Beware the History Books

...Where does its funding come from...

...How appropriate is it for • public servants in Congress to be working so very closely with : what amounts to a private business lobby...

...Now it will cost many multiples of that early budget request to control spreading tuberculo• sis, and a new drug-resistant strain that worries public-health of: ficials...

...They" are the political corporatists in your midst, such as the Heritage and Cato groups and the trade associations and corporate law firms filled with well-paid persons, who concoct schemes designed to leave Americans defenseless against hazards to their safety and their family budgets...

...Congress, Washington, D.C...

...And, how about all those corporate welfare regulations that I fill the Federal Register...

...That is your responsibility, and you will be held to that standard should your decisions be connected to such human casualties and anguish...

...It seems that you have begun creating a field day • for the K-Street corporate law firms and their billing bonanzas...

...Can we assume that you have seen or read about the tragedies that terminally afflicted thousands of Americans with hemophilia as a result of not wanting to "burden" the blood industry...

...For example, what is the detailed basis for your claim that the cost of compli- • ance with federal regulations is over $500 billion a year...

...As the National Hemophilia Foundation can inform you, that decision and the powerful influence of the blood industry led to years of delay in the use of the hepatitis test to screen out possible carriers of AIDS...

...Preventable disasters, epidemics, and the casualties of more silent forms of industrial violence must be avoided...

...History does not treat pandering kindly...

...For instance, the De• partment of Health and Human Services has the legal obligation • to root out and stop hospital, physician, and clinic-promoted \ fraud on Medicare, Medicaid, and other payment or reimburse• ment systems...

...rescinding the rule commonly known as the "air-bag" standard for years, which cost tens of thousands of American lives and still more injuries...

...Finally, it would be interesting to hear you explain why you I believe this country needs more of the non-enforcement, the • non-inspection, and the non-funding that brought us the enor- ", mously expensive bank debacles, the corporate looting of share- * holders and pensioners and other investors, the growing concern : over the safety of the meat and poultry food supply, the precipi- ¦ tous decline of the ocean-fish catch, and the recurring damage ; and death to children from lead and other toxic exposures—to • name a few examples...

...The public would be most interested in these fig-i ures...

...Early in 1983, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Frank Young announced a cut of 50 percent in the number of the agency's blood-industry quality-control inspections...

...2. It is not clear how you are defining "rules and regulations...

...Now, of course, these same companies are boasting about the availability of air bags in their advertisements every day...

...Do you '• want to call a regulatory moratorium—which in common terms : is a police holiday—in this underactive and understaffed law-en...

...He sent a version of this letter on January 6,1995...

...In your haste to cut regulations, you need to answer the fol• lowing questions: ; 1. You support a very specific analysis of the social costs and \ benefits of regulation...

...Sincerely, Ralph Nader Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate...

...Hundreds of ; corporate welfare programs and hundreds of billions of dollars ' are involved in the matrices of rules and the rabbit warrens of « regulations that reallocate taxpayer dollars to corporate coffers...

...I call on you to lift your horizons, meet with the families of the victims of preventable tragedies, go into the factories and mines and hospitals and speak with those who are suffering from the neglect of law enforcement or the absence of any law whatsoever...

...Your consciences need to be ever reinvigorated because of your isolation from these Americans who have much to tell you...

...Dear Senators and Representatives: You are urging a reduction of law and order for corporate fraud, crime, and other damage to the health and safety of the American people...

...By thwarting law enforcement in these critical areas, you are inviting the comment, "There they go again...

...Who are the groups (Represen- • tative DeLay says they number around 200) that belong...

...You'll remember some of their "achievements": stalling and weakening the lead-abatement standards...

...Will these be part of your drive to cut taxpayer spending and ; scale back on government...

...i Also, what is Project Relief...

...These same interests held sway with the Reagan and Bush Administrations...

...3. From now on, will you reveal the empirical or analytic basis and the sources for your "factual" assertions...

...You may also meet the relatives of Americans who lost their lives in vehicle frontal crashes during the delay of the air-bag standard for so many years by both Representative John Dingell and corporate pressure from the auto industry...

...More than two years ago, the General Account-| ing Office reported that billing fraud and abuse in the health• care industry alone cost this country $70 billion a year...

...Your ob: jective is to attack and block areas of need where too little en• forcement and too few standards are already common problems...

...As detailed in the new book The Coming Plague, "most of the world's blood and plasma supply, therefore, went unsterilized and untested for the first four years of the epidemic...

...Government contracting '. procedures and defense of franchising rights by franchisees are • some that come to mind...

...delaying the lifesaving warning label on aspirin products regarding Reye's syndrome and the deaths of children...

...I look forward to your responses...

...You are now in positions of power...

...The Reagan Administration similarly rejected a request for several millions of dollars by government physicians to conduct an early regulation of tuberculosis...

...Further, will you release your own estimates as to how much • considering and issuing new rules will cost the government (i.e., ". the taxpayers...

...Instead, all we hear are misleading statistics, : phony anecdotes, and the flashing of the small-business card to • camouflage your real parties of interest—big business...

...refusing to issue health standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act until Congress compelled them to start doing so...

...Notwithstanding your misguided zeal to undermine the government's police powers to safeguard domestic health and safety and prevent future forms of toxic and product-defect violence, you may yet wish to learn from recent Reagan-era history...

...sumers, workers, investors, and taxpayers...

...forcement arena...

...There are also many rules and regulations protecting small I business from big-business predations...

...Just what is the dollar value you are pre: pared to accord to an American life and various serious injuries \ or diseases...

...Are you including the rules and regulations that deal with ex-\ posing and limiting economic crimes and fraud against con...

...Since government and private studies have shown how new : companies and industries arise from the response to regulatory * markets, as in the environmental-equipment area, and since ", studies have shown how innovation is stimulated by workplace ; and environmental-safety standards, what is your basis for as- : serting that jobs are lost or that consumers are paying higher • prices for no value added, say, to their health, safety, and their : ability to avoid deception in the marketplace and to benefit • from a higher quality of competition...

...Let's ", have the data...

...The basic issue that should concern your consciences is how : to protect the health, safety, and economic well-being of 261 I million Americans...

...That is an important lesson in life-saving, job-creating, and dollar-saving regulation that might give you the frame of reference to solve these avoidable forms of violence and to be proud years later that you did just that...

...Especially in the House, • the risk of being inebriated with that power carries grave political peril...

...He has not received a response from any of the Senators or Representatives...

...Are these rules and regulations to be : included...

...Much of the Executive Branch deals • with the distribution of subsidies, giveaways, bargain-basement I leaseholds, bailouts, guarantees, and monopolies...