Daily Dose of Dust
Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
''I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.''
-Kurt Vonnegut
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Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Terrorism's Harvest How al-Qaeda is tapping into the opium trade to finance its operations
Tracking Policies & Investigative Stories: Free Bitter Pill
Australian concession card holder David Nolan pays just $3.80 a month for the tablets that keep his cholesterol from reaching dangerous levels and the Australian taxpayer subsidises him to the tune of $60. American patient Paulette Beaudoin would pay at least twice as much for the same script…out of her own pocket.
It is this striking difference between the two systems that has raised suspicions about what the Free Trade Agreement will mean for our system of subsidised medicines.
Since signing the Free Trade Agreement in May, the Australian government has continually insisted that it will not affect the price of drugs, nor will it affect our much-valued Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
And yet, there are influential Americans who argue that Australia has been freeloading for too long and point darkly to the future:
…there's no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody has to pay for the research and development of these miracle drugs, says Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican who has visited Australia as one of the chief lobbyists.
Jonathan Holmes travels to the United States and discovers why a powerful and vociferous lobby group would like to wear down the Australian system…and why the ordinary American, struggling to meet the cost of much-needed drugs, looks at Australia with envy.
• The Rich Gang up on the Poor at Trade Talks... [via Four Corners ]
• · Out of Many, One: Out of This Long Political Darkness a Brighter Day Will Come [Media Watch: Politicians in the ABC archive]
• · · PDF Format: Capitalism with Chinese characteristics: the public, the private and the international [From The Globalist, on how Russia met the world]
• · · · All The Pretty Words Optimists or opponents, we need our politicians to deal with the real problems facing America [The French, Russian and now Marketing Antipodean Revolution in Politics]
• · · · · Everyone has a favorite investigative journalist: Stacy St. Clair writing for the Chicago's Daily Herald ; [Michael Schwalbe: New Tobacco Image Masks Deadly Business as Usual... ]
• · · · · · Lawrence Martin Patriot Game, Media Shame