Nation Building at Home: Medical Research

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Issues won't be the topic insist the McCainiacs, character will. But issues have a way of dropping right in your lap when you least expect it. And no I don't mean premarital sex resulting in pregnancy and early marriage which seems to be the mother-daughter bond in the Palin family.

That's the kind of fluff that passes for news in too many circles these days.

For families who live with chronic disease, the news we care about, the news we set up our google alerts for, comes more and more from overseas these days.

Like this news story about research into genetic predisposition to develop chronic lymphocytic leukemia [CLL], the most common form of leukemia in the western world.

Earlier this week, Tom Friedman, on the Imus show, talked about the importance of Nation Building at Home. He cited physical infrastructure, talking about how the US lags behind other countries in such things as airports.

But there are a lot of other areas where we're lagging behind as well. Like medical research.

And the fact that John McCain has selected as his running mate Sarah Palin, who doesn't believe in a manmade cause of global warming, who threatened to fire Wasilla's librarian over banning books, who flouted the fishing laws of Alaska, who promotes abstinence-only sex education, who's literally and figuratively married to Big Oil...well, that gives me pause.

Reckless endangerment comes to mind, and I'm not just talkin' the puffery over Palin's supposed vast foreign policy experience from living right "next door" to Russia....
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