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PAGE A4P KEIZERTIMESP SEPTEMBER 2P 2016 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM EpiPen is mighty—but only for those who can afford it By SCOTTA CALLISTER Controversy continues to rage over the EpiPen, fueled by social media protests over what many see as price gouging or profi teering by Mylan, the company that makes the device. EpiPens are used to easily inject a dose of epinephrine into someone struck by a severe allergic reaction. According to the Centers for Disease Control, epinephrine is the only rec- ommended fi rst-line treatment for the most serious reaction, anaphy- laxis, which can progress to seizures, cardiac distress and death. Such emergencies are no longer rare. The CDC estimates that 4-6 percent of U.S. children suffer food allergies that can cause serious reac- tions. In addition to some common foods – such as peanuts, milk, eggs, and shellfi sh –substances like latex and insect stings are common cul- prits. Adults, as well as children, are at risk. The problem is so pervasive to- day that restaurants, schools, hospi- tals and other institutions routinely post warnings about the use of nuts and other trigger ingredients in their menus. Against that backdrop of concern, the price of EpiPens is soaring out of reach of many households. A recent Washington Post article put the in- crease at 450 percent since 2004. And Mylan has a monopoly on the device. The most recent price hikes spurred howls of protest from con- sumers online, drawing attention in the media and the halls of Con- gress. Facing unprecedented scrutiny, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch took a stab at calming the debate earlier this month. However, there was a defi nite cringe factor in her closing defense that, hey, we’re a for-profi t business. We can certainly see the profi t mo- tive, given that EpiPen sales have been worth $1 billion a year to Mylan. And given that the devices cost a few bucks to make and now sell for $600 a two-pack. And given that Bresch’s total compensation rose 671 percent from 2007 to 2015. The company’s profi t motive isn’t apt to calm the frustration of parents whose children could die because they no longer can afford to have these devices on hand. For these families, it’s not like a choice be- tween expensive Nikes and low-cost Keds; it’s about life or death, because there’s no low-cost alternative to the EpiPen on the market. That may be changing. With con- tinuing public outrage, the company produced plan B: It would remedy the situation by offering savings cards – worth up to $300 on the cost of the two pack – and there’s also talk that it will produce a lower-cost “generic” version of its own product. Those moves haven’t blunted all the criticism. Harvard Medical School professor Aaron Kesselheim told the Post that the cards are “a classic public rela- tions move by the pharmaceutical in- dustry” – offering a benefi t that will reach only a fraction of the people who need the pens. Other critics say generics only guarantee competitive prices when there are other manufac- turers in the market. Meanwhile, Huffi ngton Post writer Andrew Palumbo, himself a parent of a child with food allergies, cast the discounts as a way to distract the public until the hubbub dies down, at which point any special programs could be quietly discontinued. In a post, he demanded that Bresch “cut the price of EpiPens and resign.” We doubt that Bresch will step down to suit one angry parent, or even a deluge of them on social me- dia. But we also believe the issue is far from dead. This week, a Congres- sional committee launched an inves- tigation. One thing’s certain: If the price remains too high for many families, a toddler or child could die because a simple device is out of their fi nancial reach. The resulting PR storm would make this one look like a gentle sum- mer breeze. guest opinion VFW snubbed by state fair (Scotta Callister is the publisher of the Malheur Enterprise in ValeP OR.) letters To the Editor: After more than 16 years, the new manage- ment of the Oregon State Fair is not going to allow VFW Post 661 to show its nation’s uniforms at the fair. The VFW was given a spot as a non-profi t; now it is pay-to-play. Whatever answer they give it’s all political. It is their way of getting to the truth. All for the money. I’m a veter- an and I think all veter- ans should boycott the fair. Carlos Grant Keizer Share your opinion Email a letter to the editor (300 words) by noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com Does Trump know what it means to preach? By MICHAEL GERSON So far, Donald Trump’s outreach to African-Americans has consisted of stereotyping them as impoverished, as attending failed schools and as unem- ployed, and then asking what the hell they have to lose by supporting him. If this sounds like a typically biased media summary of Trump’s views, here he is: “You live in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs ... . What the hell do you have to lose?” Most people, it turns out, don’t like being referred to as part of an undif- ferentiated mass of failure and de- spair, particularly when the assertion is wildly inaccurate (most African- Americans don’t live in poverty). And this message is particularly diffi cult to swallow from a white guy who ini- tially could not bring himself to repu- diate David Duke, who has retweeted bogus and racist crime statistics, and whose campaign chairman ran a web site that legitimizes white nationalism. In his (very partial) defense, Trump often seems unaware that he is spout- ing offensive drivel. In speaking to “the blacks,” Trump is Archie Bunker on an outreach tour (the youngsters should look it up). But this is part of the problem for the GOP. Archie Bunker didn’t realize he was acting like Archie Bunker. In many ways, Trump’s campaign seems like a rerun of politics in the late 1960s and early 1970s. On foreign policy, the Republican nominee some- times sounds like George McGovern’s “Come Home America.” In appeal- ing to racial division and blue-collar resentment, Trump echoes George Wallace’s “Stand Up for America.” In placing “law and order” at the center of his campaign, Trump is channeling Richard Nix- on, who played to a silent ma- jority’s fear of social disorder. But political nostalgia can have major policy impli- cations. For example, when Nixon employed “lock ‘em up” rhetoric, only about 100 people were incarcerated per 100,000 of the population (a level that had not substantially changed since the 1920s). Now that fi gure is more than 700—lower than at the peak, but still the highest rate in the world. Trump is addressing the crime issue near the end of a massive, un- precedented experiment in routine incarceration. And he seems to have no idea what he is doing, or undoing. Trump is correct that people in poor and minority communities suf- fer fi rst and most when crime is ram- pant and violent recidivists go free. Poor people depend on public order; wealthier people can purchase order with gates, guards and moving trucks. But an understandable response to high crime rates has had a series of unintended consequences. Some neighborhoods feel like they are un- der military occupation. Mass incar- ceration removes large numbers of men and women from communities, then returns large numbers to com- munities with even worse problems and prospects—a constant churn of downward mobility. Children are hurt in countless ways when their parents are imprisoned. Young people are too easily sucked into a criminal justice system that too often recruits them into criminal careers. The elements of our criminal jus- other views tice system that are most destructive and criminogenic have become the focus of a remarkable reform move- ment in recent years. Steven Teles and David Dagan tell the story in their recent book, Prison Break: Why Con- servatives Turned Against Mass Incarcera- tion. Unexpectedly, they argue that the almost complete consolidation of Republican power in certain states has reduced the political motivation for attacking Democrats as soft on crime. Deep red states such as Texas and Georgia have taken the lead in juve- nile justice reform that offers alterna- tives to incarceration without making the streets less safe. Libertarians such as the Koch brothers are predictably skeptical of denying liberty, as a matter of course, to more than 2 million people at any given time. But they have been joined by religious conservatives who are prone to believe in the possibility of human redemption and infl uenced by the prison reform work of the late Chuck Colson. House Speaker Paul Ryan would probably fall into both categories. “I think we need to let more people earn a second chance in life,” he has argued. “Instead of locking people up, why don’t we unlock their potential?” With his misguided, simplistic and offensive rhetoric, Trump has been blowing up bridges across ideologi- cal divides for more than a year now, which may take many Republican presidential campaigns to rebuild. But this is one area—if he and his advisers are smart and willing to reverse course —that he might abandon a slogan from 1968 for a policy more suited to our time. (Washington Post Writers Group) Freedom of, and from, religion Keizertimes Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • KeizerP Oregon 97303 phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com SUBSCRIPTIONS NEWS EDITOR Eric A. Howald editor@keizertimes.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Derek Wiley news@keizertimes.com One year: $25 in Marion CountyP $33 outside Marion CountyP $45 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY ADVERTISING Publication No: USPS 679-430 Paula Moseley advertising@keizertimes.com POSTMASTER Send address changes to: PRODUCTION MANAGER Andrew Jackson Keizertimes Circulation graphics@keizertimes.com 142 Chemawa Road N. LEGAL NOTICES KeizerP OR 97303 legals@keizertimes.com EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Zaitz publisher@keizertimes.com BUSINESS MANAGER Laurie Painter billing@keizertimes.com Periodical postage paid at SalemP Oregon RECEPTION Lori Beyeler facebook.com/keizertimes twitter.com/keizertimes Being ignorant does not necessarily mean a person is evil or bad; rather, it simply can mean that the person does not know. He may not wish to know something and he may reject knowledge in order to protect his be- liefs. Whatever the case, this consid- eration with all its permutations and complications has a lot to do with a debate that’s continued unsettled in the minds of many among us for well over 200 years. Is the United States of America a Christian nation? There are a few arguments that, when considered, may serve to refute what turns out to be a Christian na- tion myth. Yet, even with presentation of relevant information, the myth’s legacy endures and has now—as it has for all those years since the adoption of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights in the late 1700s—and remains to infl uence American politics and public policy. But let’s get directly into this per- sistent issue with this relevant ques- tion: If a Christian nation had been the intent of our nation’s founders, would those men of old not have written it at the very front of our Constitu- tion? However, if the seeker of truth will just read the document from start to fi nish he will fi nd no reference to God, Jesus Christ, or Christianity. If one stays within the document itself, it does not state that our nation is of- fi cially a Christian nation. The Constitution provides no rec- ognition to or acknowledgement of Christianity, including Article VI that bans “religious tests” for public of- fi ce. The First Amendment bars all laws “respecting an establishment of religion” and protects “the free exer- cise thereof.” Should he who doubts seek refuge in the Declaration of In- dependence where the reference to “the creator” is made, there again he will be denied a Chris- tian reference. G e o r g e Wa s h i n g t o n viewed his god as the “supreme architect” of the universe. He saw reli- gion as necessary for good and moral behavior but wrote in support of reli- gious liberty. In his 1790 Touro Syna- gogue letter he wanted Jews to enjoy religious liberty not mere toleration and outlined his preferences in the de- sign of a new nation—not a Christian nation—but one of multi-faith where all would be free to practice as they will. Founding Fathers James Madison and Thomas Jefferson stood fi rmly against the co-mingling of state and church. They did not support the es- tablishment of an offi cial Christian nation. They were knowledgeable in world history and knew how the offi cial Christian governments of Eu- rope had deprived their citizens of freedoms. Then, too, they were well acquainted with the religious wars among rival factions of Christianity. Alexander Hamilton wrote in one of his papers that there were to be no religious duties of the U.S. president. Hamilton explained that the presi- dent would differ from the English king in that “the one (president) has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction; the other is the supreme head and gover- nor of the national church” (in Eng- land). Suffi ce it to say that the United States was not founded on the Chris- tian faith; rather, those who put it to- gether sought a refuge for all faiths where men and women could come gene h. mcintyre together as brothers and sisters of good will for the common good and estab- lish and sustain a nation. That condi- tion of union has been the case for the past 225 years, its existence, rights and beliefs kept whole by a Constitution and its 27 amendments in the Bill of Rights. Although caution is my watch- word, a fi nal note from this colum- nist’s personal experience, having lived and worked in the Middle East, has to do with Muslims. Inshallah is one of their favorite expressions, one they utter about everything all day long. Translated, it means, “If God’s will- ing.” They recognize their religious leaders as representing Allah and thereby what they’re told by their imams they do because their think- ing process is a priori (blind-faith ac- ceptance of dogma without question), that is, that imams speak God’s will. Thousands of them are coming into the U.S. as refugees. Will they try to be Americans and abide by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights? Or, will they try by every means pos- sible to destroy America as so many of their insidiously hateful brethren seek to achieve overseas? Our founding fa- thers knew about Islam but it’s doubt- ful they ever thought it’d be present in America and that the Koran would one day be used as a road map to a Muslim nation where a Constitu- tion prevails. The U.S. will never establish de- mocracies in the Middle East because Muslims do not want the West’s free- doms there any more than they want them here. They accept only their re- ligious enslavement as their govern- ment: that’s their culture and way of life and they totally reject any change. (Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap- pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)
