Trump announces FDA authorization of COVID-19 treatment

President Donald J. Trump announced this evening that the FDA has authorized the use of Convalescent plasma to treat patients suffering from COVID-19.

LIVE: President @realDonaldTrump holds a news conference https://t.co/BvYoN0T57c

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 23, 2020

From the FDA:

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People are now overdosing on anti-diarrhea meds to get high, feds say

The abuse of anti-diarrhea drugs is giving some users a heroin-like high. The Annals of Emergency Medicine recently published a study detailing the dangers of loperamide, the primary ingredient in Imodium, which is sold over-the counter. Loperamide, an opioid, can cause serious heart problems if too much is ingested, the Food and Drug Administration warned Tuesday.… Read the rest of this entry »

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The Asbury Park Press Finally Reports On Pallone’s Pay To Play Scam

Not surprisingly, The Neptune Nudniks let Pallone spin the stroy

By Art Gallagher

The Asbury Park Press has finally reported Congressman Frank Pallone’s interference with the Food and Drug Administration on behalf of a campaign donor.

After receiving campaign contributions from ReGen Biologics, a Hackensack based medical device manufacturer, and its executives in 2008, Pallone, Congressman Steven Rothman and Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menedez , the four legislators pressured the FDA into approving ReGen’s Menaflex knee patch. Menaflex had previously been rejected twice.  This week the FDA reversed the decision and announced it was rescinding the approval.

Pallone told the Asbury Park Press that what he did was routine, what he would do for any constituent. 

ReGen is in Hackensack which is not in the 6th congressional district.  ReGen CEO Gerald Bisbee, who along with his wife Linda contributed $32,000 of the over $50,000 contributed to the legislators and the Democratic party, lives in Connecticut.  John Dichiara, the company’s government affairs director, wrote checks for $20,800.  He lives in New York.

Pallone told the APP that he has three staffers who help residents who are having trouble with government red tape.

Maureen Nevin of Asbury Park has not had as much “routine” help from Pallone.  She hasn’t made any campaign contributions, according to campaignmoney.com

Patrick Donohue hasn’t given any money to Pallone either. Maybe that is why Frank won’t release  H. Con Res. 198, a resolution recognizing Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury as the leading cause of death and disability in the United States for children and young adults from birth until 25 years of age and endorsing the National Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury Plan, from the committee he chairs.

Pallone told the APP that the FDA has mismanaged the project from the beginning. He said that the product is approved in Europe and that, “This is a product that could have helped people. It could have saved people a lot of pain.”

That’s not what Pallone was saying in May of 2009.  He, Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak signed a 16 page letter to the FDA raising questions about the ReGen Menaflex approval and asking them to review it.   That hardly seems routine.  I guess the APP fact checkers missed that.

During his Red Bank town hall meeting in August of 2009, Pallone said “Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman are the two finest people I know in Washington.”

Let’s summarize what we know of Pallone’s involvement with ReGen and the FDA so far.

1) In 2008 Pallone received campaign contributions from ReGen executives and then he joined his NJ colleagues Rothman, Lautenberg and Menedez in applying pressue to the FDA to approve the ReGen product.

2) In 2009, Pallone reversed course.  He joined Waxman, “one of the finest people he knows in Washington” in raising questions about the ReGen product’s approval and asking the FDA to review it.  He did so in a 16 page letter with a signature larger than John Hancock’s.

3) In 2010, while in the midst of the tightest election he has ever faced in his career, Pallone flips again. He tells the Asbury Park Press that what he did was routine, like what he would do for anybody.  He said the FDA mismanaged the process from the beginning and that the product could help a lot of people.

THAT’S WHY WE CALL HIM PHONEY PALLONEY!

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Day 2 Since News Of Pallone’s Influence Peddling Broke, Still No Gannett Coverage

By Art Gallagher

The Kansas City Star thinks it’s newsworthy that New Jersey Congressmen Frank Pallone and Steve Rothman, along with Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez were found to have exerted pressure on the FDA to approve a knee patch that had insufficient scientific backing to be approved for patient care, prompting the FDA to rescind its approval of the project.

The Bergen Record covered the story.  So did phillyburbs.com , who ran the Associate Press coverage.

Nothing from the Asbury Park Press or MyCentralJersey.

Someone(s) from Gannett visited MMM 16 times today.  They read my story about the lack of coverage and the Little campaign’s  press releases about it. At least we know that someone at Gannett knows about it.  Maybe they’ll cover it tomorrow.

They’ve been busy writing about the fact that someone started a website to draft Governor Christie to run for President, even though Christie repeatedly says he’s not running.  What’s newsworthy about that? Anyone can start a website.  I even did it! 

They’ve also been busy writing about a few people (28 out of 40,000) who complained about getting Gerry Scharfenberger’s reverse 9-11 call too late in the evening.

I can understand how the fact that a 22 year incumbent congressman who is up for reelection was found to have inappropriately influenced the federal agency that is charge with guarding our food, and assuring the safety of our medicine and medical devices, in exchange for campaign cash, might slipped by them.  Now that we know that they know, I’m sure they’ll cover it.  Don’t you think?

The Gannett papers wouldn’t let their bias influence what news to report, would they?   Especially after writing a scathing editorial earlier this year about Rupert Murdoch donating $1 million to conservative causes.  The wrote so eloquently about how hard legitimate journalists work to be unbiased.

I’m sure they just haven’t gotten to Pallone’s graft and putting the health of thousands of Americans at risk yet.  Now that they know about it, I’m sure they’ll cover it.  Don’t you think?

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Is The Entire NJ Mainstream Media In The Tank For Pallone?

By Art Gallagher

The FDA made an extraordinary and unprecedented move today when it announced that it was rescinding its 2008 approval of a medical device. The FDA said that the approval was made in error, after the product had already been rejected, based upon political pressure made by Congressman Frank Pallone and Steve Rothman as well as Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez.  All four knee jerks waged their campaign for the product’s approval by the FDA after receiving significant campaign contributions from the product’s manufacturer.

It’s pretty big news when a federal agency reverses itself and cites the inappropriate, if not illegal, actions of four federal legislators from the same state as the reason for their errant decision.  Don’t you think?   Some might say it is something of a scandal.  No?

The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, Fox, The LA Times, TIME and many others thought it was newsworthy today.

Not so the NJ Media outlets.  The Star Ledger’s NJ.com has a difficult to find article on the matter, but their piece doesn’t mention Pallone, Rothman, Lautenberg or Menendez.

The APP and MyCentralJersey have nothing on it. The Associated Press, the news syndicate the APP and MyCentralJersey(the website for the Courier News and the Home News Tribute) get much of their news from,  published a the story, with the knee jerks named, at 4:30 this afternoon.

The Little Campaign issued at press release on the matter, questioning what else Pallone has sold his office for, at 5:05 this afternoon.

Maybe the story broke too late in the day for the Neptune Nudniks and their MyCentralJersey brethren and they will cover it tomorrow.  What’s the Star Ledger’s excuse from editing out Pallone, Rothman, Lautenberg and Menedez from the story? The Star Ledger subscribes to the Associated Press too.

My guess is that they are unfair and biased, i.e biased and pretending not to be.

UPDATE:  It has come to our attention that the APP has a reporter working on a story about Gerry Scharfenberger’s reverse 9-11 call about recycling, with a political rather than budgetary or environmental slant.  That’s a higher priority than Pallone selling his office and putting patients’ health at risk. 

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