Raising The Standard Medical Release Form Child'S Name: Grade: Fill & Download for Free

In 1957, the West German pharmaceutical company Chemie Grünenthal, owned by Wirtz family, had launched the production of the drug for pregnant women. The over-the-counter tranquilliser was hailed as a wonder drug. It marketed the drug aggressively in 46 countries with the guarantee that it could be “given with complete safety to pregnant women and nursing mothers without any adverse effect on mother and child.” It sold by the millions.By early 1959, reports started to surface that the drug was toxic. Scores of adults suffered from peripheral neuritis damaging the nervous system.Thalidomide was developed at chemical laboratory in the Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp under the leadership of Otto Ambros in the course of nerve gas research. Chemie Grunenthal suppressed that information, bribing doctors and pressuring critics and medical journals for years. The over-the-counter tranquilizer was hailed as a wonder drug when released in the late 1957.Even when an Australian doctor connected thalidomide with deformed births in 1961, it took 4 months for the company to withdraw the drug. By then, it is estimated to have affected 100,000 pregnant women, causing at least 90,000 miscarriages and thousands of deformities to the babies who survived.Argentinian author Carlos De Napoli has discovered a November 1944 document from German pharmaceutical company IG Farben which refers to a substance with the same chemical formula as thalidomide. In his book Hitler's Laboratories, he states company director Fritz ter Meer sent a memo to Karl Brandt, an SS general who ran Hitler's euthanasia programme. The memo refers to the drug by a number - 4589 - and adds it has been tested and is ready for use. Thalidomide was developed by the Nazis and tested on prisoners at concentration camps, it has been claimed.The Scandal of ThalidomideIn the immediate post-war years Chemie Grünenthal drug company had become a bolt hole for nazi chemists. A rogues gallery of wanted and convicted Nazis, who had practiced their “science” in death camps, ended up working at Grünenthal pharmaceutical, some of them directly involved in the production of thalidomide. Perhaps we should not be surprised when the thalidomide scandal came to light the company demonstrated a total indifference to human suffering, belief that the life is cheap, lack of any responsibility, absent of compassion as typical Nazis treat. Chemie Grünenthal was concerned only with amassing vast profits rather than with deformed babies and devastated parents. Despite overwhelming evidence that thalidomide caused birth defects, Chemie Grunenthal resisted to pay any compensation.Dr. Heinrich Mückter and chairman of Grunenthal’s supervisory board Otto Ambros that helped to cover up the drug’s horrific effects:During the Nazi occupation of Poland, Heinrich Mückter repeatedly experimented on concentration camp prisoners in Buchenwald. Typhus couldn’t be kept alive in petri dishes, instead prisoners were used as human breeding grounds in which to raise the disease. The death figures of those inmates showed Muckter how well his vaccine was working. Accused by Polish war crimes prosecutors of conducting medical experiments on prisoners, in 1945 Mückter escaped arrest, fled back to Germany and quickly found a welcome home at Grünenthal pharmaceutical.In 1946 Heinrich Mückter became Head of Research at the Grünenthal pharmaceutical company, where he developed the infamous drug thalidomide. Aggressively-marketed as an over-the-counter sleeping pill and remedy for morning sickness in pregnancy, thalidomide was first made available on 1 October 1957. Muckter had received a percentage for every single pill that was sold. The drug made him a millionaire. Even after he had been alerted about the dangers associated with thalidomide, Muckter did everything he could to make sure that his cash cow drug would stay on the market.Despite in January 1968 Mückter was put on trial he was never charged in relation to his role in experiments on concentration camp prisoners, nor his role in the thalidomide scandal. He was well protected by Gehlen organisation and peacefully died on 22 May 1987.One of the worst of these nazi chemists was Otto Ambros. In the 1970s the Otto served as chairman of Grunenthal’s supervisory board. During the war he advised Adolf Hitler on chemical weapons. He was also involved in the creation of the nerve gas sarin and supervised the construction of an IG Farben factory at Auschwitz.Other nazi scientists who came to work there included Martin Staemmler, a leading proponent of the nazi racial hygiene programme. He was head of pathology at the time thalidomide was being sold.Dr Ernst-Gunther Schenck was inspector of nutrition for the SS, he developed a protein sausage that was tested on 370 prisoners in concentration camps, killing many. He was barred from working as a doctor in Germany after returning from working 10 years as a POW in the USSR. Grunenthal pharma gave him a job.Grunenthal also offered employment to Heinz Baumkotter, an SS hauptsturm-fuhrer, the chief concentration-camp doctor in Mauthausen and Natzweiler-Struthof, and from 1942 chief medical officer in Sachsenhausen. Sentenced to life imprisonment by the Soviet Union, in 1956 he was returned to Germany, where he was employed by the Wirtz family at Chemie Grunenthal.These and many other nazis, some of whom experimented on inmates at concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Buchenwald, found a friendly home in the laboratories of Chemie Grunenthal. One German historian looking at a short list of Grunenthal staff from the early ’60s said: “It’s absolutely astonishing that a small company should have such a concentration of convicted war criminals on its staff, unusual even by the standards of post-war Germany.”The European TragedyWest Germany was hardest hit by thalidomide, with about half, or 5,000, of all cases worldwide. Widukind Lenz, a Hamburg pediatrician and geneticist, was one of the first to link thalidomide to the sudden surge in birth defects. He noticed that thalidomide babies were non-existent in communist East Germany, where thalidomide had never been approved for use.Between 1957 and 1962, the sedative would result in thousands of infants in Canada, Great Britain and West Germany born with serious deformities, including the shortening or absence of limbs. The U.S., however, never had a crisis of thalidomide-linked deformities on that magnitude. Why not?USA had avoided the tragedyIn 1960, America had a stroke of luck. That was when the application to begin mass-marketing the drug thalidomide in the United States landed on the desk of Frances Oldham Kelsey, a reviewer at the Food and Drug Administration. Today we know that the drug can cause a range of severe congenital deformities, but at the time, thalidomide’s side effects were unknown. The FDA physician Kelsey had resisted intense pressure to put thalidomide on the American market. She rejected the application for thalidomide on the grounds that it lacked sufficient evidence of safety through rigorous clinical trials.The FDA authority Frances Kesley was decorated by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 for her courage:Louise was born at Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield, Hertfordshire, on 23 June 1962 to David and Vicki Mason. Her mother had been prescribed thalidomide to prevent morning sickness.‘I can’t imagine what my dad thought or felt when a grim-faced doctor led him to a delivery room an hour after my birth,” says Louise Medus. “All I know is that he almost fainted with shock when I was fully revealed and blurted out: ‘Surely you’re not going to allow a child in this state to live.’”“Like the other parents of thalidomide babies, I’m sure they were expecting a fully formed baby and some of us didn’t have arms, some of us didn’t have legs, some of us didn’t have arms or legs. Some of us had facial disfigurements and some were so deformed that they couldn’t survive.”Today many history revisionists offer to forgive and forget the Nazi war crimes because “the war had ended long time ago”. The WW2 death toll includes thalidomide babies, the result of the infamous Nazi science.Sources :Thalidomide scandal - WikipediaHeinrich Mückter - Wikipedia

We had this discussion in my Physiology department. Here are the actual reasons — it's not simply “stupidity".They don't actually understand the concept of probabilities and vaccines. They don't understand how they're supposed to work, so when they say “I've never been vaccinated but I have never gotten sick!” or “someone I know was vaccinated but they still got sick!” they feel like they've gone and proven the inefficiency of vaccines. Vaccines aim to strengthen your immune system through increased production of antibodies and immune cells programmed specifically against the disease-causing agent (this is a long and complicated process, I can’t possibly explain everything here), not somehow stop your body from coming into contact with the said agent. In other words, it only increases the probability that you don't get the disease, so there is always some small probability that, under the “right” conditions (eg you haven’t eaten properly or slept enough or are too young/old to have a stable immune system), your body can still lose the fight. The anti vaxxers can't grasp this concept and think vaccines are supposed to be bulletproof, because they didn't pay attention in biology classes or maths classes.There HAVE been cases where vaccines actually sucked. Take the example of polio. The first vaccine they gave to the public contained the real virus —normally in a vaccine, you put in “dead" viruses that still activate your immune system but don't actually do the harmful things they do, but at this time around the science field wasn't so great, so they didn't manage to completely inactivate the virus. People who were vaccinated by the first polio “vaccine" unfortunately actually got polio and died…from the vaccine. Naturally, there began the distrust between the public and the vaccines. Now add on the failed data analysis by one scientist who published his “finding" that there was a concern for causality between vaccines and autism. Despite the fact that the scientist's methods were heavily criticized by the other experts and he ended up making a public apology for his erroneous conclusions, some people still hold on because they don't read the full story and realise what happened after the publication or that the correction occurred within the science community, not by the governent. Maybe they choose to live in paranoia.(EDIT: by the way, if you’re wondering how he got his “findings”, it’s actually not some made up mumbo-jumbo (turns out it actually was? See Friedman's comment below for details, I'm only explaining here why it sounded plausible to the masses at the time). The age at which autism is first detected is around 2–3 years old (maybe even early as 1.5 years old). The age at which you vaccinate your child? 2–3 years old (maybe even early as 1.5 years old). Autism is a condition that is dormant until the child reaches a certain stage of development. To the parent who has no idea what it is, it might seem like vaccine has actually led to development of autism - when in truth, it is merely a coincidental correlation. Remember, folks. Correlation does NOT mean causation. Just because the number of Nicholas Cage films produced and the number of people drowning at a beach both increase, it does not mean Nicholas Cage is dunking people into the water as his side hobby. The poor sod found some positive correlation between vaccine and the number of children diagnosed with autism, and tried to claim causality - a very rookie mistake a real, experienced scientist shouldn’t be making.)The scientists who develop vaccines do receive funding for their experiments —but this isn't because they're developing some secret juju, this is just the standard procedure for any scientist who has to use very expensive and complicated tools (hardware and software wise) to carry out their experiment, like to find the perfect vaccine for a virus. People who have never come close to the science field don't know this and see this as the scientists getting paid for this conspiracy or something. They don't know that everything science produced, even their nylon stockings, car batteries, etc, required a funding.They don't know what actually goes into a vaccine. I've watched a YouTube video of someone complaining that metals are put into vaccines, while putting iron sticks and zinc powder into a test tube as a demonstration. He was screaming “IMAGINE THIS GOING INTO YOUR BLOODSTREAM!!” and I facepalmed so hard because he doesnt even realise that each element has different forms — nobody inserts metal rods (solid form) into your veins. The zinc and iron are in solution form (something your body also has naturally, eg hemoglobin, and absorbs from food). I dont want to explain too much but they're honestly nothing compared to what's in some of the processed foods. These metal ions are usually present as carriers to transport other necessary key ions into your bloodstream, they don’t usually do anything, so please don’t ever think you’re being injected nails.(I only gave this as an example to point out how much anti vaxxers don’t know about the constituents of vaccines, but someone decided to point out mercury. Look, I know it sounds scary. It’s not your every day metal, I get it. But as Jarilyn said in the comments, it’s a) hardly used in vaccines any more due to the “uproar” from the anti vaxxers, despite it actually being completely harmless in its dosage because it’s broken down too fast in the body to do anything (a LOT of research was put into this) and b) as I’ve said, it doesn’t have any function in the vaccine other than preserving the inactivated virus. They’re not trying to give you autism, as hard as that is to believe.)Since this is getting more attention than I thought, I’d like to point out another popular misunderstanding among the anti vaxxers. They like to think they’re “woke” because they’re claiming their “right” to make choices or whatnot. And to some extent, this is true - in the medical field, there’s this thing called “autonomy”, which means patients can practise their freedom of will. They can refuse treatments, surgery, etc - even if the patient/the patient’s relatives are only refusing because of some cult, even though that decision will kill the patient. The same goes for vaccines, especially if you believe you have allergic reactions to it due to impaired immune system, genetics, etc. However, when it comes to vaccination, it’s not just about you, it’s about the rest of your community, too. Herd immunity is a real concept that describes how increased immunity of the individuals against a disease protects the whole herd - for example, measles was considered to be permanently eradicated from my country because everyone was vaccinated against it. However, after this anti vaxx non-sense seeped in, there have actually been cases of measles in my very own university because the unfortunate students’ parents refused to vaccinate their child. You not being vaccinated puts all of the others at risk. It’s a selfish decision. And might I add, you’re not practising “autonomy”, because technically it should be your child, the actual recipient of the vaccine, to make this decision but they’re too young, so they’re trusting their lives in YOUR hands, the parents. Basically by being an anti vaxx, you’re putting your child at risk for them. And the rest of us. There’s really no other way to sugarcoat this.The claim that “after I got vaccinated I actually got sick” is another big misunderstanding. These people are confusing the feverish feeling they may have gotten after getting a vaccine with actual sickness. As I’ve mentioned, in a vaccine, they usually put the inactivated agent that causes the disease to “train” your immune system, per se, against the specific disease. Your immune system will react to it the way it normally does to develop antibodies and immune cells that are programmed to recognise it straight away. In this process, you may develop cold like symptoms - these symptoms (including fever, inflammation, etc) actually come from your immune system reacting to it, not the disease-causing agent itself, because your immune cells release chemicals that induce such symptoms as a way of “alerting” the other immune cells that there is an intruder. This is completely, utterly normal - in fact a sign that your immune system is functioning properly. You’ll notice that upon contact of the same agent later, you experience much weaker symptoms because your immune system has actually gotten that much better at handling it.As more people read, more “concerns” are being raised, so in hopes that I don't have to spend more time explaining, I'll keep adding on here. Another point was regarding the popular claim that “the rate of injuries from vaccines is greater than the death rate from measles (or insert other condition that vaccines have helped reduce in prevalence, like polio or rabies)”. This is what happens when you dont understand the statistics behind it and just believe whatever cool-sounding claims from equally misguided people.A) Measles or polio or rabies etc is rare thanks to the vaccines so there is hardly anyone (I don’t know if there is even anyone dying from it if they were vaccinated) dying from it nowadays and b) measles in general is not fatal unless complications from it (even rarer than the virus itself) occur. This is all about using the correct statistical comparison instead of buying the claim as it is.Think about melanoma, a malignant form of skin cancer. 486 people die from it every year in, say, New Zealand.(About skin cancer)Now compare this with, say, alcohol poisoning. It kills 600-800 people every year in the same country.(Health & injury | Alcohol.org.nz)Which one has higher yearly death rate in the population?Alcohol poisoning.But which one has higher fatality?Melanoma.This misleading result is simply due to the fact that whoever is considering the two haven’t taken into account how common each is. MMR vaccines are a lot, lot more common than measles. Thus there will be more people who claim to have been injured from it. Since the number of measles cases is very very small (only 4 in my country — it used to be 0 but it recently rose because of the anti vaxxers), hardly anyone would report from dying from it. Please give it more thoughts before buying everything people tell you. For example, before the vaccine for rabies, it was so common that parents were too afraid to get a pet dog or allow their child to go near a barking dog in case it bit and gave rabies. Many children died from it. Nowadays? Do you see this? Nope.People keep talking about “wah antibiotics, wah formaldehyde" so here is a link that has described everything well: What Goes Into a Vaccine? | PublicHealth.org — honestly, as I've said, what you consume from your diet is probably doing more harm than the vaccines that you get. The constituents of vaccines are the result of sweat and blood from many scientists who have contributed to immunology, like Pasteur! They're not trying to kill you, that would defame their discoveries, don't you think? So much work is put into finding the safest vaccines for you.Overall, I think it's really the lack of education. I think we should all go Asian and teach kids how the immune system works early. We have cartoons and online simulations etc to teach kids about the immune cells. Why don’t you guys make these too?Final edit: I won’t be replying to comments any more, since Quora has stopped notifying me of all.

A friend of mine put together an awesome handwritten sign outlining why she's voting for President Obama this year, I think it says almost everything you need to know:Many Americans take it for granted that President Obama has been one of the most effective Presidents since FDR. It's important to remember just how bad things were when he took office and how much he's accomplished since he's been in office.We were hemorrhaging jobs when this President took office and now we've gone from 10% unemployment down to around 8.5%. If the recovery continues on this path, we'll be back to around 5% unemployment by 2016.It's not just about jobs though, President Obama has also worked to restore America's image around the world. When President Bush was in office we were invading countries for no reason, now we've left Iraq and are in the process of leaving Afghanistan.In case you needed a few other examples of what President Obama has accomplished I put together a list below:Extended child tax credits and marriage-penalty fixesCreated an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to invest in peer-reviewed manufacturing processesRequired economic justification for tax changesImplemented "Women Owned Business" contracting programChanged standards for determining broadband accessEstablished a credit card bill of rightsExpanded loan programs for small businessesExtended the Bush tax cuts for lower incomesExtended the 2007 Alternative MinimumTax patchClosed the "doughnut hole" in Medicare prescription drug planExpanded the Senior Corps volunteer programRequired insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditionsGave tax credits to those who need help to pay health premiumsRequired large employers to contribute to a national health planRequired children to have health insurance coverageExpanded eligibility for MedicaidExpanded eligibility for State Children's Health Insurance Fund (SCHIP)Required health plans to disclose how much of the premium goes to patient careEstablished an independent health institute to provide accurate and objective informationIn non-competitive markets, forced insurers to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient careEliminated the higher subsidies to Medicare Advantage plansExpanded funding to train primary care providers and public health practitionersIncreased funding to expand community based prevention programsReinstated executive order to hire an additional 100,000 federal employees with disabilities within five years.Increased the Veterans Administration budget to recruit and retain more mental health professionalsExpanded the Veterans Administration's number of "centers of excellence" in specialty careAppointed a special adviser to the president on violence against womenFully funded the Violence Against Women ActDirected military leaders to end war in IraqBegan removing combat brigades from IraqCreated a military families advisory boardEnded the abuse of supplemental budgets for warMade U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional on anti-terror effortsOpened "America Houses" in Islamic cities around the globeAllocated Homeland Security funding according to riskCreated a real National Infrastructure Protection PlanIncreased funding for local emergency planningExtended monitoring and verification provisions of the START I TreatyAppointed a White House Coordinator for Nuclear SecurityInitiated a grant and training program for law enforcement to deter cyber crimeImproved relations with Turkey, and its relations with Iraqi KurdsLaunched an international Add Value to Agriculture Initiative (AVTA)Created a rapid response fund for emerging democraciesGranted Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send money to CubaRestored funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne/JAG) programEstablished an Energy Partnership for the AmericasExpanded the Nurse-Family Partnership to all low-income, first-time mothersRequired new hires to sign a form affirming their hiring was not due to political affiliation or contributions.Provided affordable, high-quality child careRecruited math and science degree graduates to the teaching professionReduced subsidies to private student lenders and protect student borrowersEncouraged water-conservation efforts in the WestIncreased funding for national parks and forestsIncreased funding for the Land and Water Conservation FundEncouraged farmers to use more renewable energy and be more energy efficientExpanded Pell grants for low-income studentsPursued a wildfire management planRemoved more brush, small trees and vegetation that fuel wildfiresExpanded access to places to hunt and fishPushed for enactment of Matthew Shepard Act, which expands hate crime law to include sexual orientation and other factorsRepealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policyRestored funding to the EEOC and the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance ProgramsReformed mandatory minimum sentencesCreated a White House Office on Urban PolicyFully funded the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)Established program to convert manufacturing centers into clean technology leadersEstablished 'Promise Neighborhoods' for areas of concentrated povertyWorked toward deploying a global climate change research and monitoring systemFunded a major expansion of AmeriCorpsCreated a Social Investment Fund NetworkBolstered the military's ability to speak differentlanguagesAppointed the nation's first Chief Technology OfficerProvided grants to early-career researchersWorked to overturn Ledbetter vs. GoodyearCreated a national declassification centerAppointed an American Indian policy adviserCreated new financial regulationsIncreased funding for land-grant collegesBanned lobbyist gifts to executive employeesSigned a "universal" health care billCreated new criminal penalties for mortgage fraudRequired 10 percent renewable energy by 2012Released oil from Strategic Petroleum ReserveRaised fuel economy standardsInvested in all types of alternative energyEnacted tax credit for consumers for plug-in hybrid carsAsked people and businesses to conserve electricityRequired more energy-efficient appliancesCreated a 'Green Vet Initiative' to promote environmental jobs for veteransCreated job training programs for clean technologiesRequired states to provide incentives for utilities to reduce energy consumptionSupported high-speed railSupported airline service in small townsInvested in public transportationEqualized tax breaks for driving and public transitConsidered "smart growth" in transportation fundingShared environmental technology with other countriesDoubled federal spending for research on clean fuelsProvided grants to encourage energy-efficient building codesIncreased funding for the Environmental Protection AgencyRaised the small business investment expensing limit to $250,000 through the end of 2009Extended unemployment insurance benefits andtemporarily suspend taxes on these benefitsSupported network neutrality on the InternetReversed restrictions on stem cell researchKilled Osama bin LadenDoubled funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a program that encourages manufacturing efficiencyIncluded environmental and labor standards in trade agreementsCreated an international tax haven watch listMade permanent the Research & Development tax creditRequired automatic enrollment in 401(k) plansRequired automatic enrollment in IRA plansCreated a consumer-friendly credit card rating systemCreated a $60 billion bank to fund roads and bridgesRequired full disclosure of company pension investments to employeesProvided easy-to-understand comparisons of the Medicare prescription drug plansInvested in electronic health information systemsPhased in requirements for health information technologyRequired that health plans utilize disease management programsRequired providers to report measures of health care costs and qualityHeld hospitals and health plans accountable for disparities in careImplemented and funded proven health intervention programsPrevented drug companies from blocking generic drugsAllowed Medicare to negotiate for cheaper drug pricesWorked with schools to create more healthful environments for childrenImproved recruitment of public health workersMandated insurance coverage of autism treatmentFully funded the Combating Autism Act and Federal Autism Research InitiativesDoubled federal funding for cancer researchIncreased participation in cancer-related clinical trialsFully funded the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)Set a national goal to provide re-screening for all 2-year-olds for developmental disordersCommissioned a study on students with disabilities and their transition to jobs or higher educationSet goals and timetables for implementing Section 503 of the Rehabilitation ActCreated a best practices list for private businesses in accommodating workers with disabilitiesLaunched educational initiative for employers on tax benefits of hiring employees with disabilitiesReduced the threshhold for the Family and Medical Leave Act from companies with 50 employees to companies with 25 employeesProvided a $1.5 billion fund to help states launch programs for paid family and medical leaveRequired employers to provide seven paid sick days per yearStreamlined the Social Security disability approval processExpanded Veterans Centers in rural areasEstablished standards of care for traumatic brain injury treatmentMade the Veterans Administration a national leader in health reformReduced the Veterans Benefits Administration claims backlogInstituted electronic record-keeping for the Veterans Benefits AdministrationExpanded housing vouchers program for homeless veteransLaunched a supportive services-housing program for veterans to prevent homelessnessExpanded the Family Medical Leave Act to include leave for domestic violence or sexual assaultFully funded debt cancellation for heavily indebted poor countriesCreated a fund for international small and medium enterprises (SME)Launched robust diplomatic effort with Iraq and its neighborsProvided $30 billion over 10 years to IsraelLimited Guard and Reserve deployments to one year for every six yearsEnded the "Stop-Loss" program of forcing troops to stay in service beyond their expected commitmentsFully and properly equipped troopsCreated a Civilian Assistance Corps that would organize private sector professionals to help in times of needIncluded humanitarian international missions in long-term budgetingReviewed weapons programsModernized ships and invested more in small vesselsSet standards for when the government should hire defense contractorsRestored the government's ability to manage contracts by rebuilding our contract officer corpsCreated a system of incentives and penalties for defense contractsEstablish a Global Education FundStrengthened the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) aimed at stopping spread of weapons of mass destructionOrganized successful Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in 2010Expanded federal bioforensics program for tracking biological weaponsDeveloped a comprehensive cyber security and response strategyMandated standards for securing personal dataRequired companies to disclose personal information data breachesWorked to persuade the European Union to end credit guarantees to IranSeek to negotiate a political agreement on CyprusRestructured and streamlined USAIDIncreased the size of the foreign serviceUrged China to stop manipulation of its currency valuePressed China to end its support for regimes in Sudan, Burma, Iran and ZimbabweCreated a public "Contracts and Influence" databaseRequired Cabinet officials to host Internet town hall meetingsConducted regulatory agency business in publicPromoted more pre-school educationExpanded Early Head Start and Head StartReformed No Child Left BehindDoubled funding for Federal Charter School Program and require more accountabilityAddressed the dropout crisis by giving schools incentives for more dropout preventionCreated Teacher Residency Programs that will send teachers to high-need schoolsExpanded teacher mentoring programs and provide incentives for more planning timePromoted innovative ways to reward good teachersSimplified the application process for financial aidIncreased the number of high school students taking college-level coursesCreated incentives for tree planting and promote carbon sequestrationImproved water qualityRegulated pollution from major livestock operationsStrengthened federal environmental justice programsIncreased funding for organic and sustainable agriculturePartnered with landowners to conserve private landsCreated a community college partnership programIncreased funding for progams that conserve lands and habitat for select species such as the Osceola turkeySupported wetlands protectionPromoted economic development in MexicoSupported repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)Vigorously pursued hate crimes and civil rights abusesSigned the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act into lawSupported regional innovation clustersHelped low-income areas get phone and Internet serviceCreated a Homeowner Obligation Made Explicit (HOME) score for mortgage comparisonsIncreased the supply of affordable housing throughout metropolitan regionsInvested in transitional jobs and career pathway programsFully funded the COPS programImproved emergency response plansCapped interest rates on payday loans and improve disclosureExpanded public/private partnerships between schools and arts organizationsImproved climate change data recordsSupported improved weather prediction programOffered prizes for advances in consumer technologyEncouraged contests and programs to interest students in scienceIncreased research opportunities for college studentsStrengthened the levees in New OrleansDirected revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling to increased coastal hurricane protectionShook loose federal money for rebuilding the Gulf Coast