Leo “Bud” Welch

Leo Welch on guitar

One rockin’ octogenarian

MUSIC RISING by Bruce Mason

 

For 82-year-old guitarist/singer Leo “Bud” Welch, it’s been the biggest year of his life. The first real-deal, old-school Mississippi bluesman to be discovered and recorded in a long time made his first album in January, got his first passport and took his first flight from as far back in the woods as one can get in 21st century North America.

“All those people out there; that’s as many in one place at one time as I’ve seen all out together in my whole life,” he told me backstage at the Vancouver Island MusicFest in July. “What took me so long? I had nobody depending on going out there and getting me started. Couldn’t get nobody… get a helping hand.

“Just me and my guitar and the good Lord keeping me going, letting me stay around for something while he made a way. I needed something to come along easier for me.

“Thank God, I got it going,” he grins, lopsidedly. “I still get around good, don’t walk with no stick or nothin, get up and dance when it moves me,” he added, adjusting his ball cap and running his hands over one of the suits and ties he wears when performing. His hot pink electric guitar – a symbol of the fight against breast cancer, which has taken too many from his small circle – is emblazoned with his name in stick-on postal box, black and gold letters and strapped over a shoulder stooped from 35 years of cutting timber on riverbanks.

His hearing is slightly impaired from the chainsaws he’s carried as close and as often as a guitar. But hearing his introduction loud and clear, Leo spins as if released, waving with tenacious energy at the large crowd, proudly marching front and centre, as if on fire, shouting back, “I’m glad to be here on this day, but this is only the beginning.”

The audience reacted the same way as they did a few weeks earlier in France, Italy and Switzerland and a few days later at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival – joyfully soaking up something primal, someone’s sheer fun and singular charisma, witnessing what everyone assumed was extinct, knowing that what they were experiencing will never pass this way again.

Over the course of half a dozen interviews – in a summer jam-packed with music and chats with folks who make it – helped out by the manager who is a big part of the story, translating the drawl and incomprehensible snippets, I pieced together some of the life of of Leo “Bud” Welch.

Born in Sabougla (pronounced shah-boog-lah), Mississippi in 1932. Raised with four brothers and seven sisters in unincorporated Calhoun County, home for his entire life. “Nothing but a two-store spot, wasn’t even a post office, no law in town, all just country people and my home in the middle of a field somewhere,” he recalled.

“My cousin R.C. saved up seven dollars for a mail-order guitar when I was 12 years-old and I walked to get it at the nearest post office. I was told not to mess with it, but R.C. took to courtin,’ we called it. I started wailin’ and bangin’ on it and listening to all kind of music on the radio. By the time he caught me, he said, ‘OK, you got better than me.’

“When I got big enough, we’d play house parties and three-day picnics with ball games out in the woods. I’d have to walk, sling my guitar over my back and down the road I’d go. People would drop nickels, dimes and quarters in my pockets and even in the hole in my guitar. I’d get home and have to shake all the money out.”

He settled in Bruce – named for E.L. Bruce, the hardwood magnate – which boasts “Where Money Grows in Trees and Hopes and Dreams Never Die.” The Mississippi town of 2,000 has seven mills and runs on their shift whistles. The nearest interstate (I-55) is 20 miles away, the closest city – Elvis’ hometown of Tupelo – lies 30 miles northeast. Most maps can’t find it.

Of raising his family of four, Leo says, “I run the chains, cut timber. Told my wife if I had a dollar for every tree I trimmed off, I’d be a millionaire today. Called myself a one-man band, the one-man saw, cut timber for 35 year, goin’ down there Monday to Friday. We couldn’t see when we’d go and we couldn’t see when we’d come back, worked from dark to dark. In between, I cut cotton and corn for 50 cents or a dollar a day.”

He couldn’t afford bus fare for an audition in Memphis with B.B. King and couldn’t stray far or play late-night bars. And too tired from work, he took to playing in churches. Saturday night music on Sunday. “When the preacher visited another place, me, my sister and my sister-in-law – I called them the Sabougla Voices – would go along,” he remembered.

Enter Vencie Varnado who had known Leo all his life. He retired back home from a career in the military and began pestering Welch to make a record. But an untrusting Leo had heard it all before. So Vencie hired him to play at this 50th birthday party and secretly taped a few minutes on his cell phone. Varnado emailed it to Fat Possum Records, which had specialized in undiscovered, authentic blues artists, until six years ago when they couldn’t find any more. Within a month, 10 tracks of real-as-real-gets foot-stomping hill country gospel, “Leo Welch: Sabougla Voices” was released on the subsidiary, Big Legal Mess, featuring all-star local musicians.

It caught the ear of National Public Radio and other media, blues promoters in Europe and filmmakers who hired him to work with Ryan Gosling on a shoot in New Orleans.“Long as Leo’s happy, that’s what counts,” says fiercely dedicated Vencie, whom Welch has nicknamed “Big Money.” He’s the last traditional bluesman, the last tree in a stand of cut timber. Helpin’ is my way of giving back.”

“Don’t nothing get old but clothes and you wash, starch and iron them and they new again,” says Leo. “I just play like I play. I’m not trying to be anybody else. I give all the credit to Big Money. He’s my backbone. Now I’m hoping to get a place bigger than one room and enough closet for my clothes.

“I’m goin’ to make a blues record when I get back home from playing in Berlin, Germany. Blues has a feeling just like gospel, but they don’t have a book like the Bible. It’s just different words. Blues is just explaining about life. Life on this Earth,” he adds.

“Hey Bruce, you got the same name as my home. You tell everyone to believe something good and bigger than themelves,” concluded Leo “Bud” Welch. “Never ‘give up. I’m enjoying the best I ever enjoyed in my life.”

Bruce Mason is a Vancouver and Gabriola-Island based five-string banjo player, gardener, freelance writer and author of Our Clinic. brucemason@shaw.ca

Sharing the wild

wolf in water looking into the lense

presenting the Great Bear Rainforest

In November, conservationist and photographer Ian McAllister launches a BC-wide tour of a deeply personal multimedia presentation on the spectacular, remote Great Bear Rainforest.

As co-founder of the wildlife conservation organization Pacific Wild and a longtime Great Bear Rainforest resident, Ian McAllister is respected throughout the globe for his efforts to protect BC’s endangered rainforest. He was named as one of 133 highly accomplished Canadians by the Globe and Mail and a “Leader of the 21st Century” by Time.

As a multi-award-winning photographer, McAllister’s unparalleled work provides a unique perspective on the animals and ecosystems he works to protect. A member of the International League of Conservation Photographers, he is a recipient of the North America Nature Photography Association’s Vision Award and the Rainforest Action Network’s Rainforest Hero award.

Throughout November, McAllister will visit theatres throughout the province to promote his new book, Great Bear Wild: Dispatches From a Northern Rainforest, published by Greystone Books.

Both the book and upcoming Great Bear Wild multimedia presentation take readers on a deeply personal journey of the Great Bear Rainforest, from the headwaters of the region’s unexplored river valleys down to the hidden depths of the offshore world.

Globally renowned for its astonishing biodiversity, the region is also one of the most endangered landscapes on the planet, where First Nations people fight for their way of life as massive energy projects threaten entire ecosystems.

As Robert F. Kennedy explains in his foreword, “The Great Bear Rainforest sits between the world’s second-largest known oil reserves, Alberta’s infamous tar sands and Asia’s hungry oil markets. In between lies this rainforest of globally rare species and some of the world’s most fiercely independent native people fighting for their way of life.”

In a not-so unusual day, McAllister quietly observes 27 bears fishing for salmon, three of which are the famed pure white spirit bear. In Great Bear Wild, McAllister introduces us to the First Nations people who have lived there for millennia and have become his close friends and allies and to the scientists conducting groundbreaking research and racing against time to protect the region from massive energy projects.

Revered anthropologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall has said that BC’s rainforest haunts her dreams. Regardless of their location, people can now explore this precious region through the upcoming presentation, Q&A and book signing with this dedicated author, conservationist and leader.

Great Bear Wild is published by Greystone Books. It is available online or at your local bookstore ($50.00 RRP). The Great Bear Wild Tour visits various theatres with tickets ranging from by donation to $12. All proceeds go to Pacific Wild. For further information or to book tickets, visit pacificwild.org or greystonebooks.com

Upcoming Great Bear Wild tour events

Nov 3: Vernon
Okanagan College, 7:30 pm

Nov 12: Victoria
Alix Goolden Hall, 7:30 pm

Nov 13: Duncan
Quw’utsun’ Cultural and Conf. Ctr, 7 pm

Nov 14: Sidney
Charlie White Theatre, 7:30 pm

Nov 18: Galiano Island
Galiano South End Hall, 7:30 pm

Nov 19: Campbell River
Tidemark Theatre, 7:30 pm

Nov 20: Courtenay
Sid Williams Theatre, 7:30 pm

Nov 21: Powell River
Max Cameron Theatre, 7 pm

Through the eyes of a child

portrait of Seva Corrine and her ather

by Penny Lyons

Photo: Corrine and her father

Seva Canada, an international development organization based in Vancouver, restores sight and prevents blindness in the developing world. Since 1982, Seva donors have given the power of sight to over 3.5 million people. Seva works with local partners to create sustainable eye care programs that achieve long-term change, are culturally sensitive and reach those most in need – women, children and people living in extreme poverty and isolation. Seva Canada works in 13 of the poorest places in the world: Nepal, Tibetan areas of China, India, Malawi, Madagascar, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Guatemala, Cambodia and Egypt. www.seva.ca

 

 

Madagascar is a remote, exotic island that conjures up images of lemurs and animated Hollywood movies. In reality, the majority of Malagasy people are poor and marginalized, struggling to survive on two dollars per day.

Seva Canada logoIn Madagascar, over 400 children are born with or develop blindness due to cataracts each year. Children under five years of age are at the greatest risk as most blind children are either born blind or become blind before their first birthday. Early intervention is critical to ensure good vision for life, but in Madagascar, fewer than 20% of children receive the treatment they require.

Corinne was born in rural Madagascar. Her family are banana farmers who work hard to provide for their six children so they can attend school, ultimately lead productive lives and help lift their family out of poverty. This was their dream for their daughter Corinne, who had been a bright and playful baby who loved to explore.

When things suddenly began to change, her parents didn’t know what was wrong. Corrine had become withdrawn, timid and accident prone. It turned out she was losing her sight and by the time she was five-years-old, Corinne was severely visually impaired due to cataracts in both eyes. Once happy, she was now depressed and isolated and required someone to accompany her wherever she went.

Challenges included the inaccessability of the village – it was only reachable by foot – and the lack of medical services and personnel to provide medical advice or care. Unfortunately, this is a common story in Madagascar, a country with only one pediatric ophthalmologist for its 9.5 million children under the age of 14. Her name is Dr. Hobilalaina Randrianarisoa (Dr. Hoby) and she works in the capital city, Antananarivo. As a point of comparison, BC, with 680,000 children under the age of 14, has seven pediatric ophthalmologists.

A child born in a low-income country such as Madagascar is significantly more likely than a Canadian child to be born with – or to develop – cataracts before the age of 16. Cataracts are the leading cause of childhood blindness in the world.

In almost all settings, eye care programs establish pediatric services last because adult blindness, primarily due to cataract, is relatively simple to diagnose and inexpensive to treat. Pediatric problems are far more difficult to diagnose and treatment almost always requires general anesthesia, very expensive equipment and long-term follow-up care.

Luckily for Corinne and her family, her uncle had heard about a childhood blindness program supported by Seva Canada that would be offering free eye screenings in his rural village. Corinne, now 11-years-old, and her father travelled to the village full of hope. Maybe her darkness could be lifted and her independence regained? Maybe she could even go to school?

At the screening, Corinne and her father met Rasoanaivo Delphine, one of a network of village woman who had been trained by Seva to identify children in need of eye care in remote and rural areas. She immediately recognized that Corinne had a serious visual impairment and would need to travel to Antananarivo to see Dr. Hoby. Rasoanaivo used her training to counsel and educate Corinne and her father about cataracts and their treatment.

The notion of travelling to the capital city – a two to three-day bus ride – is not only incomprehensible, but also unaffordable for most Malagasy families. The expense and time away from the farm, compounded by the cost of surgery, including anesthesia and a pediatric lens implant, was far beyond the reach of Corinne’s parents. Rasoananivo explained that, thanks to Seva donors, all transportation, surgery and follow-up care would be free-of-charge.

In Antananarivo, Dr. Hoby confirmed that Corinne had operable congenital cataracts and referred her for sight-restoring surgery at the Child Eye Health Tertiary Facility. After her cataract surgery, Corinne’s vision was vastly improved and her bright bubbly personality began to reappear. “I am so happy! Now I can study and I won’t need anyone to be with me wherever I go. I will never forget everyone who gave me my sight back,” said Corinne. Her father, relieved and full of gratitude, was excited for his daughter’s future and thanked Seva for taking such good care of Corinne.

Corinne, like all kids who have their vision restored, is given an average of 50 years of sight. She can play with friends, succeed in school and pursue her dreams.

Lest we forget

by Bruce Mason

Remembrance Day, 2014, as wars rage, Canadians may want to consider reading the chapter, “Delay, Deny, and Die,” in the newly published book, Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover, by Michael Harris. It concludes, “Returning veterans with mental and physical wounds inhabit a harsh and ongoing reality: how to push your kid on a swing, minus an arm or a leg or how to fill a war-weary heart with good human emotions again. The party that had courted, lionized and used the military now turned its back on them when priories changed.”

As always, our current PM is quick to champion military options. While leader of the opposition, he urged Canada to go to war with Iraq, apologizing to the US for Jean Chretien’s decision not to join the invasion based on non-existent WMD’s. He revelled in the 12-year, $18 billion, Afghanistan mission, committed forces to toppling Muammar Gaddafi, argued for a military strike against Iran for developing nuclear power and sent belligerent messages to Vladimir Putin during bloodletting in Ukraine. Now, with a majority government, he is – finally – having his way in Iraq and Syria.

Bruce Moncur is a Canadian who answered one of Harper’s calls. Wounded by “friendly fire” in Afghanistan, he blogged that it’s easier fighting the Taliban than battling for subsequent benefits. He wrote, “I am not the only soldier who feels they have not been taken care of when coming home.” He received $22,000 for the shrapnel wound that took five percent of his brain and the PTSD that was aggravated by failures within Veterans Affairs.

In his book, Harris describes Moncur as someone “who always voted Conservative, believing the Harper government were the only ones ‘who had our backs.’ But that was when declaring such support was convenient for the government. ‘It’s a betrayal, is what it is,’ Moncur said, convinced that closures [of Veterans Affairs offices] were a deliberate strategy to reduce services. ‘If you are told “No” enough times, you’ll go away.’ It was all part of the Harper government’s triple-D credo: ‘delay, deny and die.’”

The chapter, like the rest of Party of One, documents its subtitle: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover and gathers together candid and chilling examples and opinions, on everything from handing over Afghan detainees to be tortured, to the infamous and disastrous meeting between veterans and Minister Julian Fantino, the unpopular New Veterans Charter, former general and Senator Romeo Dallaire’s “It’s pissing me off” and Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin’s observation of Afghanistan: “People died for nothing, to prop up drug dealers and killers.”

Too many stories of homelessness, helplessness, addiction to street drugs, alcohol, OxyContin and Percocet. Far too many stories of suicide, including a final note requesting a “just family” funeral, where, instead, the military waited 14 months and staged a full ceremony. Other stories include a benefits payment lost behind a filing cabinet, a letter of condolence requesting a re-payment of $581.67 from a suicide victim and a one-cent cheque marked “Canadian Forces release pay,” sent to a soldier’s mother two-and-a-half years after her son had killed himself.

In his relentless quest to retain power, Stephen Harper “makes no distinction between ending postal delivery, closing scientific facilities and cutting veterans’ benefits,” Harris reports. At the same time as the PM greeted the last Canadian soldiers returning from Afghanistan earlier this year, federal lawyers were arguing in court against any special obligation to soldiers who fought for Canada, a 100-year-old promise made by former Prime Minister Borden.

“This is beyond a medical issue,” says retired general Rick Hillier. “I think that many of our young men and women have lost confidence in our country to support them.”

Veteran Bruce Moncur adds, “It‘s like we‘ve become an inconvenience. If veterans aren‘t safe from budget cuts, I guarantee you, no one else is. Every Canadian needs to take notice of this.”

Perhaps the most disquieting quotes in Party of One are the final words from Farley Mowat: “About the country, about our future. It is like an aura that seems to have gone wrong. I have the sound of an old cannon fired in 1812 in my ears. It is the sound of war again. War is coming back. There is an inevitable sense about it. I’m pretty pessimistic… You have to create warrior nations, they are not born. They have to be made. It is the preliminary step of a tyrant and this son of a bitch incited Canada into becoming a warrior nation.”

Bruce Mason is a Vancouver and Gabriola-Island based five-string banjo player, gardener, freelance writer and author of Our Clinic. brucemason@shaw.ca

Party of One: Stephen Harper’s Canadian Makeover

The beginning of the end?

READ IT by Bruce Mason

Party of One by Michael Harris book cover• Canada’s 42nd federal election – arguably the most pivotal in our history – is scheduled for October 2015. In the meantime, a book worthy of everyone’s attention, Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover, has just been published.

Between now and then, it’s essential that as many citizens as possible study and discuss the 500+ page definitive, meticulously reported record of Canada’s current majority government. It re-focuses attention on the fundamental election promise of transparency and accountability and those who intend to vote Conservative will be better informed about what they support. The undecided will find essential information they require. And there is more than sufficient inspiration to change the plans of those who don’t intend to vote.

We all owe this country – its past, present and future – and the world, a serious conversation and debate on Canada’s ongoing role and our dreams and responsibilities within it. As the starting gun signals the countdown to a year-long contest, Michael Harris provides a book based on hundreds of interviews and the advice of Harper himself: “Watch what a politician does, don’t listen to what he says.”

Several years ago, the veteran journalist set out to provide a “badly needed detailed rational critique of the Harper government… A lot of the things that Harper was doing struck me as not only unjust, but unjustifiable. In doing the research, I found I was not the only person who thought so.”

Party of One opens at the Speech from the Throne on June 3, 2011, after Harper’s coveted majority (166 of 308 seats) and the shrill, hissing cries of “Shame!” as 22-year-old page Brigette DePape held up a hand-made “Stop Harper” sign.

The book ends in a visit with Farley Mowat, then 92, in the last months of his life. Mowat gives voice to DePape’s gesture: “Stephen Harper is probably the most dangerous human being ever elevated to power in Canada.”

The devil is in the details. In the intervening four years and 500 pages, in a grand sweep of issues and personal accounts by often unlikely and relatively non-partisan individuals – many of whom disapproved of DePape’s dire and courageous signal – Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover – are revealed.

Party of One instantly appeared on best-seller lists along with eager, ubiquitous reviews and blogs of every stripe. Political junkies won’t be able to put it down. Those frightened by its weight can be assured it is highly digestible and nutritious, in bite-sized pieces. And would-be readers, scared off by the $34 hardcover price, are well advised to reserve a copy at the nearest library.

Even if there were little that’s new, it earns a place in the national conversation, consciousness and conscience, as well as on reference bookshelves. Its readability, strength and urgency resides in issues covered in separate chapters, such as “The Unfair Elections Act,” “The Death of Evidence,” “Farewell Diplomacy” and “Forked Tongue.” The minutely detailed documentation of Robocall and Senate scandals may cause most eyes to gloss over, but there is plenty to keep readers turning pages.

For example, a few sample quotes:

Paul Heinbecker, distinguished in foreign affairs: “We have become outliers. We are seen as more American than the Americans, more Israeli than Likud.”

Peter Milliken, former Speaker of the House of Commons: “Harper can’t go much further without making the institution dysfunctional. In fact, it will have to be returned to its former state by someone if we are to have a democracy.”

Preston Manning, former mentor and leader of the opposition: “Stephen had no interest in international stuff, we simply couldn’t get him to travel,” and “Stephen doesn’t think words mean much.”

If you only plan to read one book in the next 12 months, make it Party of One.


Michael Harris, by the book

Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover is Michael Harris’ ninth book. He calls it his “most important work.” His previous investigations have sparked four separate Royal Commissions of inquiry and include the collapse of the Atlantic cod fishery in Lament for an Ocean, the wrongful conviction in the Donald Marshall case in Justice Denied and the abuse at the Mount Cashel orphanage in Unholy Orders.

Stephen Harper declined to be interviewed. Unprecedented in Harris’ experience is the fact that prominent Canadians decided not to go on record with full and frank stories fearing reprisals, including their favourite charities losing tax status, loss of full pensions and even fears of charges under national security legislation.

“The difference with this book is this involves the whole country and what we are. I really believe that the country is in a fight for its soul. And when you’re in a fight for your soul, you have to stand up,” Harris claims.

Michael Harris currently writes for ipolitics online. He can be reached at www.facebook.com/pages/Michael-Harris-Author-and-Journalist/572501269437472

American invasions

Canada to Afghanistan 1775 to 2014

by Dr. Rocky M. Mirza

Benjamin Franklin

• After a career as an academic economist, I decided in 2004 that I would devote an increasing part of my time to write about American foreign policy. This choice of topic was inspired by the re-election of George W. Bush as president and commander-in-chief of the American Empire. The fact that the American people could re-elect Bush, after there was overwhelming evidence that he had lied to them about the existence of WMDs in Iraq, opened my eyes to the truth. As a young person, I, like so many others, believed that the American Empire was a force for good in the World. After the re-election of George W. Bush, I began to question my long-held belief that Western civilization was indeed civilized, caring, open, free and democratic.

I have written two deeply researched books on American military invasions and colonizations beginning with the expansion of the US from the initial 13 tiny English colonies along the Atlantic seaboard, across the First Nations lands to Hawaii, other islands in the Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea, China and Russia.

The American invasion of Iraq was such a cruel crime against the defenceless people of Iraq, who had already suffered so painfully 10 ten years of intensive bombing by the American and British empires, that I began to seriously question what I had been taught to believe about the West. The careful, objective and unbiased research done while writing Rise and Fall of the American Empire, convinced me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Western colonization and domination of the world for six centuries had severely limited and constrained the expression of freedoms, the creation of true democratic states and the promotion of racial equality and equality of opportunities. At the same time while the West spoke a desire for peace, it squandered the world’s scarce resources on weapons of mass destruction, incessant invasions and wasteful consumption.

Many have sacrificed their livelihoods, their families, their freedoms and have been imprisoned for speaking out against Western warmongering. Think of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Daniel Ellsberg, John Lennon, just to name a few, as well as the many who have marched for peace. Those efforts have not changed significantly the behaviour of the West. But just think how much worse the West would have behaved if it had not been modestly constrained by these critics. More importantly, think how much worse the West would have behaved if everyone had followed its madness like sheep. I therefore ask of you to be critical and do not be taken in by the extremely powerful and seductive Western propaganda machine we are immersed in. I also ask you to think of the 60 million refugees created by this military policy and actions of the West. These people have lost their families, friends, homes and livelihoods. They never had the desire or the capacity to harm the West. They are the innocent victims of continued Western imperialism.

My expertise in economics provides me with the essential tools to explain why American invasions and addiction to warmongering is no longer sustainable for the American Empire. The relative size of the American economy has shrunk from close to 50% of the world’s economy shortly after World War II to about 17% today. When the military costs of imperial expansion exceed the economic gains from imperial expansion, at a time when the American economy is in relative decline and American consumers refuse to save or pay higher taxes, foreign invasions are not sustainable.

Non-existing weapons of mass destruction and other pretexts for American in invasions

The following excerpts from my book, American Invasions: Canada to Afghanistan: 1775 to 2010, testify to the fact that the deliberate American fabrication that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) to justify its illegal invasion of Iraq, far from being an isolated deception for US wars, has often been used by the US to get public support for invading countries. The true purpose of such invasions is to colonize and steal the resources of the countries invaded. While there are numerous examples of this in my book I will select just three as illustrations. The first is the little known US invasion of Tripoli, now called Libya, in 1801. We begin with this because it was one of the earliest and also an original example of Regime Change by the US. It resonates with Iraq because once no WMD’s were found the Bush administration fell back on Regime Change as its justification based on Saddam Hussein being such a vicious dictator.

The second example is much more well known because it is the US invasion and colonization of Cuba. The third illustration is the most important but also the most complex. Here we show the connexion between the US attempts to colonize China and Japan, dominate the Pacific, successfully invade and colonize the Philippines, Hawaii and other islands in the Pacific, then successfully use the propaganda that the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, was an unprovoked attack on the US. The truth of the matter is that Pearl Harbour is Hawaiian territory, and a strategic island for the competing Japanese and American empires over domination of the Pacific. This attack on Hawaii was used by the US as its primary justification for declaring war on Japan and using nuclear weapons on the Japanese people. In reality, the US entered World War II with the main purpose of defeating the Japanese Empire because Japan was its primary competitor in the Pacific.


American invasion of Tripoli (Libya): 1801-1805

Libya

“The US began its current policy of unilaterally invading sovereign states from its birth. Despite long standing conventions by the major empires of the day, including England and France, Thomas Jefferson, then US minister to France, wrote in a letter to John Adams on July 11, 1786, that the US should wage war on the Barbary states instead of paying the tributes which had historically been paid by England, France and other Christian empires. The US was about to defy international law by attacking a sovereign state for the actions of some of its citizens. This was no different from the US invasion of Afghanistan in retaliation for the actions of some of the citizens of Afghanistan.”

“Complementing the birthright of the American Empire for unilateral invasion of sovereign states is the American obsession with warmongering. Jefferson hinted at this American trait in his letter of December 26, 1786 to the president of Yale College. In that letter Jefferson noted that taxing Americans to wage a war against the Barbary States would be more popular politically than taxing them to pay tributes. Other Christian empires recognized that tributes were far cheaper than wars. In 2007, Americans were paying $50 billion each month to wage a war in Iraq, rather than spend a much smaller amount on waging peace.”

“Jefferson became president in 1801 and began a policy of intimidating and provoking the North African Muslim states by flexing its military muscle with a US naval presence in the Mediterranean. This had been the standard American tactic against the First Nations. Provoke them into an attack with taunts, intimidation, theft and humiliation and use that attack to justify all out war. Keep these provocations as secret as possible so that you can claim that the attack was unprovoked. That would make it easier to get the support of Congress and the American people. Thus Jefferson made sure that he did not inform Congress prior to sending the US navy to the Mediterranean.”

“Jefferson sent four ships, the President, Essex, Philadelphia and Enterprise under the command of Commodore Richard Dale to blockade and bombard Tripoli. Jefferson used as evidence of Tripoli’s “unprovoked” attack the seizure of two American ships by Tripoli. These two American ships had mysteriously wandered from American bases across an entire ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and blown magically off course into the Mediterranean. How else could they have been seized without provocation by Tripoli since Tripoli had not crossed the Atlantic Ocean to seize them?

Does anyone see the emerging American pattern which played out in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964? As in the case of the two American ships which had mysteriously entered the Mediterranean in 1801, the two US warships, Maddox and Turner Joy, had mysteriously wandered from their bases in the United States all across the Pacific Ocean to land in Vietnamese waters so that the Vietnamese would cause an unprovoked attack on the US. Or is it simply that the American Empire has the god given right to be in every country’s backyard?

Jefferson carefully played his hand pushing Tripoli to declare war on the American Empire in May 1801. In response, Jefferson convinced Congress to pass an Act in February 1802 for a permanent US naval presence in the Mediterranean. In May, 1803, the American Empire sent more ships to strengthen the blockade and enhance the bombardment of Tripoli. In October, 1803, Tripoli captured the Philadelphia forcing the US to destroy it rather than have Tripoli add it to its own fleet. In September, 1804, Tripoli destroyed the Intrepid.

American reinforcements under Commodore Samuel Barron arrived soon after the loss of the Intrepid. With the war going badly for the Americans they hatched a plot to overthrow Tripoli’s ruler with his older brother who had been exiled in Egypt. This was the birth of the American policy of Regime Change. The original “Dick Cheney” of Regime Change was the American consul to Tunis, William Eaton. Eaton raised a mercenary army of Arabs and Greeks and marched 500 miles overland to Tripoli.”

“Jefferson had made up his mind long before he became president that he would convince the American people to wage war on the Barbary States. Western historians, would, of course, claim that this was not a Christian War against Islam, but would make no effort to explain why the US did not criticize Christian States, including itself, for using pirates to expand their empires and spheres of influence. Moreover, in pointing out the inhumane treatment of captured American sailors by the Barbary pirates as a justification for Jefferson’s invasion of North Africa, these American historians conveniently fail to compare such inhumane treatment with the equally inhumane treatment of American privateers captured by England during the War of Independence. The British did not recognize the captured American privateers as prisoners of war just as the US today does not recognize captured al-Qaeda fighters as prisoners of war. They were held in special camps very much like today’s Guantanamo, Abu-Ghraib and other secret US prison camps in Europe. One of the most notorious was the prison ship, Jersey.”


The Spanish American War and the American invasion of Cuba: 1898

Map of Cuba“In the late 1890’s Americans were asked to give their lives to fight the “evil” empire of Spain just as they are asked today to give their lives to fight the “axis of evil,” Iraq, Iran and North Korea. President Obama added Pakistan to President Bush’s “axis of evil.” In the 1890s, the American propaganda was that Cubans would greet the Americans as liberators of Cuba from Spanish imperialism. Today the American propaganda is that Iraqis, Afghans, Iranians, Pakistanis and Yemenis will greet the Americans as liberators from their “non-democratic” governments. The reality is that no humane and civilized people want an American “slave-based” warmongering “democracy.”

“William Hearst sent one of his reporters, Frederick Remington to Cuba to manufacture a war.” Once the war began Hearst went personally to Cuba to report on the fighting. The competition between Hearst and Pulitzer for war coverage in Cuba quickly expanded to all of the major US newspapers of the day. Two other leading New York newspapers, the Herald and the Sun, joined the fray. Chicago newspapers such as the Times-Herald and the Tribune, joined with the Boston Herald, to add to the competition on the east coast.”

“American imperialism in Cuba as in other parts of the globe could never have succeeded without the willing connivance of the American “free” press. It is the American “free” press which stirs the American people to support every new war with false propaganda of atrocities committed by the nation to be invaded combined with the “goodness” of American intervention.”

“The intense media competition for newspaper sales by Hearst and Pulitzer which provided the media support for the America invasion of Cuba was so far out and biased that the American media itself coined a new term, yellow journalism, to refer to this kind of biased propaganda unsupported by the facts. “Yellow journalism” by all of the Western media played a significant role in garnering popular support for the criminal US invasion of Iraq in 2003 by President Bush.”

US Invasions in China, Japan and the Pacific, 1784-1941, to expand its Pacific empire and defeat Japanese competition was the true reason for its entry in World War II

Map of Japan

“Most of the American traders also smuggled illegal opium into China from Turkey and India to boost their profits. Prominent Americans who became drug lords in the China trade included FDR’s grandfather, Warren Delano, who was a senior partner with Russel and Company, a Boston company trading with China.”

“Illegal imports of opium into China continued its upward spiral after the Treaty of Nanking (1842). By 1858 imports had reached 70,000 chests. Profits from the illegal drug trade sky rocketed. Hong Kong became the drug capital of the world. China was militarily incapable of defending its own country from the Western drug lords.”

“The American Empire benefited from the Treaty of Nanking because it forced China to grant similar concessions to it as those granted to the British Empire. These equivalent concessions were forced on China by the Sino-American Treaty of Wanghia of July 3, 1844.”

“Sanford Dole became the President of the Hawaiian Republic after its conquest by the American Empire. The American conquest of Hawaii followed the pattern used on the mainland. The missionaries “civilized” the original inhabitants to make it easier for the American politicians and business men to steal their land, their economy and their culture. While Dole senior controlled the church his son, Sanford, controlled the government and together with his cousin, James Dole, also controlled the economy.”

“The traitors struck in 1887 shortly after the American Empire instructed the US Navy on January 20, 1887 to lease Pearl Harbor for a naval base. The American Empire had previously used Pearl Harbor as a Coal Depot. Lorrin Thurston, the leader of the traitors, was Hawaii’s Minister of the Interior. He drafted a new constitution for Hawaii on July 6, 1887, and used the Hawaiian militia, which the traitors controlled, to force King David Kalakaua to sign. Since the King was forced to sign it while looking down the bayonets of the armed militia, it was appropriately called the Bayonet Constitution.”

“The American Empire formally took possession of the naval base at Pearl Harbor on November 9, 1887. This occupation of Hawaiian territory by the American Empire caused Hawaii to be the central battleground between the American and Japanese empires without a single concern by the international community about the wishes of the Hawaiian people.”

“The US fleet in the Pacific was boosted by the US invasions and conquests of Hawaii in 1893 and the Philippines in 1898. It was from naval bases in the Philippines that the American Empire was able to play its crucial role in suppressing the armed rebellion of Chinese patriots against foreign domination. These Philippine bases were only 400 miles from China. The American Empire had deployed large numbers of battleships and marines to fight the insurgency in the Philippines following its invasion of the Philippines. These forces were well positioned to move quickly into China. US economic colonization of the Philippines also provided a springboard for US businesses to rape the rich resources of China. What came to be called the Boxer Rebellion was the armed revolt of Chinese patriots beginning in 1898.”

“Aggressive American imperialism would forcibly end two hundred years of self- imposed isolation by Japan. American meddling in the domestic affairs of Japan would lead the Japanese people to rise up against foreign domination. Like Iraq and Afghanistan today the use of superior brute force by the American Empire would bring only temporary conquests for the bully.”

“The American Empire forced Japan to open the ports of Hakodate and Shimoda to foreign trade (1854), permit the US to have a consulate in Shimoda and most importantly, forced Japan to allow the US Navy to re-fuel its warships with Japanese coal at coaling stations in Japan. The primary purpose of these coaling stations was to enable the US Navy to dominate the Pacific and thereby expand American trade and colonization of China and the Far East. In the words of US Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, “God had placed coal for steam ships in the depths of the Japanese islands for the benefit of the human family.” It was America’s “manifest destiny” to steal the Japanese coal.”

“American naval bases quickly expanded from Hawaii westward to Midway Island, Wake Island, Guam and the Philippines. The Spanish-American War of 1898 was a prelude to war with the Japanese Empire…

By the time the Japanese Empire attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, American propaganda regarding the God given right of the American Empire to wage war on all who dared threaten its hegemony had so saturated the minds of world leaders and citizens globally that there has not been a single mention of the people of Hawaii in that so called “Day of Infamy” of December 7, 1941.”

Dr. Rocky M. Mirza is the author of The Rise and Fall of the American Empire: A Re-interpretation of History, Economics and Philosophy: 1492-2006. He is also one of the three co-authors of Explorations in Macroeconomics and Explorations in Microeconomics. His latest book, American Invasions: Canada to Afghanistan: 1775 to 2010, is a sequel to The Rise and Fall of the American Empire. Dr. Mirza has a Ph.D. in economics and has written and taught for more than 30 years. He lives in Vancouver and is a faculty member of Thompson Rivers University. rmirza@tru.ca

www.rockyamericaninvasions.com

Franlin image © Elen / Dreamstime

monkey photo © Hauhu / Dreamstime

japan map image © Chad Mcdermott

cuba map image © Dana Rothstein

Herbicide pollution and GMO labelling

a open letter to the Minister of Health

by Thierry Vrain

In October, Dr. Thierry Vrain requested a meeting in Ottawa with the Honourable Rona Ambrose, Canada’s Minister of Health, to discuss GMO labelling. The meeting was cancelled, then granted, then cancelled again. At press time, Dr. Vrain had still not met with the Minister, but he did provide her with the letter below, which outlines recent studies.

 

To the Honourable Rona Ambrose

Minister of Health:

The confusion about the safety of GMOs is quite simple. The only GMOs in our agriculture are Glyphosate Modified Organisms also known as RoundUp Ready crops and the only GMOs in our food supply are from those crops. RoundUp Ready crops are engineered to be sprayed with the herbicide RoundUp and this technology has become so successful that RoundUp has become a major pollutant. This chemical pollution is antibiotic; it impacts the microbiome, impairs CYP enzymes and depletes food of essential mineral micronutrients. As a background paper for the impact of this pollution, I offer my speaking notes to the American College of Nutrition last week in San Antonio, Texas. Most of the studies I cite were published in the last five years.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient of the herbicide RoundUp, a new molecule created in 1960 by Stauffer Chemicals, a US company with a business of cleaning industrial pipes and boilers of mineral scales. The mineral deposits (same as in electric kettles) are called scales and the pipe cleaning chemicals are called descaling agents. Glyphosate was patented in 1964 in the US as a powerful and very broad spectrum descaling agent. Meaning it binds to metals indiscriminately and does a great job at “dissolving and preventing minerals from being reactive or bioavailable in solution.” When the descaling solution was disposed of in nature, it was obvious it killed plants. The chemical company Monsanto promptly bought the molecule, patented it as a herbicide in 1969 and got it commercialized in 1974. This molecule is making history because glyphosate has become the most successful agricultural chemical in North and South America wherever RR seeds are used. The farmers using this technology get simpler and cheaper weed management and despite higher input bills and sometimes disappointing yields, and with weed resistance spreading fast, they adopted it in droves.

The herbicide RoundUp had a completely novel chemistry for a herbicide in 1969. It was deemed to kill plants by bonding to only one protein enzyme in the chloroplasts – the same enzyme that is also in bacteria and fungi. Enzymes are metalloproteins with a metal atom as a cofactor at the active site of the molecule. Bacteria and plants and fungi have a metalloprotein called EPSPS for short and 5-Enol Pyruvyl Shikimate-3 Phosphate Synthase if you want to know what it does. It works with other metalloproteins to “build” several of the building blocks of proteins, the aromatic amino acids. These molecules are also building blocks for a large number of aromatic molecules we call secondary compounds. Glyphosate binds tightly to the manganese atom at the centre of the EPSPS metalloprotein, so tightly that the protein cannot move and do its work making aromatic amino acids. No protein synthesis means there is no metabolic work possible, a quick death for the plant, or the fungi or the bacteria.

Animals do not make their own aromatic amino acids since they lack the shikimate pathway with the EPSPS metalloprotein. Because of its presumed mode of killing plants, glyphosate was pronounced innocuous to humans and registered as such in 1974 in the USA. Glyphosate has no acute toxicity and at the time of registration in the US, and all those studies since, nobody has bothered to check for chronic effects beyond three months. Considering the chemical properties of this pollution, one would expect long-term chronic effects, something on the scale of scurvy or beri beri, for lack of micronutrients. The industry-sponsored feeding studies proving the safety of GMOs do not include testing for the safety of glyphosate. None of them bother to mention the residue levels of glyphosate in the feed. Meanwhile a fast growing series of independent studies in various countries published in the last five years have ascertained the impact of glyphosate on various enzymes of human cells and organs of animals.

The first RoundUp Ready crops to be commercialized were soy and corn, released in 1996. Since then, RR crops have been adopted enthusiastically by farmers, particularly in North and South America. Today, close to 500 million acres of soya, corn, cotton, canola and sugar beet are engineered to be sprayed with RoundUp. About 40% of all engineered crops are grown in the US; most of the rest are grown in Brazil, Argentina, Canada and a handful of other countries. RR crops are now sprayed with close to two billion lbs. of glyphosate every year and so much of that finds its way into processed food and feed that the EPA had to raise the legal residue limits last year to accommodate a new reality.

Glyphosate is antibiotic, a powerful and broad spectrum antibiotic. The mode of kill is again alleged to be very selective. The glyphosate molecules impair the functioning of the shikimate pathway in bacteria the same way it does in plants. Only one enzyme is affected in a pathway that animals do not possess. The antibiotic patent describes its effectiveness to kill bacteria at 1 ppm and this was confirmed last year in Germany. At this point, I usually spend a minute or two explaining why a low level antibiotic diet for the rest of your life is not a good idea. I describe the recent interest of the medical field in a large joint research project involving many universities to decipher the huge community of thousands of species of bacteria that call us home.

The Human Microbiome project is the equivalent of the Human Genome project in its scope. We are vastly outnumbered, roughly 10 to one – one hundred trillion bacterial cells call our lower intestine home. They are forever sending signalling molecules to each other and to all human organs, particularly the brain. All animals depend on their symbiosis with those bacteria and humans are no exception. They are the teachers of our immune system; they make many neurotransmitters for our brain and have a strong connection to the heart and the whole digestive tract. They literally feed us all kinds of molecules that we require. We call them essential, like vitamins and such. They digest and recycle most of our food. Most human organs rely on molecular signals from the microbiome for normal functioning. As goes the microbiome, so does its human shell.

A recent review of the medical literature on celiac and other diseases shows the link to imbalances of the microbiome that are fully explained by the antibiotic properties of glyphosate. And the same authors published another review of the impact of glyphosate on the CYP enzymes and the microbiome. Samsel and Seneff have suggested that glyphosate’s suppression of CYP enzymes and its antibiotic effect on the human microbiome are involved in the etiology of many chronic degenerative and inflammatory diseases that have grown to epidemic proportions since 1996, since the advent of the RoundUp Ready technology.

We lack any official data on residues in food or in water in Canada – no epidemiological studies of any kind have ever been done. All we have are the legal maximum residue limits now allowed by the EPA in RoundUp Ready foods: human cereal 30 ppm, animal grain 100 ppm, soybean 120 ppm, and everything else in between. Here, an inquisitive mind will ask why there is such a high residue limit for cereal when none of the grains are engineered to be sprayed with RoundUp. This is when you learn that RoundUp is sprayed on non-engineered crops with the intent to kill them right before harvest. This is done to mature the crops quickly – kill and dry, to make them easier and cheaper to harvest. The RoundUp herbicide has now become a dessicant.

There is direct toxicity to animal cells because glyphosate binds to metals indiscriminately and not just in plant cells. It binds to metals in solution and to metal co-factors at the centre of metalloproteins anywhere. For example, glyphosate binds to the iron atom at the centre of a large family of protein enzymes called CYP. There are 57 different CYP enzymes in the human body, and approximately 20,000 in animals, plants, bacteria and fungi. The CYP enzymes are oxydizers, the first line of digestion and detoxification of most substrates. David Nelson wrote in a review of the CYP enzymes, “The CYP enzymes of humans are essential for our normal physiology and failure of some of these enzymes results in serious illnesses.

Nancy Swanson has made public her statistical analyses of the US Centre for Disease Control’s statistics about the health status of America when placed next to the statistics of the US Department of Agriculture about the spread of RoundUp Ready soy and corn. Her correlation analyses show very high coefficient values suggesting strong links between glyphosate residues in RoundUP Ready food and chronic illnesses.

Medical and chemical reviews and peer reviewed studies have explained the mode of action of glyphosate and its impact on many metalloproteins. Human cell studies have shown acute toxicity (12-15) and animal studies have shown chronic toxicity (16-21). Glyphosate bioaccumulates in the plants and in any animal that eat the plants. In humans “Glyphosate accumulates in the lungs, the heart, kidneys, intestine, liver, spleen, muscles, and bones … and chronically ill people have higher residues in their urine than healthy people.”

To conclude this presentation of the nutritional status of Glyphosate Modified Organisms, I would say that foods made from RoundUp Ready soy and corn and sugar and canola, etc.,… are depleted of the minerals that are bound to the glyphosate molecules. Crops sprayed with RoundUp, whether they are RoundUp Ready or not, contain residues of glyphosate. Foods made from crops containing residues of glyphosate are, by definition, depleted of minerals and toxic.

Minister, your reassuring words have been quoted widely. “Currently, there is no… scientific evidence that says genetically modified foods are unhealthy. It is impossible for us to mandate a label because our labels have to be based on evidence that it is an unhealthy product for Canadians.” I hope you have found here the scientific evidence you require to act and that you join over 60 governments in the world who have found this evidence compelling enough in the past few years to legislate some form of labelling or ban RoundUp Ready crops and the herbicide RoundUp. j

Respectfully,

Dr. Thierry Vrain, thierryv@telus.net

Voting matters

Stay tuned if you want democracy on November 15

by Elizabeth Murphy

photo of Elizabeth Murphy• The November 15, 2014 civic election is upon us, with advance polling in Vancouver starting on November 4. This election is more important than those in the past. The election cycle has now been extended from three to four years.

This City of Vancouver election needs to be about restoring democracy through a more balanced City Council than the current majority rule under Gregor Robertson and Vision Vancouver. Over its last two terms, Vision has usually voted in block, often against the will of the people. In 2011, Vision only got support from 12% of eligible voters (34% of the 34% of eligible voters who voted) yet Vision used its majority to implement its agenda regardless of community opposition.

Vision’s track record has not been good for democracy. Moving away from long held practices of involving the community in the planning of their neighbourhoods they have created a quota system chosen by lottery, which they introduced in the ongoing plan for the Commercial Drive neighbourhood of Grandview. Entire neighbourhoods have been replanned without community support, such as Norquay, the West End, Downtown Eastside (Chinatown, Gastown, Strathcona) and Marpole. If Vision gets another majority, Kitsilano is next. We cannot let this happen.

Spot rezoning has now become the rule rather than the exception. Huge towers in neighbourhoods that oppose them are becoming standard practice. Recent community plans such as Mount Pleasant are ignored.

The obstacle to achieving a balanced council in this election is that there are too many alternatives to Vision which results in vote splitting. It will take careful consideration of voters before they go to the polls if there is to be a change for a more inclusive, representative and cooperative city council.

Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver (NSV) came together during the debate over EcoDensity policy that began in 2007. Across Vancouver, over 30 neighbourhood groups recognized serious negative implications and felt inspired to communicate with each other and to issue joint position statements. Like a previous coalition called Neighbour 2 Neighbour, NSV brought together diverse neighbourhoods that span the political spectrum.

The 2008 civic election resulted in a Vision majority due in part to the backlash against EcoDensity. Although Vision was elected on a promise to reconsider EcoDensity, that has not happened.

The effects of developer contributions to election funding continue to be a concern. Vision is the worst offender of accepting developer funding and resulting influence of decisions.

NSV’s goal is to move the City of Vancouver toward more democratic and genuinely sustainable planning. Although NSV ran candidates in 2011, in this election NSV is not running candidates because there are too many new parties and independents already splitting the opposition vote.

NSV will instead endorse a mixed slate as a Third Party Sponsor. Based on strategy and consistency with its principles and policies as posted on its website www.nsvancouver.ca, a recommended slate will be posted as the election progresses. Keep an eye out for updates on their website.

Councillor Adriane Carr and the Green Party of Vancouver, the other Green Party candidates and COPE have endorsed the NSV principles and policies. At the time of this writing, the NPA and other parties are also in the process of responding.

Stay tuned and watch the Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver website at www.nsvancouver.ca for updates as we get close to voting day, including advance polls on November 4.

Elizabeth Murphy is a private sector project manager and was formerly a Property Development Officer for the City of Vancouver’s Housing & Properties Department and for BC Housing.

info@elizabethmurphy.ca

www.elizabethmurphy.ca

Anti-radiation pills useless after the fact

by Dr. Gordon Edwards

• An article posted on CBC news on October 11 (cbc.ca) stated that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has published a new regulation requiring nuclear operators to pre-distribute potassium iodide pills to people and businesses in close proximity to nuclear power plants, such as the one in Chalk River, Ontario. In the article below, Dr. Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, refutes the efficacy of these pills when administered after a nuclear event.

Despite the headline in a CBCnews post on October 11 – “Nuclear plants must give anti-radiation pills to nearby residents” – there is no such thing as an “anti-radiation” pill. Radiation damage cannot be undone by taking a pill. In fact, there is no way of undoing radiation damage except by removing the damaged cells.

However, if non-radioactive iodine pills are taken before the body is exposed to radioactive iodine, the body’s thyroid gland will readily absorb the non-radioactive iodine and satisfy its “hunger” for iodine. Thus, when the radioactive iodine enters the body, it will not be absorbed by the thyroid gland – or at least not to the same degree – and the radioactive iodine will be excreted without taking up residence in the body.

This is important because radioactive iodine can damage the thyroid gland and cause a number of health problems, especially in infants and children. Following the Chernobyl accident, the World Health Organization has reported that about 6,000 children in Belarus had to have their thyroid glands surgically removed because of radiation damage caused by the body’s absorption of radioactive iodine.

If non-radioactive iodine pills are taken after the radioactive iodine has been absorbed, it’s too late for them to do much good. They have to be taken ahead of time – but not too much ahead of time. People have to know how and when to take these iodine pills in case of a nuclear accident and that means they have to know when the radioactive iodine is going to be given off into the atmosphere by the crippled reactor.

Although iodine is given off as a vapour, it rapidly deposits on the ground in a solid form and is absorbed into various foodstuffs such as cow’s milk and leafy plants, especially seaweed. The potential hazard from ingesting iodine-131 lasts for several weeks following a nuclear accident, so dietary restrictions are advisable.

In addition to radioactive iodine, there are dozens of other radioactive materials given off in the event of a nuclear accident (see http://ccnr.org/G-2_emissions.pdf , pages 3-6). Iodine pills offer no protection against these other radioactive materials, some of which concentrate in the bones, the soft organs, the blood or the lungs. Nevertheless, iodine pills do help to protect people’s thyroid glands if taken at the right time. This is particularly important in the case of infants and children, and – of course – for pregnant women.

Dr. Gordon Edwards is the president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR), www.ccnr.org

The Champix/Chantix saga

Please don’t operate a missile battery while reading this article

DRUG BUST by Alan Cassels

• The people’s briefing note on prescription drugs
Portrait of columnist Alan Cassels

In mid October, the US Food and Drug Administration convened a special meeting to look at whether or not varenicline, the controversial drug to stop smoking – called Champix in Canada and Chantix in the US – needed to continue to carry a black box warning indicating the drug could cause psychiatric side effects such as suicidal behaviour and aggression/violence.

Just to remind you, a “black box” warning on a drug is the equivalent of a cruise missile shot across the bow. It is the most serious warning found on a drug’s label, placed there because a grave safety issue has been identified. Almost every drug removed from the market has been preceded by a black box. In the case of Chantix – I’ll use the US name in this article – both the US FDA and Health Canada issued warnings in 2008 after it had been on the market about a year; the black box was applied in July 2009.

Both agencies had warned they had received adverse event reports linked to neuropsychiatric symptoms including depression, agitation, aggression, hostility and suicidal thoughts. There have also been reports related to insomnia, dizziness, loss of consciousness and seizures.

Officially, the FDA panel meeting in October was held at the request of Pfizer, who wanted the committee of drug safety and pharmacology experts to consider its request to remove Chantix’s black box warning.

In the hearing, many paid experts took Pfizer’s side, extolling the results of a large body of clinical trials and observational studies which couldn’t find these alleged adverse effects. On the other side was a consortium of five groups who presented a petition asking that the warning not only be kept, but strengthened. See www.ismp.org (Institute for Safe Medication Practices) for the Citizen Petition to Strengthen Chantix Warnings. The remarkable public service performed by these consumer advocates, in this case led by Thomas Moore of ISMP, is Nobel Prize-worthy. Based on the best and most objective reading of the accumulated adverse events reports, they asserted the drug needed a stronger black box, one which included other known effects such as the “risk of blackouts, convulsions and impaired vision.”  They added that anyone working as a pilot, air traffic controller, policeman, fireman or as crew on a missile battery should avoid the drug. That makes sense to me, given that with aggressive impulses linked to the drug, mixing it with military hardware could be a deadly combination.

What makes this hearing so interesting are the voices of people who weren’t able to speak. I’m thinking of the 2,500 or so victims of Chantix who, according to Kim Witczak, were “silenced in their settlement agreements with Pfizer.”  Kim knows what she is talking about. She is one of the most outspoken advocates for drug safety in the US, a role which she was thrust into after the death of her husband Woody, who committed suicide while taking the antidepressant Zoloft.

Kim has testified at a number of hearings concerning the safety of antidepressants, including hearings which led to an FDA-mandated black box warning which said SSRI antidepressants could cause children and youth to become suicidal. She was present at the hearings on Chantix, telling me in an email that she was “proud to represent the voices of families who live every day with the consequences of a failed drug safety system.”

The major difference between the hearings on SSRI antidepressants and the one on Chantix was that the SSRI hearings heard testimony from ‘real’ people affected by the drugs. At the Chantix meeting, no lawyers were present to testify against Chantix because Pfizer settled $300 million in lawsuits with 2,500 or so Chantix victims. We all know what happens when lawsuits settle: the documents, expert depositions and testimony are all sealed. Which is to say, a huge amount of information from real people potentially hurt by these drugs stays buried.

For me, the real question is how harmful is this drug? That’s a difficult question to answer because both the observational studies and the randomized trials might be unreliable. It’s quite possible that clever and selective data mining in observational trials and the biases inherent in randomized trials with limited numbers of patients and short follow-up could gloss over Chantix’s potential adverse effects. But what we do have are reports. Real world reports made by patients who were exposed to the drug and the doctors and pharmacists who saw the effects of the drug.

Prior to the FDA hearing, ISMP’s safety publication QuarterWatch reported Chantix accounted for more consumer and health professional reports of suicidal and homicidal thoughts in the US than any other prescription drug over nearly six years.

To bring this close to home, the province of BC started paying for Chantix in September 2011 as part of a province-wide smoking-cessation program. This might be a sound policy if the drugs we covered actually helped people quit and didn’t make them depressed or psychotic or cause them to have suicidal thoughts. But we know practically nothing about the effect of the policy. Thanks to a spate of Ministry of Health firings in September 2012, the evaluation of our Chantix policy was guillotined and never restarted. It is both cruel and ironic that Rod MacIsaac, the UVic student who was working on that research project, committed suicide after he was inexplicably canned.

With numbers supplied by the BC Ministry of Health, between September 2011 and July 2014, BC Pharmacare paid for 230,400 scripts for Chantix. It’s impossible to precisely determine exactly how many different people took the drug – because the length of scripts varies – but we can calculate conservatively that about 92,000 patients would have been prescribed a Ministry funded Chantix script. It’s important to add that, in May 2013, Health Canada took the step of making Chantix a second line drug. That is, it is not recommended as the first thing to be prescribed. Visit healthycanadians.gc.ca and search Champix and Zyban revision.

What I conclude from this is that, at the very least, hundreds of people in BC were probably made depressed by ingesting this drug while costing the taxpayer about $6.4 million – about $187,000 per month. How many BC smokers start to think about suicide (or complete it), become aggressive or violent, develop psychosis or have wildly troubling nightmares can only be a guess.

Buttressing the company’s arguments at the FDA hearings were truckloads of data, including four observational studies and 18 Pfizer-sponsored randomized trials all produced to demonstrate that the rates of neuropsychiatric events related to Chantix were no greater than placebo or a comparator drug. What I read into this is that if you want more drug industry-funded research – read my October column on data fracking to understand what I’m talking about – this is what we should expect: marketing not science.

Thomas Moore, who attended the hearing, showed me the “Alice in Wonderland” graphic he used as part of his presentation. He wrote that this helped “illustrate the odd spectacle of Pfizer paying $300 million to 2,500 Chantix victims and then trying to convince a panel of experts that these same potentially catastrophic adverse effects don’t exist.” At the end of the day, of the 18 experts deciding the outcome, 11 voted to retain the black box as is; six voted to strengthen it and only one delegate voted to remove the warning. The black box stays.

There are three lessons we need to remember:

1. Black box warnings are strong indicators that drugs designed to help people can often hurt them in unexpected ways.

2. Evaluating the effects of drugs in the real world is a public enterprise that should answer vital safety and effectiveness questions of interest to the public, not questions that support a company’s marketing plan.

3. The dead can’t speak and neither can those who have been stifled by lawsuits so we can only wonder what secrets they hold. The firings at the Ministry and the settled US Chantix lawsuits produced the same outcome: people who can’t share their stories.

Taking a drug you’re worried about? Just like Chantix/Champix, your drug could also have much bigger problems than those selling the drugs want you to believe.

Alan Cassels is a drug policy researcher in Victoria. You can follow him on twitter @AKECassels or at www.alancassels.com