Capital Times: Saturday, October 10, 2009
Our country’s financial and health care crisis has caused us to pause and reexamine what is still working and what needs to be fixed in our economy. Regardless of our political persuasions, there are few citizens who still doubt that our financial system is broken and in serious need of repair.
For most Americans, it’s no longer a question of is change needed but if we will have the good sense to act decisively now both in terms of meaningful regulation and strict and steady enforcement.
This painful re-examination has already begun and the most important thing we have learned is that many of the policy safeguards designed to prevent the economic collapse already existed but were flagrantly ignored by all three branches of our government.
I would like to share one example: In 1980 Congress past the Bayh-Dole Act. Its purpose was to provide our free market system with greater intellectual property incentives to more effectively develop and commercialize scientific discoveries, particularly in the rapidly emerging biotechnology field.
Moving away from federal ownership of federally supported research, Bayh-Dole shifted the ownership of intellectual property, both the right to patent and license inventions, from the federal government to the scientist-inventor and to universities.
Soon after this bill’s passage, through executive branch action, patent and licensing rights were also extended to large mega corporations.
Recognizing the potential monopolistic pitfalls and huge conflict of interest involved in this potential multi-billion dollar windfall to private enterprise, and the opportunities for abuse, the authors of Bayh-Dole included a fail-safe mechanism called “march-in” rights
This provision allowed the executive branch and its federal departments who fund public and private research to intervene and remove an exclusive license when the holder refused to bring the invention or product to market in a timely fashion or abused its commercialization through exorbitant pricing.
Bayh-Dole is a classic example of a federal act with tremendous potential for both good and bad that has been ignored for nearly 30 years, leaving it without proper congressional oversight, executive and judicial enforcement.
Congress has done absolutely nothing to significantly reform Bayh-Dole in a manner that would make the government’s march-in rights provision more clear and actionable. To date the executive branch has not once intervened, even in the face of ever-higher drug prices by large pharma, to enforce reasonable price setting. Similarly the federal court system has blatantly ignored the clear legislative intent of this act to provide both consumer access to new innovations and fair pricing.
The history of the Bayh-Dole Act is just one of many instances where well intended laws were passed but through time and neglect have been ignored and rarely if ever enforced. The result of such inaction has also been a major contributor to our country’s present health care crisis. This is largely due to public servants who are forever pandering to special interests over our common welfare.
Benedict is a retired social worker and resides in Madison. He blogs at danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Comprehensive Campaign Finance Reform Legislation Needed
Public Testimony
Committee on Elections and Campaign Reform
My name is William R. Benedict. As a proud citizen of Wisconsin, it is again a privilege to have this opportunity to testify before the Assembly Elections and Campaign Reform Committee. Thank you!
I am a retired social worker who is now working full time as a citizen advocate for campaign finance reform and state funding of stem cell research. My special constituencies are myself, my family and the citizens of the State of Wisconsin. For more, Google my blog: Dane County Almanac and my thirty plus postings on campaign finance reform in Wisconsin.
I am here this morning because I sincerely believe that our body politic is sick at the core and it is urgently in need of comprehensive campaign finance reform. Our legislature has a systemic and insidious disease so strong that it infects our otherwise most dedicated public servants. Wisconsin voters know deep down in their soul that their vote no longer counts. They believe that you have sold them out to those who pay for your election term after term and now have put in jeopardy our sacred political freedom.
Again, it hurts me this morning to have to say that until you pass comprehensive campaign reform, I believe you will continue prostituting your office in order to have your election campaigns supported and paid for by special interests rather than by the common citizen and taxpayer.
Not until every qualified Wisconsin citizen can run for public office regardless of how much money they have will we have a state government by the people and for the people. I urge you and all of your Assembly and Senate colleagues to take the strong medicine needed to purify this political cesspool.
Start right now and begin this democratic crusade by passing AB 40 next week and then get to work and pass comprehensive campaign reform for all elected public offices.
Thanks again for this opportunity to speak.
Committee on Elections and Campaign Reform
My name is William R. Benedict. As a proud citizen of Wisconsin, it is again a privilege to have this opportunity to testify before the Assembly Elections and Campaign Reform Committee. Thank you!
I am a retired social worker who is now working full time as a citizen advocate for campaign finance reform and state funding of stem cell research. My special constituencies are myself, my family and the citizens of the State of Wisconsin. For more, Google my blog: Dane County Almanac and my thirty plus postings on campaign finance reform in Wisconsin.
I am here this morning because I sincerely believe that our body politic is sick at the core and it is urgently in need of comprehensive campaign finance reform. Our legislature has a systemic and insidious disease so strong that it infects our otherwise most dedicated public servants. Wisconsin voters know deep down in their soul that their vote no longer counts. They believe that you have sold them out to those who pay for your election term after term and now have put in jeopardy our sacred political freedom.
Again, it hurts me this morning to have to say that until you pass comprehensive campaign reform, I believe you will continue prostituting your office in order to have your election campaigns supported and paid for by special interests rather than by the common citizen and taxpayer.
Not until every qualified Wisconsin citizen can run for public office regardless of how much money they have will we have a state government by the people and for the people. I urge you and all of your Assembly and Senate colleagues to take the strong medicine needed to purify this political cesspool.
Start right now and begin this democratic crusade by passing AB 40 next week and then get to work and pass comprehensive campaign reform for all elected public offices.
Thanks again for this opportunity to speak.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Stem Cell Awareness Day
Stem Cell Awareness Day is September 23rd. The idea of celebrating SCAD is to inform the public about stem cell science and to generate grass roots support for research in this field. The future of stem cell research holds great promise for curing a variety of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart, arthritis, and Alzheimer, Parkinson’s, cancer and neurological.
Scientists are presently seeking ways to grow stem cells into a wide range of human cells, tissues and organs. Stem cells may produce revolutionary changes in regenerative medicine seen only rarely in human history.
My family, like most others, has experienced the daily heart aches and challenges caused by one or more chronic diseases. For the past four years I have dedicated much of my time to learning about recent genetic and stem cell medical breakthroughs.
My decision to become a patient advocate for stem cell research funding and regenerative medicine is both personal and public. I want to help bring an end to the generational cycle of suffering inflicted on my family now and in the future and publicly, because the treatment and care of chronic diseases cost the taxpayers billions and billions of dollars each year.
Last year America spent $2.3 trillion on health care costs; 75% of this figure was due to chronic (presently incurable) illnesses. Northing lowers medical costs like curing a disease. This money could better be spent on education and more cell-based science.
I am convinced that our life science and technology has now reached the point of soon ridding us of our most debilitating and costly diseases. I am also strongly convinced that most citizens, if given the same time and opportunity as I have had to study this issue, will also reach the same conclusion.
Won’t you join my family and me and celebrate Stem Cell Awareness Day on Thursday, September 23rd. For ideas on how you or your health care organization can advocate for stem cell funding, see Benedict’s blog, Danecountyalmanac/Stem cell funding reform/Action steps for chronic disease advocacy and education organizations.
Scientists are presently seeking ways to grow stem cells into a wide range of human cells, tissues and organs. Stem cells may produce revolutionary changes in regenerative medicine seen only rarely in human history.
My family, like most others, has experienced the daily heart aches and challenges caused by one or more chronic diseases. For the past four years I have dedicated much of my time to learning about recent genetic and stem cell medical breakthroughs.
My decision to become a patient advocate for stem cell research funding and regenerative medicine is both personal and public. I want to help bring an end to the generational cycle of suffering inflicted on my family now and in the future and publicly, because the treatment and care of chronic diseases cost the taxpayers billions and billions of dollars each year.
Last year America spent $2.3 trillion on health care costs; 75% of this figure was due to chronic (presently incurable) illnesses. Northing lowers medical costs like curing a disease. This money could better be spent on education and more cell-based science.
I am convinced that our life science and technology has now reached the point of soon ridding us of our most debilitating and costly diseases. I am also strongly convinced that most citizens, if given the same time and opportunity as I have had to study this issue, will also reach the same conclusion.
Won’t you join my family and me and celebrate Stem Cell Awareness Day on Thursday, September 23rd. For ideas on how you or your health care organization can advocate for stem cell funding, see Benedict’s blog, Danecountyalmanac/Stem cell funding reform/Action steps for chronic disease advocacy and education organizations.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Bayh-Dole Act in need of reform
Our country’s financial crisis has caused us to pause and reexamine what is still working and what needs to be fixed in our economy. Regardless of our political persuasions, there are few citizens who still doubt that our financial system is broken and in serious need of repair.
For most Americans, it’s no longer a question of if change is needed but if we will have the good sense to act decisively now both in terms of meaningful regulation and strict and steady enforcement.
This painful reexamination has already begun and the most important thing we have learned is that many of the policy safeguards designed to prevent the economic collapse already existed but were flagrantly ignored by all three branches of our government.
I would like to share one example: In 1980 Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act. Its purpose was to provide our free market system with greater intellectual property incentives to more effectively develop and commercialize scientific discoveries, particularly in the rapidly emerging biotechnology field.
Moving away from federal ownership of federally supported research, Bayh-Dole shifted the ownership of intellectual property, both the right to patent and license inventions, from the federal government to the scientist-inventor and to universities.
Soon after this bill’s passage, through executive branch action, patent and licensing rights were also extended to large mega corporations as well. Recognizing the potential monopolistic pitfalls and huge conflict of interest involved in this potential multi-billion dollar windfall to private enterprise, and the opportunities for abuse, the authors of Bayh-Dole included a fail-safe mechanism called “march-in” rights
This provision allowed the executive branch and its federal departments who fund private research to intervene and remove an exclusive license when the holder refused to bring the invention or product to market in a timely fashion or abused its commercialization through exorbitant pricing.
Bayh-Dole is a classic example of a federal act with tremendous potential for both good and bad that has been ignored for nearly 30 years, leaving it without proper congressional oversight, executive and judicial enforcement.
Congress has done absolutely nothing to significantly reform Bayh-Dole in a manner that would make the government’s march-in rights provision more clear and actionable. To date the executive branch has not once intervened, even in the face of ever higher drug prices by large pharma, to enforce reasonable price setting. Similarly the federal court system has blatantly ignored the clear legislative intent of this act to provide both consumer access to new innovations and fair pricing.
I believe the history of the Bayh-Dole Act is just one of many instances where well intended laws were passed but through time and neglect have been ignored and rarely if ever enforced. The result of such inaction has been a major contributor to our country’s present health care crisis. This is largely due to public servants who are forever pandering to special interests over our common welfare.
For most Americans, it’s no longer a question of if change is needed but if we will have the good sense to act decisively now both in terms of meaningful regulation and strict and steady enforcement.
This painful reexamination has already begun and the most important thing we have learned is that many of the policy safeguards designed to prevent the economic collapse already existed but were flagrantly ignored by all three branches of our government.
I would like to share one example: In 1980 Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act. Its purpose was to provide our free market system with greater intellectual property incentives to more effectively develop and commercialize scientific discoveries, particularly in the rapidly emerging biotechnology field.
Moving away from federal ownership of federally supported research, Bayh-Dole shifted the ownership of intellectual property, both the right to patent and license inventions, from the federal government to the scientist-inventor and to universities.
Soon after this bill’s passage, through executive branch action, patent and licensing rights were also extended to large mega corporations as well. Recognizing the potential monopolistic pitfalls and huge conflict of interest involved in this potential multi-billion dollar windfall to private enterprise, and the opportunities for abuse, the authors of Bayh-Dole included a fail-safe mechanism called “march-in” rights
This provision allowed the executive branch and its federal departments who fund private research to intervene and remove an exclusive license when the holder refused to bring the invention or product to market in a timely fashion or abused its commercialization through exorbitant pricing.
Bayh-Dole is a classic example of a federal act with tremendous potential for both good and bad that has been ignored for nearly 30 years, leaving it without proper congressional oversight, executive and judicial enforcement.
Congress has done absolutely nothing to significantly reform Bayh-Dole in a manner that would make the government’s march-in rights provision more clear and actionable. To date the executive branch has not once intervened, even in the face of ever higher drug prices by large pharma, to enforce reasonable price setting. Similarly the federal court system has blatantly ignored the clear legislative intent of this act to provide both consumer access to new innovations and fair pricing.
I believe the history of the Bayh-Dole Act is just one of many instances where well intended laws were passed but through time and neglect have been ignored and rarely if ever enforced. The result of such inaction has been a major contributor to our country’s present health care crisis. This is largely due to public servants who are forever pandering to special interests over our common welfare.
Monday, July 27, 2009
New prez affects Discovery Institute
Wisconsin State Journal
Your Views
Upon the completion of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery in December 2010, UW-Madison will take over the “public” Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, while the private, non-profit side, the Morgridge Institute for Research, will share the building.
This private/public arrangement was designed largely in response to President George W. Bush’s executive ban on federal funding for all but a very few embryonic stem cell lines. The ban called for separate labs, equipment and accounting systems to assure that our government was not in any way complicit in the destruction of embryos. With the election of President Obama these ideological barriers and the stigmatization of this science has largely been removed and now these onerous rules are only relics of the past.
Unfortunately this pre-Obama policy environment continues to shape the structure and programmatic research agenda for UW –WID. UW-Madison, supported by public funds, should rectify this situation through reexamination of the mission, structure and program direction of the institute. Special attention should be given to the effects of commingling the public and private institutes and the potential conflicts of interest.
As an advocate for state funding of stem cell research, I see this public discussion as a way to engage patients, their families, seniors and taxpayers to make this a “public” research institute. It’s not just a research issue but a public health one as well.
For more information on stem cell research reform and how you to get involved, see: danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com.
Your Views
Upon the completion of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery in December 2010, UW-Madison will take over the “public” Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, while the private, non-profit side, the Morgridge Institute for Research, will share the building.
This private/public arrangement was designed largely in response to President George W. Bush’s executive ban on federal funding for all but a very few embryonic stem cell lines. The ban called for separate labs, equipment and accounting systems to assure that our government was not in any way complicit in the destruction of embryos. With the election of President Obama these ideological barriers and the stigmatization of this science has largely been removed and now these onerous rules are only relics of the past.
Unfortunately this pre-Obama policy environment continues to shape the structure and programmatic research agenda for UW –WID. UW-Madison, supported by public funds, should rectify this situation through reexamination of the mission, structure and program direction of the institute. Special attention should be given to the effects of commingling the public and private institutes and the potential conflicts of interest.
As an advocate for state funding of stem cell research, I see this public discussion as a way to engage patients, their families, seniors and taxpayers to make this a “public” research institute. It’s not just a research issue but a public health one as well.
For more information on stem cell research reform and how you to get involved, see: danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
I need your help!
I need your help!
Will you post my blog address link on your website?
Upon considering the ever increasing role now being played by Web sites and other forms of electronic media I had this idea. I wanted to alert your health advocacy organization to my blog address: danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com. Under one of its categories, “Stem Cell Research Funding Reform” you will find a robust list of recently published articles relating to our national health care crisis and how U.S. funding and other policies currently contribute to this crisis.
As a family advocate for state and federal funding for stem cell research, I am attempting to alert you and your organization to perhaps the most significant policy issue that your organization will have to make during its next strategic planning cycle.
Should we publicly and explicitly declare in our strategic plan mission statement the goal of curing your particular cell-based chronic diseases by some set date, or perhaps more modestly at least at the earliest date possible? Such action will challenge all chronic disease and health advocacy organizations in the weeks and months ahead. Advocating for greater research and health care services alone seems far too narrow and anemic.
Most of my posts are copies of my op-ed articles that have appeared largely in Wisconsin’s state-wide print media and aimed toward rallying state-wide and national organizations like yours toward advocating for persons with chronic cell-based diseases.
Two of my most recent articles concern Wisconsin’s recent National Alliance for Mental Disorders (NAMI) Grading results and an invitation to chronic disease organizations to join our ever growing stem cell coalition. Presently we already have five such state-wide organizations aboard with several others now pending. I am requesting that your local, state and national organization consider placing on its Web site a listing of blog address links that regularly follow and addresses stem cell research as an increasingly important public health issue.
I would hope that such a listing of blog links would include my own and contribute to a national conversation concerning this critical research and country’s health care crisis.
My blog presently includes a list of Action Steps that organizations like yours might consider when reviewing and updating its strategic plan. You will note that this writer now believes that it is time for organizations like yours to move to the next step.
Develop a policy statement which recognizes the potential discovery and development of a cell-based cure for your particular chronic disease and to get out front on this issue beyond supporting federal and state research funding alone. Anything less than an eventual cure for such diseases is from my perspective a disservice to our members who struggle and suffer daily with these diseases.
I hope you will take the time to view my blog and consider this request. Advocacy always begins with the first step. For most organizations that step is building a greater awareness and mutual collaboration and alliances. I hope my blog and many others like them together will help add to our united VOICE.
William R. Benedict, ACSW
bergentown@sbcglobal.net
Will you post my blog address link on your website?
Upon considering the ever increasing role now being played by Web sites and other forms of electronic media I had this idea. I wanted to alert your health advocacy organization to my blog address: danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com. Under one of its categories, “Stem Cell Research Funding Reform” you will find a robust list of recently published articles relating to our national health care crisis and how U.S. funding and other policies currently contribute to this crisis.
As a family advocate for state and federal funding for stem cell research, I am attempting to alert you and your organization to perhaps the most significant policy issue that your organization will have to make during its next strategic planning cycle.
Should we publicly and explicitly declare in our strategic plan mission statement the goal of curing your particular cell-based chronic diseases by some set date, or perhaps more modestly at least at the earliest date possible? Such action will challenge all chronic disease and health advocacy organizations in the weeks and months ahead. Advocating for greater research and health care services alone seems far too narrow and anemic.
Most of my posts are copies of my op-ed articles that have appeared largely in Wisconsin’s state-wide print media and aimed toward rallying state-wide and national organizations like yours toward advocating for persons with chronic cell-based diseases.
Two of my most recent articles concern Wisconsin’s recent National Alliance for Mental Disorders (NAMI) Grading results and an invitation to chronic disease organizations to join our ever growing stem cell coalition. Presently we already have five such state-wide organizations aboard with several others now pending. I am requesting that your local, state and national organization consider placing on its Web site a listing of blog address links that regularly follow and addresses stem cell research as an increasingly important public health issue.
I would hope that such a listing of blog links would include my own and contribute to a national conversation concerning this critical research and country’s health care crisis.
My blog presently includes a list of Action Steps that organizations like yours might consider when reviewing and updating its strategic plan. You will note that this writer now believes that it is time for organizations like yours to move to the next step.
Develop a policy statement which recognizes the potential discovery and development of a cell-based cure for your particular chronic disease and to get out front on this issue beyond supporting federal and state research funding alone. Anything less than an eventual cure for such diseases is from my perspective a disservice to our members who struggle and suffer daily with these diseases.
I hope you will take the time to view my blog and consider this request. Advocacy always begins with the first step. For most organizations that step is building a greater awareness and mutual collaboration and alliances. I hope my blog and many others like them together will help add to our united VOICE.
William R. Benedict, ACSW
bergentown@sbcglobal.net
Thursday, June 25, 2009
A public health care benefit for all Wisconsin citizens – Will you help!
By now we know that solving Wisconsin’s ever-growing home health care costs is a multifaceted problem and will not be solved by any single solution. And while there are many comprehensive solutions being proposed, none of them go directly to the core issue---monolithic and predatory health care pharmaceutical pricing practices.
In 2005 my partner and I were vacationing in San Diego California. While reading the San Diego Tribune I just happened to read about California’s 3 billion dollar stem cell research program and about the many health care stakeholder groups who all were fighting for something they were calling a “public benefit.” I continued to read and soon learned what they meant by the words, “public benefit.” They wanted to make sure that medical breakthroughs and medicines developed through stem cell research, and funded by their tax dollars, would be available and affordable to every citizen in California.
When we weigh the billions and billions of dollars to be both made and saved through miracle cures of our worse most debilitating diseases and by such life enhancements as restored memory, increased mobility, regenerated body parts, and most of all, increased longevity, only then can we begin to appreciate the real scope and importance of the health care policy issue now before us.
Californians have learned their lessons well from our nation’s health care problems and have decided to go directly to the root of our health care pricing crisis. They are no longer going to pay twice for their health care: Once for the research and once again for the exorbitantly priced medications and therapies.
Wisconsin citizens should follow California’s lead and pass legislation now that supports federal and state funding of stem cell research in Wisconsin along with public health care benefit safeguards.
“Public health care benefit safeguards” can mean anything from requiring a successful grantee to return 25 percent of their profit back on their billion-dollar stem cell-based drug discovery to the state of Wisconsin to be put in a special patient health care fund.
Or a successful grantee would simply be required to submit a plan to ensure affordable prices for all Wisconsin citizens, especially the medium-and-low income and underserved populations.
The bottom line is that you and I as Wisconsin citizens can prove to ourselves and our grandchildren, and future generations, that we have learned our lesson from exorbitant health care pricing. We have learned not to give our money to people without first asking who they are, why they need it, and how they plan on using it. This new policy of asking the public-funded grantee to meet certain expectations and provide some return on our investment is better than writing a blank check and continuing with health care in Wisconsin as we now know it.
Now is the time for Wisconsin policy makers to decide whether the miracle cures promised will be made accessible and affordable to Wisconsin families with cell-based diseases.
The answer to this question must be reflected in the language of the state’s financial and tax research innovation incentives now being proposed.
Asking the grantees to do the right thing after giving away the farm is like asking the fox to cough up the chickens after giving him the key to the hen house.
Without grass roots action now by all Wisconsin citizens we should not expect that cell-based therapies and drugs derived from this research will eventually benefit all of us as health consumers and taxpayers.
Please join the number of individuals and grass root organizations who have decided to contribute their VOICE to this discussion. Send your name, the name of your organization, address and phone number to: bergentown@sbcglobal.net. For more information and to learn what others have done.
“I or my organization supports federal and state funding of stem cell research in Wisconsin, along with public health care safeguards, with benefits affordable to everyone.”
William R. Benedict, Madison
Stem Cell Funding Coalition
608-249-5672
bergentown@sbcglobal.net
In 2005 my partner and I were vacationing in San Diego California. While reading the San Diego Tribune I just happened to read about California’s 3 billion dollar stem cell research program and about the many health care stakeholder groups who all were fighting for something they were calling a “public benefit.” I continued to read and soon learned what they meant by the words, “public benefit.” They wanted to make sure that medical breakthroughs and medicines developed through stem cell research, and funded by their tax dollars, would be available and affordable to every citizen in California.
When we weigh the billions and billions of dollars to be both made and saved through miracle cures of our worse most debilitating diseases and by such life enhancements as restored memory, increased mobility, regenerated body parts, and most of all, increased longevity, only then can we begin to appreciate the real scope and importance of the health care policy issue now before us.
Californians have learned their lessons well from our nation’s health care problems and have decided to go directly to the root of our health care pricing crisis. They are no longer going to pay twice for their health care: Once for the research and once again for the exorbitantly priced medications and therapies.
Wisconsin citizens should follow California’s lead and pass legislation now that supports federal and state funding of stem cell research in Wisconsin along with public health care benefit safeguards.
“Public health care benefit safeguards” can mean anything from requiring a successful grantee to return 25 percent of their profit back on their billion-dollar stem cell-based drug discovery to the state of Wisconsin to be put in a special patient health care fund.
Or a successful grantee would simply be required to submit a plan to ensure affordable prices for all Wisconsin citizens, especially the medium-and-low income and underserved populations.
The bottom line is that you and I as Wisconsin citizens can prove to ourselves and our grandchildren, and future generations, that we have learned our lesson from exorbitant health care pricing. We have learned not to give our money to people without first asking who they are, why they need it, and how they plan on using it. This new policy of asking the public-funded grantee to meet certain expectations and provide some return on our investment is better than writing a blank check and continuing with health care in Wisconsin as we now know it.
Now is the time for Wisconsin policy makers to decide whether the miracle cures promised will be made accessible and affordable to Wisconsin families with cell-based diseases.
The answer to this question must be reflected in the language of the state’s financial and tax research innovation incentives now being proposed.
Asking the grantees to do the right thing after giving away the farm is like asking the fox to cough up the chickens after giving him the key to the hen house.
Without grass roots action now by all Wisconsin citizens we should not expect that cell-based therapies and drugs derived from this research will eventually benefit all of us as health consumers and taxpayers.
Please join the number of individuals and grass root organizations who have decided to contribute their VOICE to this discussion. Send your name, the name of your organization, address and phone number to: bergentown@sbcglobal.net. For more information and to learn what others have done.
“I or my organization supports federal and state funding of stem cell research in Wisconsin, along with public health care safeguards, with benefits affordable to everyone.”
William R. Benedict, Madison
Stem Cell Funding Coalition
608-249-5672
bergentown@sbcglobal.net
Friday, May 22, 2009
Cures For Chronic Diseases Will Shake Up System
The Capital Times :: OPINION :: WEB
May is mental health month, and it's a time once again when mental health and other chronic disease advocacy and education groups should consider anew their journey and hopes for the future. As a father of a son with mental illness, I ask all Wisconsin citizens to consider the following questions.
Does your organization's strategic planning extend to the day when medical therapeutics do more than mitigate chronic disease symptoms but actually cure the disease? Can your organization envision a not-too-distant time when your service recipients will suddenly ask, "Why didn't you inform us that our illness might someday be cured through stem cell-based medications and therapies?" "What actions did your organization take to ensure that our cell-based medical needs and health care rights were protected during the early developmental phase of this research?"
If there is indeed a possibility of a cure -- and the scientific community now clearly believes there is -- it is now ethically and morally incumbent on all of us to begin to educate ourselves about such research and begin now to educate our membership about its revolutionary healing potential. No reputable physician or stem cell research scientist today would any longer consider such miracle therapy a fantasy. Today all leading university research and medical centers and increasingly the large pharma industry have established their very own cell-based regenerative medicine and research centers.
Chronically ill members need real hope of a better future for themselves and their families, especially when there is now empirical research evidence on which to base this hope. We have now reached the point when it's not if but only when such miraculous therapies will exist.
Presently patient-specific stem cells are being used to diagnose the onset of chronic diseases and for testing cell-based drugs for human toxicity and immune reactions. Stem cell research-centered biotech companies and treatment providers are growing by leaps and bounds. Worldwide, hundreds of stem cell clinical trials are now in place. (To protect the consumer from unsafe and unproven stem cell treatment, see the International Society of Stem Cell Research's "Patient Handbook on Stem Cell Therapies.") In Madison, long before there was any scientific consensus about the etiology of mental illness, that which is now called the National Alliance on Mental Illness pioneered what it believed was the genetic and neurological cell-based origin of this disease. From that point on the blaming of the patient and/or the patient's family for this disease stopped. Now is a similar moment in Wisconsin's mental health history when change is on the horizon.
To prepare for this not-too-distant future, perhaps the first step would be to establish a goal of becoming more informed about stem cell research, and its potential application to your particular disease group. A second goal might be collaborating with your university regenerative medicine center and/or the stem cell-centered biotech company in your area.
Often the elixir for strategic planning and a breakthrough is hope. Like the people we advocate for, we are often left stunted and frustrated without this positive emotional impulse.
For more information about what action your organization can take right now, visit my blog: danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com.
William R. Benedict of Madison advocates for stem cell research funding.
May is mental health month, and it's a time once again when mental health and other chronic disease advocacy and education groups should consider anew their journey and hopes for the future. As a father of a son with mental illness, I ask all Wisconsin citizens to consider the following questions.
Does your organization's strategic planning extend to the day when medical therapeutics do more than mitigate chronic disease symptoms but actually cure the disease? Can your organization envision a not-too-distant time when your service recipients will suddenly ask, "Why didn't you inform us that our illness might someday be cured through stem cell-based medications and therapies?" "What actions did your organization take to ensure that our cell-based medical needs and health care rights were protected during the early developmental phase of this research?"
If there is indeed a possibility of a cure -- and the scientific community now clearly believes there is -- it is now ethically and morally incumbent on all of us to begin to educate ourselves about such research and begin now to educate our membership about its revolutionary healing potential. No reputable physician or stem cell research scientist today would any longer consider such miracle therapy a fantasy. Today all leading university research and medical centers and increasingly the large pharma industry have established their very own cell-based regenerative medicine and research centers.
Chronically ill members need real hope of a better future for themselves and their families, especially when there is now empirical research evidence on which to base this hope. We have now reached the point when it's not if but only when such miraculous therapies will exist.
Presently patient-specific stem cells are being used to diagnose the onset of chronic diseases and for testing cell-based drugs for human toxicity and immune reactions. Stem cell research-centered biotech companies and treatment providers are growing by leaps and bounds. Worldwide, hundreds of stem cell clinical trials are now in place. (To protect the consumer from unsafe and unproven stem cell treatment, see the International Society of Stem Cell Research's "Patient Handbook on Stem Cell Therapies.") In Madison, long before there was any scientific consensus about the etiology of mental illness, that which is now called the National Alliance on Mental Illness pioneered what it believed was the genetic and neurological cell-based origin of this disease. From that point on the blaming of the patient and/or the patient's family for this disease stopped. Now is a similar moment in Wisconsin's mental health history when change is on the horizon.
To prepare for this not-too-distant future, perhaps the first step would be to establish a goal of becoming more informed about stem cell research, and its potential application to your particular disease group. A second goal might be collaborating with your university regenerative medicine center and/or the stem cell-centered biotech company in your area.
Often the elixir for strategic planning and a breakthrough is hope. Like the people we advocate for, we are often left stunted and frustrated without this positive emotional impulse.
For more information about what action your organization can take right now, visit my blog: danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com.
William R. Benedict of Madison advocates for stem cell research funding.
Action steps for chronic disease health advocacy and education organizations
What action can your health advocacy organization take right now to ensure your service constituency’s cell-based health care needs and rights are protected during the early stages of stem cell research and development?
Begin educating your membership about stem cell research and cell-based medications and other therapies? Begin to advocate in order for your members or constituent group to have a seat at the table when and wherever stem cell policy issues are discussed. Advocacy should occur at every stage of the stem cell research, translational, clinical trial and product development stages.
1. Advocate for stem cell collections with genetically diverse sources of cell lines
2. Collaborate with stem cell regenerative medicine and biotech centers
3. Ensure that public funding for stem cell research includes a revenue and/or health care benefit or payback.
4. Advocate for and participate in open stakeholder stem cell discussions and forums
5. Represent your membership on all stem cell oversight and advisory funding bodies.
6. Seek a variety of stem cell research funding sources including both the private and public sector.
7. Attend and/or testify at legislative stem cell committee hearings.
8. Advocate for alternative fair and equitable financial/business intellectual property models.
9. Advocate for the efficacy and safety of all stem cell research and clinical trials.
10. Encourage alternative licensing, product development and public funding models to promote fair, broad and affordable access to stem cell based diagnostics and therapies.
11. Offer educational resources and information on stem cell research and applications.
12. Offer education opportunities for stem cell donors and recipients.
13. Provide public education on stem cell efficacy and safety risks factors. (For additional advocacy and educational resources see my blog: danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com.
Begin educating your membership about stem cell research and cell-based medications and other therapies? Begin to advocate in order for your members or constituent group to have a seat at the table when and wherever stem cell policy issues are discussed. Advocacy should occur at every stage of the stem cell research, translational, clinical trial and product development stages.
1. Advocate for stem cell collections with genetically diverse sources of cell lines
2. Collaborate with stem cell regenerative medicine and biotech centers
3. Ensure that public funding for stem cell research includes a revenue and/or health care benefit or payback.
4. Advocate for and participate in open stakeholder stem cell discussions and forums
5. Represent your membership on all stem cell oversight and advisory funding bodies.
6. Seek a variety of stem cell research funding sources including both the private and public sector.
7. Attend and/or testify at legislative stem cell committee hearings.
8. Advocate for alternative fair and equitable financial/business intellectual property models.
9. Advocate for the efficacy and safety of all stem cell research and clinical trials.
10. Encourage alternative licensing, product development and public funding models to promote fair, broad and affordable access to stem cell based diagnostics and therapies.
11. Offer educational resources and information on stem cell research and applications.
12. Offer education opportunities for stem cell donors and recipients.
13. Provide public education on stem cell efficacy and safety risks factors. (For additional advocacy and educational resources see my blog: danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
If Not Now, Then When?
“A Call to Action for Chronic Disease Health Advocate Organizations”
Does your organization’s strategic planning time line presently extend to the day when medical therapeutics does more than simply help mitigate health care symptoms of your service clients or disease group and literally begins to cure their disease? Can your organization envision a not too distant time when your service members or clients will suddenly ask, “Why didn’t you inform us that our illness might someday be cured through miracle-like stem cell-based medications and therapies?” And, “What actions did your organization take to ensure that my cell-based medical needs and health care rights were protected during the early developmental phase of this research?
If there is indeed a possibility of a cure --- and the scientific community now clearly believes there is --- or any reason to hope for a cure through cell-based research and development, is it not now ethically and morally incumbent upon your organization to begin to educate itself about such miracle-like medical research and begin now to formally advocate and educate your membership about its revolutionary and healing potential? No informed reputable physician or stem cell research scientist today would any longer consider such miracle therapy a fantasy or an extremely unlikely health outcome.
Wasn’t it the practice of those who wanted to maintain serfdom and the caste system to continue to repress individual freedom and hope that would have otherwise changed their circumstances and their lives? Don’t our members need real hope of a better future for themselves and their families especially when there is now empirical research evidence on which to base this hope? We have now reached the point in time when it’s not if but only when such miracle-like therapies will exist.
Today all leading university research and medical centers and increasingly the large pharma industry have established their very own cell-based regenerative medicine and research centers. Is this not convincing proof that miracle stem cell therapies are just around the corner?
Presently patient-specific pluripotent stem cells are being used to diagnose the first beginning onset of chronic diseases and for testing cell-based drugs for human toxicity and immune reactions. Stem cell-research-centered biotech companies and treatment providers are increasing by leaps and bounds. Worldwide, hundreds of stem cell clinical trials are now in place. (To protect the consumer from unsafe and unproven stem cell treatment, see: International Society of Stem Cell Research, “Patient Handbook on Stem Cell Therapies.”)
After all, wasn’t it in Madison, WI, long before there was any scientific consensus about the etiology of mental illness, that which is now called NAMI, pioneered what it believed was the genetic and neurological cell-based origin of this disease? From that point on the blaming of the patient and/or her family for this disease stopped. Now once again is a similar moment in Wisconsin’s mental health history, when millions of chronically ill persons and their families are left without hope of ever being cured.
Does your present mission or long term strategic goal call for more than a disease mitigation, adjustment and maintenance model of health care or does it include the goal of total elimination of that particular disorder or disease? If not, why not? In order to protect your organization’s credibility should not an end point at least be envisioned?
To prepare for this not too distant future perhaps the first step would be to establish a goal of becoming a more informed organization consumer of stem cell research, and its potential application to your member or client needs. A second goal might include beginning collaboration with your university regenerative medicine center and/or the stem cell-centered biotech company in your area.
Have you ever asked yourself what often precedes strategic planning? Often the elixir for planning and a breakthrough is hope. Like the people we advocate for, without this positive emotional impulse we are often left stunted and frustrated.
For more information about what action your organization can take right now, visit my blog: danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com. My email address is: bergentown@sbcglobal.net
Respectfully yours,
William R. Bendict, MSW, ACSW
Family Advocate for public Stem Cell Research Funding
Does your organization’s strategic planning time line presently extend to the day when medical therapeutics does more than simply help mitigate health care symptoms of your service clients or disease group and literally begins to cure their disease? Can your organization envision a not too distant time when your service members or clients will suddenly ask, “Why didn’t you inform us that our illness might someday be cured through miracle-like stem cell-based medications and therapies?” And, “What actions did your organization take to ensure that my cell-based medical needs and health care rights were protected during the early developmental phase of this research?
If there is indeed a possibility of a cure --- and the scientific community now clearly believes there is --- or any reason to hope for a cure through cell-based research and development, is it not now ethically and morally incumbent upon your organization to begin to educate itself about such miracle-like medical research and begin now to formally advocate and educate your membership about its revolutionary and healing potential? No informed reputable physician or stem cell research scientist today would any longer consider such miracle therapy a fantasy or an extremely unlikely health outcome.
Wasn’t it the practice of those who wanted to maintain serfdom and the caste system to continue to repress individual freedom and hope that would have otherwise changed their circumstances and their lives? Don’t our members need real hope of a better future for themselves and their families especially when there is now empirical research evidence on which to base this hope? We have now reached the point in time when it’s not if but only when such miracle-like therapies will exist.
Today all leading university research and medical centers and increasingly the large pharma industry have established their very own cell-based regenerative medicine and research centers. Is this not convincing proof that miracle stem cell therapies are just around the corner?
Presently patient-specific pluripotent stem cells are being used to diagnose the first beginning onset of chronic diseases and for testing cell-based drugs for human toxicity and immune reactions. Stem cell-research-centered biotech companies and treatment providers are increasing by leaps and bounds. Worldwide, hundreds of stem cell clinical trials are now in place. (To protect the consumer from unsafe and unproven stem cell treatment, see: International Society of Stem Cell Research, “Patient Handbook on Stem Cell Therapies.”)
After all, wasn’t it in Madison, WI, long before there was any scientific consensus about the etiology of mental illness, that which is now called NAMI, pioneered what it believed was the genetic and neurological cell-based origin of this disease? From that point on the blaming of the patient and/or her family for this disease stopped. Now once again is a similar moment in Wisconsin’s mental health history, when millions of chronically ill persons and their families are left without hope of ever being cured.
Does your present mission or long term strategic goal call for more than a disease mitigation, adjustment and maintenance model of health care or does it include the goal of total elimination of that particular disorder or disease? If not, why not? In order to protect your organization’s credibility should not an end point at least be envisioned?
To prepare for this not too distant future perhaps the first step would be to establish a goal of becoming a more informed organization consumer of stem cell research, and its potential application to your member or client needs. A second goal might include beginning collaboration with your university regenerative medicine center and/or the stem cell-centered biotech company in your area.
Have you ever asked yourself what often precedes strategic planning? Often the elixir for planning and a breakthrough is hope. Like the people we advocate for, without this positive emotional impulse we are often left stunted and frustrated.
For more information about what action your organization can take right now, visit my blog: danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com. My email address is: bergentown@sbcglobal.net
Respectfully yours,
William R. Bendict, MSW, ACSW
Family Advocate for public Stem Cell Research Funding
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Protect Wisconsin’s cutting edge science
Wisconsin State Journal – Opinion
A Wisconsin Technology Council study reports a 25-year slide toward weaker public support for higher education in Wisconsin. It reported a steady erosion of the infrastructure that supports academic research in Wisconsin, much of which lies in UW-Madison’s life sciences department. This downward spiral can be seen in the steady decrease in faculty, academic staff, course selections and laboratory sessions.
This erosion now threatens Wisconsin’s research and development foundation, best seen in the mediocre state funding of our greatest potential treasure --- stem cell research.
This situation threatens to weaken UW-Madison’s ability to compete for merit-based federal research grants, jeopardizing the receipt of millions of federal National Institutes of Health research dollars in the coming decade. The report states that Wisconsin’s total academic R&D spending at $805.8 million in federal, state and private sources, with the latter contributing a mere $109 million.
This statistic alone suggest to me that that Wisconsin investment in such research is not giving a sufficient and fair payback to the taxpayers, and until it does, Wisconsin’s investment in such research will continue to decrease.
To turn this situation around and re-establish Wisconsin’s position in academic research and development, I urge our governor and the Legislature to develop intellectual property laws that will protect and grow the Wisconsin taxpayers’ investment in academic research and development.
Such legislation exists in California, where millions of dollars raised through state bonds have already leveraged more in grants and loans into stem cell research and development.
Bill Benedict, Madison
A Wisconsin Technology Council study reports a 25-year slide toward weaker public support for higher education in Wisconsin. It reported a steady erosion of the infrastructure that supports academic research in Wisconsin, much of which lies in UW-Madison’s life sciences department. This downward spiral can be seen in the steady decrease in faculty, academic staff, course selections and laboratory sessions.
This erosion now threatens Wisconsin’s research and development foundation, best seen in the mediocre state funding of our greatest potential treasure --- stem cell research.
This situation threatens to weaken UW-Madison’s ability to compete for merit-based federal research grants, jeopardizing the receipt of millions of federal National Institutes of Health research dollars in the coming decade. The report states that Wisconsin’s total academic R&D spending at $805.8 million in federal, state and private sources, with the latter contributing a mere $109 million.
This statistic alone suggest to me that that Wisconsin investment in such research is not giving a sufficient and fair payback to the taxpayers, and until it does, Wisconsin’s investment in such research will continue to decrease.
To turn this situation around and re-establish Wisconsin’s position in academic research and development, I urge our governor and the Legislature to develop intellectual property laws that will protect and grow the Wisconsin taxpayers’ investment in academic research and development.
Such legislation exists in California, where millions of dollars raised through state bonds have already leveraged more in grants and loans into stem cell research and development.
Bill Benedict, Madison
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Wisconsin State Funded Stem Cell Research Along With Public Health Care Safeguards
An Open Letter and Invitation to Wisconsin Health Care Advocacy Organizations
Revised April 28, 2009
As a senior citizen of the State of Wisconsin whose family is suffering from three serious cell-based diseases and who has been working for both private and public funding for stem cell research, I am writing to your organization for support.
As a key health care stakeholder and advocacy organization I believe that your group can play a critical advocacy role at this early stage in Wisconsin’s stem cell research initiative. As an effective health advocate organization you know that every effort must be made to ensure that all Wisconsin citizens have equal and fair access to affordable cell-based medications and other health therapies.
Many organizations like your own have been fighting long and hard for your patients so that they will have more reasonably priced drugs and other treatments. Many of you already support federal health insurance programs and favor more universal health care for all of our citizens. Unfortunately there is still no assurance that this goal will be realized soon.
While we must continue to deal as quickly and directly as possible with the immediate health care crises, we must also look beyond the present health care crisis and take action now to make future stem cell drugs and therapies more affordable to all Wisconsin citizens. To do so citizen membership groups like yours need to support a more lasting and equitable solution to our nation’s health care problems.
Stem cell research is still in a nascent state and suffering from moral controversy and consequent funding delays. It’s fair to say that in many respects Wisconsin has been treading water while California and many eastern states that publicly fund this research continue to advance.
Although state surveys have consistently shown that 75 to 80 percent of Wisconsin citizens support stem cell research our state legislature offers no direct funding or policy platform that would ensure that you and I and all taxpayers will receive any tangible public health care benefit whatsoever from any Wisconsin stem cell research discoveries.
To date we have been promised only indirect trickle-down economic effects, including more jobs and a higher corporate tax base from our support. While this is a worthy and much needed economic benefit, it alone is far too narrow and short-sighted. If Wisconsin is to effectively manage its ever escalating and exorbitant health care costs we must act NOW. If we have the will, we will end the disenfranchisement of our most vulnerable and needy citizens of their basic human right to high quality and affordable health care.
A genuine public health care benefit in Wisconsin for the funding of stem cell research can be derived from legislating a fair portion of patent licensing fees and/or a percent of patent royalties be returned to the funding source, namely the State of Wisconsin.
In addition to the above, a broad community discussion on Wisconsin stem cell research should include the following:
Does your organization planning time line presently extend to the day when medical research does more than simply help mitigate the health conditions of your service clients or member group and literally begins to cure the disease?
Can your organization envision a not too distant time when your service members will suddenly ask, “Why didn’t you inform us that our illness might someday be cured through miracle-like stem cell-based medications and therapies?” And, “What actions did your organization take to ensure that my cell-based medical needs and health care rights were protected during the early developmental phase of this research.”
If there is indeed a possibility --- and the scientific community now believes there clearly is --- of a cure or any reason to hope for a cure through cell-based research and development, is it not now ethically and morally incumbent upon your organization to begin to educate itself about such miracle-like research and begin now to formally advocate and educate your membership about its revolutionary and healing potential?
After all, wasn’t it in Madison, WI, long before there was any scientific consensus about the etiology of mental illness, that which is now called NAMI, pioneered what it believed was the genetic and neurological cell-based origin of this disease? From that point on the blaming of the patient and/or her family for this disease stopped. Now is again a similar moment in Wisconsin’s mental health history, when millions of chronically ill persons, like my son and my family are left without hope of ever being cured.
Does your present mission or long term strategic goal call for more than a disease mitigation, adjustment and maintenance model of health care or does it include the goal of total elimination of that particular disorder or disease? If not, why not? In order to protect your organization’s credibility should not an end point at least be envisioned?
To prepare for this not too distant future perhaps the first step would be to establish a goal of becoming a more informed organization consumer of stem cell research, and its potential application to your member or client needs.
Will Wisconsin stem cell discoveries be made available to the public at reasonable prices and in sufficient quantities to all Wisconsin citizens? Will special considerations including discounts be given to low and medium income patients and other underserved groups?
Are policies needed to ensure that state supported stem cell scientists and biotech companies will pursue research and development into prioritized disease groups such as cancer, heart, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s versus pursuing stem cell products that have more immediate commercial potential for large markets? Or will Wisconsin citizens spend tax dollars to pay for cosmetic and other personal enhancing products for the rich and powerful while seniors and others struggle to pay for their most basic health care needs?
Has your organization considered the possible relationship between how bio-medical research is now being funded in Wisconsin and the exorbitantly high prices Wisconsin taxpayers must now pay for their medicines and therapies? Has your board’s policy planning council or elected representatives ever had a discussion regarding these three questions?
Who should determine whether a government funded invention should be patented? Who should determine in what manner patents should be licensed? And, who should profit from patent licenses and in what amounts? Should we not be encouraging open stakeholder discussion to identify and evaluate alternative intellectual property business models?
For a state that has now become known as the epicenter of stem cell research and who holds three broad embryonic stem cell patents, this is more than an intellectual property issue but a pivotal human rights issue when health care affordability and public budget expenditures are being weighed.
Will eventual stem cell clinical trials include a diverse population sample? Will these trials adversely discriminate against the interests of your constituency or membership?
Are policies needed to ensure that companies who use state funding direct their research into the widest ranges of illnesses, not just research for the most well-heeled disease advocates?
State innovation grants, tax credits and hosts of other public financial incentives have already been awarded or are now in the state’s administrative pipeline. This money is being spent without any health care policy safeguards or payback conditions whatever. Someone has said, “Asking grantees to do the right thing after giving away the farm is like asking the fox to cough up the chickens after giving him the key to the henhouse.”
If these stem cell policy issues are not currently on your organization’s radar screen, and do not now appear on your strategic planning priorities list, this neglect could be catastrophic for your membership down the road.
I am asking your board of directors to read this letter and weigh its importance to the members they serve. The biggest mistake you or your organization could make is to simply do nothing.
I urge you to ask your board and your membership to consider this basic question. Do you believe that Wisconsin citizens should publicly fund stem cell research and receive a public health care benefit from cell-based drugs and therapies?
If the answer is yes, then, would your organization support the following policy initiative: (This organization) supports legislation for federal and state funding of stem cell research, along with public health care safeguards, with benefit affordable to everyone.”
Furthermore, I ask your organization to consider joining a Wisconsin coalition to support state and federal funding for stem cell research along with policies to ensure all Wisconsin citizens have affordable access to cell-based medicines and therapies.
For more information on state funding of stem cell research in Wisconsin, see my published articles here on my blog and on the Wisconsin Stem Cell Now, Inc., website. My email address is: bergentown@sbcglobal.net.
Respectfully yours,
William R. Benedict
Revised April 28, 2009
As a senior citizen of the State of Wisconsin whose family is suffering from three serious cell-based diseases and who has been working for both private and public funding for stem cell research, I am writing to your organization for support.
As a key health care stakeholder and advocacy organization I believe that your group can play a critical advocacy role at this early stage in Wisconsin’s stem cell research initiative. As an effective health advocate organization you know that every effort must be made to ensure that all Wisconsin citizens have equal and fair access to affordable cell-based medications and other health therapies.
Many organizations like your own have been fighting long and hard for your patients so that they will have more reasonably priced drugs and other treatments. Many of you already support federal health insurance programs and favor more universal health care for all of our citizens. Unfortunately there is still no assurance that this goal will be realized soon.
While we must continue to deal as quickly and directly as possible with the immediate health care crises, we must also look beyond the present health care crisis and take action now to make future stem cell drugs and therapies more affordable to all Wisconsin citizens. To do so citizen membership groups like yours need to support a more lasting and equitable solution to our nation’s health care problems.
Stem cell research is still in a nascent state and suffering from moral controversy and consequent funding delays. It’s fair to say that in many respects Wisconsin has been treading water while California and many eastern states that publicly fund this research continue to advance.
Although state surveys have consistently shown that 75 to 80 percent of Wisconsin citizens support stem cell research our state legislature offers no direct funding or policy platform that would ensure that you and I and all taxpayers will receive any tangible public health care benefit whatsoever from any Wisconsin stem cell research discoveries.
To date we have been promised only indirect trickle-down economic effects, including more jobs and a higher corporate tax base from our support. While this is a worthy and much needed economic benefit, it alone is far too narrow and short-sighted. If Wisconsin is to effectively manage its ever escalating and exorbitant health care costs we must act NOW. If we have the will, we will end the disenfranchisement of our most vulnerable and needy citizens of their basic human right to high quality and affordable health care.
A genuine public health care benefit in Wisconsin for the funding of stem cell research can be derived from legislating a fair portion of patent licensing fees and/or a percent of patent royalties be returned to the funding source, namely the State of Wisconsin.
In addition to the above, a broad community discussion on Wisconsin stem cell research should include the following:
Does your organization planning time line presently extend to the day when medical research does more than simply help mitigate the health conditions of your service clients or member group and literally begins to cure the disease?
Can your organization envision a not too distant time when your service members will suddenly ask, “Why didn’t you inform us that our illness might someday be cured through miracle-like stem cell-based medications and therapies?” And, “What actions did your organization take to ensure that my cell-based medical needs and health care rights were protected during the early developmental phase of this research.”
If there is indeed a possibility --- and the scientific community now believes there clearly is --- of a cure or any reason to hope for a cure through cell-based research and development, is it not now ethically and morally incumbent upon your organization to begin to educate itself about such miracle-like research and begin now to formally advocate and educate your membership about its revolutionary and healing potential?
After all, wasn’t it in Madison, WI, long before there was any scientific consensus about the etiology of mental illness, that which is now called NAMI, pioneered what it believed was the genetic and neurological cell-based origin of this disease? From that point on the blaming of the patient and/or her family for this disease stopped. Now is again a similar moment in Wisconsin’s mental health history, when millions of chronically ill persons, like my son and my family are left without hope of ever being cured.
Does your present mission or long term strategic goal call for more than a disease mitigation, adjustment and maintenance model of health care or does it include the goal of total elimination of that particular disorder or disease? If not, why not? In order to protect your organization’s credibility should not an end point at least be envisioned?
To prepare for this not too distant future perhaps the first step would be to establish a goal of becoming a more informed organization consumer of stem cell research, and its potential application to your member or client needs.
Will Wisconsin stem cell discoveries be made available to the public at reasonable prices and in sufficient quantities to all Wisconsin citizens? Will special considerations including discounts be given to low and medium income patients and other underserved groups?
Are policies needed to ensure that state supported stem cell scientists and biotech companies will pursue research and development into prioritized disease groups such as cancer, heart, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s versus pursuing stem cell products that have more immediate commercial potential for large markets? Or will Wisconsin citizens spend tax dollars to pay for cosmetic and other personal enhancing products for the rich and powerful while seniors and others struggle to pay for their most basic health care needs?
Has your organization considered the possible relationship between how bio-medical research is now being funded in Wisconsin and the exorbitantly high prices Wisconsin taxpayers must now pay for their medicines and therapies? Has your board’s policy planning council or elected representatives ever had a discussion regarding these three questions?
Who should determine whether a government funded invention should be patented? Who should determine in what manner patents should be licensed? And, who should profit from patent licenses and in what amounts? Should we not be encouraging open stakeholder discussion to identify and evaluate alternative intellectual property business models?
For a state that has now become known as the epicenter of stem cell research and who holds three broad embryonic stem cell patents, this is more than an intellectual property issue but a pivotal human rights issue when health care affordability and public budget expenditures are being weighed.
Will eventual stem cell clinical trials include a diverse population sample? Will these trials adversely discriminate against the interests of your constituency or membership?
Are policies needed to ensure that companies who use state funding direct their research into the widest ranges of illnesses, not just research for the most well-heeled disease advocates?
State innovation grants, tax credits and hosts of other public financial incentives have already been awarded or are now in the state’s administrative pipeline. This money is being spent without any health care policy safeguards or payback conditions whatever. Someone has said, “Asking grantees to do the right thing after giving away the farm is like asking the fox to cough up the chickens after giving him the key to the henhouse.”
If these stem cell policy issues are not currently on your organization’s radar screen, and do not now appear on your strategic planning priorities list, this neglect could be catastrophic for your membership down the road.
I am asking your board of directors to read this letter and weigh its importance to the members they serve. The biggest mistake you or your organization could make is to simply do nothing.
I urge you to ask your board and your membership to consider this basic question. Do you believe that Wisconsin citizens should publicly fund stem cell research and receive a public health care benefit from cell-based drugs and therapies?
If the answer is yes, then, would your organization support the following policy initiative: (This organization) supports legislation for federal and state funding of stem cell research, along with public health care safeguards, with benefit affordable to everyone.”
Furthermore, I ask your organization to consider joining a Wisconsin coalition to support state and federal funding for stem cell research along with policies to ensure all Wisconsin citizens have affordable access to cell-based medicines and therapies.
For more information on state funding of stem cell research in Wisconsin, see my published articles here on my blog and on the Wisconsin Stem Cell Now, Inc., website. My email address is: bergentown@sbcglobal.net.
Respectfully yours,
William R. Benedict
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Science Without Ideology: The Future of Stem Cell Research
UW-Madison Retirement Association’s Challenges Committee
Question for Dr. R. Alta Charo -
My name is William R. Benedict. I am a retired social worker. My family suffers daily with chronic cell-based diseases. As a family advocate, for the past five years I have been advocating for federal and state funding for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). With serious chronic diseases, my family and our grand children will very likely stand to benefit enormously from miracle cell-based therapies.
My family and I want to thank you for all you have done to help Wisconsin’s stem cell program succeed so well to this point. My family and I are indebted to you for your tireless work and support for this research. Thanks so much for taking the time to be with us this afternoon and for speaking to us about the most critical issues now facing this research.
With respect to the question of how can emerging stem cell therapies be affordable to patients or in a new national health care system, I believe I speak today for tens of millions of families with serious chronic diseases, who are of modest means and who without serious stem cell research reform will be deprived of the fruits of this research.
My question concerns the nature of this “new attitude” that is referred to along with the coming of the new Obama Administration. To what extent will this new attitude look like what we had before the George W. Bush administration?
Will science and the pharma business continue to do “business as usual” as it relates to existing intellectual property laws that result in the already exorbitantly rich pharmaceutical corporations getting richer and richer at the expense of the taxpayers and health consumers?
As a preeminent bio-ethicist, and as regarding the common interests of all, who should determine whether a government funded invention should be patented? And who should decide what manner such patents should be licensed? And finally who should profit from patent licenses and in what amounts.
Presently as you know by existing statute it’s the scientist alone and the so-called non-profit research office transfer officials who are handmaidens to the drug industry, who benefit most. While this is an issue too large to address this afternoon
would you begin this discussion today by commenting on what stem cell research issues should be left to the scientists and what issues should be addressed through the democratic process?
Question for Dr. R. Alta Charo -
My name is William R. Benedict. I am a retired social worker. My family suffers daily with chronic cell-based diseases. As a family advocate, for the past five years I have been advocating for federal and state funding for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). With serious chronic diseases, my family and our grand children will very likely stand to benefit enormously from miracle cell-based therapies.
My family and I want to thank you for all you have done to help Wisconsin’s stem cell program succeed so well to this point. My family and I are indebted to you for your tireless work and support for this research. Thanks so much for taking the time to be with us this afternoon and for speaking to us about the most critical issues now facing this research.
With respect to the question of how can emerging stem cell therapies be affordable to patients or in a new national health care system, I believe I speak today for tens of millions of families with serious chronic diseases, who are of modest means and who without serious stem cell research reform will be deprived of the fruits of this research.
My question concerns the nature of this “new attitude” that is referred to along with the coming of the new Obama Administration. To what extent will this new attitude look like what we had before the George W. Bush administration?
Will science and the pharma business continue to do “business as usual” as it relates to existing intellectual property laws that result in the already exorbitantly rich pharmaceutical corporations getting richer and richer at the expense of the taxpayers and health consumers?
As a preeminent bio-ethicist, and as regarding the common interests of all, who should determine whether a government funded invention should be patented? And who should decide what manner such patents should be licensed? And finally who should profit from patent licenses and in what amounts.
Presently as you know by existing statute it’s the scientist alone and the so-called non-profit research office transfer officials who are handmaidens to the drug industry, who benefit most. While this is an issue too large to address this afternoon
would you begin this discussion today by commenting on what stem cell research issues should be left to the scientists and what issues should be addressed through the democratic process?
Friday, April 3, 2009
State Funding of Stem Cell Research: A public health care benefit for all Wisconsin Citizen
Public Testimony: Joint Finance Committee/Biennium Budget
Cambridge, WI
By now we know that solving Wisconsin’s ever-growing health care costs is a multifaceted problem and will not be solved by any single solution. And while there are many comprehensive solutions being proposed, none of them go directly to the core issue---monolithic and predatory health care pharmaceutical pricing practices.
In 2005 my partner and I were vacationing in San Diego California. While reading the San Diego Tribune I just happened to read about California’s 3 billion dollar stem cell research program and about the many health care stakeholder groups who all were fighting for something they were calling a “public benefit.”
I continued to read and soon learned what they meant by the words, “public benefit.” They wanted to make sure that medical breakthroughs and medicines developed through stem cell research, and funded by their tax dollars, would be available and affordable to every citizen in California. Subsequently through referendum their State constitution along with revised intellectual property rights, now provide such health care safeguards for their tax payers and health consumers.
Wisconsin’s legislature should stop dragging its feet, step up to the plate, and do the right-thing for Wisconsin taxpayers and its health consumers.
This means that the state legislature should follow the lead of our great President, Barack Obama, and pass funding legislation NOW along with a policy platform that protects both its gold standard stem cell investment and its health consumers from outrageous and exorbitant cell-based drug prices down the road. NOW, not later, is the time to act.
When we weigh the billions and billions of dollars to be both made and saved through miracle cell-based cures of our worse most debilitating diseases and by such life enhancements as restored memory, increased mobility, regenerated body parts, and most of all, increased longevity, only then can we begin to appreciate the real scope and importance of the health care policy challenge that lies before you and begs for your attention.
Californians have learned their lessons well from our nation’s health care problems and have decided to go directly to the root of our health care pricing crisis. They are no longer going to pay twice for their health care: Once for the research and once again for the exorbitantly priced medications and therapies.
Public health care benefit safeguards can mean anything from requiring a successful grantee to return some fixed percentage of their profit back on their state funded billion-dollar stem cell-based drug discovery to the state’s designated patient health care fund to simply setting pricing thresholds on state health insurance costs for state funded cell-based medications.
The bottom line is that you and I as Wisconsin lawmakers and citizens can prove to ourselves and our grandchildren, and future generations, that we have learned our lesson from exorbitant health care pricing. We have learned not to give our money to people without first asking who they are, why they need it, and how they plan on using it. This new policy of asking the public-funded grantee to meet certain expectations and provide some return on our investment is better than writing a blank check and continuing with health care in Wisconsin as we now know it.
Now is the time for Wisconsin policy makers to decide whether the miracle cures promised will be made accessible and affordable to Wisconsin families with cell-based diseases.
Ultimately the answer to this question must be reflected in the language of the state’s financial and tax research innovation incentives and the stimulus funds now being proposed.
Asking the grantees to do the right thing after giving away the farm is like asking the fox to cough up the chickens after giving him the key to the hen house.
Without prompt action now by our Wisconsin state legislature Wisconsin citizens should not expect that cell-based therapies and drugs derived from this research will eventually benefit all of us as health consumers and taxpayers.
Cambridge, WI
By now we know that solving Wisconsin’s ever-growing health care costs is a multifaceted problem and will not be solved by any single solution. And while there are many comprehensive solutions being proposed, none of them go directly to the core issue---monolithic and predatory health care pharmaceutical pricing practices.
In 2005 my partner and I were vacationing in San Diego California. While reading the San Diego Tribune I just happened to read about California’s 3 billion dollar stem cell research program and about the many health care stakeholder groups who all were fighting for something they were calling a “public benefit.”
I continued to read and soon learned what they meant by the words, “public benefit.” They wanted to make sure that medical breakthroughs and medicines developed through stem cell research, and funded by their tax dollars, would be available and affordable to every citizen in California. Subsequently through referendum their State constitution along with revised intellectual property rights, now provide such health care safeguards for their tax payers and health consumers.
Wisconsin’s legislature should stop dragging its feet, step up to the plate, and do the right-thing for Wisconsin taxpayers and its health consumers.
This means that the state legislature should follow the lead of our great President, Barack Obama, and pass funding legislation NOW along with a policy platform that protects both its gold standard stem cell investment and its health consumers from outrageous and exorbitant cell-based drug prices down the road. NOW, not later, is the time to act.
When we weigh the billions and billions of dollars to be both made and saved through miracle cell-based cures of our worse most debilitating diseases and by such life enhancements as restored memory, increased mobility, regenerated body parts, and most of all, increased longevity, only then can we begin to appreciate the real scope and importance of the health care policy challenge that lies before you and begs for your attention.
Californians have learned their lessons well from our nation’s health care problems and have decided to go directly to the root of our health care pricing crisis. They are no longer going to pay twice for their health care: Once for the research and once again for the exorbitantly priced medications and therapies.
Public health care benefit safeguards can mean anything from requiring a successful grantee to return some fixed percentage of their profit back on their state funded billion-dollar stem cell-based drug discovery to the state’s designated patient health care fund to simply setting pricing thresholds on state health insurance costs for state funded cell-based medications.
The bottom line is that you and I as Wisconsin lawmakers and citizens can prove to ourselves and our grandchildren, and future generations, that we have learned our lesson from exorbitant health care pricing. We have learned not to give our money to people without first asking who they are, why they need it, and how they plan on using it. This new policy of asking the public-funded grantee to meet certain expectations and provide some return on our investment is better than writing a blank check and continuing with health care in Wisconsin as we now know it.
Now is the time for Wisconsin policy makers to decide whether the miracle cures promised will be made accessible and affordable to Wisconsin families with cell-based diseases.
Ultimately the answer to this question must be reflected in the language of the state’s financial and tax research innovation incentives and the stimulus funds now being proposed.
Asking the grantees to do the right thing after giving away the farm is like asking the fox to cough up the chickens after giving him the key to the hen house.
Without prompt action now by our Wisconsin state legislature Wisconsin citizens should not expect that cell-based therapies and drugs derived from this research will eventually benefit all of us as health consumers and taxpayers.
Public Testimony
As a family with several cell-based diseases and a taxpayer concerned about Wisconsin economic future I am dumb-founded as to why this legislature continues to ignore this state’s multi-billion dollar gold standard resource. With each passing day, without state funding and a sound 21st century policy foundation in place, down the road, both Wisconsin taxpayers and health consumers will wonder just how in the world did their state lawmakers fail to act to protect and conserve this state’s greatest scientific and technological resource ever?
More specifically why does our state legislature sit idly by while a small non-public non-profit entity usurps its authority and decision-making power over this state’s most valuable twenty-first century economic property and resource?
How much longer will it take before Wisconsin lawmakers make the connection between its present health care and economic crisis and how its lucrative multi-billion dollar stem cell legacy is presently being shepherded? In all due respect to Dr. James Thomson who I greatly admire and respect, fundamentally this is a State of Wisconsin creation!
How many Wisconsin legislators have any idea about the nature of the decision-making and intellectual property language that was involved in Wisconsin’s decision to grant to our chief competitor, a large biotech company in the State of California, an exclusive embryonic stem cell license? Such agreed upon or passive impotence will not and should not go unnoticed by Wisconsin taxpayers.
California taxpayers and lawmakers have wisely determined that such lucrative intellectual property rights and profits should be shared with the California taxpayer and no longer controlled totally by the inventor alone and/or a small unelected elite in a research transfer office.
Finally I refer you to California’s Constitution on this subject, and more recently the Stem Cell Affordability Legislation (SB 343) now before California’s Senate Health Care Committee.
Most respectfully,
William R. Benedict
More specifically why does our state legislature sit idly by while a small non-public non-profit entity usurps its authority and decision-making power over this state’s most valuable twenty-first century economic property and resource?
How much longer will it take before Wisconsin lawmakers make the connection between its present health care and economic crisis and how its lucrative multi-billion dollar stem cell legacy is presently being shepherded? In all due respect to Dr. James Thomson who I greatly admire and respect, fundamentally this is a State of Wisconsin creation!
How many Wisconsin legislators have any idea about the nature of the decision-making and intellectual property language that was involved in Wisconsin’s decision to grant to our chief competitor, a large biotech company in the State of California, an exclusive embryonic stem cell license? Such agreed upon or passive impotence will not and should not go unnoticed by Wisconsin taxpayers.
California taxpayers and lawmakers have wisely determined that such lucrative intellectual property rights and profits should be shared with the California taxpayer and no longer controlled totally by the inventor alone and/or a small unelected elite in a research transfer office.
Finally I refer you to California’s Constitution on this subject, and more recently the Stem Cell Affordability Legislation (SB 343) now before California’s Senate Health Care Committee.
Most respectfully,
William R. Benedict
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Decline in state’s mental health programs unconscionable
The Capital Times
As the father of a son with serious mental illness, I was saddened to see how my state’s mental health program scored in a recent national study. It received a fair-to-poor grade, a score of C.
In 2006 our state had received a B and since no state had earned an A, this performance went largely unnoticed, in part because Wisconsin is the birthplace of a pre-eminent national mental health advocacy organization ---the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI has led the nation both in mental health advocacy and in the creation of the most innovative and effective community-based service program model in the nation.
In 2006 NAMI National conducted and published its first Grading the States Report: “Grading the States 2006: A Report on America’s Health Care System for Serious Mental Illness. Recently NAMI released its Grade the States 2009 report. In it they used the 2006 findings for baseline comparisons. This report measures each state’s progress ---or lack of progress in many cases ---in providing evidence-based, cost-effective recovery- oriented services for children and adults living with serious mental illness.
In NAMI’s 2006 progress report the nation’s grade was D and Wisconsin scored a B. In this more recently released report the nation again scored a D while Wisconsin’s grade slipped downward from a B to C. Wisconsin was one of twelve states who fell back while 23 states stayed the same. Wisconsin has over 188,000 residents with serious mental illness.
Measures evaluated by NAMI had to do with the extent that the state mental health program had a workforce development plan, state mental health insurance parity laws and mental health coverage in programs for the uninsured. Other significant measures included the state’s ability to provide accurate data on a variety of services, including evidenced-based practices, service outcomes, and demographic data. Such measures undergird NAMI’s fundamental assertion that public funding for mental health treatment services must be tied to outcome performance measures.
Financing and core service measures also included Wisconsin’s 79 Community Support Programs (CSPs). These programs were found to fall far short of national fidelity standards. Funded in part by state Medicaid funds but heavily dependent on local county tax dollars, CBS produces a wide range of service quality and performance outcomes throughout the state.
The Division of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (DMHSAS) is the state mental health agency that works directly with county mental health agencies. While DMHSAS 2008 -09 program plans were found to be well intended, they failed to address these critical deficiencies.
Ironically, this conclusion was also supported in an August 2007 Wisconsin Council on Mental Health letter. Members of the council expressed concern “about the bluntness and ineffectiveness of the DMHSAS State Plan indicators as measures of state progress toward meeting important mental health goals and objectives.”
This state planning and review public watchdog agency also expressed its “concern about the quality and sources of data collected.” Its concern was particularly acute with respect to reports of services by counties who were delegated much of the responsibility for the plan’s implementation.
Let me quote the council: “Both the DMHSAS indicators and Department of Human and Family Services data are critical for the State and council to identify and support appropriate funding recommendations and decisions. Our recommendations are unfortunately undercut by inadequacies in both.“
So what has caused Wisconsin’s once innovative and dynamic mental health program to sink into mediocrity? This report suggests limited access and availability of services; insufficient funding; inequities of the state’s decentralized funding system and a still- broken information system that cripples the state’s ability to effectively plan, evaluate and account for its spending and service-delivery decisions.
If this isn’t a call to action what is? Won’t you join with NAMI and with our mentally ill sister and brothers and their families and as concerned taxpayers simply say, “We are not going to take this anymore!”
As the father of a son with serious mental illness, I was saddened to see how my state’s mental health program scored in a recent national study. It received a fair-to-poor grade, a score of C.
In 2006 our state had received a B and since no state had earned an A, this performance went largely unnoticed, in part because Wisconsin is the birthplace of a pre-eminent national mental health advocacy organization ---the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI has led the nation both in mental health advocacy and in the creation of the most innovative and effective community-based service program model in the nation.
In 2006 NAMI National conducted and published its first Grading the States Report: “Grading the States 2006: A Report on America’s Health Care System for Serious Mental Illness. Recently NAMI released its Grade the States 2009 report. In it they used the 2006 findings for baseline comparisons. This report measures each state’s progress ---or lack of progress in many cases ---in providing evidence-based, cost-effective recovery- oriented services for children and adults living with serious mental illness.
In NAMI’s 2006 progress report the nation’s grade was D and Wisconsin scored a B. In this more recently released report the nation again scored a D while Wisconsin’s grade slipped downward from a B to C. Wisconsin was one of twelve states who fell back while 23 states stayed the same. Wisconsin has over 188,000 residents with serious mental illness.
Measures evaluated by NAMI had to do with the extent that the state mental health program had a workforce development plan, state mental health insurance parity laws and mental health coverage in programs for the uninsured. Other significant measures included the state’s ability to provide accurate data on a variety of services, including evidenced-based practices, service outcomes, and demographic data. Such measures undergird NAMI’s fundamental assertion that public funding for mental health treatment services must be tied to outcome performance measures.
Financing and core service measures also included Wisconsin’s 79 Community Support Programs (CSPs). These programs were found to fall far short of national fidelity standards. Funded in part by state Medicaid funds but heavily dependent on local county tax dollars, CBS produces a wide range of service quality and performance outcomes throughout the state.
The Division of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (DMHSAS) is the state mental health agency that works directly with county mental health agencies. While DMHSAS 2008 -09 program plans were found to be well intended, they failed to address these critical deficiencies.
Ironically, this conclusion was also supported in an August 2007 Wisconsin Council on Mental Health letter. Members of the council expressed concern “about the bluntness and ineffectiveness of the DMHSAS State Plan indicators as measures of state progress toward meeting important mental health goals and objectives.”
This state planning and review public watchdog agency also expressed its “concern about the quality and sources of data collected.” Its concern was particularly acute with respect to reports of services by counties who were delegated much of the responsibility for the plan’s implementation.
Let me quote the council: “Both the DMHSAS indicators and Department of Human and Family Services data are critical for the State and council to identify and support appropriate funding recommendations and decisions. Our recommendations are unfortunately undercut by inadequacies in both.“
So what has caused Wisconsin’s once innovative and dynamic mental health program to sink into mediocrity? This report suggests limited access and availability of services; insufficient funding; inequities of the state’s decentralized funding system and a still- broken information system that cripples the state’s ability to effectively plan, evaluate and account for its spending and service-delivery decisions.
If this isn’t a call to action what is? Won’t you join with NAMI and with our mentally ill sister and brothers and their families and as concerned taxpayers simply say, “We are not going to take this anymore!”
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Much individual wealth truly belongs to society
The Cap Times
Opinion & Commentary
Someday in the not-too-distant future, Wisconsin taxpayers will look back to February 2009 when Governor Jim Doyle proposed to raise the income tax rate on Wisconsin’s wealthiest households and Wisconsin corporations, and say, “This was truly a turning point when taxpayer fairness reform began in Wisconsin."
Once the economic realities are fully grasped by the public and they recognize that the top 1 percent of US households now receives more income than the bottom 120 million Americans combined - only then will we wonder just how stupid we could have been.
Wisconsin native and economist Gar Alperovitz in his latest book, “Unjust Deserts,” identifies four major American myths. First, that the wealthy few and elites are most responsible for wealth creation and jobs. Two, that in return these rare individuals and elites deserve most of the nation’s wealth. Third, that high taxation for the rich and elite will harm the economy for everyone. And fourth, that it is the poor, the old and the disabled who are the chief recipients of public “entitlements.”
Alperovitz informs us that since the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century it has become increasingly clear to economists that anything a person cannot produce alone is part of society’s cumulative knowledge and technological inheritance and belongs to all of us. Just one example, there would be no Bill Gates or Warren Buffett if the larger society hadn’t created and maintained through the years a constitutionally free and regulated market place. This too can certainly be seen as a public “entitlement.”
Alperovitz’s well documented economic analysis presents convincing historical evidence that throughout most of the 20th century when there was higher taxation of rich individuals and corporations and increased social spending America enjoyed its greatest wealth creation and productivity periods.
Should individuals who invent or manage wealth producing activities not be fairly rewarded? Absolutely! Should not greater attention, however, be given to proportionality and equality? In 1982 the average CEO of an American company received 42 times the compensation received by the average worker. Today that amount has more than tripled.
Madisonian William R. Benedict is a retired social worker now advocating for state funding of stem cell research. He blogs at danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com
Opinion & Commentary
Someday in the not-too-distant future, Wisconsin taxpayers will look back to February 2009 when Governor Jim Doyle proposed to raise the income tax rate on Wisconsin’s wealthiest households and Wisconsin corporations, and say, “This was truly a turning point when taxpayer fairness reform began in Wisconsin."
Once the economic realities are fully grasped by the public and they recognize that the top 1 percent of US households now receives more income than the bottom 120 million Americans combined - only then will we wonder just how stupid we could have been.
Wisconsin native and economist Gar Alperovitz in his latest book, “Unjust Deserts,” identifies four major American myths. First, that the wealthy few and elites are most responsible for wealth creation and jobs. Two, that in return these rare individuals and elites deserve most of the nation’s wealth. Third, that high taxation for the rich and elite will harm the economy for everyone. And fourth, that it is the poor, the old and the disabled who are the chief recipients of public “entitlements.”
Alperovitz informs us that since the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century it has become increasingly clear to economists that anything a person cannot produce alone is part of society’s cumulative knowledge and technological inheritance and belongs to all of us. Just one example, there would be no Bill Gates or Warren Buffett if the larger society hadn’t created and maintained through the years a constitutionally free and regulated market place. This too can certainly be seen as a public “entitlement.”
Alperovitz’s well documented economic analysis presents convincing historical evidence that throughout most of the 20th century when there was higher taxation of rich individuals and corporations and increased social spending America enjoyed its greatest wealth creation and productivity periods.
Should individuals who invent or manage wealth producing activities not be fairly rewarded? Absolutely! Should not greater attention, however, be given to proportionality and equality? In 1982 the average CEO of an American company received 42 times the compensation received by the average worker. Today that amount has more than tripled.
Madisonian William R. Benedict is a retired social worker now advocating for state funding of stem cell research. He blogs at danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Progressive Dane worth fighting for
Wisconsin State Journal
Your Views
January 18, 2009
Progressive Dane worth fighting for
How deflating and tragic was Scott Milfred’s column in the Sunday State Journal about about the Progressive Dane Party. At the very least it was insensitive and out of spirit with the upcoming Martin Luther King Day celebration and President Barack Obama’s inauguration.
Almost all Americans are rejoicing over the promises of greater social and economic equality, freedom and a “new deal” for the working man and woman. Special interests and deregulators are on the run; the political power of individual citizens at the grass root level seems to have triumphed.
Now when a “community organizer” can be elected President of the United States, where there’s some real hope for democratic government with a small “d,” Milfred ironically asks the readers to use the occasion of Obama’s inauguration as evidence or an excuse for supporting the demise of the Progressive Dane Party in Dane County. Never!
Dane County needs more not fewer, representatives like Brenda Konkel. And yes, when our president violates our Constitution, we want our council members and all citizens to speak out.
See www.prodane.org for the King, Obama and Progressive Dane social justice agenda, or my blog at – dancecountyalmanac.blogspot.com
Bill Benedict, Madison
Your Views
January 18, 2009
Progressive Dane worth fighting for
How deflating and tragic was Scott Milfred’s column in the Sunday State Journal about about the Progressive Dane Party. At the very least it was insensitive and out of spirit with the upcoming Martin Luther King Day celebration and President Barack Obama’s inauguration.
Almost all Americans are rejoicing over the promises of greater social and economic equality, freedom and a “new deal” for the working man and woman. Special interests and deregulators are on the run; the political power of individual citizens at the grass root level seems to have triumphed.
Now when a “community organizer” can be elected President of the United States, where there’s some real hope for democratic government with a small “d,” Milfred ironically asks the readers to use the occasion of Obama’s inauguration as evidence or an excuse for supporting the demise of the Progressive Dane Party in Dane County. Never!
Dane County needs more not fewer, representatives like Brenda Konkel. And yes, when our president violates our Constitution, we want our council members and all citizens to speak out.
See www.prodane.org for the King, Obama and Progressive Dane social justice agenda, or my blog at – dancecountyalmanac.blogspot.com
Bill Benedict, Madison
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
NASW - Wisconsin Chapter Adopts SC funding
On Saturday, January 10th the Wisconsin Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers' Board of Directors adopted the following stem cell funding policy statement:
"NASW - Wisconsin Chapter supports legislation for federal and staate funding of stem cell research, along with public health care safeguards, with benefits affordable to everyone." This group committed to participate actively in the Wisconsin stem cell funding discussion and referred this new platform statement to its Legislative Committee for further review and action.
"NASW - Wisconsin Chapter supports legislation for federal and staate funding of stem cell research, along with public health care safeguards, with benefits affordable to everyone." This group committed to participate actively in the Wisconsin stem cell funding discussion and referred this new platform statement to its Legislative Committee for further review and action.
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