Category: Bush
Chevy Chase, MD -- Stem cell research holds great promise for the treatment of millions of Americans with debilitating and possibly fatal diseases.
Survey results published this week in the journal Health Affairs show that while only 27 percent of adults currently support the U.S. Senate Finance Committee's proposed healthcare legislation, an amended bill could gain the majority's favor.
Wartime leaders have long sought to sway public opinion by "framing" bad news from the frontlines. They present inconvenient facts in an altered format in order to generate support for their policies.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the tentative approval of a co-packaged antiretroviral drug regimen manufactured by Aspen Pharmacare of South Africa for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in adults. The agency's tentative approval means that although existing patents and/or exclusivity prevent U.S. marketing of Aspen's product, it meets FDA's quality, safety and efficacy standards for U.S. marketing. This action makes this product available for potential procurement by President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
Why were so many Americans, as early as the first anniversary of Sept. 11, convinced that Saddam Hussein was behind the terrorist attacks in the United States? Did their mistaken belief that the Iraqi dictator was responsible for the attacks result from the Bush administration's information campaign to convince the public to go to war in Iraq, or was something else at work? A new study -- the first to investigate U.S. public opinion about who was to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks -- finds that there was, indeed, ''something else.'' ''News coverage and presidential rhetoric may have replaced Osama with Saddam over time,'' write the authors of the study, ''but Saddam was on the short list of most-likely suspects from the beginning for most Americans.''
A skillful mixing of religion and politics helped President Bush silence critics and sell his policies on terrorism and Iraq to the nation, according to a new book that analyzes hundreds of public communications and news reports. As Bush makes his case for a second term, the research by David Domke documents how during his first term the president effectively linked religious terminology with political goals in the turbulent months after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Stanford University Professor Paul R. Ehrlich is urging fellow ecologists to join with social scientists to form an international panel that will discuss and recommend changes in the way human beings treat one another and the environment. Ehrlich is scheduled to call for the establishment of a Millennium Assessment of Human Behavior to avoid the approaching collision between humanity and its life-support systems.
President Bush today signed into law Project BioShield, which provides new tools to improve medical countermeasures protecting Americans against a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) attack. The President first proposed Project BioShield in his 2003 State of the Union address and Congress approved it last week. Project BioShield is a comprehensive effort overseen jointly by Secretary Thompson and Secretary Ridge, and involving other Federal agencies as appropriate, to develop and make available modern, effective drugs and vaccines to protect against attack by CBRN weapons.
President Bush today signed bipartisan legislation designed to make America safer in the face of a biological attack. Bush signed the Project BioShield legislation at a ceremony in the Rose Garden. The president thanked the Senate and House members from both parties who worked on and sponsored the legislation. Project BioShield grew out of the desire to protect Americans from the threat that terrorists armed with biological weapons pose to the United States.
With a budget deficit estimated at $521 billion this year, coupled with a commitment to halve it in five years, U.S. President Bush is proposing a budget that would mean cuts in research and development (R&D) funding for all but three federal agencies, according to the latest analysis from AAAS, the non-profit science society. "The projected cuts to most nondefense R&D programs would leave key programs with budgets well below recent historical levels," said Kei Koizumi, director of the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program. "Particularly during a Presidential election year, it's important for policymakers and taxpayers to understand the impacts of any federal budget changes, especially any proposals that may have implications for the pace of scientific discoveries in coming years."
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced agreement with Chinese Vice Premier and Health Minister Wu Yi to increase collaboration with China toward improved detection and management of infectious diseases. The agreement stems from President Bush's pledge to Chinese President Hu Jintao to provide resources necessary to help stem the SARS epidemic in China.
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced today the release of a $150 million solicitation for a project that will spur the development of both hydrogen vehicles and hydrogen infrastructure needed to support them. This solicitation represents a critical step in implementing President Bush's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative and supports his FreedomCAR Initiative.
An Arizona chemist and colleagues from Munich, Germany, have discovered how microbes avoid being poisoned by the cyanide and carbon monoxide compounds they make and incorporate into enzymes. The bacteria use the enzymes to turn water into hydrogen for energy. Bacteria with this remarkable ability have long been widely dismissed as one of Mother Nature's interesting, if largely useless and unimportant, oddities.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush announced a $1.2 billion Freedom Fuel initiative to reverse America?s growing dependence on foreign oil by developing the technology for commercially viable hydrogen-powered fuel cells to power cars, trucks, homes and businesses with no pollution or greenhouse gases. The Freedom Fuel initiative will include $720 million in new funding over the next five years to develop the technologies and infrastructure to produce, store, and distribute hydrogen for use in fuel cell vehicles and electricity generation. Combined with the FreedomCAR (Cooperative Automotive Research) initiative, President Bush is proposing a total of $1.7 billion over the next five years to develop hydrogen-powered fuel cells, hydrogen infrastructure and advanced automotive technologies.
The Washington Post, which built its reputation covering the federal government, has in the last year or two carved out a respectable niche in the tech sector. The two come together in stories like this, in which reporters Ariana Eunjung Cha and Jonathan Krim delve into the debate underway in the Bush administration on the proper rules of engagement for cyberwarfare. Bush's point man on the topic, Richard Clarke, says it's still nation-states that pose the biggest threat in the cyber arena, not terrorist groups. The administration has traced break-ins back to foreign governments and even reckons a state may have been involved in developing last year's damaging Code Red virus. The prospect of more attacks has led the government to explore how far it is willing to go to counter such incidents. The Geneva Convention prohibits attacks on civilians, and given the interconnectedness of computers around the world, any campaign against an enemy military network could seep into computers at large --- and even back to the U.S. itself. It's a fun, thought-provoking read. So go read it.
