neuromuscular disease called Guillain-Barré syndrome. More than 500 people who were administered the vaccine developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, of which 25 died.

The federal government was forced to halt the program and paid millions of dollars in compensation to the families of those who died. The fiasco ultimately cost Sencer his job as head of the CDC.

WHAT ABOUT TODAY’S H1N1 FLU THREAT?

Looking back on the 1976 swine flu immunization program, it’s easy to brand it a debacle. And it could happen again.

Last week, a 14-year-old British girl died suddenly, just hours after she received  a vaccination for cervical cancer. Newspapers quickly picked up the story, running headlines implying the vaccine killed her.

But an autopsy revealed two days later that the real cause of the girl’s death wasn’t the cancer vaccine, but rather a previously undiagnosed tumor located in her chest.

The hardest job for the CDC and other health authorities is likely to be convincing the public that the new H1N1 vaccine is safe. CDC spokeswoman Arleen Porcell-Pharr has spent weeks seeking to do just that, emphasizing that the vaccine has been tested and approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

“We expect the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine to have a similar safety profile as seasonal flu vaccines, which have very good safety track records,” she said.

But skeptics like Eileen Karpfinger, a licensed chiropractor and co-founder of the Upaya Center for Wellbeing in Alameda, California, remain unconvinced. “It’s ludicrous to me that I have to put my child through this,” Karpfinger told  AOL News, referring to vaccines in general. “As a mother I don’t find vaccines to be effective.”

# # #

Copyright 2009, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

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…that I learned the path of resolution to a health issue that had been causing me problems for six weeks.

In early September of 2008, I’d gotten really sick, in pain to the point of not being able to sleep for more than 45 minutes in a row, and couldn’t keep food down (during the three months that this ordeal lasted, I lost 30 pounds, and that’s with me doing almost no exercise at all). During this period, I’d made five visits to my primary care physician, who’d consistently misdiagnosed the problem and used his misdiagnosis to lead me down the totally incorrect path towards recovery. After the fifth visit, he finally decided it was worth a little deeper investigation, at which point we scheduled a scan of my abdomen.

The scan revealed the problem instantly (it turns out, it would have probably revealed it instantly six weeks earlier as well). I got a call from his office very shortly after the scan (they asked me to stay in the waiting room so he could go over the results with me). They scheduled me that afternoon with a specialist, one who deals with kidney problems.

The problem, and the source of the constant pain, it turns out, was a kidney stone, just outside my left kidney, that had grown large enough to completely block all fluid out of the kidney. The kidney was, for all intents and purposes, completely non-functional. We didn’t know at the time whether or not function would return.

I will interject for one moment here, to note that the specialist is one of the best doctors I have ever seen. He was clear, direct, honest and hopeful without getting my hopes up. He said, in essence, “we’re going to need to do surgery right away just to take pressure off the kidney. It may not come back, but if we don’t do this surgery, you’ll definitely lose the kidney, and will probably die.” We scheduled this surgery for later in the week.

The effect of the surgery was dramatic. I still had trouble sleeping, but it was nothing like before. It was the first time I was able to sleep for more than an hour at a time, and though there was an 8-day recovery period that was fairly unpleasant, it was well worth it.

The next few months went well, though I still wasn’t up for eating much and found it difficult to exercise, and I knew another surgery would be coming. There were freakout moments, because the first surgery was only to do fluid release, and the stone still had to be removed down the line. Because of its location, they couldn’t do the normal approach of breaking it up with sound waves (it was hidden behind a bone) or anything else, so surgery again.

But that wasn’t urgent. It just needed to be done. We scheduled it for mid-December. Like the prior surgery, it had an eight day recovery period, and left me a bit exhausted for the next week or so after that, but all in all, it was just incredibly successful.

It wasn’t long before I discovered that the kidney had started to return to function. The doctor was amused because the radiologist had written this pessimistic note about how horrible it was that the kidney was only at half function, without knowing that I had had no kidney function just a few weeks before.

This June, we had a follow-up. Everything was not just good, but great. He doesn’t want to see me again for a year, and there were no signs of any stones returning or any kidney problems.

I’m writing this for a few reasons. Even though I lost 30 lbs by the time New Year’s Day had come around, I’ve gained a lot of it back — I had gained almost 25 lbs back as of a few weeks ago, which is one of the reasons I’ve been pushing myself so hard lately.

I’m realizing a few things about the health issues I experience. The diabetes is bad enough, but every medicine I take for it includes weight gain as a possible side effect. So I have to work twice as hard to get the same benefit as everyone else, which is why just maintaining my weight is difficult enough.

So I’m working at it, thinking about what I eat and why, and thinking about how much if it I eat, and realizing that one thing that’s going to be true for me is that I will pretty much always be hungry whether I actually need food or not. Eating to the point where I am not hungry, for me, is overeating. My set point has been so screwed up by decades of eating poorly, followed by more than a decade of being on medications which screw with my gastronomy, that I have to just learn to change how I think about food.

So here I am, getting ready to get on the treadmill again, even though there are other things I’d rather be doing, not because I want to look good, not because I want to fit into something, but really because I don’t want to die early just because I didn’t try to become more fit while I had the chance.

At the end of that illness, I actually felt really good. I could move better. I could sleep better. I was just better.

I need to get back to that again.

So off I go.

P.S. this is some of the other, non-exercise stuff, I’ve been doing lately:

First, music:

Then, photos:

On the Windsor County Listserve, we were recently discussing whether any candidates were talking openly about single payer.

It was noted that Peter Shumlin was on a panel June 9 in Middlebury and spoke eloquently about single payer. He is a sponsor of S.88:

This bill proposes to establish the goal of universal access to essential health care services in Vermont through a publicly financed, integrated, regional health care delivery system; provide mechanisms for cost containment in the system; and provide a framework, schedule, and process to achieve that goal.

This morning, Amy Shollenberger from the Racine campaign posted this update about Doug’s commitment yesterday to take up S.88 in the committee he chairs:

Doug Racine, along with several others, spoke at the Vermont Labor Council Convention yesterday. Here is an excerpt from his speech:

“I’ve been working on healthcare. I’ve been working to reduce the cost of healthcare and find ways to extend healthcare to all Vermonters. I think it’s time we recognize, as many of you do – I was talking to Ben and others the other day – in a country as wealthy as we are, I think we should be recognizing healthcare as a basic human right. We can afford to do this. It’s really a question of priorities, and it’s not happening in Washington right now for a lot of reasons, but it can happen here in Vermont. I heard you talking a few minutes ago – Marvin and others – about S.88.

I made a commitment the other day with Ben and the folks I was talking with. I chair the Health and Welfare Committee. We’re going to take that up. It’s going to be our starting point, to say how can we do this? How can we work with the federal government to make universal access, single-payer, a reality in the state of Vermont?

I’m going to tell you, it’s not going to be easy. There are a lot of tough questions to be answered. There are a lot of tough issues to work out, but we aren’t going to work it out if we don’t start, and we’re going to be starting on this in January.”

(more updates sub-fold)

On the national front, reports from Congressman Peter Welch’s recent Health Care Forum were also positive. According to single payer advocates in attendance, Peter “came out for Single Payer”, “made it quite clear… that the Health Insurance Companies ARE the problem” and constantly defended having a Public Option in the federal bill.

Those Single Payer advocates have been busy building support, and have a public forum coming up soon:

Single Payer Health Care 4 Vermont: How do we get there from here?

 Tuesday Nov. 10, 7 pm Hotel Coolidge – Downtown White River Jct.

    State Senator Dick McCormack

    Phil Fiermonte, Sen. Sanders staff

    Dr. Deb. Richter, VT4 Single Payer

    Attorney Marjorie Power

    Dr. Paul Manganiello, Good Neigh.Health Ctr.                  

 Sponsored by Windsor./Orange Single Payer Health Care 4 VT

On the other end of the “progress” spectrum, the current legislative proceedings on reform do not seem to be very significant. At a recent forum I attended in my professional role, a speaker involved in the legislative work on “health care reform” talked about some administrative tweaks that are under discussion in various panels and committees. Frankly they seemed from my vantage point to not recognize the scope of the mess that our system really is, and basically admitted as such. I did hear that it was expected that the statewide budget was expected to start playing a stronger role in the state government’s efforts to control costs.

S.88 would definately shake things up if passed. That process starts here with how the primary positions of the various candidates get established and set in stone for the campaign.