Has anyone seen the articles about the press conference coming up on Feb 24 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC where Canadian victims of tainted blood from Arkansas will launch their U.S. lawsuit? God help us, I think things are actually going downhill, not up, and the federal government will be unable to do anything constructive about y2k.

Worse, there are two articles today about it that have me worried. In one of them, Ricki Magnussen of Washington Weekly reports " White House NATIONAL SECURITY spokesman P.J. Crowley last week responded to allegations that President Clinton had some responsibility for the collection and distribution of tainted blood from Arkansas prisons."

See the article at www.federal.com. Sorry, i can't do hypertext. the one about the national security spokesman is at http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a36c73b7735e1.htm.

Can anyone tell me, has there been any other time when the President's problems were addressed by a national security spokesman? Why on earth is something like this related to national security, and what does that mean for us? I don't know the answers, and i'm worried. Help!

-- b (b@b.b), February 15, 1999

Answers

You can't stop the Clintonistas. Only God can. Check out this ironic picture of the real Damion at http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a36c4ed112e88.htm

To afraid to leave my name

-- To Afraid To Leave My Name (nowayurgetnmyname@scared.com), February 15, 1999.

And what a nice, clean shot in the photo... Never happen again.....

-- mmmmscaredtoo (m@m.mmm), February 15, 1999.

I too don't think Clinton is touchable unless the economy goes "south". The bulk of Clinton's supporters have an agenda (gay- rights, woman's rights, black-rights, increased non-white immigration, more federal entitlement dollars, etc.), and as long as they get what they want, they will overlook most anything.

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous.com), February 15, 1999.

Of course, the anti-Clintonites do not have an agenda, you know, nice folks like Barr of GA, or McCollum of FL, Ralph Reed, and Jerry Falwell. Pure as the driven snow they are.

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), February 15, 1999.

"gay-rights, woman's rights, black-rights, increased non-white immigration"

What's your point "Anonymous99"?

Should these people all be rounded up and shot or just put into "redisribution" camps? I'm of Spanish heritage although my sirname is Taylor... where would I fit into your new U.S.A.? Do you have a bullet for me?

To b... it does seem strange that a National Security Spokesperson would make a statement at first glance. However, because this alleged blood went to another country it makes perfect sense that this agency would be involved. What was the response to the allegations by P.J. Crowley? There is no mention of it on this website link.

Do you think this website might have a slant one way or the other, perhaps?

Unc has it right, bias runs both ways.

Mike =====================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), February 15, 1999.

Ah yes, Unc and Mike, there's Gary Bauer, Pat Robertson, Dick Armey (sp), surely those lads are unbiased and pure as the driven snow.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 15, 1999.

To Michael, actually Crowley was quoted verbatim in the first paragraph of the article. It's there, as plain as the nose on your face.

-- b (b@b.b), February 15, 1999.

Mike,

Wouldn't it make more sense for the State Dept. to address it than National Security?

-- wondering (curiosity@killedthe.cat), February 15, 1999.

Thanks B... I missed that link in your earlier post.

Now I get it. In the early '80's, before HIV and AIDS were even discovered, tainted blood yaduh yaduh yaduh...

I personally saw a gay man die from "hepatitis C" in the early '80's. He was a neighbor. I didn't know him but he lived right across the street from me. At that time AIDS was the "gay disease". HIV and AIDS didn't exist in the medical jounals.

How can Clinton be implicated in a scandal about tainted blood when there was no test and not even a reason to test blood? Where is the scandal here? Is it that it happened when he was governor? Is it that the company that was responsible gave Clinton money and they got a contract? Is this a new trend in American politics? Is this the first time that a special interest has bought their way into the system?

I just don't get it. I guess I'm just not predisposed to conspiracy theories.

Mike ====================================================================

There are some serious problems with this article.

Mike ==========================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), February 16, 1999.

The bottom line to me is, unless this tainted blood lawsuit is going to be on the news day after day like Monica was, I'm not going to worry about it. The Republicans are working at this very moment to grant Y2K liability protection to computer companies.

This could be big news if Democrats and trial lawyers are vocal in their opposition to this kind of liability protection.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), February 16, 1999.

Mike - sorry - do a little more research before pontificating, especially with Klinton you seem to be pretty ill-informed - Klinton was WELL AWARE of the blood scam perpetrated in Arkansas prisons.

"Even the residents of Grady, Ark., call it "godforsaken." It's an enclave of poverty where rampant drug dealing contributes at least as much to the bleak economy as the main legitimate business -- farming -- does.

But looming among the rows of cotton outside this dismal Arkansas River Delta town, there used to be a more profitable form of agriculture: human plasma farming. At the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas penal system during the 1980s, while President Clinton was still governor, inmates would regularly cross the prison hospital's threshold to give blood, lured by the prospect of receiving $7 a pint. The ritual was creepy to behold: platoons of prisoners lying supine on rows of cots, waiting for the needle-wielding prison orderly to puncture a vein and watch the clear bags fill with blood. Administrators then sold the blood to brokers, who in turn shipped it to other states, and to Japan, Italy, Spain and Canada. Despite repeated warnings from the Food and Drug Administration, Arkansas kept its prison plasma program running until 1994, when it became the very last state to cease selling its prisoners' plasma.

In a year when Arkansas scandals dating back to his governorship have returned to haunt Clinton, this one nearly toppled the government -- of Canada. Arkansas' prison-blood business created a health crisis in Canada that nearly brought down the Liberal Party government last spring. At least 42,000 Canadians have been infected with hepatitis C, and thousands more with the HIV virus, thanks to poorly screened plasma. Some of it has been traced back to the Cummins prison in Arkansas. More than 7,000 Canadians are expected to die as a result of the blood scandal.

The Canadian Krever Commission, established in 1993 to investigate the tainted-blood epidemic, concluded the government did not adequately supervise the Red Cross of Canada, the agency responsible for making sure that blood suppliers maintained adequate screening standards. As a result of the scandal, the Red Cross has been stripped of responsibility for the blood system. Compensation was offered to 1,000 people with AIDS, but the Toronto Star estimates nearly 2,000 are suffering. More than 20,000 tainted-blood victims with hepatitis C filed a class-action suit against the Canadian government, alleging that sloppy screening protocols allowed tainted blood products from Arkansas prisons and elsewhere to make their way into Canada. Last week the Canadian government established a $1.1 billion (Canadian) fund to compensate some hepatitis C victims, but advocates say the fund won't be enough.

Former Arkansas inmates who claim they contracted hepatitis C and AIDS as a result of improper procedures are also planning to bring a lawsuit against the Arkansas Department of Corrections, Health Management Associates Inc. (HMA), Pine Bluff Biologicals -- the two companies that held the prison's plasma contracts -- the state of Arkansas, Clinton and his administration at the time. The White House did not return calls seeking comment on the lawsuits.

The scandals have received little media attention here, but they tainted Clinton's years as governor. Some newspaper columnists at the time said it could jeopardize his reelection. Two longtime friends of Clinton's were embroiled in the mess: Leonard Dunn, a former Pine Bluff banker and now chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller, served as HMA's president; and Richard Mays, a Little Rock lawyer, judge and Clinton ally, was hired in 1985 as an "ombudsman," an ill-defined position that was supposedly created to help bring the prison medical system into compliance with state standards. The exact payment Mays received, or what his duties were, was never established, and became the subject of a state police investigation because of allegations that it was actually a "bribe" paid to a Clinton supporter to allow the program to continue.

Problems with the prison plasma program were well known to Clinton throughout the 1980s. The FDA cited HMA for safety deficiencies and shut it down for over a year in 1983, following a recall of hepatitis B-tainted products that had been shipped to Canada and distributed to hemophiliacs. In 1984, the FDA revoked the center's license to operate, and in 1985, an inmate filed a lawsuit against HMA for inadequate medical care. In 1986, Clinton's state police investigated problems at the prison and found little cause for concern, while an outside investigator looked at the same allegations and found dozens of safety violations.

Now, more than a decade later, those old Arkansas scandals are getting new attention, thanks to lawsuits and agitation in Canada. To date, the scandal has gotten almost no media attention in the United States. While reporters are riveted by the Monica Lewinsky mess, they've ignored a real Clinton scandal, maybe because it involves two groups no one cares much about -- people who aren't Americans, and prisoners.

http://www.salonmagazine.com/news/1998/12/cov_23news.html

Andy

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 16, 1999.

"Did an Arkansas Governor en route to the White House knowingly profit from the sale of tainted blood to Canada, where as many as 80,000 people today suffer from deadly Hepatitis C and HIV?

At a time when legal and moral issues enmesh the White House, there are strong indications of improprieties dating back to Arkansas governorship days--did Governor Clinton's administration knowingly profit from the sale of tainted blood which led to today's hepatitis and HIV epidemic in Canada? Top investigative reporters in the United States and Canada are saying the fictional search for contaminated blood in "Blood Trail" has "intriguing" implications that are "worth looking into." Right now, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are doing just that.

In Blood Trail, a first novel by Michael Sullivan (Jameson Books/LPC Group, $19.95), Bob Prescott, the governor of Arkansas, and some of his political cronies have set up a blood collection scheme through the state prison. Narcotics--purchased with state money--are used to pay off inmates who donate blood. Those who become regular donors are drug addicts and often victims of homosexual rape--among the highest risk donor groups. They are the last people anyone would want for a donor program--unless it brings a lot of money into Governor Prescott's political coffers.

In a parallel story line, former Arkansan David Farr, now living in Canada, is determined to find who's morally responsible for his son having been stricken with AIDS following a transfusion of tainted blood. Tracing the route from blood sources in Canada to donor programs in the U.S.. Farr ultimately finds himself back in Little Rock.

Drawing on actual events reported in Arkansas newspapers in the 1980s and wrapping them into a thriller-investigation story. Sullivan has his fictional hero Farr uncover disturbing information. Farr learns that the healthcare provider for the Arkansas prisons devised a system for procuring blood products from prisoners, guaranteeing volunteers without any cash outlay and keeping the enterprise "low key" with no paper trail--all in return for the governor's reappointment of the prison contract and "a little leeway" for the operation. Since then, Prescott, who was aware of, approved, and benefited from the prison blood donor program, has become President of the United States. Learning of the blood crisis in Canada and wary of being implicated, he takes steps to ensure that the trail to him is erased.

Meanwhile, in another example of fiction drawing on current events, the president's chief legal counselor, Eric Grant, who was in on the prison blood program in Arkansas, is filled with remorse over the pain and suffering of thousands in Canada. He is also concerned that if the truth comes out about the origin of the blood, it will take down the presidency. His apparent suicide brings more questions and draws the net tighter around the president.

As Farr continues to uncover the political machinations that have kept the blood trail buried, his quest for truth and accountability turns to vengeance. Deceit and self-interest may be buried under the political power of public office, but people pay the price--and Farr, father-turned-sleuth, is determined that the persons responsible will pay as well.

This first novel by Michael Sullivan blends intrigue with adventure. With its interlacing of today's tragic Canadian headlines with local news stories from the 1980s and a "dash" of imaginative deductive speculation, this fictional thriller raises questions which actually may extend the search for the origin of Canada's contaminated blood. To date, the real-life trail has led to the Canadian Red Cross; where they got the blood has not yet been fully uncovered. If a new search takes its leads from Blood Trail, where will that trial end?"

Check out these two links Michael...

http://www.bloodtrail.com/

http://www.bloodtrail.com/news/recent.html

Andy

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 16, 1999.

To Michael, No, your problem is not, as you said "I just don't get it. I guess I'm just not predisposed to conspiracy theories." The reason you did not get it is a lack of information. Please read Andy's well thought out posts to learn a part of the information available. To All,

I categorically reject the notion that all persons may have an agenda of their own, therefore special interest-pimping does not matter. To suggest as much is to contribute further to our nation's moral decline.

-- Rick (rick@concerned.america), February 16, 1999.

Kevin -

Seems unlikely that Y2K liability will be a Dems vs. GOP battle. As with most liability protection, this will be more a philosophical break: do we protect companies from being foolish in some specific instance? There are lots of Dems with IS backgrounds (e.g., Mr. Clinton's ally, Joe Lieberman) who will probably support protection, and plenty of GOP'ers who are laissez-faire capitalists and will likely oppose government intervention in markets. Doubt if it'll be very party-line at all.

LOTs of lobbying from both sides (and both will have plenty o' cash) on this one. Makes for very happy elected officials...

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), February 16, 1999.