COMMENTARY
The Michigan Daily - New Student Edition - Fall 2005 - 3B
NOTABLE
QUOTABLE
Unfortunately,
in the rich
countries like
ours, we really
don't give a
damn."
APRIL 18,.2005
- Former President Jimmy Carter, criticizing
wealthy nations for being stingy with foreign aid at a
recent human rights conference, as reported on
Thursday by Reuters.
SAM BUTLER T*E SOAPBOX
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
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Adderall: Is it safe?
SAM SINGER SA 'sl C. ll. BMARCH 15,,2001
We will win, and someone will lose
Jordan
Schrader Port Huron Statement
JANUARY 19, 2005
President
Bush and
John Kerry
both affirmed that
the United States
will win the war
on terrorism.
So how will
we know when we
win it?
Can we declare
victory when we kill or capture all
the Islamist extremists who threaten
our country?
Or do we need to keep going until the
Russians, the Israelis and our other allies
plagued by terrorists are also satisfied?
Will it be over when our official Home-
land Security Threat Condition sinks to
green? That sure would be a load off my
mind; being vigilant is hard work.
Or will we know it's done when civil-
liberties safeguards are returned to their
peacetime levels?
Will there be a parade?
Bush briefly suggested that the war on
terrorism is unwinnable. "I don't think
you can win it," he said. "But I think you
can create conditions so that the - those
who use terror as a tool are less acceptable
in parts of the world."
But don't worry. The next day he reas-
sured Americans: "We are winning and
we will win."
The gaffe gave his Democratic oppo-
nent a unique opportunity to challenge
Bush on the very basis of his campaign as
a war president, rather than the peripheral
issues like troop realignments that have
dominated his attacks.
Kerry could have argued that behind
the mistake was a fundamental confu-
sion about what the war on terrorism
really means.
He could have posed that critical ques-
tion: How will we know when we win?
By hearing Kerry's answer to this
question, voters might have learned a lot
about the senator. And there are other
questions. If we're at war, do the normal
rules and restrictions of war apply? Dur-
ing a global war, should Americans at
home be shouldering a greater burden,
or is the government already asking too
much? Is Iraq a front in the war on terror-
ism, as Bush says?
Just as importantly, does Kerry think
it was appropriate to declare a broad war
on terror, or should his country have spe-
cifically gone to war with al-Qaida? (You
remember those guys - the ones who
actually attacked us.)
Instead of speaking his mind on these
critical issues, John Kerry did what he
always does: He fought on Bush's terms.
He derided Bush for his "flip-flop," as
if to say "There's more than one waffler in
this race." He even put out a press release
titled "Bush: Against Winning the War on
Terror Before He Was For It," alluding to
Kerry's own muddled statements about
his support for and then opposition to
spending $87 billion on the Iraq war.
Kerry and running mate John
Edwards rushed to say that the United
States can and will achieve victory in the
war on terror.
Take that, Mr. President. You're wrong
- America is going to win the war that
you made up.
Hard to argue with that.
When it comes to national security,
Kerry harries the president on little issues,
but never shows the voters where they dif-
fer on the big ones.
Kerry thinks we should have found
more allies for the Iraq war and planned
better for the war's aftermath, but he
accepts the need for the war, saying he
would have authorized the invasion even if
he knew that it would turn up no weapons
of mass destruction. He won't say Ameri-
cans were systematically deceived into
believing an imminent threat loomed.
Kerry doesn't challenge Bush on first
principles. And he doesn't give undecided
voters with national security at the fore-
front of their minds much of a reason to
pick him over Bush.
It all plays into the president's brilliant
strategy of declaring a war on terror, not a
war on al-Qaida.
By taking on terror instead of
Osama bin Laden's group, the presi-
dent opened the door for a war in Iraq.
For although links between Saddam
Hussein and bin Laden have been
debunked, there's no question Saddam
used to support terror abroad and even
terrorized his own people.
That makes him a terrorist. So see,
we were already at war with him before
we ever invaded.
The vague language also paves the
way for plenty of future wars, of course,
along with the corresponding restrictions
at home.
Kerry should think seriously about
whether terrorism is really the enemy or
just the weapon our enemies use. How do
you win a war against a tactic?
If the Founding Fathers had declared
war against unreasonable taxes instead of
against England, we'd still be fighting the
Revolution today.
Then again, if we'd declared war on
genocide instead of Germany and Japan
in 1941, maybe our troops today would be
in Sudan - not Iraq.
Schrader can be reached at
jtschrad@umich.edu.
extro-
amphet-
amines.
The Reagan-era
blockbusters that
revolutionized mod-
ern behavioral ther-
apy and bridled a
generation of restless
children. Pharma-
ceutical companies
grossed billions while Adderall (along
with its psychotropic sisters Dexedrine and
Ritalin) was embraced as the world's first
child-friendly amphetamine - the one
federally controlled substance that could
rightfully accompany Flinstone vitamins
at the breakfast table. With age came new
prescriptions, with those, higher doses.
Attention Deficit Disorder had become an
epidemic of the upper class, a disease only
for those who could afford a diagnostic test.
The drug's popularity soared alongside its
users' grade point averages, and the mar-
ket for medicating hyperactivity exploded.
By the time Adderall encountered its first
dorm room, its biochemical signature had
already been left on our generation.
The drug's subsequent collision with
contemporary college life is too weighty
a topic for such limited space. The list of
talking points is exhaustive: How bad is the
abuse problem? (A Johns Hopkins study
estimates the medication can be found in
the blood streams of one-fifth of college
students nationwide - a figure that doesn't
begin to account for recreational use).
Has it been over-prescribed? (Pharmacies
in the United States fill close to a million
prescriptions per month). What about aca-
demic integrity? While some call it a mir-
acle drug, others believe it's some sort of
scholarly steroid. Each of these matters has
heard its share of lip-service - I'll keep my
distance. I'm just looking for the answer to
one question: can Adderall kill you?
Last month, citing rising incidence of
unexplained sudden deaths, Health Canada
(Canada's equivalent of the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration) pulled Adderall XR
from domestic pharmaceutical markets.
Canadian authorities had linked twenty
mortalities between 1999 and 2003 to the
consumption of the central nervous stimu-
lant, 14 of which occurred in children. After
a preliminary review, the FDA has pub-
licly contested Health Canada's findings.
Adderall-induced heart failure, our federal
scientists have maintained, is not common
enough to warrant suspension of the drug.
At face-value, 20 deaths in four years is
considerable, but many of the medical
debate's finer points remain murky. Exactly
how many of the subjects in question had
prior structural or cardiac abnormalities is
unclear. But there were a number of pre-
viously-healthy users (namely children)
whose deaths were directly related to short-
term exposure. Health Canada also blames
the drug for 12 strokes over the same four
year period, two of which proved fatal.
Officials have pinpointed irregular heart
rate fluctuations - one of Adderall's more
notorious side effects - as the source of
the blood clots.
The disputes are dicey, and my yet-to-
be-completed political sciencedegree gives
me little authority to referee. It's in times
like this that I like to defer to the time-
honored, tax payer-funded acumen of the
U.S. Federal Government. Any other week
I'd be hard-pressed to take Canada's word
over the FDA's - the world's acknowl-
edged gold standard on drug safety mat-
ters. Truth be told, had it been written hall
a year ago, this column would have likely
been a 400-word pot-shot at our regula-
tion-happy neighbor to the north.
Not today. Six months of oversight
lapses have left the FDA neck-deep in con-
troversy. It began last September when the
agency released warnings of heightened
suicide risks for children prescribed to top-
shelf antidepressants like Paxil and Zoloft
- results, the media would learn, the FDA
had kept buried for almost a year. After an
early-winter panic over a batch of contami-
nated flu vaccines, February brought news
that FDA-approved Vioxx, Merck Inc.'s
blue-ribbon painkiller, may have contrib-
uted to the premature deaths of more than
30,000 Americans with prior heart compli-
cations. Congressional oversight has since
intensified, and lawmakers have zeroed in
on the agency's clinical review of Adderall
and other dextroamphetamines.
What would another drug safety scare
mean for the FDA? With hundreds of
politically-charged legislators breathing
down its neck and a rapidly deteriorat-
ing public relations crisis, the agency is in
no place to pull Adderall from consumei
markets - especially if it would mean
bowing out to the Canadian government.
If you want more than circumstantial
evidence, get this: Iowa Sen. Charles
Grassley (R) claims agency whistleblow-
ers have told him that in an effort to save
face, senior FDA officials asked Health
Canada not to suspend sales of Adderall.
Coming from one of the more esteemed
members of the U.S. Senate, that's some
pretty powerful hearsay.
Adderall may well be the next life-
threatening drug to have slipped through
the bureaucratic cracks. Still a phar-
maceutical tadpole, Adderall's youth
precludes any reliable assessment of its
long-term health impacts. Once graduat-
ed from its test phase, Adderall was sim-
ply left to proliferate - its lasting health
hazards left to the FDA's post-approval
review process. Regrettably, under-
staffed and scantly funded, the agencies
on-the-market surveillance strategies'
are frighteningly passive. Instead of
continuing to test drugs while in circular
tion, regulators are more likely rely on
manufacturer-supplied clinical reviews
and monthly progress reports.
Whether you can stomach it or not
it's our University's students - the over-
worked freshman, the strung out J.D. can-
didates and the nocturnal M.B.A.'s - that
make up the control group for the most crit-
ical phase of the FDA's Adderall test trials.
The drug was first floated on the market as
a mild stimulant, let's hope it doesn't leave
a killer.
A new way to do foreign aid
ZAC PESKoWITZ TiE L OWER FREQUENCIES JANUARY 6,2005
he tsunamis that wracked consolidate their hold on power, preventing the devel- it launched the Millennium Challenge Account in 2002.
South and Southeast Asia opment of civil society and the reform of the political The account aims to link aid with good governance,
on Dec. 26, as notable for system in their home countries. Nearly as ineffectual is making foreign assistance a much more stable com-
their unexpectedness as the hor- the pronounced tendency of foreign aid to move among modity and will finally sever the connection among the
rific devastation they unleashed, crises du jour in lieu of sustained programs. It takes vicissitudes of politics, media attention and aid. But in
have helped launch an important years for the economic and health benefits of aid to be the absence of serious money, like the $13 billion Florida
conversation on the responsibilities realized and the migratory pattern of aid flows has pre- received after a series of hurricanes hit the state last sum-
of wealthy nations. Jan Egeland, vented legitimate progress. mer, these efforts are essentially for show. The status quo
the United Nations undersecretary Some of these shortcomings are inevitable in an of sprinkling handfuls of money in far flung nations is
;> { general for humanitarian affairs, imperfect world of power politics and myopic citizens. simply unacceptable. If these new development mecha-
set off a firestorm when he told reporters "It is beyond However, recent changes in the development commu- nisms are successfully implemented, it would finally be
me why are we (Western nations) so stingy, really." The nity offer the possibility of improvement. The World appropriate to increase governmental aid dramatically.
ensuing debate over the relative stinginess of the United Bank, under the leadership of its current president James If these increases don't sound especially appealing
States when compared to the other industrialized democ- Wolfensohn, finally began to take corruption seriously in in a time of staggering government deficits, the United
racies is a false and dishonest discussion. Continuing to the mid-1990s. It's unlikely that excesses on the Mobutu States, Japan and the European Union have one lever to
donate aid the way the United States has always done scale could occur today. Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia pull that would actually improve their fiscal outlooks:
it would be worse than counterproductive. What really economic reform guru who has advised the govern- Eliminate all agricultural subsidies. The wholesale
matters is devising ways for aid to go to those who most ments of Peru, Bolivia, Poland and Russia among others, destruction of price supports and import restrictions
need it and where it will produce the most good. has re-tooled himself as a development expert espous- that distort the global agriculture market would have
In the past, two primary factors have motivated ing the need for a major increase in government aid to innumerable salubrious effects. Permitting farmers
foreign aid donations: political considerations and the impoverished nations. Sachs hopes to use this money for in poor countries to sell their produce and livestock
ability of a particular crisis to garner media attention. cost-effective aid such as malaria vaccines and education at competitive prices would be an incredible spur to
Unsurprisingly, the results of these programs have typi- improvements. Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish political scien- economic growth in the developing world while reduc-
cally been uninspiring. Corrupt leaders parked much of tist famous for his contrarian criticism of environmental ing the price of food in the industrialized nations and
their foreign aid in Swiss bank accounts. Zaire's anti- regulations, has organized an international forum for absurd government transfers to big agribusinesses.
communist strongman Mobutu Sese Seko was the out- development experts called the Copenhagen Consensus. These reforms are a bargain well worth making and
standing example of the kleptocrat whose aid receipts The project has brought together leading social scientists keeping with the developing world.
had a greater effect on the well being of German luxury to identify which aid programs would have the most sig-
car manufacturers and Italian clothiers than starving nificant effect on human welfare. Peskowitz can be reached at
villagers. This aid simultaneously allowed leaders to The Bush administration essentially got it right when zpeskowi@umich.edu
Singer can be reached al
singers @umich.edu.
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1432 Washtenaw
(between South U and the Rock)
Fellowship, Fun, Music, and Meaning,
learning & service, munchies & morel
662-4466
www.firstpresbyterian.org
click on "campus connection"
Ann Arbor
* Polishing the American image
JOEL HOARD OH YEAH?
OCTOBER 21, 2004
e've had
some
great
empires here on
Earth over the
past few millennia
- the Romans, the
Greeks, the Byz-
antines, the Ming
Dynasty and the
British, to name
a few. But as the saying goes, all good
things come to an end. No matter how
mighty, each and every empire eventu-
ally fell to a ragtag enemy.
But how can something as powerful
and awe-inspiring as a globe-spanning
empire succumb to lesser forces? With-
out exception, it's because they failed to
respect their enemies. Their hubris was
for hunting down the attackers, smok-
ing them out of their holes and all that
crap. But only a very small faction of
the America-hating world has attacked
us, and for those who haven't attacked,
pre-emptive strikes aren't the answer.
The dominant thought in America is that
because our military is the most power-
ful in the world, why should we bother
listening to anyone else? We can't go
invading a country every time someone
gives us the evil eye. Not only will that
make even more people hate us, but in
practical terms, our military will be
spread too thin.
Our enemies have some valid claims,
and it would do us some good to listen
to them for once. They call us arrogant
bullies. They say our steadfast support
of Israel is out of line. They claim we're
are so bad that our only true allies in
Iraq are Britain, Italy, Poland (don't for-
get Poland) and a handful of countries
with military forces that number only in
the dozens.
Forming stronger alliances is a good
step in improving our image. At least
Kerry understands this much. But the
only problem with the way we create alli-
ances is that our allies end up being our
partners in crime.
Before we can form a true, solid alli-
ance, we need to establish ourselves as a
peaceful and accepting nation. We can't
be bullies who go to war at the drop
of a hat. We need to be reasonable and
thoughtful for a change.
But what if we don't change? What if
we go on invading, occupying and ruin-
ing countries that were otherwise doing
our armor. If we don't change how we go
about the terrorist problem, they'll only
gain in strength. There will never be
a point when we've killed off all of the
terrorists. Kill one group, and another
comes up in its place.
So what are we to do? There are two
options available when dealing with peo-
ple who hate you: 1) You can kill them,
but we know that's only a temporary solu-
tion. Or, 2) You can make them hate you
less - the long-term solution. The best
way to solve this problem is at its root.
We need to take a peaceful approach and
make people hate us less. Maybe I'm just
optimistic, but I think it's possible. Hell,
if we're lucky, people might actually like
us for once.
Hoard can be reached at
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