So Whole Foods CEO John Mackey wrote an Op Ed in the WSJ opposing real health insurance reform, and pushing his store's products as the solution, during the heat of the August recess debate, which outraged liberals enough to call for a boycott. And the next day his attorney Lanny Davis, the notorious triangle shaped DNCkratic political operative, admitted he "helped" write some of it.
Here's something from January past I bet you haven't seen yet:
http://naturalspecialtyfoodsmemo.blo...
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 NaturalSpecialtyFoodsMemo Blog
Retail Memo: Whole Foods Offers Carrot and Stick to Retailers That Have Yet to Comply to Subpoena For Trade Secret Data and Information
During yesterday's teleconference with reporters and Bloggers, Sud said Whole Foods Market, Inc. has begun sending written requests to those remaining retailers, of the 93 or 94 the natural grocery chain subpoenaed months ago but have yet to comply, for their trade secrets ......
continued over the flip
"Sud" is another Whole Foods executive, and he's discussing the defense tactics used against the FTC lawsuit accusing Whole Foods of monopolizing the competition. Look who gets access to said competition's proprietary information:
http://naturalspecialtyfoodsmemo.blo...
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 NaturalSpecialtyFoodsMemo Blog
Retail Memo: Whole Foods Offers Carrot and Stick to Retailers That Have Yet to Comply to Subpoena For Trade Secret Data and Information
During yesterday's teleconference with reporters and Bloggers, Sud said Whole Foods Market, Inc. has begun sending written requests to those remaining retailers, of the 93 or 94 the natural grocery chain subpoenaed months ago but have yet to comply, for their trade secrets which the natural grocery chain hopes will show that it isn't a monopolist in what the FTC calls the "premium natural and organic retailing segment," but rather that there's plenty of competition to go around. We reported on Monday that the natural grocery chain had started sending the letters out to those retailers that have not yet complied with its subpoena. The deadline to do so was November 4, 2008.
Only Whole Foods' outside legal council, which includes Lanny Davis, a partner at the Washington, D.C. office of the Orrick law firm and the the natural grocery chain's lead council in its legal battle with the FTC, and Paul Denis, a partner at the Washington, D.C. office of the Dechert law firm and the attorney who will argue the case at the April 6, 2009 FTC Administrative hearing/trail in which its possible the merger will be overturned at, will have access to the retailers' proprietary information, Sud said at yesterday's teleconference.
That Orrick law firm had a woman attorney working for them in San Franciso, that was hooked in with some real "iffy" too bogus- looking, professional anti war protestors here in Sacramento, that help set up a RussoMarsh/MoveAmericaForward Republican swiftboating type operation against Cindy Sheehan in 2006 and Democrat candidate Charlie Brown in 2008. So Lanny Davis works for Orrick. Strike one on credibility.
Did y'all see heart of a quince's dailykos diary about how WF CEO Mackey and 2 officers just sold off a bunch of Whole Foods stock right before he pulled this crap ? $1.76 Million dollars worth of stock sold
http://www.dailykos.com/...
And guess who else just confessed to writing the WSJ Op Ed - Mackey's coauthor, his attorney LANNY DAVIS, was privy to all of this insider information and is now crowing about it ? http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/... strike two on credibility.....
Can you say it now looks even more suspicious, as if something is going on here about price manipulation ?
Ever heard of "product placement" that mentions a brand name in the news for a kickback ?
Because the NYTimes, as I posted earlier yesterday in 2 comments, just ran an article about the "high cost of eating gluten free foods" http://www.nytimes.com/... and said
As awareness grows and the market expands, perhaps the prices of gluten-free products will come down. Meanwhile, if you suffer from the disease, here are some ways to keep your costs down.
/snip
If you’re too busy to cook, look for well-priced gluten-free food at large chains like Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s.
Gluten free foods are those which do not contain proteins of wheat, rye, or barley, which in some people with certain genes, trigger an auto immune reaction which causes intestinal damage leading to malnutrition and other symptoms, even neurological damage.
Whole Foods for Gluten Free shopping? Didn't they just make the news?
And calling them "Well priced?" Was the writer on hallucinogens when that was written?
The NYTimes article also talked a lot about using tax deductions to write off gluten free purchases here in the US. This has been discussed in gluten free forums. I have one word: DON'T. Unless you like being audited. This is how the Right Wing Bankers like to sell those "health insurance accounts." The lovely irony is, they talk about how in some European countries, like Italy and Great Britain, gluten free foods are subsidized by the government, so that is a good reason to do this. Oh, the horror. It would never occur to these idiots that the tax idea is SOCIALIZED MEDICINE.
If you read that NYTimes link, you will see there is mention of the lack of medical support for gluten intolerance/celiac (meaning people with it have a lot of difficulty getting diagnosed, then have to deal with dummy doctors)
Some doctors blame drug makers, in part, for the lack of awareness and the lack of support. "The drug makers have not been interested in celiac because, until very recently, there have been no medications to treat it," said Dr. Peter Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University. "And since drug makers are responsible for so much of the education that doctors receive, the medical community is largely unaware of the disease."
This is true. Doctors are trained to diagnose based on what drugs to proscribe to treat, not to diagnose based on what sorts of grain proteins to avoid- and most of them are underdiagnosing the disease because the insurance companies insist on certain diagnostic criteria being met, not symptoms observed. Blood tests are not 100% accurate, and without a positive hit on that, they won't order a biopsy of the small intestine to check for damage. Plus, the symptoms are not uniform as the disease can express itself quite differently than descriptions of wasting away, which are found in textbooks. (The majority of people with it never get diagnosed, are told they have "IBS" or "fibro" or "thyroid" or are "depressed," and/or go decades after the damage is starting, before it is diagnosed)
Notice the tense of the word Dr. Green used there about medication, "until very recently"- that is because it is not known to the general public and even to some gluten intolerant/celiac people that there are some drugs now in clinical trial study phase that are being tested for their ability to alter how the gluten intolerant/celiac person's gut chemistry reacts to the gluten proteins. There is also some use of extremely expensive ATNF biological modifying drugs for other related auto immune conditions such rheumatoid arthritis. It has just recently been discovered there is a common genetic link between these 2 conditions and an increased chance of offspring having autism, where I posted science links in another dailykos diary discussion on 7/27/09 about yet ANOTHER NYTimes article which drew bogus conclusions about diet and disease, from new scientific research. LINKS TO COMMENTS:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
link to Pediatrics July 5 2009 "Association of Family History of Autoimmune Diseases and Autism Spectrum" (JohnsHopkins Univ Baltimore)
http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...
These autoimmune conditions have sex biases. 4 times more boys than girls develop autism. Twice as many girls than boys develop gluten intolerance/celiac.
This is because of how the inheritance works.
I think that is why we don't see a higher incidence of gluten intolerance in autistic children, but we do see some gluten intolerance, and it would explain it. Since undiagnosed gluten intolerance can cause malnutrition and malabsorption of vitamin B nutrients, which in turn effects emotions, it's no wonder that some parents find that some children respond to a gluten free diet. I don't want to threadjack my own diary on a tangent, but follow the above links.
Now back to Whole Foods market share, editorializing about health insurance, and medically necessary diets:
Recently there was an excellent article in Scientific American by Dr Alessio Fasano,explaining how it is now accepted that "leaky gut theory" is akin to gluten intolerance. link:
page 5 of the August 2009 Scientific American article
"Celiac Disease Insights; Clues to solving Autoimmunity"
http://www.scientificamerican.com/...
Discovery of zonulin prompted us to search the medical literature for human disorders characterized by increased intestinal permeability. It was then that we first learned, much to my surprise, that many autoimmune diseases—among them, Celiac Disease, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel diseases—all have as a common denominator aberrant intestinal permeability. In many of these diseases, the increased permeability is caused by abnormally high levels of zonulin. And in Celiac Disease, it is now clear that gluten itself prompts exaggerated zonulin secretion (perhaps because of the patient’s genetic makeup).
(ARC note: in the above quote, I expanded the abreviation "CD" to Celiac Disease. Unfortunately the author is not using "gluten intolerance" also. There are people who are gluten intolerant who do not have classic celiac, altho being glu/int causes it. "Zonulin" is a human protein,involved in cell function,in the gut,explained below)
2006 Press Release from drug company Alba http://www.prnewswire.com/...
Zonulin is an endogenous signaling protein that transiently and
reversibly opens the tight junctions between the cells of epithelial and
endothelial tissues such as the intestinal mucosa, blood brain barrier and
pulmonary epithelia.
Alba Therapeutics Corporation is a privately held biopharmaceutical
company based in Baltimore, Maryland. Alba is dedicated to commercializing
disease-modifying therapeutics and vaccine and drug delivery adjuvants
based on the zonulin pathway. Alba's lead molecule, AT-1001, is targeted
towards the treatment of Celiac Disease and Type 1 Diabetes and other
autoimmune diseases.
This is a complicated enough medical/pharmaceutical research project that it should be years before they actually come up with something that works, but that doesn't mean that "they" (people who invest and buy and sell stocks) won't be trying to encourage investments in certain related fields.
(full disclosure. yes, I'm gluten intolerant, but I'm one of those who would NOT take medication as this auto immune reaction can be fully controlled by diet, and I don't want to take pills to resume eating "rat seed poison" deliberately. I've just been following the story pretty closely.)
What I have noticed in the past few years are more people discovering they are gluten intolerant, (it's not my imagination, researchers have upped the numbers to now say about 1 in 100 instead of 1 in 133 likely have it) and more retailers who are selling and more manufacturers making gluten free foods, which is wonderful if this is what you need to eat.
What I also noticed at the new Whole Foods that opened this past year, in a very wealthy Northern CA McSprawlburg about 25 miles from I live, is that the management deliberately scattered all the gluten free items all over the damned store, instead of grouping them together, so it's MUCH more time consuming and challenging to attempt to purchase them. (okay, I admit it, I went there a few times when it opened, was not real impressed, and pretty much stick to my regular grocery and health food stores which are cheaper. So I won't have any trouble boycotting them because of their stupid CEO's anti health insurance policy) This would also have the effect of making one tend to put OTHER non gluten things in one's shopping cart to increase the bill, because you have to walk the whole store. Clever marketing ploy. Bad customer relations.
Whole Foods is under intense marketing pressure from retailers like Walmart, who are starting to stock gluten free grocery items. And from many mail order companies that sell gluten free items much cheaper. And by independent small retailers that do GF specialty baking. More customers equals more demand, but also a demand for cheaper staples, and Whole Foods does not thrive on being cheap- they thrive on you feeling UNWELL,and thinking that eating MORE EXPENSIVE food is going to make you feel better.
Get the connection? We tend to think that more expensive = higher quality. That's the cachet of Whole Foods.
_______________
Okay, let's connect the dots.
•Whole Foods sells gluten free groceries.
•The need for gluten free groceries is a medical issue related to the diagnosis of auto immune disease
•Whole Foods CEO John Mackey puts name to WSJ OpEd piece, opposing Democratic health insurance reform, using Republican/Libertarian freemarket anti tax rhetoric
• Subsequently, his attorney and long time right wing Fox News shill "Democrat" for hire Lanny Davis admits to at least co authoring the WSJ piece
• Lanny Davis, Mackey's attorney, HAS INSIDER INFORMATION on the retailer's competition because he's the lawyer requesting this via lawsuits dealing with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) vs. Whole Foods concerning the takeover of Wild Oats.
•Lanny Davis and Joe Lieberman best buddies in 2006- Lieberman's wife works for a pharmaceutical company. Lanny Davis was on CNN's Larry King show in early January 2009 talking about his "close friend" Hillary Clinton. Lanny Davis times his announcement about his helping to write Mackey's WSJ op ed the day Bill Clinton goes before the Netroots Convention in Pittsburg and urges the netroots to fight on for at least half a loaf.
Lanny Davis says he's "for single payer." Pigs fly, Lanny, pigs fly high in your airspace.
• New York Times runs health article the day after, on "the high cost of eating gluten free" and recommends shopping at Whole Foods and using tax deductions.
• Subsequently, dailykos poster heart of a quince reveals WF CEO John Mackey just dumped a bunch of stock right before the WSJ article was published
• Just before that, Scientific American posts August issue story about progress in celiac/gluten intolerance research by leading scientist involved in drug study, Dr. Alessio Fasano ( who owns stock in the Pharma start up company, Alba, now doing clinical trials for a drug for celiacs to take to counter the effect that gluten proteins have on their immune systems )
______________
Strike three. All these political clowns are trying to game the gluten free market investor's, food and pharmaceutical, and the outcome of the health insurance reform.
If and when the Pharma industry researchers advance to marketing phase with a drug that works to change gluten protein reactions successfully as to protect patients from accidental gluten, AND from long term disease complications, I predict that the rush will be on to suddenly devise more accurate tests and better working diagnostic criteria for gluten intolerance/celiac. That push to diagnose more won't just be by the patients with the mysterious symptoms that they can't resolve, but by Big Pharma with drugs to sell. One such drug which inhibits "zonulin," a protein which controls gut permeability, is already in clinical trials.
There is, when this happens, also going to be an effect on the retail marketing of gluten free foods, but I am not sure what that effect will be. Any drug will NOT be a "cure" because that is not possible, they are attempting to design these things as something that is taken in addition to using a gluten free diet. The problem is that the preliminary HYPING of the interest in developing the drug is being done in PR marketing terms of "use this pill and you won't have to worry about what you eat." Or worse, suggestions are made that going to a gluten free diet doesn't really resolve symptoms- this is extremely rare. Or that the diet is "too difficult" to stick with. If you read the Scientific American article, one of the leading researchers in the disease is pushing this idea already, which I disagree with. I don't think it is a good idea to encourage that.
Increased rate of sanctioned medical diagnosis of gluten intolerance, spurred by Big Pharma drug companies (about 30% of the population carries the genes for celiac/gluten intolerance, and about 1 in 100 of the general population is thought to go on to develop it) and/or the increased use of genetic typing should lead to more demand and availability of gluten free foods by retailers.
Getting rid of the Insurance Industry's purging pre- existing conditions = no future insurance coverage would motivate more people to get genetic testing, and likely increase the rate of diagnosis. That's more retail demand for gluten free foods.
But here is the CEO of Whole Foods coming out against the Public Option, universal coverage, health insurance/health care reform that would lead to greater education,knowledge,diagnosis,and treatment. And greater amounts of gluten free shopping. At his store.
It doesn't make any sense.
Unless one was being diabolically clever at pursuing an angle that wasn't obvious.
From the comments at Huffpo, from "frontstreet" at 11:36pm on 8/14/09, this sums it up precisely:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
SEND YOUR WHOLE FOOD BAGS BACK TO HEADQUARTERS IN AUSTIN.
I am going to send my Whole Food sacks back to headquarters so he can pass them on to someone who might actually use them again, perhaps Michelle Malkin or Anne Coulter. The most odious thing about his op-ed is the notion that people who are ill are responsible in some way for their own illness. Though lifestyle contributes to some diseases, there are many diseases that have no known cause and no known cure. Unfortunately for him, many of those diseases are autoimmune disorders that affect women between the ages of 20 and 40, such as lupus, MS, myasthenia gravis, and the like. Seventy-five percent of people with immune disorders are women, and at present these women are uninsurable. Ending the pre-existing condition exclusion would allow these women to buy insurance, obtain treatment, and maintain their dignity and independence. Since he has such a low regard for his own customers, he doesn't deserve their business.
I could not have said it any better myself.
