Gregg Steinhafel's image from Target's 'Here for Good' site, which promotes corporate responsibility, Source: Target Corporation

Earlier this year, an eating disorder clinic called the Emily Program was attempting to open a new facility in an affluent part of Orono, a town of 7,500 people west of Minneapolis. But opposition from some neighbors, as well as the influence of Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel — who has drawn national criticism for orchestrating political contributions that go to Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer — helped kill the facility.

It was supposed to be a ten-bed treatment facility in a former private school. Initially, the program enjoyed the support of many city officials, including the mayor.

Dirk Miller, the executive director of  Emily’s Program, told the Star Tribune (in some fantastic journalism by Heron Marquez Estrada) that he was shocked at Steinhafel’s stance, partly because Steinhafel attended an early informational meeting about the project and told program workers: “You people are doing God’s work.”

Despite the earlier public statements and his service on foundation boards that operate centers for troubled youth in other neighborhoods, Steinhafel quickly changed his tune. Steinhafel spoke against the program at community hearings, wrote a letter to city officials and hired a lawyer from the politically connected  firm Faegre and Benson, who put pressure on the city and mayor to reject the organization’s permit.

Steinhafel, in comments at a Feb. 22 City Council meeting, said, “We strongly believe that Emily’s Program has no place at the Hill School location.”

In a separate letter to city officials, Steinhafel and his wife, Denise, said the school site is too small and that a zoning change could have longer-range implications, including opening the door to other medical facilities at the site or in the area. They said they are not opposed to the Emily Program. They wrote that they have a close friend who suffers from an eating disorder and acknowledged “the help programs like this offer.”

Other opponents, such as former supporter Orono Mayor Jim White, claimed that permitting the program would open the way for “a rehab center for drug or sex offenders –from moving into the school site if the Emily Program closed or left.” White asked the program to withdraw the application.

In mid-March, Emily’s Program abandoned the effort. The former school, owned by former Republican Party chairman and TCF CEO Bill Cooper, was to remain vacant. Cooper told the Star Tribune that he was “disappointed by the council and the community’s reaction,” and that it was a “not-in-my-neighborhood” sort of thing.

McKenna, writing at the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy (CIDRAP) Web site at the U of M:

… [M]ajor manufacturing and regulatory hurdles lie in the path toward achieving a pandemic vaccine, hurdles that have been recognized by governments for years but never successfully dealt with. … [M]anufacturers could be asked to short-circuit work on the seasonal vaccine in order to begin handling the seed strain of the novel virus, a move that would reduce the amount of vaccine available in the northern hemisphere next winter. … Rumors are circulating among some flu scientists that the strain being used at the CDC for the vaccine seed strain is not growing well in eggs. … That production will go smoothly is not guaranteed: Since 2000, seasonal flu-vaccine delivery has been delayed several times because strains did not grow as well as predicted or eggs proved vulnerable to contamination.

Here’s a portion of Prof. Peter Davies‘ April 28 pork-industry presentation, transcribed from the audio/slide webinar that is linked here:

Genetically, certainly, there is evidence of a swine origin for the virus, but how the disease is unfolding in Mexico and other places appears to be almost entirely at this stage from human-to-human transmission. … But I think we’ll probably have to be having to deal with the fact that the media is running with the swine flu name. … This is probably a message that’s going to be hard to effectively transmit but needs to just be repeated: Influenza is not spread through food.

And here’s the video from “reidthebead” in Orono (UPDATE: The vlogger has removed it from YouTube):