Arkansas Blog

We'll just keep that in our back pocket when Hillary! heads to Nashua on Jan. 21, 2009 - the day after John McCain is sworn in.

Second line, same verse.
Where is Webb Hubbell?? still alive??

Yes, yes, and Clinton was running drugs thru Mena and killing little boys on railroad tracks....what else is new.

By all means, let us brush aside the dark clouds plagued the Clinton regime, And hope that Hillary has learned her lesson.

But, but, but...HARD-WORKING WHITE AMERICANS, HARD-WORKING WHITE AMERICANS!!!!

It's a little sad that I correctly guessed which paper published this "article" before doing the link.

Don't worry, Wes. It's not brushed aside. It will never be brushed aside. As long as there is a breath left in a right wing nut, there will be money being spent on what Kenneth Starr and millions couldn't uncover. Never fear, your grandchildren will probably be investigating the Clintons - nothing will ever be 'brushed aside'.

I'm with ya rockstar, I began reading it and began to wonder how such minutiae could suddenly be of importance given that Darth Cheney had threatened a U.S. Marshall with arrest if the Marshall attempted to serve a subpoena on him for his secret oil policy meetings. The subpoena was brought by Judicial Watch, the same group who began the hunt for Clinton's wrongdoings.

Then I looked and lo and behold the Moonie-Loonie Washington Times. Imagine that.

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Clintons Have Been Stealth Republicans Since 1982
Gene Lyons has been a smug, smarmy Clinton Apologist since the Clintons sold their souls to Sam Walton, Witt & Jack Stephens, Don Tyson and every other Global Corporatist home-based in Arkansas. Hillary was rewarded with a lucrative job at the Rose Law Firm( Arkansas' most prominent corporate- law firm dedicated to union busting, venal greed, and all things corporate) and a six year term on the Wal-Mart Board, $100,000.00 of Wal Mart stock and Mr. Sam's continuous public affirmation of Hillary as Wal-Mart's most valuble board member. The Clintons's abominable behavior in both their public and private lives was completely hidden by the Arkansas' corrupt to the bone media for 12 years and Gene Lyons was a major player in that endeavor both then and now. I'm convinced the White Water business was always a " Red Herring " as was Bill's convenient sexual addiction.
Recently Lyons published a plagiarized Swift Boat piece originally spewed about Obama as written weeks earlier by Larry C. Johnson and referenced by Mark Crispin Miller's piece entitled 'Three Strikes For Obama'.
Bill and Hillary have been a tandem act throughout their political careers. They have separately and individually been allowed to practice the most egriegious hypocrisy, unchallenged, for decades.
Arkansas never benefitted from the Clintons' contributions during his twelve years as governor and eight years in the White House...until Bill's rich friends and thousands of brain dead contributors of modest means enabled him to build a monument to his ego fittingly shaped in the form of a mobile home and called The Clinton Presidential Library which overlooks the Arkansas River in my homestate.... and which also overlooks the profound ethical shortcomings of the Clintons.
Chris Hedges' accurate depiction of the Clintons' amoral lack of charity pales when compared to his enabling the sale of blood drawn from inmates in the Arkansas Cummins Prison during most of his 12 year administration; notwithstanding his full knowledge much of this blood was HIV and hepatitis contaminated. Briefly stated, Bill Clinton, while governor, knowingly authorized and protected "Friends of Bill", most notably Art Lockhart and the late Knox Nelson, in an appalling scheme to harvest and sell contaminated blood and plasma from Cummins prison farm inmates near Grady, Arkansas.
The prisoners were bled several times per week daily and paid $7 per unit, while the units brought $70 and more per unit to the " Friends of B i ll ".
The scheme continued throughout his governorship in defiance of sound medical practice, numerous warnings and flagrant violations of FDA regulations. Tainted blood from Cummins has now infected literally millions of people with HIV (the AIDS virus) and potentially lethal Hepatitis C (20%-25% fatality rate) all over the world -- Canada, Japan, England, Ireland, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and not least, the United States. Clinton and his partners netted millions from it annually. I bet no one is surprised Bill Clinton now devotes much of his "charity" energy to alleviating the devastation of aids in Africa...probably the only continent his tainted prison blood has not infected!:( e.g. CBC Network " Canada's Tainted Blood Scandal ).
Numerous other unreported and/or underreported scandals during the Arkansas Clinton years still foul our landscape literally and figuratively here in our state....along with Clinton's multimillion dollar eyesore.

Whitewater? Is that kinda like "99 Bottles of Beer"?
Max, you really need to answer for yourself. Roym charges, "The Clintons's abominable behavior in both their public and private lives was completely hidden by the Arkansas' corrupt to the bone media for 12 years . . ." As I recall, you were part of the "corrupt to the bone media" during that time, as was the Gannett bunch and Walter Hussman -- and during the height of the newspaper war at that. What do you have to say for yourself? Seems you let them get away with a lot -- killings here, killings there, killings everywhere. How could you possibly have overlooked all this stuff?
(Roym, I hear the newer drugs can work wonders now. Why, soon you might be out there swinging a golf club with Wes.)

ARK. BLOG: Who you think the Clintons paid to rub out all those people? We had a good reason to keep it quiet.

Here you are Roy:

"The FDA says that it was perfectly legal to operate prison plasma centers and that for years no tests existed to screen for AIDS or hepatitis C, then known as non-A non-B hepatitis and a common indicator of HIV. But in 1982, the FDA ruled that prison plasma was too risky for domestic production of hemophilia products. Nevertheless, the plasma was still allowed to be exported to a Montreal broker, who in turn shipped the plasma throughout Canada and overseas. In Arkansas, numerous FDA violations and shut-downs at Cummins prison failed to permanently halt the drawing of plasma from inmates. Prison officials have stated that the inmates needed the money they earned (at $7 a pint) to buy cigarettes and toiletries.

"An internal memo from pharmaceutical giant Cutter Laboratories (which had bought plasma from the Arkansas prisons for 20 years until 1982) illustrates the attitude of those involved in the blood trade at the time. "Take no extraordinary actions. There are no data to support the emotional arguments that prison plasma collected from adequately screened prisoners is 'bad.' To exclude such plasma from manufacturer of our coagulation product would only be a sop or gratuity to the Gay Rights [sic] and would presage further pressure to exclude plasma collected from the Mexican border and the paid donor."

Inmates were considered a high-risk group because of previous intravenous drug use as well as the homosexual activities common in prisons. A 1984 information bulletin about prison plasma centers published by the American Correctional Association listed six states -- Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Nevada and Missouri -- as running programs at that time. The Arkansas Department of Corrections continued running its plasma program for another 10 years -- until 1994.

As a result, at least 1,000 people now say they are victims of diseases that could have been avoided.

"Why was it," asks plaintiff Michael McCarthy, "that we became the dumping ground for your poison?"
SALON | Feb. 25, 1999

Suzi Parker is a freelance journalist in Little Rock, Ark.

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Right there is a good reason for Hillary Clinton not to be Obama's running mate: It would be too tempting to the far-right hard cases to organize a false flag attempt on Obama and blame it on the Clintons.

I joke.

Except about the depth to which right-wing scum are willing to sink.

Click my blue name to see one for all the Hillary fans in the audience.

Good ridicule John A.!

I'm sick of the beltway bastards.
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LOL...thanks, John A...humor will save us. LOL!!!

Me too, L.Wood...use to watch em periodically, but can't abide em anymore (though I evidently need to catch Mathews tonight). The whole lot of em ought to be fired. The random man/woman on the street would do a better job.

Just because I don't support Hillary doesn't mean I like the way the media treats her. I don't--it stinks and so do they. It's marginally better than watching them nuzzle John McCain, but that's the best I can say for it.

Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal

The Arkansas prison blood scandal resulted from the state's selling plasma extracted from prisoners at the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction (ADC). Corruption among the administrators of the prison blood program and poor supervision resulted in disease-tainted blood, often carrying hepatitis or HIV, knowingly being shipped to blood brokers, who in turn shipped it to Canada, Europe, and Asia. Revelation of the misdeeds and the healthcare crisis it created in Canada nearly brought down the Liberal Party government in 1997. In 1994, Arkansas became the last state to stop selling plasma extracted from prisoners.
Arkansas's prison blood program began in 1964 as a way for both prisoners and the prison system to make money. (Arkansas law forbids paying prisoners for their labor.) Set up by Birmingham, Alabama, physician August R. Staugh, it was, from 1967 to 1978, managed at various times by a group of physicians from the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Campus (now the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences) in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and by the Department of Correction itself. In 1978, the state contracted with Health Management Associates Inc. (HMA), founded by pediatrician Francis "Bud" Henderson of Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), to run both the prison medical program and the plasma program. HMA sold each unit of plasma for fifty dollars, and the donating prisoner was usually paid seven dollars in scrip.

The problems with the prison plasma program were legion. Prisoners were not adequately screened for disease, and state investigators later confirmed allegations that some prisoners were not paid in cash but in drugs. Other misdeeds included an inmate clerk in the prison's plasma center selling the "right to bleed" to fellow inmates who had been excluded because they likely were infected with hepatitis B (a possible indicator of HIV infection).
Many pharmaceutical companies ceased buying prison plasma after a December 1982 warning from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that prisoners were more likely than the general population to be infected with the AIDS virus. Despite this, HMA contracted with Continental Pharma Cryosan Ltd., Canada's largest blood broker. Cryosan sold the plasma to companies in Europe and Japan and to Connaught Laboratories, a company based in Toronto, Ontario, that sold blood products needed by hemophiliacs throughout Canada. Only during a 1983 FDA-initiated international recall of plasma likely tainted with hepatitis B did Cryosan learn that it had been buying plasma extracted from prisoners. According to a report by the Krever Commission, which was established by the Canadian government in 1993 to investigate the blood scandal, "The shipping papers accompanying the plasma had not revealed that the centre was located in a prison. They had simply referred to the sources as the 'ADC Plasma Center, Grady, Arkansas,' without any indication that 'ADC' stood for 'Arkansas Department of Correction.'" In 1984, the FDA revoked the license of the HMA plasma center after it had distributed hepatitis-contaminated plasma, though it managed to secure its license again after a few months.
In 1985, the Arkansas Board of Corrections hired the Institute for Law and Policy Planning (ILPP) in Berkeley, California, to conduct an independent investigation into HMA's practices. At the same time, Governor Bill Clinton ordered the state police to conduct a similar investigation. The institute discovered instances in which HMA had violated its state contract in forty areas, including poor health assessment and recordkeeping and the hiring of unlicensed, uncertified, and unqualified staff. In contrast, the state police investigation found only that a few HMA employees had been running a small-time gambling operation. Clinton urged a swift end to the investigation. ADC director Art Lockhart, about whom many allegations of impropriety had been raised, was not punished; being an employee of the ADC board, he could not be fired by Clinton, and he had a protector in the powerful state Senator Knox Nelson of Pine Bluff.
HMA was able to retain its contract after the state police investigation partly because of the lobbying efforts of HMA's president, Leonard Dunn, a Pine Bluff banker who later worked on Clinton's 1990 gubernatorial campaign. His negotiations with the state resulted in the creation of an ombudsman position within HMA, which hired a Clinton-appointed judge, Richard Mays, for a two-year contract of $25,000. But after the critical ILPP report was released, HMA lost its contract and dissolved in 1986.
The contract then went to Pine Bluff Biologicals, which expanded the plasma program to other ADC units; at one time, prison plasma accounted for forty percent of the company's business. But donor-screening problems persisted. In 1989, a prisoner who had been forbidden to donate on account of disease was able to sell plasma twenty-three times after he transferred from the Pine Bluff Diagnostics Unit to Cummins. The March 1991 edition of the Arkansas Times featured a story by Mara Leveritt on inmate plasma sales in Arkansas, raising the public's awareness of the issue. In 1992, a series of state police investigations uncovered corruption in the prison plasma program, including allegations of nepotism, such as ADC director Lockhart's asking Jimmy Lord, owner of Pine Bluff Biologicals, to hire his son. Lockhart was forced to resign.
The prison plasma program ended in 1994, but its effects linger. More than 1,000 Canadians who received plasma contaminated by that drawn from Arkansas prisoners were infected with HIV and 20,000 with hepatitis C. As a result of the report by Canadian Justice Horace Krever, that country's Red Cross was stripped of its responsibility for the nation's blood system; on May 30, 2005, the Canadian Red Cross pleaded guilty in Ontario Superior Court for its role in the scandal. As a result of a class-action lawsuit filed by more than 20,000 people who received tainted blood in Canada, the Canadian government, in late 1998, set aside a fund of $1.2 billion to compensate victims; on July 25, 2006, the Canadian government announced an expanded $875 compensation package for victims. Arkansas has never apologized for its role in the blood scandal nor sought to reimburse victims for their suffering. Though some Canadians vowed to sue the Arkansas Department of Correction, no suit has yet materialized.
The Arkansas prison blood scandal was the subject of a novel, titled Blood Trail (1998), written by former HMA employee Mike Galster under the pseudonym Michael Sullivan. The scandal also has been the subject of a documentary movie, Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal, directed by Kelly Duda, which was released in 2005 and drew worldwide attention to the events.
In England, Lord Peter Archer of Sandwell began, in March 2007, a public inquiry into contaminated blood given to British hemophilia patients in the 1970s and 1980s. At the beginning of the inquiry, the number of deaths from blood contaminated with hepatitis C and HIV in England stood at 1,757 out of over 6,000 infected; blood extracted from Arkansas prisoners has been linked to this contamination. The inquiry has heard testimony from victims, healthcare workers, investigative journalists (including filmmaker Duda), and more. It is expected to deliver a report later in 2007.
For additional information:
"Clinton & the killer blood." http://prorev.com/blood.htm (accessed February 17, 2006).
Duda, Kelly, director. Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal. Concrete Films, 2005.
Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal. http://www.factor8movie.com (accessed October 9, 2006).
Independent Public Inquiry: Contaminated Blood & Blood Products. http://www.archercbbp.com/ (accessed July 23, 2007).
Leveritt, Mara. "Blood Money." Arkansas Times. March 1991, 34-39, 61-63.
---. "Bloody awful." Arkansas Times. August 16, 2007, pp. 12-14, 16. Online at http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=3038e9e5-b309-4e6a-92db-8ba15f058fe1 (accessed August 16, 2007).
Parker, Suzi. "Blood money." http://www.salon.com/news/1998/12/cov_23news.html (accessed February 17, 2006).
Guy Lancaster
Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture
Last Updated 8/16/2007