From coast to coast the FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission have ensnared people not only at hedge funds but at technology and pharmaceutical companies consulting and law firms government agencies and even a major stock exchange.

There is a glaring reason that the necessary total ban on nontherapeutic use of antibiotics hasn't happened: The factory farm industry allied with the pharmaceutical industry has more power than public-health professionals.

Developments in medical technology have long been confined to procedural or pharmaceutical advances while neglecting a most basic and essential component of medicine: patient information management.

Money has transformed every watchdog every independent authority. Medical doctors are increasingly gulled by the lobbying of pharmaceutical salesmen.

But you can count the dead bodies from alcohol tobacco and legal pharmaceuticals by the millions.

People don't want to believe that technology is broken. Pharmaceuticals robotics artificial intelligence nanotechnology - all these areas where the progress has been a lot more limited than people think. And the question is why.

It is clear that the pharmaceutical industry is not by any stretch of the imagination doing enough to ensure that the poor have access to adequate medical care.

This change to a higher phase of alert is a signal to governments to ministries of health and other ministries to the pharmaceutical industry and the business community that certain actions now should be undertaken with increased urgency and at an accelerated pace.

Big Brother is on the march. A plan to subject all children to mental health screening is underway and the pharmaceuticals are gearing up for bigger sales of psychotropic drugs.

We cannot rest until we make sure that our families can afford to live and raise their kids here that our seniors can remain in their homes and afford their health and pharmaceutical costs.