Listen now (90 min) | Ralph welcomes Samuel Levine who heads the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission to give you tips on how to use this government agency to protect yourself from corporate fraud and abuse. Plus, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, Dr. Michael Carome stops by to give us the latest warnings about harmful medical devices and his take on the safety of the mRNA Covid vaccine.
As Carome said, the FDA looked at the trial data provided by Pfizer/Moderna which we now know was flawed and insufficient. Why in the world are our public health officials continuing this charade?
I voted for you on every ballot on primary or general election avid supporter my entire life . I was raised by ancestors that continued western expansion from maternal and fraternal before the colonies decided to fight against the Crown. I wish Robert Kennedy Jr would run as an independent as both the Republican and Democratic parties have dismantled our government oversight as I have taught and was top of my Government class in 1968. History my passion with the study of propaganda and Public Relations another name for propaganda. My father was required to become a photo journalist during WWII with 101st Airborne & 82nd permission granted by the military after end of war to write “Thunder Over Heaven”. The men in the family were Marshals in the Dakota and Montana Territories. You are correct that 10% of the people should demand our government representatives vote for We The People as the system is the problem with the compromise for the Bill of Rights and Constitution regarding property with slaves counted for representation would lead to a civil war with the youth now must become educated to question everything disclosure of everything. My father was the Vice President of Sales Training for Eli Lilly in Indianapolis from 1954-1959 then transferred to the San Fernando Valley as he was demoted because of scandal within the headquarters at Eli Lilly regarding his secretary and the President of Eli Lilly. I was a female not respected by my father but with same IQ as my older brother four years older for one child in college that my parents planned in 1947. Genetic issues with my older brother finally diagnosed as manic depressive abusing his sister along with perpetual lies to everyone for success in his job with Del Monte in San Francisco from 1972-2009 then death in 2016 from autoimmune disease from addiction to sugar with Kaiser Insurance refusing to provide mental healthcare while I attempted to help him find another doctor.
I had the courage to contradict my father in 1972 as I told him the moment Watergate broke Nixon was the one raised as a political involved person from massive consumption of lots of newspapers in ‘60’s with great analysis becoming Systems Analyst in ‘80’s. Please investigate the COVID 19 so-called pandemic and the contracts for the emergency authorization since massive amounts of VAERS’s filed as I did in 2021 without receiving the confirmation because our own USPS unable to hire competent mail carrier’s because inside person divulged the vendor only provided sorting machines at 50% rate not the rate in the contract that was still paid! Corporate capture has allowed a psych op on the American people with safety testing “not” performed as we were all promised as I was harmed but every physician refused to write the VAERS as my medical record completely false allowed 920 mg of OxyContin daily instead of surgery that took 14 years to find a surgeon that would remove the wrong surgery because of incorrect medical report the hospital not prosecuted for total false record and scar on the wrong side nobody has bothered to perform any examination . Electronic Healthcare Records are incompetent that the GAO report to Congress in 2006 advised not to allow.
Medicare pays bills without sending patient to verify the bill that the physician sends to CMS. A fraudulent Bi-pap was paid for in 2010 violations of CMS rules that Medicare never answered my letters. All Medicare should do is do not pay any bill until patient verifies.
I wish to share an anecdote about how FTC consumer protections helped curb corporate abuses in an area of interest to ole’ Klassik. As a music lover, I have quite a collection of music recordings and I also have some decent Hi-Fi equipment to play these recordings. Back in the early 1970s, when home Hi-Fi was the form of home entertainment for middle class American families, companies were producing expensive Hi-Fi equipment with dubious claims about their power output and distortion. I’m not sure if Mr. Nader had anything to do with this (it would be interesting to ask him about this), but the FTC enacted new testing procedures for amplifiers in 1974 to ensure advertising claims about amplifiers were consistent and relevant to the buying public. If the public bought a 100 watts-per-channel receiver as per the FTC standards, for example, the public knew they were getting an amplifier which could produce that kind of power reliably without a significant amount of distortion.
As opposed to all the typical corporate claims we hear about regulation stifling product choice for the public, the FTC cleaning up the Hi-Fi industry actually allowed the Hi-Fi industry to flourish throughout the rest of the 1970s. Companies produced amplifiers/receivers which were built robustly enough to meet the FTC’s standards and the public, armed with confidence in the products, were willing to spend a lot of money on Hi-Fi equipment. Amplifiers built in this era are highly valued even today and the products from the FTC era are considered to be from a ‘golden era’.
The FTC standards still exist for amplifiers, to the best of my knowledge, but what happened is that the FTC was slow to update their standards to meet new technology. The standards are still written for mostly 2-channel stereo amplifiers and not for the popular surround sound amplifiers. As a result, many modern surround sound amplifiers make bold, and often inaccurate statements, about power output and distortion just like the stereo amplifiers of the early 1970s. The reliability of these receivers are poor and it seems to me that the public has lost a great deal of faith in the products
Long story short, FTC standards and regulations can, and should, be applied to many other areas. Just as the FTC standards led to a ‘golden era’ of Hi-Fi for both the public and the Hi-Fi industry in the late 1970s, FTC standards can very well lead to broad benefits to society.
As for the part about Lina Khan, I’ve mentioned this before in the comments, but I think the RNRH staff would be wise to bring up the topic of the proposed Kroger-Albertsons supermarket merger and how the FTC should view this proposal. I know Public Citizen has taken a stance on this and I believe this topic is important to many, if not most, of the RNRH listeners as Kroger and Albertsons have many supermarkets across the country with their various banners (Ralphs, Vons, Pavilions, Dillons, Fred Meyer, Randalls, Safeway, etc.) and they are also major employers in the US. Even people not typically interested in politics are interested in saving their supermarkets and their related pharmacies.
On a final note, I’m looking forward to the RNRH episode about sporting issues next week. There should be no shortage of topics to discuss on that show!
That word "probably" is concerning, coming from Carome in his comment about the mRNA injections. As is "really have". Not very scientific to my mind. Just wild and desperately hopeful assertions. Covid was never ever going to get the majority of the population anyway, so any purported prophylactics can't piggyback on those stats. The IFR has pretty much supported what Ionnadis extrapolated right from the get-go - not much worse than your average flu season (which strangely disappeared over this time, incidentally). The susceptible groupings got hammered either way - the very old and morbidly ill and unhealthy. Whether mortality was front-loaded in those countries that weren't able to close up or isolate themselves at the start, or whether it came for them eventually, it still ran its course, because you can't keep people cloistered indefinitely. Adverse side effects are also starting to be acknowledged (notably Lauterbach in Germany).
We are mortal beings. We have forgotten that. If people want to brandish amulets and charms against the Grim Reaper - and these injectables are no more than that, to my mind - then that's entirely up to them. Each must be permitted to face the prospect of death in their own way, or to ward it off as best they can for as long as they can. And each must be able to choose their path of health in their own way as well. We are still sovereign beings imbued with the inalienable right to bodily autonomy. It's great that there are organisations that look out for the public health and try to identify and regulate harmful products, but their reach and influence stops at my skin and my cells. I get to decide what enters my blood and my body, nobody else.
I haven't read all the comments below, nor anything close to the entirety of the debate/controversy/whatever on vaccines, but as Steve says we live in scary times in which it is not easy to know whom to believe. I have suggested this before to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour on a topic I can't remember (might have been Russiagate) but not enough podcasts have experts or exponents who disagree on a controversial topic AT THE SAME TIME challenging each other. The Munk Debates does this well, albeit I think the range of its guests on "both sides" of an issue sometimes comes up short and they're too pretentiously "civilized". I think the Nader Hour should do this too, at least occasionally, outlawing interruptions, and with the moderators requiring as best they can the parties to respond to each other's standing propositions without evading them. This will have to become more of the paradigm in general if we are to counteract the separation of opinions into the mutually exclusive opposed camps that we so often deplore.
Why not interview the CT attorney general on their efforts to protect consumers?
I have successfully filed complaints with them and have gotten many successful consumer oriented issues resolved such as with shipping companies not honoring their insurance.
Also something as seemingly insignificant as a pair of sneakers I got at Walmart falling apart within weeks I was able to seek recourse on. I filed with the state department of consumer affairs and got contacted by Walmart corporate in Little Rock and the local manager contacted me to refund me and give me a gift card with extra money for my trouble. Other states where I have filed are far less amenable to helping consumers claiming that commerce is full of risks.
You should interview MP Bridgen (UK) and Dr. John Campbell. Carome is wrong about the cov1d vaxes. The UK no longer recommends these unsafe/experimental vaxs for COVID except to those above 70+ years. They are not safe; have never been tested adequately; and do not prevent anything. the US is the most heavily corporate propagandized nation IN THE WORLD. The MSM is totally corporate owned and operated and censorship is rampant. Whatever happened to the First amendment and Free speech? You must be aware of this? https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=search&v=740923287502522&external_log_id=ba73ca69-f0b9-4e9d-aa19-010ebb019831&q=Dr.%20John%20Campbell
As Carome said, the FDA looked at the trial data provided by Pfizer/Moderna which we now know was flawed and insufficient. Why in the world are our public health officials continuing this charade?
I voted for you on every ballot on primary or general election avid supporter my entire life . I was raised by ancestors that continued western expansion from maternal and fraternal before the colonies decided to fight against the Crown. I wish Robert Kennedy Jr would run as an independent as both the Republican and Democratic parties have dismantled our government oversight as I have taught and was top of my Government class in 1968. History my passion with the study of propaganda and Public Relations another name for propaganda. My father was required to become a photo journalist during WWII with 101st Airborne & 82nd permission granted by the military after end of war to write “Thunder Over Heaven”. The men in the family were Marshals in the Dakota and Montana Territories. You are correct that 10% of the people should demand our government representatives vote for We The People as the system is the problem with the compromise for the Bill of Rights and Constitution regarding property with slaves counted for representation would lead to a civil war with the youth now must become educated to question everything disclosure of everything. My father was the Vice President of Sales Training for Eli Lilly in Indianapolis from 1954-1959 then transferred to the San Fernando Valley as he was demoted because of scandal within the headquarters at Eli Lilly regarding his secretary and the President of Eli Lilly. I was a female not respected by my father but with same IQ as my older brother four years older for one child in college that my parents planned in 1947. Genetic issues with my older brother finally diagnosed as manic depressive abusing his sister along with perpetual lies to everyone for success in his job with Del Monte in San Francisco from 1972-2009 then death in 2016 from autoimmune disease from addiction to sugar with Kaiser Insurance refusing to provide mental healthcare while I attempted to help him find another doctor.
I had the courage to contradict my father in 1972 as I told him the moment Watergate broke Nixon was the one raised as a political involved person from massive consumption of lots of newspapers in ‘60’s with great analysis becoming Systems Analyst in ‘80’s. Please investigate the COVID 19 so-called pandemic and the contracts for the emergency authorization since massive amounts of VAERS’s filed as I did in 2021 without receiving the confirmation because our own USPS unable to hire competent mail carrier’s because inside person divulged the vendor only provided sorting machines at 50% rate not the rate in the contract that was still paid! Corporate capture has allowed a psych op on the American people with safety testing “not” performed as we were all promised as I was harmed but every physician refused to write the VAERS as my medical record completely false allowed 920 mg of OxyContin daily instead of surgery that took 14 years to find a surgeon that would remove the wrong surgery because of incorrect medical report the hospital not prosecuted for total false record and scar on the wrong side nobody has bothered to perform any examination . Electronic Healthcare Records are incompetent that the GAO report to Congress in 2006 advised not to allow.
Medicare pays bills without sending patient to verify the bill that the physician sends to CMS. A fraudulent Bi-pap was paid for in 2010 violations of CMS rules that Medicare never answered my letters. All Medicare should do is do not pay any bill until patient verifies.
Dah! 👍
I wish to share an anecdote about how FTC consumer protections helped curb corporate abuses in an area of interest to ole’ Klassik. As a music lover, I have quite a collection of music recordings and I also have some decent Hi-Fi equipment to play these recordings. Back in the early 1970s, when home Hi-Fi was the form of home entertainment for middle class American families, companies were producing expensive Hi-Fi equipment with dubious claims about their power output and distortion. I’m not sure if Mr. Nader had anything to do with this (it would be interesting to ask him about this), but the FTC enacted new testing procedures for amplifiers in 1974 to ensure advertising claims about amplifiers were consistent and relevant to the buying public. If the public bought a 100 watts-per-channel receiver as per the FTC standards, for example, the public knew they were getting an amplifier which could produce that kind of power reliably without a significant amount of distortion.
As opposed to all the typical corporate claims we hear about regulation stifling product choice for the public, the FTC cleaning up the Hi-Fi industry actually allowed the Hi-Fi industry to flourish throughout the rest of the 1970s. Companies produced amplifiers/receivers which were built robustly enough to meet the FTC’s standards and the public, armed with confidence in the products, were willing to spend a lot of money on Hi-Fi equipment. Amplifiers built in this era are highly valued even today and the products from the FTC era are considered to be from a ‘golden era’.
The FTC standards still exist for amplifiers, to the best of my knowledge, but what happened is that the FTC was slow to update their standards to meet new technology. The standards are still written for mostly 2-channel stereo amplifiers and not for the popular surround sound amplifiers. As a result, many modern surround sound amplifiers make bold, and often inaccurate statements, about power output and distortion just like the stereo amplifiers of the early 1970s. The reliability of these receivers are poor and it seems to me that the public has lost a great deal of faith in the products
I know that the FTC has solicited feedback about updating and even possibly eliminating the FTC amplifier standards. In fact, this FTC press release about amplifiers even directly quotes Mr. Levine: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/07/ftc-seeks-public-comment-amplifier-rule-amendments-make-testing-methods-more-useful-consumers
Long story short, FTC standards and regulations can, and should, be applied to many other areas. Just as the FTC standards led to a ‘golden era’ of Hi-Fi for both the public and the Hi-Fi industry in the late 1970s, FTC standards can very well lead to broad benefits to society.
Here’s another article about the amplifier FTC standards and why they are important for those interested in reading about it: https://www.audioholics.com/audio-amplifier/ftc-amplifier-rule-help-protect-home-audio-consumers-today
As for the part about Lina Khan, I’ve mentioned this before in the comments, but I think the RNRH staff would be wise to bring up the topic of the proposed Kroger-Albertsons supermarket merger and how the FTC should view this proposal. I know Public Citizen has taken a stance on this and I believe this topic is important to many, if not most, of the RNRH listeners as Kroger and Albertsons have many supermarkets across the country with their various banners (Ralphs, Vons, Pavilions, Dillons, Fred Meyer, Randalls, Safeway, etc.) and they are also major employers in the US. Even people not typically interested in politics are interested in saving their supermarkets and their related pharmacies.
On a final note, I’m looking forward to the RNRH episode about sporting issues next week. There should be no shortage of topics to discuss on that show!
That word "probably" is concerning, coming from Carome in his comment about the mRNA injections. As is "really have". Not very scientific to my mind. Just wild and desperately hopeful assertions. Covid was never ever going to get the majority of the population anyway, so any purported prophylactics can't piggyback on those stats. The IFR has pretty much supported what Ionnadis extrapolated right from the get-go - not much worse than your average flu season (which strangely disappeared over this time, incidentally). The susceptible groupings got hammered either way - the very old and morbidly ill and unhealthy. Whether mortality was front-loaded in those countries that weren't able to close up or isolate themselves at the start, or whether it came for them eventually, it still ran its course, because you can't keep people cloistered indefinitely. Adverse side effects are also starting to be acknowledged (notably Lauterbach in Germany).
We are mortal beings. We have forgotten that. If people want to brandish amulets and charms against the Grim Reaper - and these injectables are no more than that, to my mind - then that's entirely up to them. Each must be permitted to face the prospect of death in their own way, or to ward it off as best they can for as long as they can. And each must be able to choose their path of health in their own way as well. We are still sovereign beings imbued with the inalienable right to bodily autonomy. It's great that there are organisations that look out for the public health and try to identify and regulate harmful products, but their reach and influence stops at my skin and my cells. I get to decide what enters my blood and my body, nobody else.
Regarding problems with medical devices, have organizations representing various physicians made statements concerning medical devices?
I haven't read all the comments below, nor anything close to the entirety of the debate/controversy/whatever on vaccines, but as Steve says we live in scary times in which it is not easy to know whom to believe. I have suggested this before to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour on a topic I can't remember (might have been Russiagate) but not enough podcasts have experts or exponents who disagree on a controversial topic AT THE SAME TIME challenging each other. The Munk Debates does this well, albeit I think the range of its guests on "both sides" of an issue sometimes comes up short and they're too pretentiously "civilized". I think the Nader Hour should do this too, at least occasionally, outlawing interruptions, and with the moderators requiring as best they can the parties to respond to each other's standing propositions without evading them. This will have to become more of the paradigm in general if we are to counteract the separation of opinions into the mutually exclusive opposed camps that we so often deplore.
Why not interview the CT attorney general on their efforts to protect consumers?
I have successfully filed complaints with them and have gotten many successful consumer oriented issues resolved such as with shipping companies not honoring their insurance.
Also something as seemingly insignificant as a pair of sneakers I got at Walmart falling apart within weeks I was able to seek recourse on. I filed with the state department of consumer affairs and got contacted by Walmart corporate in Little Rock and the local manager contacted me to refund me and give me a gift card with extra money for my trouble. Other states where I have filed are far less amenable to helping consumers claiming that commerce is full of risks.
More up to date information from MP Bridgen and Dr. Campbell. https://youtu.be/GkhjH2ySMUw
You should interview MP Bridgen (UK) and Dr. John Campbell. Carome is wrong about the cov1d vaxes. The UK no longer recommends these unsafe/experimental vaxs for COVID except to those above 70+ years. They are not safe; have never been tested adequately; and do not prevent anything. the US is the most heavily corporate propagandized nation IN THE WORLD. The MSM is totally corporate owned and operated and censorship is rampant. Whatever happened to the First amendment and Free speech? You must be aware of this? https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=search&v=740923287502522&external_log_id=ba73ca69-f0b9-4e9d-aa19-010ebb019831&q=Dr.%20John%20Campbell