December 17, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/martin-shkreli-charged-with-securities-fraud/

CEO reviled for drug price hike charged with securities fraud
CBS/AP
December 17, 2015

Play VIDEO -- Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO defends Daraprim price hike
Play VIDEO -- Turing CEO will keep high Daraprim price for individuals


Martin Shkreli, the hedge fund manager and drug company CEO who became a poster boy for Wall Street greed when he raised the cost of a life-saving pill from $10.50 to $750, has been arrested on securities fraud, CBS News has confirmed.

A law enforcement source confirmed that Shkreli was arrested by the FBI at his home in Manhattan Thursday on security fraud charges, CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton reports. He is being processed at FBI headquarters in New York and is expected to be arraigned later today in Federal Court in Brooklyn.

Shkreli, the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals and KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, is accused of illegally taking stock from a biotech company he founded to pay off debts from unrelated business transactions, according to Bloomberg.

Shkreli became a lightning rod in September when he raised the cost of Daraprim by 5,000 percent. Daraprim, the common name for the drug pyrimethamine, is the only medication for treating toxoplasmosis, an infection contracted from cat parasites that can cause birth defects. It is also used as a co-treatment for HIV infections, some cancers and malaria.

Earlier this month, Shkreli said he regretted not increasing the price of the drug by more than he already did.

Asked by an audience member at a healthcare summit hosted by Forbes what he'd do differently if he could go back in time to before his highly criticized decision to raise the price of a 62-year-old drug, the Turing CEO replied: "I probably would have raised prices higher, is probably what I should have done. I could have raised it higher and made more profits for our shareholders. Which is my primary duty."

After the controversial price hike, Shkreli was branded "the most hated man in America."

While Shkreli acknowledged that the move might look "greedy," he told CBS News correspondent Don Dahler in September that there were "a lot of altruistic properties to it."

"This is a disease where there hasn't been one pharmaceutical company focused on it for 70 years. We're now a company that is dedicated to the treatment and cure of toxoplasmosis. And with these new profits we can spend all of that upside on these patients who sorely need a new drug, in my opinion," he said.

After the outcry in September over Daraprim, Shkreli said the company would reduce the $750-a-pill price. Last month, however, Turing reneged on its pledge. Instead, the company is reducing what it charges hospitals for Daraprim by as much as 50 percent. Most patients' co-payments will be capped at $10 or less a month. But insurance companies will be stuck with the bulk of the tab, potentially driving up future treatment and insurance costs.

The uproar over Turings' pricing actions and similar moves by other companies helped start government investigations, proposals by politicians to fight "price gouging," heavy media scrutiny and a drop in stock prices for biotech companies.

However, the price of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals shares surged from around $2 to above $40 after the struggling cancer drug developer named Shkreli chairman and CEO in November. The South San Francisco, California, company had been winding down operations when Shkreli and the group swooped in to take control and committed to a $10 million equity financing facility.

Shares of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. shed more than half their value, or $12.56, to $11.03 shortly before markets opened Thursday.



“Shkreli, the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals and KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, is accused of illegally taking stock from a biotech company he founded to pay off debts from unrelated business transactions, according to Bloomberg. …. It is also used as a co-treatment for HIV infections, some cancers and malaria. Earlier this month, Shkreli said he regretted not increasing the price of the drug by more than he already did.”


“I could have raised it higher and made more profits for our shareholders. Which is my primary duty." He clearly doesn’t believe in playing well with others. I wish I thought things like this were unique to Shkreli. Too many of the things that cause the wealthy to get or stay wealthy are really dirty pool if they aren’t expressly illegal. Our laws tend not to catch up in real time with the immoral and unfair things that go on, especially among the wealthy. That doesn’t mean that all wealthy people are cheaters, but enough are that I tend not to trust them very much. They are motivated by, not “money,” but “the love of money.” They place it above human values that we need to have a civilized society. Thank goodness in this case he got caught and will hopefully serve some prison time. Of course they will put him into a minimum security prison with his peers, with a computer, a television, and all the dope he wants smuggled in to him.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/secretary-of-defense-ash-carter-iphone-personal-emails-syria-iraq-isis/

Ash Carter explains email use to CBS News
CBS NEWS
December 17, 2015

Play VIDEO -- Hillary Clinton testifies on emails, her partnership with Defense Dept.
Play VIDEO -- Syrians welcome U.S. Special Forces in ISIS fight
Related article -- Putin: U.S. supports draft resolution on Syria


ERBIL, Iraq -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told CBS News on Thursday that in spite being "warned by lots of people along the way" to be cautious with his communications after assuming the top job at the Pentagon, he continued to send work emails from his iPhone "until a few months ago."

Carter told CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata in an interview at an American base in Erbil, northern Iraq, that he never sent anything classified via his personal account, but that he did "occasionally" send "administrative" emails to his "immediate staff."

"It's a mistake, and it's entirely my own," the secretary told D'Agata, saying that as soon as it became clear to him that the practice was against policy, "I stopped."

He said he generally doesn't use email to communicate much.

The revelation that Carter had sent work emails from a personal account was first published Wednesday by the New York Times.

It quickly made headlines in the wake of the recent scandal involving Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a personal account to send work emails during her time as Secretary of State.

Carter conceded to D'Agata that the attention Clinton had received -- which involved multiple grillings by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, was "more reason why I should have been" careful to follow communications protocols, "and that's my fault."

"I have to hold myself to strict standards," he told CBS News, "and I didn't in this case."

On the ISIS fight

The defense chief flew to Erbil, the capital of Kurdish territory in northern Iraq, to meet U.S. and Kurdish commanders at the spear-tip of the battle to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which Carter said confidently, "we'll win."

"I don't have any question about that," he told D'Agata. "But we want to win faster."

Carter said President Obama wanted to "accelerate" the effort to squeeze ISIS in it's two strongholds; the group's self-declared capital in Raqqa, Syria, and Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul.

D'Agata said that what he saw in Syria in recent days with the Kurdish forces who are receiving U.S. backing, was "chaos." Infighting between rival groups in Syria is complicating the U.S. effort to get them to focus on pushing ISIS back toward Raqqa.

Kurdish commanders have told D'Agata they're grateful for the addition of U.S. Special Operations forces to the battle, and it has given them new hope that the fight can be won. But they also said they still need heavier weapons to beat ISIS and that any additional U.S. troops would be welcomed.

Pushed by D'Agata on constant requests he heard from the Kurdish commanders for heavier weapons, Carter stressed that the U.S. and it's allies, such as Germany, have already contributed significant hardware, but that a big part of the reason he was in Erbil was to discuss further needs.

"They've asked especially for arms, and we've provided arms," Carter said, adding that if the Kurds are able to "continue to move south" toward ISIS' headquarters in Raqqa, "we'll continue to do that."

"We're going to take Raqqa, and that's how we're going to do it," he said.



“…. in spite being "warned by lots of people along the way" to be cautious with his communications after assuming the top job at the Pentagon, he continued to send work emails from his iPhone "until a few months ago." Carter told CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata in an interview at an American base in Erbil, northern Iraq, that he never sent anything classified via his personal account, but that he did "occasionally" send "administrative" emails to his "immediate staff." …. as soon as it became clear to him that the practice was against policy, "I stopped." He said he generally doesn't use email to communicate much. …. was "more reason why I should have been" careful to follow communications protocols, "and that's my fault." "I have to hold myself to strict standards," he told CBS News, "and I didn't in this case." …. Kurdish commanders have told D'Agata they're grateful for the addition of U.S. Special Operations forces to the battle, and it has given them new hope that the fight can be won. But they also said they still need heavier weapons to beat ISIS and that any additional U.S. troops would be welcomed. …. "They've asked especially for arms, and we've provided arms," Carter said, adding that if the Kurds are able to "continue to move south" toward ISIS' headquarters in Raqqa, "we'll continue to do that." "We're going to take Raqqa, and that's how we're going to do it," he said.”


This is just more of the same, like the stories that keep coming out about conflicts between the Israelis and local Arab groups. It appears to me that nothing different or significant ever happens. And as for this new E-mailgate matter, I can only say that it grieves me and looks like arrogance. Didn’t Carter know he was doing the exact same thing that got Hillary in such repeated bouts of trouble? Do any of you readers remember “Nannygate?” If it is true that his emails were few and strictly “administrative,” that does make it better, but for those who want to lambaste Democrats every chance they get, this is a godsend.




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-atlantic-university-seeks-to-fire-professor-james-tracy-over-sandy-hook-shooting-claim/

School seeks to fire prof over Sandy Hook shooting claim
CBS NEWS
December 17, 2015

Photograph -- Florida Atlantic University professor James Tracy HTTP://WWW.FAU.EDU
10 PHOTOS -- Some of the deadliest school shootings in U.S.


BOCA RATON -- Florida Atlantic University officials have recommended that a professor who says he believes the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School was staged be fired, reports CBS Miami.

The university informed James Tracy of its decision Wednesday, the station says.

Tracy has 10 days to appeal.

The parents of 6-year-old victim Noah Pozner say Tracy has harassed them, demanding proof their son existed, according to CBS Miami.

Twenty-six people, including 20 children, were gunned down at the school in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012.



“Florida Atlantic University officials have recommended that a professor who says he believes the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School was staged be fired, reports CBS Miami. …. The parents of 6-year-old victim Noah Pozner say Tracy has harassed them, demanding proof their son existed, according to CBS Miami.”


Some people who are highly educated and intelligent are insane. I think people who believe these bizarre conspiracy theories are insane. Some of those which I remember are:
-- The attack on the Twin Towers was planned and commissioned by the US Government.
-- The same was true of Pearl Harbor, though in that case a warning of the Japanese attack was withheld from public knowledge by President Roosevelt to get the average people enraged and get the US into WWII.
-- The US never succeeded in sending men to the moon, but staged the whole event.
-- President Obama was not born in the US, but in Kenya.
-- A flying saucer with one or perhaps two alien astronauts on it crashed in Area 51, and there were witnesses who were threatened by the army if they told the story. A great movie which was made about that supposedly factual incident was called “Independence Day.”

Gullible US citizens often get “information” like that from their buddies while they are sitting around a pot-bellied stove in a country store and drinking moonshine. They also tune in on the radio to “shock jocks” who run talk shows, and call in with their “opinions” on the matter. They don’t “believe” the mainstream media because those news sources are bought and controlled by oligarchs, and they therefore will only tell the liberal officials’ desired propaganda stories rather than the latest hysterical, paranoid ones. That’s why the legitimate press is called “the liberal media.” If you want the real scoop you have to watch Fox news or read the grocery store tabloids.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-a-new-direction-on-drugs/

A New Direction On Drugs

Top drug official Michael Botticelli says the old war on drugs is all wrong, and wants to refocus the country's drug policy
Scott Pelley, CORRESPONDENT
Dec 13, 2015

Photograph -- bott-walk-2shot-boston001.jpg, Scott Pelley, left, Michael Botticelli
Photograph -- botticelli-32.jpg, Michael Botticelli
Photograph -- bott-4-shot-boston-nicu001.jpg, Dr. Leslie Kerzner treating an infant addicted to opioids CBS NEWS
Photograph -- bott-cult-glyinn-quincy001.jpg, Lt. Patrick Glynn
Photograph -- botticelliscottpelley.jpg, Scott



After forty years and a trillion dollars, the nation has little to show for its war on drugs. Prisons are beyond crowded and there's a new outbreak in the heroin epidemic. If it's time for a change, it would be hard to find a leader more different than Michael Botticelli. The president's new Director of National Drug Control Policy isn't a cop. He's lucky he didn't go to jail himself. And we knew that things had changed the first time we used the nickname that comes with his job, the "drug czar."

Michael Botticelli: It's actually a title that I don't like.

Scott Pelley: Why?

Michael Botticelli: Because I think it connotes this old "war on drugs" focus to the work that we do. It portrays that we are clinging to kind of failed policies and failed practices in the past.

Scott Pelley: Are you saying that the way we have waged the war on drugs for more than 40 years has been all wrong?

Michael Botticelli: It has been all wrong.

Blunt force didn't knock out the drug epidemic. 21 million Americans are addicted to drugs or alcohol. And half of all federal inmates are in for drug crimes.

Michael Botticelli: We can't arrest and incarcerate addiction out of people. Not only do I think it's really inhumane, but it's ineffective and it cost us billions upon billions of dollars to keep doing this.

Scott Pelley: So what have we learned?

CHANGE THE VOCABULARY OF ADDICTION

Michael Botticelli: We've learned addiction is a brain disease. This is not a moral failing. This is not about bad people who are choosing to continue to use drugs because they lack willpower. You know, we don't expect people with cancer just to stop having cancer.

Scott Pelley: Aren't they doing it to themselves? Isn't a heroin addict making that choice?

Michael Botticelli: Of course not. You know, the hallmark of addiction is that it changes your brain chemistry. It actually affects that part of your brain that's responsible for judgment.

That is the essence of Michael Botticelli's approach -- addicts should be patients, not prisoners. He did it in Massachusetts as Director of Substance Abuse Services. There, his initiatives included a high school for teens in recovery and expanding drug courts, like this one in Washington D.C., where offenders can choose treatment over jail. And the charges can be dropped.

Scott Pelley: You know that there are people watching this interview and they're saying to themselves, "Oh, great. He wants to open the jails and let the drug addicts out."

Scott Pelley: I think we have to base our policy on scientific understanding. You know, and we've had really great models and evaluated models to show that we can simultaneously divert people away from our criminal justice system without an increase in crime. And it actually reduces crime.

Botticelli pursues reform with the passion of the converted because he, himself, is recovering from addiction. Back in 1988, he was a university administrator, whose car slammed into a truck. Botticelli was drunk, in truth, he'd been drunk for years.

Scott Pelley: Did you love drinking?

Michael Botticelli: I would say that I probably had an unhealthy love affair with drinking. You know, I grew up as this kind of insecure kid, you know, kind of making my way. And, you know, drinking took all of that away, you know? People drink and do drugs for a reason. 'Cause it makes them feel good, you know -- until it doesn't anymore.

Scott Pelley: Is it true that after the accident you woke up handcuffed to a gurney?

Michael Botticelli: I did. I did. And, you know, you think to yourself, "how did I get to this point, you know, in my life?"

That point included imminent eviction from his apartment because the booze had washed away all the money.

BOTTICELLI DIDN'T TAKE THE PAIN PILLS

Michael Botticelli: A very wise judge said to me, "Michael, you have two options. You can either get care for your drinking problem. Or we can continue with criminal proceedings."

Scott Pelley: It was at that point that you walked into this church and went to the 12-step meeting down in the basement?

Michael Botticelli: Yeah, I did.

Scott Pelley: What was that first meeting like?

Michael Botticelli: It's hard for me to talk about this. And not from a sense of sadness. From a sense of tremendous gratitude. This was the first time that I raised my hand and said that I was an alcoholic and that I had a problem. And what the miraculous thing about that movement is that people rally around you in ways, you know, addiction is such an isolating incident in your life. You feel alone. And, you know, when you admit, when you come into a fellowship like this and people just surround you and say, "We will help you, that you're not alone, that we've been through it before, and you will get through it," just gives you such great hope.

He's been alcohol free for 27 years. Today he oversees a $26 billion budget across 16 government agencies. Just over half of the money goes to drug enforcement.

Scott Pelley: What do you say to those who argue, and there are many, that if you lock down the southern border, you solve the drug problem?

Michael Botticelli: I think it's overly simplistic to say that any one single strategy is going to really change the focus and change the trajectory of drug use.

For example, he says, the heroin crisis was created here at home.

Michael Botticelli: We know one of the drivers of heroin has been the misuse of pain medication. If we're gonna deal with heroin and heroin use in the United States, we really have to focus on reducing the magnitude of the prescription drug use issue.

Many pain drugs are opioids, like heroin. And the number of opioid prescriptions has risen from 76 million in 1991 to 207 million today.

Michael Botticelli: We have a medical community that gets little training on pain, gets little training on addiction, and quite honestly has been promoting and continues to promote the overprescribing of these pain medications.

Some are born addicted. We met Botticelli at Massachusetts General where Dr. Leslie Kerzner, weans infants off of opioids.

Dr. Leslie Kerzner: I'm just going to give him this little bit of morphine right in his cheek.

In the last decade, the number of expectant mothers on opioids has increased five fold.

Dr. Leslie Kerzner: If they don't get the treatment, they could have a seizure. And that's what we really worry about.

Scott Pelley: But how does a person who is addicted to prescription pain medication find themselves on heroin?

Michael Botticelli: Prescription drugs and heroin act in very similar ways on the brain. // And, you know, unfortunately, heroin, because of its widespread availability is a lot cheaper on the streets of Boston and many places around this country.

Scott Pelley: Heroin is cheaper than prescription painkillers?

Michael Botticelli: It is. So a bag of heroin could be as cheap as $5, $10.

More than 120 Americans die of drug overdoses each day. That is more than car wrecks or gun violence. To save lives, Botticelli started an experiment in 2010 with the Quincy, Massachusetts police. Lieutenant Patrick Glynn is head of narcotics.

Patrick Glynn: When someone dies of an overdose the community becomes very, very small. Everyone knows each other, even in a large city as ours. Just recently in the past four to six months some of our officers have lost children.

Scott Pelley: In a city of about 100,000 people, did I just understand you to say that some of your officers have lost children to drug overdoses?

Patrick Glynn: Yes.

Scott Pelley: How many?

Patrick Glynn: Two did. Two-- they-- two of them lost sons.

Scott Pelley: In what period of time?

Patrick Glynn: Within the last six months.

Botticelli helped arm every Quincy officer with Naloxone, a nasal spray antidote for overdose. Lt. Glynn saw it work on an unconscious addict.

Patrick Glynn: Within about 45 seconds to a minute, they started to move around, their eyes fluttered, and they began to sit up and speak.

bott-quincy-police-station002001.jpg
Training at the Quincy Police Department in Massachusetts CBS NEWS

Scott Pelley: Must have looked like a miracle?

Patrick Glynn: It's surreal.

And they got to the victim in time due to a controversial innovation called the "Good Samaritan Law."

Scott Pelley: One of the changes that came under Botticelli's administration was that someone involved in drugs, if there was an overdose, they could call 911. And they would not be arrested for having drugs on the premises.

Patrick Glynn: Correct.

Scott Pelley: What difference did that make?

Patrick Glynn: That opened the floodgates of people calling 911.

Today, 32 states have a similar 911 law and Naloxone is carried by more than 800 police departments.

In Massachusetts, Botticelli helped make treating addiction routine healthcare. So patients can get their opioid treatments now in a doctor's office.

[Dr. Samet: Things have been going really well for you. We'll figure out the path you can walk down to stay in recovery.]

And today, the Affordable Care Act requires most insurance companies to cover addiction treatment.

Michael Botticelli: I often say that substance use is one of the last diseases where we'd let people reach their most acute phase of this disorder before we offer them intervention. You've heard the phrase "hitting bottom." Well, we don't say that with any other disorder. So the medical community has a key role to play in terms of doing a better job of identifying people in the early stages of their disease, in doing a better job at treating people who have this disorder.

Notice that word: "disorder," Botticelli prefers it to "addiction." He wants to lift the stigma by changing the language as he did this past October in a rally on the National Mall.

[Michael Botticelli at rally: We must choose to come out in the light and be treated with dignity and respect. So let's stop whispering about this disease.]

Botticelli sees a model for the change in attitude in the gay rights movement, which he has also lived. He's been with his husband, David Wells, more than 20 years.

Scott Pelley: At what point were you comfortable talking about being a gay man?

Michael Botticelli: Before I was comfortable talking about being an alcoholic.

Scott Pelley: The alcoholism was harder?

Michael Botticelli: You know, even kind of feeling that moment of hesitation about saying that I'm in recovery and not about being a gay man shows to me that we still have more work to do to really de-stigmatize addiction.

But it's addiction to legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco that kill the most Americans, over half a million a year. Botticelli does not believe in adding another drug to that cocktail with the legalization of marijuana.

Scott Pelley: You're not a fan?

Michael Botticelli: I'm not a fan. What we've seen quite honestly is a dramatic decrease in the perception of risk among youth around occasional marijuana use. And they are getting the message that because it's legal, that it is, there's no harm associated with it. So, we know that about one in nine people who use marijuana become addicted to marijuana. It's been associated with poor academic performance, in exacerbating mental health conditions linked to lower IQ.

Botticelli worries the marijuana industry is quickly adapting "big tobacco's" playbook.

In the 90s tobacco companies appealed to kids with flavored cigarettes and Joe Camel. Today, the nearly $3 billion marijuana industry promotes sweetened edibles and "buddie," a mascot for legalization.

Scott Pelley: You are never gonna be able to talk all the states out of the tax revenue that will come from a burgeoning marijuana industry. It will just be too seductive.

Michael Boticelli: You know, that's quite honestly my fear. Is that states are going to become dependent on the revenue.

Scott Pelley: It becomes a co-dependency?

Michael Botticelli: It becomes an addiction to, unfortunately, a tax revenue that's often based on bad public health policy.

As for his own recovery, Botticelli says it gets easier. Though he still attends those 12-step meetings that he called 'miraculous.'

Scott Pelley: There are people watching this interview right now who are addicted to drugs, are alcoholics. And they cannot stop. And to them, you say what?

Michael Botticelli: That there's help. That there's hope. That there is treatment available. If I, in some small way can help people to see that there is this huge, incredible life on the other side of addiction, you know, I will feel accomplished in my job.




“It portrays that we are clinging to kind of failed policies and failed practices in the past. Scott Pelley: Are you saying that the way we have waged the war on drugs for more than 40 years has been all wrong? Michael Botticelli: It has been all wrong. …. Michael Botticelli: We can't arrest and incarcerate addiction out of people. Not only do I think it's really inhumane, but it's ineffective and it cost us billions upon billions of dollars to keep doing this. …. Michael Botticelli: We've learned addiction is a brain disease. This is not a moral failing. This is not about bad people who are choosing to continue to use drugs because they lack willpower. You know, we don't expect people with cancer just to stop having cancer. Scott Pelley: Aren't they doing it to themselves? Isn't a heroin addict making that choice? Michael Botticelli: Of course not. You know, the hallmark of addiction is that it changes your brain chemistry. It actually affects that part of your brain that's responsible for judgment. .… There, his initiatives included a high school for teens in recovery and expanding drug courts, like this one in Washington D.C., where offenders can choose treatment over jail. And the charges can be dropped. …. You know, and we've had really great models and evaluated models to show that we can simultaneously divert people away from our criminal justice system without an increase in crime. And it actually reduces crime. …. A very wise judge said to me, "Michael, you have two options. You can either get care for your drinking problem. Or we can continue with criminal proceedings." Scott Pelley: It was at that point that you walked into this church and went to the 12-step meeting down in the basement? Michael Botticelli: Yeah, I did. …. And what the miraculous thing about that movement is that people rally around you in ways, you know, addiction is such an isolating incident in your life. …. Botticelli helped arm every Quincy officer with Naloxone, a nasal spray antidote for overdose. Lt. Glynn saw it work on an unconscious addict. Patrick Glynn: Within about 45 seconds to a minute, they started to move around, their eyes fluttered, and they began to sit up and speak. …. But it's addiction to legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco that kill the most Americans, over half a million a year. Botticelli does not believe in adding another drug to that cocktail with the legalization of marijuana. …. So, we know that about one in nine people who use marijuana become addicted to marijuana. It's been associated with poor academic performance, in exacerbating mental health conditions linked to lower IQ.”


I agree with Botticelli about the dangers of marijuana. Most of my AA meetings have been in groups of mature adults of various ages. I was at one in a treatment center, where I was not a patient however, and one of those young kids of a mixed alcohol/marijuana addiction, who was trying to express himself was having a noticeable problem doing that. He either couldn’t think clearly or couldn’t say the words he wanted, like a classic dementia patient. Brain damage of that type is very frightening to me, especially if it is permanent. I smoked some marijuana, but very little, and I’m glad I kept it to a minimum. It produces what I can only call “brainfog.” Even though I enjoyed the mental “trip,” I was aware at the time that I was in a temporarily disabled and abnormal condition. It also causes a temporary paranoia, which can become permanent.

When Robin Williams recently killed himself it was brought out in the news that he suffered from a debilitating form of dementia called Lewy Body Dementia. I understood his action completely. Many Christian churches believe that suicide is “the unforgivable sin,” because it shows a lack of faith. I think it is always a way of correcting a problem which no one else is legally able to do anything about. Kr. Kervorkian of recent decades went to prison for helping people commit suicides, though in every case they suffered from severe and intolerable conditions. Sometimes the law makes lots of sense, but in my opinion this is not such a case.



GOOD SAMARITAN LAWS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law

Good Samaritan laws offer legal protection to people who give reasonable assistance to those who are, or who they believe to be, injured, ill, in peril, or otherwise incapacitated.[1] The protection is intended to reduce bystanders' hesitation to assist, for fear of being sued or prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death. An example of such a law in common-law areas of Canada: a good Samaritan doctrine is a legal principle that prevents a rescuer who has voluntarily helped a victim in distress from being successfully sued for wrongdoing. Its purpose is to keep people from being reluctant to help a stranger in need for fear of legal repercussions should they make some mistake in treatment.[2] By contrast, a duty to rescue law requires people to offer assistance, and holds those who fail to do so liable.

Good Samaritan laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, as do their interactions with various other legal principles, such as consent, parental rights and the right to refuse treatment. Most such laws do not apply to medical professionals' or career emergency responders' on-the-job conduct, but some extend protection to professional rescuers when they are acting in a volunteer capacity.

The principles contained in good Samaritan laws more typically operate in countries in which the foundation of the legal system is English Common Law, such as Australia.[3] In many countries that use civil law as the foundation for their legal systems, the same legal effect is more typically achieved using a principle of duty to rescue.

Good Samaritan laws take their name from a parable found in the Bible, attributed to Jesus, commonly referred to as the Parable of the Good Samaritan which is contained in Luke 10:25-37. It recounts the aid given by a traveler from the area known as Samaria to another traveler of a conflicting religious and ethnic background who had been beaten and robbed by bandits.[4]

China[edit]
There have been incidents in China, such as the Peng Yu incident in 2006,[13][14] where good Samaritans who helped people injured in accidents were accused of having injured the victim themselves.

The death of Wang Yue was caused when the toddler was run over by two vehicles. The entire incident was caught on a video, which shows eighteen people seeing the child but refusing to help. In a November 2011 survey, a majority, 71%, thought that the people who passed the child without helping were afraid of getting into trouble themselves.[15]

According to China Daily, "at least 10 Party and government departments and organizations in Guangdong, including the province's commission on politics and law, the women's federation, the Academy of Social Sciences, and the Communist Youth League, have started discussions on punishing those who refuse to help people who clearly need it."[1




“Good Samaritan laws offer legal protection to people who give reasonable assistance to those who are, or who they believe to be, injured, ill, in peril, or otherwise incapacitated.[1] The protection is intended to reduce bystanders' hesitation to assist, for fear of being sued or prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death. …. Its purpose is to keep people from being reluctant to help a stranger in need for fear of legal repercussions should they make some mistake in treatment.[2] By contrast, a duty to rescue law requires people to offer assistance, and holds those who fail to do so liable. …. interactions with various other legal principles, such as consent, parental rights and the right to refuse treatment. Most such laws do not apply to medical professionals' or career emergency responders' on-the-job conduct, … unless operating on a volunteer capacity at the time.”


I think it is fair to have a law REQUIRING rendering aid. The reasons for individuals failing to do so, particularly if they just stand around and watch what’s going on, is that they just don’t care. Some may fear getting in trouble if they do help, but more may actually think “it’s not my problem.” There is a horrific photograph in a book I read of a large crowd, some 100 or so, who are standing around and watching a black man dangle on the end of a rope from a large oak tree. They weren’t crying or laughing, but they didn’t look sad at all – just curious and very interested, as though it were a form of entertainment. Paul Harvey, the old Southern radio philosopher of rightwing bent, said “You can’t legislate brotherly love.” No, but you can mandate actions. The “render aid” section of traffic law says that whenever we do hit a person or a car or otherwise cause harm we MUST STOP IMMEDIATELY AND RENDER AID. We can go to jail for failing to do that. Just because a law is strict and may be “controversial,” it is not therefore wrong, and probably is necessary. Laws are to make society run better and produce justice.

A draft law is to produce enough men to build an army for the defense of the country. Most men will go and sign up for the draft out of a sense of duty. In the case of Vietnam, there were a large number of conscientious objectors, some of whom had commonly recognized reasons for that such as membership in the Friends church, but the mere promise that they would not attack another human even to defend themselves or another person was the basic part of the declaration of pacifism. It is thought by most modern Christians that Jesus was such a pacifist.