Redstate

Posted at 1:45pm on Apr. 11, 2008 Consequences of Congressional grandstanding

By Bham

Congressional Dems are currently piling on the FAA, and their posturing is amplified by the usual MSM echo chamber. The immediate consequence is the current mess of cancelled airline flights, stranded passengers and, no doubt, a litigation festival to come. All highly visible, of course.

What I'd like thoughtful readers to contemplate is that the same political ploy -- specifically, seeking media face time by touting a consumer "crisis" and provoking regulatory overreaction, risk-aversion and micromanagement -- has been a dismal fact of life for pharma companies dealing with the FDA, for years.

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Posted at 4:10pm on Jun. 2, 2007 High-skill Immigrants

By Bham

I'm a Boilermaker (BS Physics). As such, the Dean of Science sends me periodic email updates of Purdue affairs -- no doubt, in part, to keep the alumni contributions flowing.

As I looked over Dean Vitter's latest missive, it reminded me of the portion of the current immigration policy debate that I think needs sharper focus. Specifically, I refer to our profound dependence on foreign-born scientists, engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists and other technical experts.

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Posted at 8:40pm on Apr. 24, 2007 On the Road to Excellence

By Bham

Washington Governor Christine Gregoire (D-King County) just signed a bill "delaying" a requirement that high school students pass standardized tests in order to graduate. More details are here. Specifically it's the math and science tests that have been defused. For the time being, the language arts exam stays.

But math and science competence isn't all that important, is it?

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Posted at 11:49pm on Nov. 8, 2006 Homosexual marriage?

By Bham

Living in the portion of Washington State that is almost a suburb of Vancouver BC, as we do, Canadian news gets more attention than perhaps it does in most of the US. In case you missed it, Canada became the fourth nation to recognize homosexual marriages as equivalent to traditional heterosexual unions.

I’ve puzzled over both the merits and legalities of this issue and reached some personal conclusions that promise to displease both sides of the debate. But I aspire to an “independent” viewpoint...

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Posted at 8:27pm on Oct. 21, 2006 WA-Sen DC Ad Support Cut Off?

By Bham

Local reports say national Republican support for Mike McGavick's Senate campaign advertising has ceased. Too bad. I thought McGavick's ads were effective. News coverage of the cutoff alluded to McGavick still lagging in polls.

I don't trust my own objectivity in matters political, but I've been really impressed with how good a campaign Mike McGavick has waged.

Maria Cantwell's campaign, by contrast, has been misstatements, misdirection, half-truths, fear-mongering, class jealousy -- it embarrasses me for the whole state that it's working as well as it evidently is.

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Posted at 4:07pm on Oct. 19, 2006 The Political Compass

By Bham

The 11/7/06 issue of PC Magazine has a grab-bag of interesting but obsure websites, one of which is Political Compass. This free site uses an anonymous questionnaire to position you on a bi-variate map which includes the familiar left-right dimension, but adds a libertarian-authoritarian axis.

The site sponsors make a good case that a single political axis -- traditionally left-right -- is insufficient to understand contemporary political dynamics.

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Posted at 2:42pm on Oct. 17, 2006 WA-Sen: McGavick splits with the President?

By Bham

Local reports quote Republican Senate candidate Mick McGavick calling for the dismissal or resignation of Secretary Rumsfeld and the formation of some sort of committee to reconsider strategic options in Iraq.

Que pasa? Clarification welcome.

Iraq and Bush aren't polling well in WA (no surprise) so this tactical position, if it really happened, isn't impossible to understand. But the tactical gains would be modest (the Dem wagons are circled around Maria Cantwell, whatever their earlier misgivings about her tepid GWOT "support") and the Republican base, IMO, would be demoralized.

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Posted at 2:33pm on Aug. 31, 2006 Add to the pile of circumstantial evidence

By Bham

The FDA's ongoing program of intercepting and testing prescription drugs ordered by Americans over the internet from "Canadian" businesses, has produced more evidence of counterfeits.

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Posted at 8:35pm on Aug. 22, 2006 Shelby Steele makes some really good points

By Bham

The WSJ's greed in restricting access to their online content to subscribers is penny wise and pound foolish. The writing that appears on their pages is frequently important and deserves a wider audience.

A particularly striking example is the essary in today's WSJ by Stanford-Hoover fellow Shelby Steele.

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Posted at 3:45pm on Aug. 3, 2006 Corrupt Voter Registration

By Bham

Saying that Democrat Christine Gregoire's 133 vote victory in the 2004 Washington gubernatorial race shows "the public interest weights strongly in favor of letting every eligible resident of Washington register and cast a vote," [sic] US District Court Judge Ricardo S. Martinez on August 1st struck down a state statute requiring that voter registration applications match a valid drivers license or social security registration. Local coverage here.

This lawsuit against the Washington Secretary of State had been brought by plaintiffs organized by the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU Law School (brennancenter.org). Overall, the plaintiffs list is comprised of the usual liberal Dem proxies, and seems obviously targeted to advance Dem political clout.

I've done independent data mining of Washington's registration database, with special attention to my own county (Whatcom) and, to make a long story short, concluded that the overall error rate in the "honest" counties is about one percent.  There are about 3.4 million registrants in the whole state. I included in "errors" duplicates, deceased voters, and dubious non-residents.  The error rate in King and Pierce counties -- Washington's most populous -- is even higher. As the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (effwa.org) has documented, the voter fraud in those Dem strongholds is probably overt. EFF's county-by-county follow up of voting fraud prosecution was also very discouraging, with essentially nothing meaningful being done about these putative felonies.

As of this writing it isn't clear whether either the Washington Secretary of State or Attorney General (both nominally Republicans) intend to appeal this decision. If they do, it will have to go to the Ninth Circuit -- often termed the "Ninth Circus" -- arguably the most reliably liberal appellate court in the nation. That sure doesn't bode well.

If you combine motor-voter registration will negligible identity checking I contend you've got the makings of a corrupt election, before the first "vote" is cast.

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Posted at 7:33pm on Jul. 27, 2006 "Text Mining" the MSM?

By Bham

Some interesting research from UC Irvine.  I'd be especially interested in the reaction of computer science researchers here on RS as to the applicability of this new tool to the topic of media political bias.

Since the UC researchers have already demonstrated the ability to analyze hundreds of thousands of NYT articles, and to heuristically identify the relative frequency of word combinations, couldn't this be used to objectively measure MSM political bias? Both what gets reported, and how it's described, are widely thought by conservatives to be manipulated to favor liberal politics, and this technology might allow that rebuttable presumption to be tested.

Not that I have any serious personal doubts, but more systematic data might increase our credibility with "convinceable" independents.

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Posted at 1:51pm on Jul. 18, 2006 Regional Labor Shortages

By Bham

Washington state agricultural areas are starting to report crop losses because of a lack of immigrant farm workers to complete the harvests.  This was predictable.

I've caught a fair amount of criticism for my consistent RS advocacy of increased immigration at both the low and high end of the employment-skill food chain.  In addition to nativist arguments, I've heard variations of "let's just home-grow those needed scientists and engineers" for the shortfalls in the skilled categories.

I'm coming to believe that worker shortages at both the top and bottom of the employment skill spectrum reflect wide-spread cultural and attitudinal aversion by native-born Americans. Perhaps not enough Americans want to work that hard, whether it's physical (like crop picking) or mental (like science and engineering)?

The widely documented deficiencies of our public education system exacerbate our scientific erosion, no doubt, as do the perceived imbalances in compensation and job insecurity endured by many private-sector tech workers.

Attrition of American high-tech graduates may be a complex, multi-dimensional problem but any practical solution will also rely at least in part on immigration.

Wishing that such American vocational aversions weren't so may be comforting, but in the end futile.  

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Posted at 6:54pm on Jul. 7, 2006 Planting the Seeds of Mischief?

By Bham

Perhaps I'm just a worrier, but will we live to regret some of political and legal precedents we're establishing and defending?  

Sooner (maybe much sooner) or later, the Dems will return to power.  Saying that gives me no pleasure, please be assured.  But the two parties have traded power intermittently for almost 150 years, and I believe in the mysterious power of regression to the mean.

When next the Dems prevail, what might they do with enhanced communications eavesdropping, financial monitoring and the suspension of habeas corpus we term "enemy combatant detention?"

For the greater part of his long incumbency, J. Edgar Hoover "served" Democratic administrations.  And multiple historical accounts document Hoover's abuses of civil liberties.  Perhaps this example cuts both ways: the Republic did survive Hoover, after all.

The recent Supreme Court decision upholding the DeLay-inspired, mid-decade Texas redistricting is clearly beneficial to Republicans short term, but what if every state with a Dem-controlled legislature, now and in the future, uses this precedent to attempt to Gerrymander Republicans into oblivion?

The Libertarian's refrain is that government powers tend to be strongly accretive -- once acquired, they are seldom revoked.  As I think about next November and beyond, this makes me uneasy.

I've never taken antidepressants.  Maybe I should start.

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Posted at 2:50pm on Jul. 6, 2006 McGavick tour feedback

By Bham

In my total dedication to RS readers, I sacrificed 90 minutes yesterday to stand by Lake Whatcom in 70 degree sunshine, eating fresh strawberry shortcake, and sampling the Mike McGavick "Open Mike" bus blitz as it visited Whatcom County.  (Whatcom is the northwest-most county of the contiguous 48 states.)

McGavick, by some polls and his own claim, has pulled to within four percentage points of Maria Cantwell for the November Senatorial race.

This was my first, first-person exposure to McGavick and I want to report that he's an unusally well-prepared, poised and energetic campaigner.  After a version of his stump speech, he fielded wide-ranging questions easily, displaying in-depth briefing of bills, sponsors, alternatives, economic implications and, most importantly, a good grasp of the center-right sensibilities required to get a good enough center-right turnout for a Republican to win in a mid-term election.

To be sure, McGavick (or any Republican) faces institutional barriers to victory in Washington, including a semi-corrupt registration and voting system in the bluest counties. But in a statewide count, the Dems in King and Pierce counties don't dominate the way, for example, the Chicago tail wags the Illinois dog.  Statewide races can be won.

And, as has been noted in previous diaries, Maria Cantwell is seriously struggling with her left wing, both vocal and numerous, infuriated by even her tepid support of the Terror War and Iraq.

Please consider paying closer attention to the McGavick-Cantwell race.  I'm starting to believe that you may be in for a pleasant surprise.

More info at www.mikemcgavick.com.  I'm just a supporter and contributor, and have no paid or leadership role in Mike's campaign.

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Posted at 12:32am on May 31, 2006 Will the Lawyers Be the Death of Us All?

By Bham

International medical experts have expressed alarm over the potential of the H5N1 avian flu to mutate into a form that is contagious between humans.  It has already demonstrated the ability to jump species between birds and pigs, and between birds and humans.  The mortality rate of this influenza strain is high -- above 50 percent of infected humans die.  A recent cluster outbreak in Indonesia may, in fact, be the dreaded "transmissible" evolution of the virus.

If this threat becomes real, it is very serious.  This avian strain, according to the experts, has pandemic potential ... and virulence thus far in excess of the infamous 1917-19 worldwide flu epidemic that killed, among fifty million others, my paternal grandmother in Spokane in 1919.

But hasn't US vaccine and pharmaceutical science progressed enough since 1919 that this outbreak can be managed and contained?  Less than you might think ... and for reasons having more to do with weak public policy than weak science.

With the possible exception of Merck, US vaccine development, manufacturing and marketing is in fragile condition.   The failure of Chiron's UK vaccine manufacturing plant at the onset of the 2004-05 flu season, and the resulting shortfall of nearly 50 percent of the US flu vaccine supply, was a blunt demonstration of the vulnerable and overly-concentrated state of the vaccine "industry."

When I began working in the pharma industry in the late 1960s there were more than two dozen vaccine manufacturers in the US alone, including my employer.  But when Chiron's meltdown happened two years ago, it was the first time many people realized that only two flu vaccine manufacturers supplied the entire US market.  Unfortunately, this supply vulnerability is also typical of other vaccines, including immunizations for children.  Although they received less publicity than the flu vaccine debacle, there have been numerous US shortages of other vaccines in recent years.

What happened, and why?

In sum, vaccine business risks and costs so far outpaced profits that most qualified firms exited the business.

Trial lawyers, motivated by contingency fees and frequently employing class-action lawsuits, have pounced on the unavoidable medical fact that all vaccines have low-incidence adverse reactions, which in rare cases can be serious.  Physicians know that a great deal more good than harm is done by mass immunization, but tort lawyers apparently see rare adverse reactions as potentially winning lottery tickets.

In 1986 Congress tried to address this growing problem of runaway vaccine litigation by establishing an insurance pool to compensate patients for actual medical harm from vaccines, but not for "pain & suffering," "punitive damages," and so on.  Unfortunately, the statute hasn't worked very well -- the plaintiff's bar has cleverly circumvented the statute, most recently by litigating about vaccine preservatives like thimerisol.

During the same period that litigation risks were rising, the US FDA was becoming more and more demanding -- both regarding pre-market vaccine approval, "good manufacturing practice" (GMP) and biologics regulations.  Manufacturing injectible medicines like vaccines is technically demanding, but reasonable scientists can differ on details of how this can be accomplished safely.  But there is no "differing" with the GMPs, where the FDA has dictatorial powers.  If FDA inspectors disagree with a particular manufacturer's procedures, the agency's powers extend as far as shutting the factory on the spot and seizing product inventories.  Over the last decades of decline in the vaccine industry, the FDA's increasing risk aversion added greatly to manufacturing costs.  After Vioxx, FDA political risk aversion has accelerated substantially.

Another important dimension in the vaccine industry's perfect storm is pricing.  Because so many immunizations are provided by federal and state public health agencies, the Defense Department and the Veterans Hospital system, a relatively high percentage of product volume in the vaccine market segment is purchased by large buyers.  Those purchasers did what large and powerful buyers usually do: they bargained down selling prices.  The effect of this is to compress gross product margins.

So during the period of decline, vaccine industry legal and regulatory risks rose, manufacturing costs increased, and product sales margins were reduced.  The unsurprising outcome was fewer firms making and selling vaccines.

The H5N1 avian flu threat also highlights an important secondary vulnerability.   Established manufacturing technology of most vaccines (flu included) hasn't changed much in thirty years.  A target virus is cultured in eggs (usually fertilized chicken eggs) for periods up to months, then extracted and additionally processed.  At best this methodology is way too slow, and has inadequate yields, in a pandemic.

Clearly, we need new vaccine manufacturing technology but, for all the reasons already cited, there has been little invested until very recently.  Now we're in a race against time, with many of our lives at stake.  

Just when we may need a robust and creative domestic vaccine industry most, a perverse combination of trial lawyers, risk-averse government bureaucrats and purchasing agents has badly damaged it.  I devoutly hope that we'll surmount the cumulative effect of public policies that sounded good at the time but sure look misguided now.

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