People Before Profit blog

Atmosphere's carbon dioxide breaches 400

Tue, 21 May 2013 20:37:00 +0000

For the first time since accurate measurements of carbon dioxide have been taken, the amount in the atmosphere has topped 400 parts per million (ppm) for a sustained period. Many climate scientists, such as James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute, believe that any sustained period of time with higher than 350 ppm threatens catastrophic global warming.

Since 1992, when many countries pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions at the Rio Summit, emissions have been steadily increasing. As more dire warnings from scientists have accumulated, as more extreme weather events have forced awareness of climate change, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has continued to increase. In many years emissions have accelerated instead of being reduced, as virtually all scientific authorities have called for and as most major industrial countries have pledged to do.

Carbon dioxide emissions accumulate in the atmosphere, meaning that current emissions will continue to affect our weather and climate systems for many decades, even centuries. The earth's climate system is massive, and like massive ocean liners, it takes a long time to make it change course. The climate changes we are currently experiencing result from the last 150 years of accumulation and increases, resulting from industrial development, transportation, other burning of fossil fuels, and deforestation.

Recent public opinion polls continue to show a large majority understanding that climate change is real (though the exact percentage continues to fluctuate up and down with media coverage and extreme weather events), and a plurality of people who know that it is caused by human activity. Many people have been affected by the climate change deniers and their campaign to confuse understanding and delay action. Well over 90% of climate change scientists and climate change peer-reviewed publications confirm the scientific understanding that climate change is real, it is primarily caused by human activity, and it is getting worse.

Many major corporations desire to keep making money from business as usual, in spite of how destructive to our common future that will be. And they desire, if action is taken, to place the burdens and costs of change on workers and communities, rather than on those who have been making excess profits from polluting our atmosphere. They want to keep atmospheric pollution as an "externality" that they don't have to include on their balance sheets.

Many of the same corporations and business interests who promote climate change denialism also oppose union rights, increases in the minimum wage, and health care for all. The Koch brothers, who fund much right-wing political activism, are prime examples. They understand that just as stronger unions threaten their profits, so too does serious action to address climate change.

Even as some countries take real action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Germany, for example), the situation is getting worse. Fueled by new coal-fired electric plants in China and India, by deforestation in the Amazon, Indonesia, and Siberia, by growing numbers of gas-fueled cars, by continuing subsidies to fossil fuel industries, and by petroleum-based agriculture, we are pushing ever closer to dangerous tipping points which threaten to spiral the world's climate systems out of control.

The potential exists for millions of new jobs in the U.S., converting to solar-based energy, retrofitting existing buildings, and building sustainable agriculture. This could lay the basis for a new unity between the labor movement, the environmental movement, and all progressives.

A dramatic turn is necessary - as the new high of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere highlights. Without such a shift, the earth is in danger of even more harmful extreme weather events, including prolonged multi-year drought in many places. The threat is not to the existence of the earth, it is to the possibility of a flourishing humanity. Already there are millions of climate refugees, millions of people harmed by extreme weather such as Hurricane Sandy and the drought in much the U.S. Mid-West and Southeast, millions facing increased water stress. These are no longer theoretical or in the future, they have already arrived.

400 ppm is a clarion call for action, for transforming our building, industrial, transportation, distribution, agriculture, and water systems. A healthy humanity depends on a health earth, and 400 ppm is the planet's rising temperature. The earth has a fever, and humanity will pay the price.

Photo: This December 1972 file photo released by NASA shows a view of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew while traveling toward the Moon. The photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea and Africa, top, to the Antarctic polar ice cap, made visible for the first time by the Apollo trajectory. (AP Photo/NASA)

Monsanto protest reaches Central Texas

Mon, 20 May 2013 21:01:00 +0000

(Texas Media Collective) - An upcoming global initiative involving thousands of demonstrations will call out Monsanto Corporation for its seed monopoly, genetic modification of organisms (GMO), and court-sanctioned silencing of dissent.

Inspired by the urgency of the problem, new activists have sprung up in unlikely places. One of those is the scenic Central Texas community of Belton, where a March Against Monsanto rally is scheduled to kick off at 1 p.m., Saturday, May 25.

Cole Kelly, a native Texan, began the Belton effort with assistance from co-organizers Kim Berg and Kathe Berg Kitchens, twin sisters who own a small herb farm west of Belton named Bestemor Herb Farm.

The rally will take place at Belton's Confederate Park. The park's name is a reflection of the area's contentious past, but to judge by the growing number of Facebook followers of Kelly's March Against Monsanto Belton page, plans for the event are bringing out local progressives interested in 21st century issues.

Kelly explained that time and resources aren't available to stage a full-scale march, "but a rally is just as good."

Organizers have reserved the park's pavilion, which is closest to the parking lot and offers a clear view of the nearby I-35 highway. "We'll have signs facing the highway - like "No More GMOs," so folks can see them."

Asked if he has been inspired by the national March Against Monsanto effort, Kelly pointed out, "This is global, not just national."

Indeed, rallies by concerned citizens are slated in hundreds of locations, including Nigeria, South Africa, India, South Korea, Australia, Bosnia, and numerous European Union nations, as well as Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, and Canada. The number of participating nations is increasing daily, according to the movement's website.

Kelly said volunteers are needed, in particular for the day of the rally, and he encourages participants to put up signs and to bring their own flyers of organic recipes and household formulas to share with others. He suggests volunteers visit the March Against Monsanto Belton Facebook page.

Organizers are lining up speakers at the rally, with a focus on local farmers and organic nursery owners to speak about the impact of Monsanto's policies on them.

Calling himself a faith-filled Christian, Kelly points out, "How can you make something better than the supreme being has made? It's counter-intuitive to think that. But, I don't want to narrow this down to religious issues. I saw a post online that said we're not all Christians, not all Jews, Muslims, atheists, Republicans, Democrats, or independents. We're who we are as individuals, but as a collective we have to fight this enemy.

"This is a nonviolent movement, a peaceful movement, but it's a strong movement, a power-to-the-people type of movement."

Co-organizers Kathe Berg Kitchens and Kim Berg have been organic gardeners and activists for decades. Kitchens noted in an email, "Monsanto's increasing stranglehold on the plant market is scary at best, and we have to take care to avoid purchasing plants or seeds that come from their Frankenstein labs."

Due to legislation passed by the U.S. Congress, courts are banned from halting the sale of Monsanto's genetically-modified seeds.

This monopoly effectively grants Monsanto control in perpetuity of much of the world's market in the most-trafficked seeds and related products. Previous corporate titans - such as oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, who cornered the market in oil - couldn't copyright the molecular formula for petroleum.

Monsanto, on the other hand, goes Rockefeller several steps further. It patents products it genetically modified from natural seed stock, and by making its products sterile, ensures that farmers must purchase a fresh stock of seeds each year.

By controlling seeds, using GMO to make them unable to propagate, and, as upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court this month, preventing farmers from having any flexibility in using their seeds-Monsanto has proven itself hostile to natural home-grown innovation that can be shared from neighbor to neighbor.

Monsanto takes its control of the market to an even more stifling degree when it applies GMO techniques to pest control. Monsanto jumpstarts normal gene selection by inserting strands designed to act the same as artificial pesticides.

Monsanto rigs the market in its favor, relies on government intervention led by ex-Monsanto executives at the Food and Drug Administration, and sues farmers who don't toe the line - it far exceeds the ambitions of Gilded Age robber barons that author Mark Twain condemned.

Like many citizens around the globe joining in the March Against Monsanto, Kelly doesn't have Monsanto's deep pockets and political connections.

Kelly is an ex-military family man employed in the medical field. He recalls the wholesome example set by his grandmother, who was a dedicated gardener. "She was still working in her garden when she was in her eighties. All kinds of produce. Natural as can be."

Asked if he had a message for those on the fence about this issue, Kelly said, "If you don't take a stand today, tomorrow you'll be eating what somebody says you should be eating. You'll be eating what somebody else is making; you won't have a choice, whether it's good for you or not."

Photo: March Against Monsanto

From California to Wisconsin, wildfire season has begun

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:38:00 +0000

Wisconsin, on May 14, saw its largest wildfire since 1980. Its flames encouraged by strong winds, the blaze burned down 8,700 acres and destroyed 17 homes and 30 other structures.

Meanwhile, in California, another fire that began May 15 has blackened 3,800 acres in Ventura and Kern counties.

It would seem that this is the start of yet another year of numerous fires, as people throughout the U.S. struggle to adjust to the "new normal" in terms of natural disasters - an unfortunate result of climate change.

As it happens, the Wisconsin fire, which started 40 miles southeast of Duluth, Minnesota, was not so much caused by natural conditions as it was fueled by them. The low humidity and winds meant that the fire quickly grew and traveled, but it was logging equipment that was responsible for starting the blaze.

An operator noticed smoke emanating from the equipment while harvesting timber on May 14, and that soon developed into a full-on brushfire. Investigators confirmed that the fire was not intentionally set, and no criminal charges are expected. And despite the damage the fire has caused, there were no injuries reported. It is now 95 percent contained.

"The operator got out of the machine and made a concerted effort to put out the fire using a fire extinguisher located in the cab of the harvester," said Gary Bibow, a fire law enforcement specialist with the state's Department of Natural Resources. "Another operator on the crew immediately called 9-1-1 and DNR resources were on the scene in less than ten minutes."

Things were a little worse in California, where 1,400 firefighters are currently battling the fires that threaten the nearby Hungry Valley State Park and have already decimated parts of Los Padres National Forest. The fire is 25 percent contained, but workers are still struggling to gain an advantage over the blaze, which has also been spread by strong winds.

"The wind was pushing it from bush to bush to bush," said Sean Collins, spokesman for the Kern County Fire Department. "It was pushing pretty hard."

Though it can be argued that wildfires are normal for this time of year, it can also be said that global warming is providing ideal conditions for them to become fierce and difficult to contain.

Gov. Jerry Brown, D-Calif., maintains that climate change has made the state more susceptible to these kinds of disasters. "Our climate is changing," he remarked. "The weather is becoming more intense. Fire season has grown over the last four years. It's gotten longer and larger. The big issue: How do we adapt? Adapting is going to be very, very expensive."

Price matters here, because the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service literally ran out of money to pay for firefighters, fire trucks, and aircraft that dump retardant on flames. Coming up $400 million short this year, the USDA had to borrow money from other forest management programs - which were aimed at fighting big brushfires in the first place. Both the Forest Service and the Interior Department, however, criticized Congress for providing just half of the $1 billion that it cost to fight this year's fires so far. They argue that increasingly dangerous conditions caused by climate change call for greater funding.

Jim Hubbard, the Forest Service's deputy chief of state and private forestry, remarked, "With all that's facing us, how do we accommodate record fires with strained budgets? Based on predictive forecasts, we expect above-normal significant fire potential to result in [excessive] suppression costs."

The state of California has already spent $221 million fighting fires this year. The 50 planes and helicopters that belong to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, most of which normally sit on the airfield this time of year, are already out battling wildfires. It's a bad sign, experts say. There have already been twice the number of wildfires in the state this year as there were in 2012.

Nationwide, moreover, there were 13,115 recorded brushfires as of May 3. That may be correlated to the lack of mountain snowpack in the Western U.S., where much of the burning has been concentrated. That, too, is a result of climate change.

These fires will have a ripple effect as they continue throughout the year, having a negative effect on insects (particularly butterflies), mammals, reptiles, and birds, not to mention plants. Roads, bridges, wastewater systems, and other facilities are also considered vulnerable, if caught in the path of the flames.

David Peterson, a Forest Service research biologist, said, "It's just unprecedented things happening. We're getting into extreme events that seem to be having more and more effects across broader landscapes. It's a difficult challenge. When a fire occurs, there's an expectation it's going to be put out. Can we manage it?"

Photo: A U.S. Forest Service crew fights the wildfire in California (Richard Lui/AP & The Desert Sun).

Students, community protest Utah tar sands conference

Tue, 14 May 2013 23:09:00 +0000

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - Students and concerned citizens from a variety of organizations including Utah Tar Sands Resistance, Mormons for Environmental Stewardship Alliance, Fossil Free U and the Revolutionary Students Union held a protest at a conference of the Institute for Clean and Secure Energy at the University of Utah here. The institute promotes use of tar sands, oil shale and coal. The protesters performed a mike-check, briefly interrupting the conference, and picketed for two hours outside.

Utah currently represents one of the largest sources of potentially useful tar sands in the United States. The state is mostly public land, and any attempt to utilize resources on a large scale must be publicly approved. Corporations hoping to profit from this polluting fuel have attempted repeatedly to gain access to these public lands and have made considerable progress. State legislators have repeatedly attempted to wrest control of public land from federal regulators, hoping to bypass potentially expensive environmental studies and further push development of these environmentally sensitive wild lands.

Many legislators and investors argue that the development of tar sands and oil shale will be a boon to the region, providing an influx of cash and work opportunities. But opponents say this ignores the many long-term consequences of such efforts.

The process necessary to derive usable fuel from tar sands or shale oil requires substantial energy for extraction, development of roads in many wild areas, massive water use and potential water pollution from industrial solvents, and the disastrous effects of the strip-mining necessary to acquire enough of the raw materials to make the processing profitable.

Utah is in one of the most arid regions of the United States, and water in the amounts required will have to be acquired at the expense of both local residents and the environment at large. In addition, many of Utah's rural residents rely on recreation, ranching and tourism for their livelihoods. Not many people are in a hurry to see strip-mined tar sands land, or fields of cooked and crushed gravel and scree from the massive rock-crushing operations of shale oil processing. Finally, many disagree with the very viability of the tar sands or shale oil in question.

An op-ed in the local Deseret News by energy analyst Randy Udall notes repeated attempts over the last 30 years to gain any energy from this area, all of which ended in failure. Udall notes that shale oil developments could take nearly a billion dollars to develop, and would require the same amount of water as nearly 750,000 households. Tons of rock would have to be put through an expensive process to obtain any value, and in the end, 90% of the materials would prove inert and useless.

Tar sands are little better, opponents say. Activist group Before It Starts said in a press release titled "Investors Beware" that tar sand resources in Utah are poor quality, producing a five-to-one ratio of waste to resource, and are in places that are difficult to exploit. Some of the processing would inevitably occur in refineries near Salt Lake City, which already has an atrocious air quality record with some of the worst pollutant levels in the nation.

Nonetheless, drawn by the heady aroma of profit and encouraged by the destructive success of operations in Canada, investors flock to the opportunity to gain in the short term at a terrible long-term cost. Often the federal government acts to facilitate these projects, resulting in serious conflict. At the end of the Bush administration in 2008 the Bureau of Land Management held a massive oil and gas land lease auction in an attempt to turn over control to interested corporations before a new administration could reverse policy, despite protests that environmental studies had been rushed. These leases allowed for drilling across a variety of pristine and picturesque public land sites, including some only a short ways away from national parks enjoyed by the public.

One protester, Tim DeChristopher, founder of the group Peaceful Uprising, undermined the bureau's dubious proceedings by falsely bidding for resource rights in an attempt to prevent their acquisition by the corporations. While DeChristopher was arrested and sentenced to 21 months in prison, his action brought attention to the BLM's disreputable land-lease actions, and a large number were overturned the following year by the Department of the Interior.

The struggle continues, as not all land-leases were overturned, and corporations like Estonia-based Enefit American Oil and Canadian Earth Energy collude with local companies like RedLeaf Resources and the local government in an effort to push forward the development plans. Public outcry has found a focus in groups like Utah Tar Sands Resistance, as well as in a wide variety of alternate organizations protesting the many negative effects to health and environment in the area.

Photo: Protesters at the University of Utah, May 7. Utah Tar Sands Resistance on Facebook.

East Coast to be overrun by billions of cicadas

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:55:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) - Any day now, billions of cicadas with bulging red eyes will crawl out of the earth after 17 years underground and overrun the East Coast. They will arrive in such numbers that people from North Carolina to Connecticut will be outnumbered roughly 600-to-1. Maybe more.

But, as ominous as that sounds - along with scientists' horror-movie name for the infestation, Brood II - they're harmless. These insects won't hurt you or other animals. At worst, they might damage a few saplings or young shrubs. Mostly they will blanket certain pockets of the region, though lots of people won't ever see them.

"It's not like these hordes of cicadas suck blood or zombify people," says May Berenbaum, a University of Illinois entomologist.

They're looking for just one thing: sex. And they've been waiting quite a long time.

Since 1996, this group of one-inch bugs, in wingless nymph form, has been a few feet underground, sucking on tree roots and biding their time. They will emerge only when the ground temperature reaches precisely 64 degrees. After a few weeks up in the trees, they will die and their offspring will go underground, not to return until 2030.

"It's just an amazing accomplishment," Berenbaum says. "How can anyone not be impressed?"

And they will make a big racket, too. The noise all the male cicadas make when they sing for sex can drown out your own thoughts, and maybe even rival a rock concert. In 2004, Gene Kritsky, an entomologist at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, measured cicadas at 94 decibels, saying it was so loud "you don't hear planes flying overhead."

There are ordinary cicadas that come out every year around the world, but these are different. They're called magicicadas - as in 'magic' - and are red-eyed. And these magicicadas are seen only in the eastern half of the United States, nowhere else in the world.

There are 15 U.S. broods that emerge every 13 or 17 years, so that nearly every year, some place is overrun. Last year it was a small area, mostly around the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee. Next year, two places got hit: Iowa into Illinois and Missouri; and Louisiana and Mississippi. And it's possible to live in these locations and actually never see them.

This year's invasion, Brood II, is one of the bigger ones. Several experts say that they really don't have a handle on how many cicadas are lurking underground but that 30 billion seems like a good estimate. At the Smithsonian Institution, researcher Gary Hevel thinks it may be more like one trillion.

Even if it's merely 30 billion, if they were lined up head to tail, they'd reach the moon and back.

"There will be some places where it's wall-to-wall cicadas," says University of Maryland entomologist Mike Raupp.

Strength in numbers is the key to cicada survival: There are so many of them that the birds can't possibly eat them all, and those that are left over are free to multiply, Raupp says.

But why only every 13 or 17 years? Some scientists think they come out in these odd cycles so that predators can't match the timing and be waiting for them in huge numbers. Another theory is that the unusual cycles ensure that different broods don't compete with each other much.

And there's the mystery of just how these bugs know it's been 17 years and time to come out, not 15 or 16 years.

"These guys have evolved several mathematically clever tricks," Raupp says. "These guys are geniuses with little tiny brains."

Past cicada invasions have seen as many as 1.5 million bugs per acre. Of course, most places along the East Coast won't be so swamped, and some places, especially in cities, may see zero, says Chris Simon of the University of Connecticut. For example, Staten Island gets this brood of cicadas, but the rest of New York City and Long Island don't, she says. The cicadas also live beneath the metro areas of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.

Scientists and ordinary people with a bug fetish travel to see them. Thomas Jefferson once wrote about an invasion of this very brood at Monticello, his home in Virginia.

While they stay underground, the bugs aren't asleep. They go through different growth stages and molt four times before ever getting to the surface. They are some of the world's longest-living insects. They drink up a low-protein tree fluid called xylum, which isn't essential to the tree. Then they go aboveground, where they molt, leaving behind a crusty brown shell, and grow a half-inch bigger.

The timing of when they first come out depends purely on ground temperature. That means early May for southern areas and late May or even June for northern areas.

The males come out first - think of it as getting to the singles bar early, Raupp says. They come out first as nymphs (which are essentially wingless and silent juveniles), climb onto tree branches, and molt one last time, becoming adult winged cicadas. They perch on tree branches and sing, individually or in a chorus. Then when a female comes close, the males change their song, do a dance, and mate, he explained.

The males keep mating ("That's what puts the 'cad' in 'cicada,'" Raupp jokes,) and eventually the female lays 600 or so eggs on the tip of a branch. The offspring then dive-bomb out of the trees, bounce off the ground and eventually burrow into the earth, he says.

"It's a treacherous, precarious life," Raupp says. "But somehow they make it work."

This article was reposted from the Associated Press, for which Seth Borenstein is a writer.

Photo: PBS.org

Western black rhino declared extinct

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:31:00 +0000

Two years ago, the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared Africa's western black rhino - a subspecies of the black rhino - to be extinct in the wild after they had not been seen since 2006. At that point, it was still believed that some of the rhinos existed in captivity, and they remained on the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species. Now, however, the western black rhino is officially considered to be extinct worldwide, after being a victim of increasingly devastating poaching and seeing little to no conservation efforts. Today, other species, including the northern white rhino and Asia's Javan rhino, are also at risk.

"The situation could have had very different results if the suggested conservation measures had been implemented," said Simon Stuart, chair of the IUCN species survival commission. "These measures must be strengthened now, specifically managing habitats in order to improve performance, preventing other rhinos from fading into extinction."

Jane Smart, director of the IUCN's global species program, added, "We have the knowledge that conservation works if executed in a timely manner; yet, without strong political will in combination with targeted efforts and resources, the wonders of nature and the services it provides can be lost forever."

In addition to lack of protection, poaching plays a major factor in the dwindling rhinoceros population. The World Wildlife Fund said that what is believed to be the last remaining Javan rhino in Vietnam was killed by poachers in 2010; it had been found dead with a bullet in its leg and its horn removed. Though other Javan rhinos probably live elsewhere, that species is expected to face extinction next, if the situation does not change.

There are only an estimated 29,000 rhinos remaining worldwide. The animals are coveted in certain countries due to the false belief that their horns can cure or fend off cancer. Poachers have capitalized on this superstition and dehorned thousands of the animals in multiple countries - even in national parks.

There are reports, however, of a recent crackdown on poaching in Vietnam, including the sales and trading of the ill-begotten horns, of which both Vietnam and China are large consumers. Two rhino horns were recently seized by customs officials; the substance had most likely come from South Africa, and was worth an estimated $365,000. Vietnam has now announced it will cooperate with South Africa in order to strengthen the crackdown. Initial steps will include setting up a gene bank and DNA analysis training to better track horns that are taken by poachers.

The two governments will also focus on stopping poachers who obtain hunting permits under false pretenses by masquerading as trophy hunters.

South African government spokesperson Peter Mbelengwa remarked, "As part of the cooperation between the two countries, Vietnam is going to provide us with a list of accredited trophy hunters. We will be able to verify their legitimacy."

But experts say that even the most admirable efforts to combat the problem cannot be perfect, comparing such campaigns to games of "whack-a-mole," where when one poaching tactic is defeated, another emerges somewhere else, or in another form.

"The issue seems to be that every time there's a clampdown in one area, another situation emerges," said Dr. Jo Shaw, a rhino expert for the World Wildlife Fund. And the situation is just as dire for rhinos in South Africa as they are elsewhere: in 2012 alone, 668 rhinos were killed by poachers. 232 have been killed so far this year. Unfortunately, Shaw concluded, "the patterns indicate that, this year, it will be over 800."

Photo: LaertesCTB/Flickr (CC)

This article was updated on May 16, 2013.

Cancer doctors slam drug industry for immoral profiteering

Mon, 06 May 2013 17:51:00 +0000

More than 100 leading cancer specialists from around the world have denounced the "astronomical" costs of cancer drugs, suggesting that drug companies are engaged in unethical profiteering.

The doctors, experts in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a potentially deadly blood cancer, are from more than 15 countries on every continent, including about 30 from the U.S., led by Hagop Kantarjian, a prominent leukemia specialist at the prestigious MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. They presented their views April 25 in a stinging article in "Blood," the journal of the American Society of Hematology. It was publicized in a front-page New York Times article the same day, but seems to have dropped off the media radar since then.

"Of the 12 drugs approved by the FDA for various cancer indications in 2012, 11 were priced above $100,000 per year," the doctors wrote. "Cancer drug prices have almost doubled from a decade ago, from an average of $5,000 per month to more than $10,000 per month."

Pharmaceutical companies say they must charge the astronomical prices to pay for the necessary research. However the cancer specialists pointed out that drug companies recover the development costs of these high priced drugs in the first few years, then continue to take in enormous profits basically "for free" in subsequent years.

According to a study by Health Care for America Now, the annual profits of the 11 top pharmaceutical giants reached $83.9 billion in 2012, a 62 percent jump from 2003,

In the medical journal BMJ, Drs. Donald Wright and Joel Lexchin write, ""Companies exaggerate costs of development by focusing on their self reported increase in costs and by not mentioning [their] extraordinary revenue return." In fact, they say, "Pharmaceutical companies' net profits after taxes consistently remain substantially higher than profits for all other Fortune 500 companies.

Many of the doctors who signed the article have themselves had ties to the pharmaceutical industry. They don't dispute the companies' right to make a profit. One of them, Dr. Brian Druker, worked with Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, on developing the highly profitable cancer drug Gleevec. But Druker, who now directs the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Science University, told the Times, "If you are making $3 billion a year on Gleevec, could you get by with $2 billion? When do you cross the line from essential profits to profiteering?"

Novartis first-quarter profits this year were up 7 percent. Analysts predicted a profit of $3.12 billion. The company's incoming Chairman Joerg Reinhardt will receive annual compensation of $4 million.

Pfizer, which makes another CML drug, reported net income of $2.75 billion in the first quarter of this year, up 53 percent from $1.79 billion a year ago.

The cancer specialists focused on the price of drugs to treat CML. But they made it clear that their criticism of astronomical drug prices extends to the entire pharmaceutical industry, and to the U.S. health care system as a whole.

Kantarjian and his colleagues raised the question of what is a moral price for medicines. The doctrine of "just price" says, "by moral necessity, price should reflect worth," they wrote. "One could argue that when a commodity affects the lives or health of individuals, just price should prevail because of the moral implications."

"This doctrine may be different from the doctrine of free market economies where prices reflect 'what the market bears', or what one is willing to pay for a product.

"In Europe and many developed countries," they noted, "universal health coverage shields patients from the direct economic anxieties of illness. Not so in the United States where patients may pay an average of 20% of drug prices out-of-pocket (about $20-30,000 per year, a quarter to a third of an average household budget), and where medical illnesses and drug prices are the single most frequent cause of personal bankruptcies."

And many patients do not take vital prescribed drugs because of the cost.

Without directly stating it, the doctors made an implicit call for government intervention to lower drug prices, including using its purchasing power to negotiate lower prices for Medicare patients - a step supported by President Obama but blocked by congressional Republicans.

"Hopes that the fundamentals of a free market economy and market competition will settle cancer drug prices at lower levels have not been fulfilled," the doctors said.

"As physicians, we follow the Hippocratic Oath of 'Primum non nocere', first (or above all) do no harm. We believe the unsustainable drug prices in CML and cancer may be causing harm to patients. Advocating for lower drug prices is a necessity to save the lives of patients who cannot afford them."

Photo: "Using humor and research to make direct correlations between the pharmaceutical industry and monies being spent, these pill bottles reflect the enormity of Big Pharma." From Courtney Matthews' description of her art piece "Blockbuster." CC BY NC-SA 2.0