Times Watch for August 7, 2003
The Running Man
A front-page story by Dean Murphy and Charlie LeDuff, Movie Star In, Senator
Out For Recall Race in California, notes that action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger
has jumped into the race for the California governorship, while Sen. Dianne
Feinstein has declined to run. (Although L.A. based journalist
Mickey Kaus isnt
so sure Feinstein is really out of the race for good.)
Times reporters Dean
Murphy and Charlie LeDuff first offer their readers a little snob appeal: As
extraordinary bookends on a day of fast-moving events, the two decisions could
not have been more dissimilar in style and substance. Public opinion polls have
identified Ms. Feinstein, a Democrat, and Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, as
among the most popular alternatives to Mr. Davis, who faces a recall vote on
Oct. 7.Instead of talking about issues like nuclear proliferation and
appropriations, as Ms. Feinstein did, Mr. Schwarzenegger made light of his
decision to run while joking with [Jay] Leno that it was the toughest one that
he had made since deciding to get a bikini wax. Since Feinstein was at an Aspen
Strategy Group seminar on foreign policy, perhaps her mention of proliferation
wasnt all that newsworthy.
Arianna Huffington, who
also entered the race Wednesday, is positioned by the Times between the
Democrats and Republicans: Earlier in the day, [Arianna] Huffington, a populist
author and syndicated columnist, officially announced her candidacy for
governor. Ms. Huffington said she would not have entered the race if Ms.
Feinstein had decided to present herself as the Democratic alternative. I'm not
interested in splitting the vote, she said. An independent, Ms. Huffington made
no bones about her disdain for both the Republicans and Democrats, calling them
fanatics and fools. California is in deep, deep trouble, she said. Its
citizens deserve more than the partisan, petty and pathetic leadership it's
getting at the moment.
It may suit
Huffingtons political positioning (and that of the Times) for people to think
of her as a pox on both their houses populist. Yet her supporters are on the
left, and so is her rhetoric. On Tuesday Huffington was interviewed by John
Moyers, editor-in-chief of the left-wing
website
TomPaine.com (and son of liberal PBS ubiquity Bill Moyers). In it, the
independent, populist Huffington sounds suspiciously like a garden-variety
liberal: I will work to nationalize this election, and connect the dots between
the disastrous economic policies of the Bush administration and the plight of
California. I will actually expose how laughable is the critique of my
Republican opponents, who are going to focus on Davis' fiscal irresponsibility
while justifying the outrageous fiscal irresponsibility that Bush and his
cronies have unleashed on America.
For the rest of the Times article on the
California scheming,
click here.
California |
Gov. Gray Davis |
Sen.
Dianne Feinstein |
Arianna Huffington |
Labeling
Bias | Recall |
Arnold Schwarzenegger
The
Times Anti-Drug War Continues
A front-page story by Gardiner Harris is the latest
in a series of prominently placed Times stories critical of the drug industry.
After penning (with Sheryl Gay Stolberg) a slanted July 22 piece that
cheerleaded for
drug
reimportation, Harris on Thursday suggests that a certain class of
anti-depression drugs (including Paxil) leads children and teens to increased
suicidal thoughts. The storys headline, Debate Resumes on the Safety Of
Depressions Wonder Drugs, broadly questions their safety, but the actual
article focuses only on their safety for children and teens.
Harris also questions the treatment effectiveness of the entire class of
anti-depression drugs like Paxil and Zoloft (known as selective serotonin
reuptake inhibitors, or S.S.R.I.s), writing that most studies-including those
recently reviewed by British and American health regulators-have found that
S.S.R.I.'s are no more effective in fighting teenage depression than sugar
pills. Even in adults, S.S.R.I.'s have been found to offer only modest benefits.
In about half of all adult tests, the drugs prove no more effective than
placebos. On average, they reduce symptoms of depression by about 41 percent on
a widely used scale, versus a 31 percent reduction among those taking placebos,
according to a survey in 2000 of studies used by the F.D.A. in approving the
drugs.
But an
analysis
of that same survey (published in The Archives of General Psychiatry) notes that
the 31 percent figure, while seemingly high, isnt merely a case of giving
someone a sugar pill and leaving them be. Science News quotes the survey:
Patients who are assigned to placebo treatment in clinical trials are not
untreated. The capsule they receive is pharmacologically inert, but hardly inert
with respect to its symbolic value and its power as a conditioned stimulus."
Science News also pointed out that placebo patients received physical
examinations, attention and guidance from a physician, opportunities to talk
about their condition, and other assistance that chipped away at their
depression. And the market has spoken: Last year Americans bought $5 billion
worth of prescriptions for Paxil and Zoloft (up 13% from 2001), the two most
popular anti-depressants, suggesting a broad swathe of America is finding the
drugs more useful than sugar pills.
For the rest of Harris story
on anti-depression drugs,
click here.
Depression |
Drug Companies |
FDA |
Gardiner Harris |
Paxil |
Suicide |
Teenagers