The anti's are such a constant group of liars.There is much more after this stuff that I did not include here that is quite interesting.


http://www.data-yard.net/10u2/ryo-feb-2007.htm#kids

We'll finish this month's updates with a truly disturbing look at how corrupted both government and non-profit organization have become in their quest for smoker's dollars. Both of the following were sent to us by email and printed in the Oregonian (the state's largest newspaper) within a few days of one another. While the second editorial (if you will) repudiates the facts of the first, it is not labeled as a retraction as it should have been. Nonetheless, we applaud the author of the second piece for doing the research to debunk the first. Again the subject really at hand is attempts to justify an increase in state cigarette taxes (and on all other tobacco products as well), hidden under the shroud of the justifiably emotional issue of health care for kids. Its a bit of a long read but well worth your time.

Healthy kids or cheaper cigarettes?

"Sarah Bacon can't bear to talk about it. The tobacco lobby, meanwhile, is shouting as loudly as only it can. It's not fair. None of it.

It's not fair that Sarah Bacon had no health insurance when she took her 14-month-old daughter, Molly, to a hospital emergency room. It's not fair that uninsured kids all over this state live with the hacking coughs of untreated asthma, the deadly risks of undiagnosed diabetes and the danger and discomfort of many other unmet health needs.

It's not fair that one side in the Salem debate over a bill to raise cigarette taxes to cover uninsured children speaks with a booming voice amplified by hundreds of thousands in campaign donations. Its lobbyists are whispering in the ears of legislators every single day. And it is surely not fair that you can barely hear the quiet desperation of low-income parents struggling to keep their children alive and well, or the soft, pain-filled voice of Sarah Bacon, whose little girl died for the want of basic health care. Bacon, who now lives in Medford, politely declined an interview request. It's too hard, she said, too close. Friday marks the sixth anniversary of the day doctors harvested the organs of her brain-dead toddler.

However, Bacon testified by telephone for several minutes to a joint House-Senate Health Care Committee of the Legislature on Jan. 22. She described taking Molly to an emergency room because she had been sick for several days, and vomiting. The hospital asked if she had health insurance. She didn't. The restaurant where she worked as a server did not provide coverage, and Sarah, like most of the parents of Oregon's 117,000 uninsured kids, made a little too much money to qualify for the state health plan. An ER doctor examined Molly, signed a prescription for an ear infection and suggested Sarah take her daughter to a pediatrician if she got worse. The little girl didn't seem to get worse, but she didn't get better, either. Then, five days later, Molly suffered a seizure and went into cardiac arrest. Soon, she was gone. An autopsy showed Molly died from an undiagnosed respiratory virus that could have been successfully treated. It also showed that Molly had been bleeding from her brain for at least a week, perhaps longer.

A $432 test would have diagnosed the virus that took Molly's life, Sarah told the legislative committee. "I believe my daughter did not get all the medical care she needed because she didn't have insurance," she said. "It's as simple as that." But nothing is simple in the Legislature. Not even a choice between healthier Oregon kids, or cheaper cigarettes.

Lawmakers are debating Gov. Ted Kulongoski's plan to extend health insurance to nearly all of the state's uninsured children, and pay for it with an 84-cent-a-pack increase in the cigarette tax. It is a modest plan, a commitment that kids in this state will no longer be denied health care while Oregon and the nation struggle to fix the failing American health care system.

And now the real facts behind this obscene ploy rigorously researched by Don Colburn - a true journalist - the likes of which is rarely seen anywhere in the US today.

Doesn't anyone in the media or in congressional state houses ever look at the details of statements like this and report/correct them or at least put them in context. The following is a good start. Again from the Oregonian.

A mom's testimony that her child wouldn't have died with insurance doesn't hold up

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

DON COLBURN

"When Gov. Ted Kulongoski rolled out his plan to ensure health coverage for every Oregon child last month, the most dramatic testimony came over a speakerphone from a young woman in Medford.

Lawmakers listened intently as Sarah Bacon, 28, briefly recounted how her 14-month-old daughter, Molly, had died because of lack of health coverage. A nagging cold had led to wheezing and coughing, Bacon said. When Molly started vomiting, her mom took her to a hospital emergency room, where doctors ran tests, gave her a prescription for an ear infection and sent her home.

Five days later, Molly had a seizure, went into cardiac arrest and died. "I believe my daughter didn't get all the tests she needed to keep her with us, because she didn't have insurance," Bacon testified during the Jan. 22 legislative hearing. "It's that simple."

In fact, it's not that simple. Examination of public records and a follow-up interview with Bacon reveal omissions and factual errors in her testimony. The Bacons were living in Palm Desert, Calif., when Molly died six years ago. Sarah Bacon didn't move to Oregon until 2003. An autopsy found that Molly died of bleeding in the brain caused by head trauma, according to news reports in California at the time. Bacon told The Oregonian that Molly tripped and hit a rocking chair a few days before she went to the emergency room. Bacon did not mention the bruising fall to doctors at the hospital, out of fear that they might suspect her of child abuse. Nor did she mention the tumble in her legislative testimony.

Bacon's former boyfriend, who was home alone with Molly when she had her seizure, was charged with assault "resulting in the death" of a child, according to court records. A California jury acquitted him in June 2002. Both the prosecution and the defense agreed that Molly died of head trauma and bleeding in the brain. At issue was whether the head injury resulted from an accident or from being shaken by the boyfriend. Molly also tested positive for respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, a common form of bronchiolitis that is usually mild but requires hospitalization in 1 percent to 2 percent of cases.

If Molly had been insured, Bacon testified, doctors would have tested her right away for RSV, a test that she said costs more than $400. That could have saved Molly's life, she said. "It was blatantly an insurance thing," Bacon said in an interview. But that explanation does not hold up medically, a Portland pediatrician said. "There's nothing I'm aware of about RSV that impacts the brain or the central nervous system," said Dr. Windy Stevenson, a pediatrician at Doernbecher Children's Hospital. She also said the RSV test costs far less than $400.

Molly Bacon was first treated at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and then flown by helicopter to Loma Linda University Children's Hospital, where she died. Lawmakers at the Jan. 22 hearing before the joint House-Senate health committee asked Bacon no questions, but a few commented after she spoke. "We shouldn't have to hear those kinds of stories in Oregon," said Rep. Tina Kotek, D-Portland. "It's important to put a human face on this," said Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland.

But based on the new information, Greenlick said Tuesday: "I would certainly rather have had somebody testify who had a more straight story." After learning that Molly Bacon died of head trauma, Greenlick called it "absurd" for her mother to blame the death on the lack of an RSV test.

An autopsy found that Molly died of bleeding in the brain caused by head trauma,

Bacon's former boyfriend, who was home alone with Molly when she had her seizure, was charged with assault "resulting in the death" of a child, according to court records

A California jury acquitted him in June 2002.

Both the prosecution and the defense agreed that Molly died of head trauma and bleeding in the brain.

At issue was whether the head injury resulted from an accident or from being shaken by the boyfriend.


how could these important facts not be included in this womans testimonie..

but then again I suppose she was being prompted by an agenda driven ban-addict on what would be key points for their cause on the increase in tobacco taxes and smoking bans the anti-tobacco cartel will use any underhanded sceem to acheive their goal