{Disarmed} Frist Medical License Renewal Questioned

[Guest guest]

While I find many of his political positions and actions morally repugnant, he does do those missions to Africa.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121805F.shtml Frist's AIDS Charity Paid Consultants December 2005 Frist's lawyer, Vogel, said Friday that he would not give their names because tax law does not require their public disclosure. Frist's office provided a list of 96 donors who were supportive of the charity, but did not say how much each contributed.

The donors included several corporations with frequent business before Congress, such as insurer Blue Cross/Blue Shield, manufacturer 3M, drug maker Eli Lilly and the Goldman Sachs investment firm.

World of Hope gave $3 million it raised to charitable AIDS causes, such as Africare and evangelical Christian groups with ties to Republicans - lin Graham's Samaritan Purse and the Rev. Cortes' Esperanza USA, for example.

http://tinyurl.com/nko8w

http://tinyurl.com/6d8o8 In 2004, the United States Agency for International Development awarded Samaritan’s Purse $5.6 million to work on abstinence programs whose goal is to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa. Never mind that a few years, ago Samaritan’s Purse was censured for proselytizing while carrying out services—paid for with another U.S. AID grant—in earthquake-ravaged El Salvador. Or that Graham believes the Christian Church is the key to stopping or slowing the AIDS epidemic—not condoms or medicine.

Another supporter of Samaritan’s Purse is Senate Majority Leader (and medical doctor) Bill Frist, R-Tenn. Frist established a charity, World of Hope, several months before the Republican National Convention in New York City last summer. He held a fundraiser for World of Hope, pledging that he’d re-give the donated money to one of five charities, including Samaritan’s Purse. Conveniently, donors to the fundraiser bought invaluable face time with Republican lawmakers and, because the contributions went to a nonprofit, circumvented federal lobbying regulations and public disclosure requirements.

Frist spoke at Samaritan’s Purse’s “Prescription for Hope” conference in 2002, which launched Graham’s crusade against condoms—I mean, against HIV. Referring to the use of condoms to stop the spread of the disease, Frist stated, “I as a physician do believe that if you’re going to go this route [and] put morality aside…you may well end up having HIV/AIDS.” Equating using condoms (i.e., having sex) with contracting HIV/AIDS is one stunning example of the right’s unusual definition of ‘compassion’ (as in ‘compassionate conservatism’).

http://tinyurl.com/njc4h Randall Tobias, Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and USAID Administrator...In 1993, he joined Eli Lilly and Company as Chairman, President and CEO. Under Tobias's leadership, the company experienced a dramatic turnaround and enjoyed one of the most successful periods in its history.

On July 2, 2003, President Bush announced his intent to nominate Tobias to serve as the first United States Global AIDS Coordinator with the rank of Ambassador, reporting directly to the Secretary of State. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on October 3, 2003 and sworn in on October 6, 2003. Ambassador Tobias was responsible for launching the highly successful President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and for directing all U.S. Government international HIV/AIDS assistance across the various agencies and departments of the United States Government that deliver it.

On January 19, 2006, President Bush announced his intent to name Ambassador Tobias as the nation's first Director of United States Foreign Assistance, and to nominate him to serve concurrently as Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the principal government agency that administers economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide. He was confirmed as USAID Administrator by the U.S. Senate on March 29, 2006 and sworn in on March 31, 2006. He continues to report to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and holds the rank of Deputy Secretary of State.

http://tinyurl.com/pa73v Politicizing Aid March 2006 ...Currently, the Bush adminisration is overhauling the structures through which the U.S. provides such assistance, and there are reasons to fear that the changes will not be for the better. Under the banner of "transformative diplomacy," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is promising an aid program that is more overtly politicized than ever--one tied less to the ethical imperatives of alleviating poverty than to the White House's short-term political and military objectives.

This month, the Senate has worked to confirm Randall Tobias as the new administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Once promoted, Tobias, currently head of the White House's Office of Global AIDS, will also be the first Director of Foreign Assistance. This position is a deputy-level post at the State Department that will report directly to Secretary Rice.

The administration is also moving USAID inside the State Department. The diverse programs that disperse some $19 billion in foreign assistance each year will be consolidated under the new director's supervision. Streamlining bureaucracy can be a good thing, to be sure. But there are several problems with the changes.

The first is that Tobias's record makes him the wrong man for the job at USAID. Before joining the Bush administration, Tobias was a major Republican campaign contributor who served as CEO of the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co. There, he worked to counter demands for better access to generic AIDS drugs in the developing world by lobbying for corporations' intellectual property rights.

....However, in consolidating USAID under the State Department, the Bush administration is tying aid money to U.S. strategic interests in a far more overt manner. This is part of a wider trend. As Oxfam America argues, "ince the attacks of September 11th there has been a drastic shift in U.S. foreign assistance that has blurred the lines traditionally separating development and humanitarian aid from political and military action."

The paradigm of "transformative diplomacy," unveiled by Secretary Rice in January, is the latest embodiment of this shift. It will include the redeployment of U.S. diplomats from Washington and European cities to countries in Asia and the Middle East. A main thrust of transformative diplomacy is a closer alignment of foreign aid with political concerns. Development advocates worry that this will mean that dollars for poverty- reduction programs will become conditional aid used as payback for allegiance from poorer governments--those countries sufficiently eager to join a "coalition of the willing" or to sign a "free trade" pact.

-----Original Message-----From: EOHarm [mailto:EOHarm ]On Behalf Of Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 9:34 AMEOHarm Subject: {Disarmed} re: Frist Medical License Renewal Questioned

>> While I find many of his political positions and actions morally > repugnant, he does do those missions to Africa.Ugh, don't give him credit for this- those missions are photo ops! What does a transplant surgeon have to offer on a medical mission? Real medical mission work in third world countries is given by primary care MDs and nurses all the time, who pay relatively much more out of their pocket to get there and back.On a related note, I have found that many good hearted medical people who have gone to medically underserved areas all over the world, and demonstrated real commitment to these areas, still have no sense of the profound medical need our own children have here in the US. I have pointed this out more than once, and seen a momentary flash of understanding in their eyes.

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