Liberia’s Largest Newspaper Accuses US of Manufacturing Ebola Virus (Video)
Oct 4, 2012 - Compositions and methods including and related to the EbolaBundibugyo virus ... 26, 2007 and accorded an accession number 200706291. Aug 3, 2014 - (NaturalNews) The U.S. Centers for Disease Control owns apatent on a particular strain of Ebola known as "EboBun." It's patent No. Economic Policy Aug 7, 2014 - PATENT Human Ebola Virus Species and Compositions and Methods Thereof ... 26, 2007 and accorded an accession number 200706291. Aug 3, 2014 - Publication number, US20120251502 A1. Publication type ... Application number, US 13/125,890 ... Related Itemsbreaking newsebolapatent. |
The Liberian Daily Observer, which is the largest newspaper in Liberia, just published an article on their front page with the headline, “Ebola, AIDS Manufactured By Western Pharmaceuticals, US DoD?” The article accuses the US of manufacturing the Ebola outbreak in a scheme to use Africa as a testing ground for bioweapons.
From the article: SITES AROUND AFRICA, AND IN WEST AFRICA, HAVE OVER THE YEARS BEEN SET UP FOR TESTING EMERGING DISEASES, ESPECIALLY EBOLA The World Health Organization (WHO) and several other UN Agencies have been implicated in selecting and enticing African countries to participate in the testing events, promoting vaccinations, but pursuing various testing regiments. The August 2, 2014 article, West Africa: What are US Biological Warfare Researchers Doing in the Ebola Zone? by Jon Rappoport of Global Research pinpoints the problem that is facing African governments. Obvious in this and other reports are, among others: (a) The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), a well-known centre for bio-war research, located at Fort Detrick, Maryland; (b) Tulane University, in New Orleans, USA, winner of research grants, including a grant of more than $7 million the National Institute of Health (NIH) to fund research with the Lassa viral hemorrhagic fever; (c) the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) This is the kind of propaganda relief workers are facing in Liberia and Western Africa. |
Brigham and Women’s nurses sue over flu shot mandate
By Felice J. Freyer | GLOBE STAFF SEPTEMBER 25, 2014
The Massachusetts Nurses Association sued Brigham and Women’s Hospital this week, seeking to block a policy not yet in effect that would require nurses to get flu shots if they want to keep working there.
The action in Suffolk Superior Court comes as state public health officials are leaning on hospitals to improve the influenza vaccination rate among health care workers, which varied in hospitals from 62 percent to 99 percent during the most recent flu season.Health care workers can transmit the flu to patients, whose illnesses make them especially vulnerable to complications.
Brigham and Women’s, with a worker vaccination rate of 77 percent, has had little success increasing the number of employees who will accept the vaccine, despite offering free shots around the clock, said hospital spokeswoman Erin McDonough.
RELATED: Why do half of us still skip the yearly flu vaccine?
The Brigham instituted the mandate in hope of matching the success of other teaching hospitals in Boston, most of which vaccinate more than 90 percent of employees, she said.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association, the union representing 3,200 nurses at the Brigham, said in its lawsuit that the hospital’s mandate, which could lead to the firing of employees who refuse vaccination, violates a state regulation that explicitly bars hospitals from requiring employees to the receive vaccine if they don’t want it, regardless of the reason.
McDonough said Brigham officials “believe that we have interpreted the statute correctly, but will await clarification before implementing a mandatory policy.”
David Schildmeier, the spokesman for the nurses’ union, called the regulation “crystal clear.”
“Every employee has a right to decline,” he said. “All they have to do is sign a form. They don’t have to give a reason.”
RELATED: Hospitals miss goal for worker flu shots
The regulation states: “A hospital shall not require an individual to receive an influenza vaccine” if the employee has medical or religious reasons for refusing or if “the individual declines the vaccine.”
Even so, a number of Massachusetts hospitals require flu vaccinations as a condition of employment, and those hospitals have higher vaccination rates, said Lynn Nicholas, president of the Massachusetts Hospital Association, which has long advocated mandatory flu vaccination for health care workers.
Nicholas accused the nurses’ union of being an obstacle to immunization.
“Hospitals that have the MNA have a much harder time getting their vaccination rates up,” she said. In filing suit, she said, the union “is putting a pet peeve of theirs above the safety and well-being of the patients they serve, their families, visitors to the hospital, and their colleagues.”
Schildmeier denied any “pet peeve.”
RELATED: How dangerous is this new respiratory enterovirus?
“We want vaccinations up,” he said. “We don’t want to do so by violating the rights of the nurses.”
Schildmeier said that while nurses accept requirements to be vaccinated against polio, measles, and other infectious diseases, some regard the flu vaccine differently. Shots must be taken every year, reformulated each time to protect against the flu strains expected to circulate. Schildmeier asserted that the shot is ineffective 5o to 60 percent of the time and that nurses can protect patients through infection control measures.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital require employees who work in patient care areas to obtain flu shots. In the 2013-14 flu season, the two hospitals had vaccination rates of 94 percent and 90 percent respectively. Nurses at those hospitals are not represented by the MNA.
But the union does represent nurses at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which was among three hospitals with a 99 percent vaccination rate last season.
Dana-Farber policy requires employees to get annual flu shots, but the hospital exempts MNA-represented nurses from this policy.
“However,” spokeswoman Ellen Berlin wrote in an e-mail, “our nursing staff supports the flu vaccine program and understands its importance in protecting our patient population.”
Related coverage:
• Half of Americans still skip yearly flu vaccine
• Drugstores, retailers dive deeper into vaccines
• If you have the flu, can you get a refund for your flight?
• Panel: Flu spray better than shots for young kids
The Massachusetts Nurses Association sued Brigham and Women’s Hospital this week, seeking to block a policy not yet in effect that would require nurses to get flu shots if they want to keep working there.
The action in Suffolk Superior Court comes as state public health officials are leaning on hospitals to improve the influenza vaccination rate among health care workers, which varied in hospitals from 62 percent to 99 percent during the most recent flu season.Health care workers can transmit the flu to patients, whose illnesses make them especially vulnerable to complications.
Brigham and Women’s, with a worker vaccination rate of 77 percent, has had little success increasing the number of employees who will accept the vaccine, despite offering free shots around the clock, said hospital spokeswoman Erin McDonough.
RELATED: Why do half of us still skip the yearly flu vaccine?
The Brigham instituted the mandate in hope of matching the success of other teaching hospitals in Boston, most of which vaccinate more than 90 percent of employees, she said.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association, the union representing 3,200 nurses at the Brigham, said in its lawsuit that the hospital’s mandate, which could lead to the firing of employees who refuse vaccination, violates a state regulation that explicitly bars hospitals from requiring employees to the receive vaccine if they don’t want it, regardless of the reason.
McDonough said Brigham officials “believe that we have interpreted the statute correctly, but will await clarification before implementing a mandatory policy.”
David Schildmeier, the spokesman for the nurses’ union, called the regulation “crystal clear.”
“Every employee has a right to decline,” he said. “All they have to do is sign a form. They don’t have to give a reason.”
RELATED: Hospitals miss goal for worker flu shots
The regulation states: “A hospital shall not require an individual to receive an influenza vaccine” if the employee has medical or religious reasons for refusing or if “the individual declines the vaccine.”
Even so, a number of Massachusetts hospitals require flu vaccinations as a condition of employment, and those hospitals have higher vaccination rates, said Lynn Nicholas, president of the Massachusetts Hospital Association, which has long advocated mandatory flu vaccination for health care workers.
Nicholas accused the nurses’ union of being an obstacle to immunization.
“Hospitals that have the MNA have a much harder time getting their vaccination rates up,” she said. In filing suit, she said, the union “is putting a pet peeve of theirs above the safety and well-being of the patients they serve, their families, visitors to the hospital, and their colleagues.”
Schildmeier denied any “pet peeve.”
RELATED: How dangerous is this new respiratory enterovirus?
“We want vaccinations up,” he said. “We don’t want to do so by violating the rights of the nurses.”
Schildmeier said that while nurses accept requirements to be vaccinated against polio, measles, and other infectious diseases, some regard the flu vaccine differently. Shots must be taken every year, reformulated each time to protect against the flu strains expected to circulate. Schildmeier asserted that the shot is ineffective 5o to 60 percent of the time and that nurses can protect patients through infection control measures.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital require employees who work in patient care areas to obtain flu shots. In the 2013-14 flu season, the two hospitals had vaccination rates of 94 percent and 90 percent respectively. Nurses at those hospitals are not represented by the MNA.
But the union does represent nurses at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which was among three hospitals with a 99 percent vaccination rate last season.
Dana-Farber policy requires employees to get annual flu shots, but the hospital exempts MNA-represented nurses from this policy.
“However,” spokeswoman Ellen Berlin wrote in an e-mail, “our nursing staff supports the flu vaccine program and understands its importance in protecting our patient population.”
Related coverage:
• Half of Americans still skip yearly flu vaccine
• Drugstores, retailers dive deeper into vaccines
• If you have the flu, can you get a refund for your flight?
• Panel: Flu spray better than shots for young kids
Pope sacks Paraguayan bishop accused of protecting abuser priest
BY PHILIP PULLELLA
VATICAN CITY Thu Sep 25, 2014 11:28am EDT
(Reuters) - Pope Francis has dismissed a conservative Paraguayan bishop who was accused of protecting a priest suspected of sexually abusing young people in the United States, the Vatican said on Thursday.
The Argentinian-born pontiff has vowed zero tolerance against Roman Catholic clerics who sexually abuse minors after a series of scandals hit the Church in a number of countries over many years. Last May, Francis called such abuse an "ugly crime" and likened it to "a Satanic mass".
A statement said the pope had removed Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano from his post as head of the diocese of Ciudad del Este and named another bishop to run it as an administrator for the time being.
The sacking followed a Vatican investigation of the bishop, the diocese and its seminaries, said the statement, which gave no details.
Vatican sources said the bishop had refused to resign after the investigation of the accusations and reports of irregularities in his diocese.
According to reports in Catholic media while the Vatican investigation was in progress, Livieres Plano had promoted a priest in his diocese who had been accused of sexual abuse while serving in the United States.
A U.S. bishop had told Paraguayan Church officials that the priest, an Argentinian national who had been promoted to a senior position in the Paraguayan diocese by Livieres Plano, was a "serious threat to young people", according to the reports.
Livieres Plano had defended both himself and the priest, saying the charges against them were unfounded, Catholic media have reported.
The dismissed bishop, a member of the conservative Roman Catholic group Opus Dei, had become a polarizing figure in the Paraguayan Church and often clashed with more progressive clerics, according to the reports.
The Vatican said Pope Francis had taken the "onerous decision" to remove Livieres Plano after careful examination of the results of the Vatican investigation. He has previously said bishops who covered up abuse would be held accountable.
SNAP, a U.S.-based victims' group which has often demanded that the Vatican discipline bishops suspected of covering up abuse, said it was "encouraged" by the move, saying Livieres Plano had "protected and promoted a credibly accused sex offender cleric".
But it urged its members to continue putting pressure on the Church to do more. "One move involving one bishop doesn't herald some magical new era in which we can passively sit back and assume that more irresponsible Church officials will be disciplined," SNAP said in a statement.
The dismissal of the Paraguayan bishop came two days after the pope approved the arrest in the Vatican of a former archbishop accused of paying for sex with children while he was a papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic.
(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Gareth Jones and Janet Lawrence)
VATICAN CITY Thu Sep 25, 2014 11:28am EDT
(Reuters) - Pope Francis has dismissed a conservative Paraguayan bishop who was accused of protecting a priest suspected of sexually abusing young people in the United States, the Vatican said on Thursday.
The Argentinian-born pontiff has vowed zero tolerance against Roman Catholic clerics who sexually abuse minors after a series of scandals hit the Church in a number of countries over many years. Last May, Francis called such abuse an "ugly crime" and likened it to "a Satanic mass".
A statement said the pope had removed Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano from his post as head of the diocese of Ciudad del Este and named another bishop to run it as an administrator for the time being.
The sacking followed a Vatican investigation of the bishop, the diocese and its seminaries, said the statement, which gave no details.
Vatican sources said the bishop had refused to resign after the investigation of the accusations and reports of irregularities in his diocese.
According to reports in Catholic media while the Vatican investigation was in progress, Livieres Plano had promoted a priest in his diocese who had been accused of sexual abuse while serving in the United States.
A U.S. bishop had told Paraguayan Church officials that the priest, an Argentinian national who had been promoted to a senior position in the Paraguayan diocese by Livieres Plano, was a "serious threat to young people", according to the reports.
Livieres Plano had defended both himself and the priest, saying the charges against them were unfounded, Catholic media have reported.
The dismissed bishop, a member of the conservative Roman Catholic group Opus Dei, had become a polarizing figure in the Paraguayan Church and often clashed with more progressive clerics, according to the reports.
The Vatican said Pope Francis had taken the "onerous decision" to remove Livieres Plano after careful examination of the results of the Vatican investigation. He has previously said bishops who covered up abuse would be held accountable.
SNAP, a U.S.-based victims' group which has often demanded that the Vatican discipline bishops suspected of covering up abuse, said it was "encouraged" by the move, saying Livieres Plano had "protected and promoted a credibly accused sex offender cleric".
But it urged its members to continue putting pressure on the Church to do more. "One move involving one bishop doesn't herald some magical new era in which we can passively sit back and assume that more irresponsible Church officials will be disciplined," SNAP said in a statement.
The dismissal of the Paraguayan bishop came two days after the pope approved the arrest in the Vatican of a former archbishop accused of paying for sex with children while he was a papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic.
(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Gareth Jones and Janet Lawrence)
ITALY STAGES EBOLA EVACUATION DRILL _ JUST IN CASE
9/24/2014 8:32:43 PM
PRATICA DI MARE AIR BASE, Italy (AP) — The patient, a slight woman in her 30s, lay motionless on the stretcher as a half-dozen men in biohazard suits transferred her from a C-27J cargo plane into an ambulance and then into a mobile hospital isolation ward, never once breaking the plastic seal encasing her.
The exercise put on Wednesday was just a simulation of the procedures that would be used to evacuate an Ebola patient to Italy. But for Italian military, Red Cross and health care workers, it offered essential experience, especially for those on the front lines of the country's sea-rescue operation involving thousands of African migrants who arrive here every day in smugglers' boats.
Italian authorities and medical experts insist that the risk of Ebola spreading from Africa to Europe is small, given that the virus only spreads by direct contact with infected blood or other bodily fluids. They say Italy's first case of Ebola will probably be an Italian doctor or missionary who contracts the disease while caring for patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea — the three hardest-hit countries — and is airlifted home for treatment.
Yet concern runs high: EU health ministers who met this week in Milan spent an entire session discussing Ebola and the EU. They concluded that, while the risk of the disease coming to Europe is low, the EU must improve coordination and prevention measures to better diagnose, transport and treat suspected cases.
"There is an emergency," said Dr. Natale Ceccarelli, who heads the infirmary at the Pratica di Mare air force base south of Rome, where the training course was staged. "If one person is infected, he infects everyone."
Ceccarelli has already flown once to an Italian navy transport ship taking part in the Mare Nostrum rescue operation after a would-be refugee who was picked up at sea was flagged during a routine health screening.
The patient was airlifted in one of the same self-contained mobile isolation units used for the defense ministry's simulation drill. He went first to Sicily and then to Rome aboard a C-130 transport plane and was taken immediately to the capital's Spallanzani hospital, which specializes in infectious diseases.
It turned out he had monkeypox, a virus similar to smallpox, not Ebola.
Ebola is believed to have infected more than 5,800 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal. Compared with swine flu, the number of infections is relatively small. But the World Health Organization has declared the outbreak an international public health emergency, and U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered up to 3,000 troops to be deployed to West Africa to build field hospitals and train medical staff.
Britain and France — which both have colonial ties to the region — have pledged to build treatment centers in Sierra Leone and Guinea. Italy has pledged to build a 90-bed treatment center in Sierra Leone, send experts from Spallanzani and give 1.5 million euros for the WHO to buy equipment and medicine.
Italy also has isolation units developed by a British engineer that are big enough for doctors to stabilize a patient on long-haul flights. Physicians can attach intravenous drips through the plastic sheeting without breaking the protective seal or even intubate a patient. Other European countries use smaller, simpler units that are suitable only for short flights, Ceccarelli said.
"It's very nice to have that option," said Dr. Benjamin Neuman, a virologist at the University of Reading in Britain. "Right now, there's a limited range" for transport, preventing patients with late-stage Ebola from being evacuated if the distances are too long or if they are already vomiting blood or suffering from diarrhea.
Italy has had the units on hand since 2005 and has used them 11 times to extract Italians suffering from dengue in Congo and hemorrhagic fever in Nepal, said Lt. Col. Marco Lastillo, an air force medic. The defense ministry stages the training courses twice a year, but added this extra session at the request of the health ministry because of the Ebola threat.
"This capacity that we have created for ourselves should be put to everyone's disposition," Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti told reporters at the base after watching the students perform the biohazard evacuation drill. She insisted that Italy's migrant crisis posed no particular Ebola threat, saying the medical screenings done in the Mare Nostrum operation would prevent any infected people from reaching the general population.
One of the students taking the course was Massimo Mazzieri, a volunteer with the Knights of Malta, the Catholic association that has a medical-relief corps working in war zones and natural disasters around the world, and with African migrants arriving in Italy. He and his classmates staged the drill, meticulously making sure the patient was passed from mobile isolation unit to mobile isolation unit without breaking the seal holding her germs inside.
"In this particular moment, Ebola is really on our minds, maybe a bit excessively," he said. "But we are ready."
PRATICA DI MARE AIR BASE, Italy (AP) — The patient, a slight woman in her 30s, lay motionless on the stretcher as a half-dozen men in biohazard suits transferred her from a C-27J cargo plane into an ambulance and then into a mobile hospital isolation ward, never once breaking the plastic seal encasing her.
The exercise put on Wednesday was just a simulation of the procedures that would be used to evacuate an Ebola patient to Italy. But for Italian military, Red Cross and health care workers, it offered essential experience, especially for those on the front lines of the country's sea-rescue operation involving thousands of African migrants who arrive here every day in smugglers' boats.
Italian authorities and medical experts insist that the risk of Ebola spreading from Africa to Europe is small, given that the virus only spreads by direct contact with infected blood or other bodily fluids. They say Italy's first case of Ebola will probably be an Italian doctor or missionary who contracts the disease while caring for patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea — the three hardest-hit countries — and is airlifted home for treatment.
Yet concern runs high: EU health ministers who met this week in Milan spent an entire session discussing Ebola and the EU. They concluded that, while the risk of the disease coming to Europe is low, the EU must improve coordination and prevention measures to better diagnose, transport and treat suspected cases.
"There is an emergency," said Dr. Natale Ceccarelli, who heads the infirmary at the Pratica di Mare air force base south of Rome, where the training course was staged. "If one person is infected, he infects everyone."
Ceccarelli has already flown once to an Italian navy transport ship taking part in the Mare Nostrum rescue operation after a would-be refugee who was picked up at sea was flagged during a routine health screening.
The patient was airlifted in one of the same self-contained mobile isolation units used for the defense ministry's simulation drill. He went first to Sicily and then to Rome aboard a C-130 transport plane and was taken immediately to the capital's Spallanzani hospital, which specializes in infectious diseases.
It turned out he had monkeypox, a virus similar to smallpox, not Ebola.
Ebola is believed to have infected more than 5,800 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal. Compared with swine flu, the number of infections is relatively small. But the World Health Organization has declared the outbreak an international public health emergency, and U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered up to 3,000 troops to be deployed to West Africa to build field hospitals and train medical staff.
Britain and France — which both have colonial ties to the region — have pledged to build treatment centers in Sierra Leone and Guinea. Italy has pledged to build a 90-bed treatment center in Sierra Leone, send experts from Spallanzani and give 1.5 million euros for the WHO to buy equipment and medicine.
Italy also has isolation units developed by a British engineer that are big enough for doctors to stabilize a patient on long-haul flights. Physicians can attach intravenous drips through the plastic sheeting without breaking the protective seal or even intubate a patient. Other European countries use smaller, simpler units that are suitable only for short flights, Ceccarelli said.
"It's very nice to have that option," said Dr. Benjamin Neuman, a virologist at the University of Reading in Britain. "Right now, there's a limited range" for transport, preventing patients with late-stage Ebola from being evacuated if the distances are too long or if they are already vomiting blood or suffering from diarrhea.
Italy has had the units on hand since 2005 and has used them 11 times to extract Italians suffering from dengue in Congo and hemorrhagic fever in Nepal, said Lt. Col. Marco Lastillo, an air force medic. The defense ministry stages the training courses twice a year, but added this extra session at the request of the health ministry because of the Ebola threat.
"This capacity that we have created for ourselves should be put to everyone's disposition," Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti told reporters at the base after watching the students perform the biohazard evacuation drill. She insisted that Italy's migrant crisis posed no particular Ebola threat, saying the medical screenings done in the Mare Nostrum operation would prevent any infected people from reaching the general population.
One of the students taking the course was Massimo Mazzieri, a volunteer with the Knights of Malta, the Catholic association that has a medical-relief corps working in war zones and natural disasters around the world, and with African migrants arriving in Italy. He and his classmates staged the drill, meticulously making sure the patient was passed from mobile isolation unit to mobile isolation unit without breaking the seal holding her germs inside.
"In this particular moment, Ebola is really on our minds, maybe a bit excessively," he said. "But we are ready."
Just why does the NFL have tax-exempt status?
By Steven Brill
SEPTEMBER 23, 2014
1. Checking the NFL’s numbers:
In the wake of the fallout over National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell’s handling of his players’ domestic violence arrests, there have been multiple reports by journalists, who read the league’s filing of form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service, that Goodell was paid $44 million in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013.
But there are lots of other leads for reporters to pursue based on what is in that filing, which is a report that every tax-exempt nonprofit organization has to file with the IRS.
For starters, there’s the existence of the form in the first place. How could the NFL — which helps negotiate billions in media and promotion deals for its member teams and which itself reported an operating profit of more than $9 million and $326 million in “program service revenue” — be given nonprofit tax-exempt status?
According to the filing, the NFL claims its tax exemption under section 501c(6). The IRS regulations define eligible 501c(6) organizations as the following:
Business leagues
Chambers of commerce
Real estate boards
Boards of trade
Professional football leagues
Huh? How did that happen? Neither the National Basketball Association nor Major League Baseball have that valuable status. What’s the story behind that?
In addition, is that status now in jeopardy in light of the NFL’s recent nosedive in public standing?
In fact, that same form 990 hints that the NFL has long been worried about at least the possibility of losing its special tax-exempt status. A footnote to a section related to the league’s liabilities states that the organization, since 2009, does an annual review to “determine whether a tax position of the League Office is more likely than not to be sustained,” and that, based on the review conducted for this report (the year ending March 31, 2013), the league believes its tax position will continue as is.
The next filing is due this February. I wonder what the footnote will say then.
Other items worth pursuing in the NFL 990:
The league reported $1,276,000 in lobbying expenses, plus another $7,139,000 in fees to Covington & Burling, the powerhouse Washington law firm (on top of $9,030,000 to Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, its New York firm). That’s a lot of money being thrown around in Washington. What issues was the money spent on?
In addition to Goodell’s $44-million paycheck, the league’s “executive vice president for media,” Steve Bornstein, took home $26 million, and general counsel Jeff Pash received $7,862,000.
That is an unusually high salary for a general counsel — let alone one working for a “nonprofit.” It might be a good hook for a story reviewing the NFL’s multi-front legal problems — from head injury litigation, to disciplining players accused of domestic violence, to maintaining the status of that tax exemption.
In all three cases, most of the money the executives received was listed as bonus compensation — $40 million for Goodell, about $23 million for Bornstein and $4.8 million out of $7.8 million for the general counsel. In light of the league’s current troubles, a reporter — or a member of Congress at a hearing — ought to ask the league owners who set these executives’ compensation, what the bonus criteria have been and whether they will now be changed to reflect the league’s obvious need to worry about issues other than money.
Under “grants,” there’s a $20,000 donation to the National Association of Black Journalists. Should groups of reporters be seeking and accepting money from an organization they cover, especially one that is so much in the news?
Finally, there’s a $15,000 grant “to support 2012 convention” for something called “Association Women in Sports,” which on the form 990 lists an address in Neptune, New Jersey. I could not find any trace of that organization on the Internet, and its address appears to be a residence. Who is this group? And is it going to send back the $15,000?
2. Lobbying over livers:
This editorial from Bloomberg View makes a cogent argument about an arcane issue: allocation of organ transplants, in this case donated livers.
The Bloomberg editors support a proposal to reform how donated livers are distributed that takes advantage of advances in travel logistics and medicine that now allow organs to be transported from regions farther away than contemplated under the current system.
“Under the existing system, managed by the United Network for Organ Sharing,” the Bloomberg editors explain, “donated livers are prioritized for use in the geographic regions from which they come. In regions where the organs are relatively plentiful — in the South, for instance, wheredeath rates are higher — they sometimes go to people who could easily wait longer for a transplant, rather than to sicker patients who may die without them. … A new system … would redraw the map of liver-donation regions to create just four large ones in place of the 11 smaller ones that exist today. Mathematical models suggest that sharing livers within these broader zones would save 554 [lives] over five years.”
As the Bloomberg editors put it, “What’s not to like about the change?”
The answer is that people needing livers in regions like the South would have to wait longer if their need isn’t urgent because they would be competing on a priority list with a larger pool of donees.
Two hospital presidents from different parts of the country and one senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services recently mentioned this controversy to me — and all three wondered why it has not gotten more press.
First, there’s the obvious story about who is producing the new mathematical models referred to in the Bloomberg editorial. And, more generally, who is lobbying whom to push for or block the proposed changes.
Second, what is the United Network for Organ Sharing that Bloomberg says manages the existing system? Its website says it is the “Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN) for the federal government.”
What does that mean? Who oversees it? How is this decision about changing the geographic regions going to be made?
This is an organization that not only makes life-and-death policy decisions, like the one about organizing the regions, but also makes daily choices about who gets a life-saving donor organ and who doesn’t.
SEPTEMBER 23, 2014
1. Checking the NFL’s numbers:
In the wake of the fallout over National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell’s handling of his players’ domestic violence arrests, there have been multiple reports by journalists, who read the league’s filing of form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service, that Goodell was paid $44 million in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013.
But there are lots of other leads for reporters to pursue based on what is in that filing, which is a report that every tax-exempt nonprofit organization has to file with the IRS.
For starters, there’s the existence of the form in the first place. How could the NFL — which helps negotiate billions in media and promotion deals for its member teams and which itself reported an operating profit of more than $9 million and $326 million in “program service revenue” — be given nonprofit tax-exempt status?
According to the filing, the NFL claims its tax exemption under section 501c(6). The IRS regulations define eligible 501c(6) organizations as the following:
Business leagues
Chambers of commerce
Real estate boards
Boards of trade
Professional football leagues
Huh? How did that happen? Neither the National Basketball Association nor Major League Baseball have that valuable status. What’s the story behind that?
In addition, is that status now in jeopardy in light of the NFL’s recent nosedive in public standing?
In fact, that same form 990 hints that the NFL has long been worried about at least the possibility of losing its special tax-exempt status. A footnote to a section related to the league’s liabilities states that the organization, since 2009, does an annual review to “determine whether a tax position of the League Office is more likely than not to be sustained,” and that, based on the review conducted for this report (the year ending March 31, 2013), the league believes its tax position will continue as is.
The next filing is due this February. I wonder what the footnote will say then.
Other items worth pursuing in the NFL 990:
The league reported $1,276,000 in lobbying expenses, plus another $7,139,000 in fees to Covington & Burling, the powerhouse Washington law firm (on top of $9,030,000 to Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, its New York firm). That’s a lot of money being thrown around in Washington. What issues was the money spent on?
In addition to Goodell’s $44-million paycheck, the league’s “executive vice president for media,” Steve Bornstein, took home $26 million, and general counsel Jeff Pash received $7,862,000.
That is an unusually high salary for a general counsel — let alone one working for a “nonprofit.” It might be a good hook for a story reviewing the NFL’s multi-front legal problems — from head injury litigation, to disciplining players accused of domestic violence, to maintaining the status of that tax exemption.
In all three cases, most of the money the executives received was listed as bonus compensation — $40 million for Goodell, about $23 million for Bornstein and $4.8 million out of $7.8 million for the general counsel. In light of the league’s current troubles, a reporter — or a member of Congress at a hearing — ought to ask the league owners who set these executives’ compensation, what the bonus criteria have been and whether they will now be changed to reflect the league’s obvious need to worry about issues other than money.
Under “grants,” there’s a $20,000 donation to the National Association of Black Journalists. Should groups of reporters be seeking and accepting money from an organization they cover, especially one that is so much in the news?
Finally, there’s a $15,000 grant “to support 2012 convention” for something called “Association Women in Sports,” which on the form 990 lists an address in Neptune, New Jersey. I could not find any trace of that organization on the Internet, and its address appears to be a residence. Who is this group? And is it going to send back the $15,000?
2. Lobbying over livers:
This editorial from Bloomberg View makes a cogent argument about an arcane issue: allocation of organ transplants, in this case donated livers.
The Bloomberg editors support a proposal to reform how donated livers are distributed that takes advantage of advances in travel logistics and medicine that now allow organs to be transported from regions farther away than contemplated under the current system.
“Under the existing system, managed by the United Network for Organ Sharing,” the Bloomberg editors explain, “donated livers are prioritized for use in the geographic regions from which they come. In regions where the organs are relatively plentiful — in the South, for instance, wheredeath rates are higher — they sometimes go to people who could easily wait longer for a transplant, rather than to sicker patients who may die without them. … A new system … would redraw the map of liver-donation regions to create just four large ones in place of the 11 smaller ones that exist today. Mathematical models suggest that sharing livers within these broader zones would save 554 [lives] over five years.”
As the Bloomberg editors put it, “What’s not to like about the change?”
The answer is that people needing livers in regions like the South would have to wait longer if their need isn’t urgent because they would be competing on a priority list with a larger pool of donees.
Two hospital presidents from different parts of the country and one senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services recently mentioned this controversy to me — and all three wondered why it has not gotten more press.
First, there’s the obvious story about who is producing the new mathematical models referred to in the Bloomberg editorial. And, more generally, who is lobbying whom to push for or block the proposed changes.
Second, what is the United Network for Organ Sharing that Bloomberg says manages the existing system? Its website says it is the “Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN) for the federal government.”
What does that mean? Who oversees it? How is this decision about changing the geographic regions going to be made?
This is an organization that not only makes life-and-death policy decisions, like the one about organizing the regions, but also makes daily choices about who gets a life-saving donor organ and who doesn’t.
Church network offers sanctuary to illegal immigrants to avoid deportation
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy prohibits arrests at religious buildings.
A network of two dozen churches has promised to offer “physical sanctuary” to illegal immigrants facing deportation, saying they want to create a safe haven that federal officials won’t invade as a way of preventing the migrants from being kicked out of the country.
The movement is the latest effort by activists trying to stop as many deportations as possible after failing to win relief from President Obama, who earlier this month temporarily shelved his plans to expand his nondeportation policies, angering Hispanics and immigrant advocates.
Dubbed Sanctuary 2014, the movement consists of 24 churches in 12 cities scattered across the country that have vowed to open their doors to holding illegal immigrants facing deportation. They said they have four active sanctuary cases.
One of those is Rosa Robles Loreto, who has exhausted her court options and whom the government has ordered deported. She has been at Southside Church in Tucson for seven weeks, never leaving the church property.
“She will remain until the day that she can safely return to doing what she loves most — cheering for her 8- and 11-year-old boys at their Little League games,” Ms. Harrington said.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/24/sanctuary-2014-church-network-helping-illegal-immi/#ixzz3ELe6hTin
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