Lawmakers and Enforcers Ignore Dangerous Biotech

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/58157797/Hold-US-Attorney-Eric-Holder-Responsible-Prosecute-Pam-Marrone-Liberty-Mutual-Says-Sandi-Trend

OSHA Pro Corporate_Dr. Larry Rose

Search for doctors with conflicts of interest

A "Docs on Pharma Payroll" Database has been initiated by ProPublica.  It includes a 2009 list of all doctors who have received monetary benefits from Eli Lily, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Merck, J&J and Cephalon.  The total contributions to physicians for 2009 from all seven companies equaled oever $240 million.  Wow.

Here is the link to search for a specific doctor and or drug company:  http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/

Patents and Genes

Judge Invalidates Human Gene Patent
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/30gene.html?ref=business

Public Denied Right to Have GMO Food Labeling Standards

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr7ceclikEw

Politics, Power and the Control of our Food Supply

Mysteriously Acquired Lung Illness

At Least 36 Attending Lung Association Event at Iowa Governor's Mansion Get Rare Lung Disease

Published by Associated Press on Monday, March 31, 2008

DES MOINES, Iowa — After months of investigating, state health officials are confident a mysterious outbreak of a rare lung disease has its roots at the governor's mansion.


But they still don't have proof and other questions remain about how people were exposed to the disease at Terrace Hill.

State Epidemiologist Patricia Quinlisk says health officials are still awaiting test results to pin down the source of the histoplasmosis, an unusual but treatable lung disease.

The outbreak emerged more than four months ago when doctors began reporting cases. Eventually, there would be 36 confirmed cases and 12 probable ones.

Hundreds of pages of e-mails, correspondence and other documents obtained by The Associated Press under Iowa's freedom of information law, as well as interviews with health officials, show a methodical inquiry into the outbreak. The investigation led to the 139-year-old governor's mansion just west of downtown Des Moines.

Polk County doctors began reporting the disease, caused by an airborne fungi from bird or bat droppings, soon after the New Year's holiday.

Health officials worked to narrow the potential locations and connecting factors to the outbreak and determined many of those affected had attended an American Lung Association event at Terrace Hill on November 29th.

Officials say there was some construction at Terrace Hill around the time of the event and that might have been enough of a disturbance to put the offending spores in the air.

Governor Chet Culver and his wife, Mari Culver, were tested and do not have the illness.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,343508,00.html

History of "Right to Know And What That Means Today for Biotech Workers" by Dan Berman

Daniel Berman On Pfizer Molecular Biologist Becky McClain Case

 http://blip.tv/file/3604696

Daniel Berman, author of "Death On The Job" talked about the case of injured Pfizer
molecular biologist Becky McClain on April 27, 2010 in Sacramento. McClain was
doing stem cell research and was contaminated as a result of the lack of proper
health and safety protection at the Groton CT. Pfizer laboratories.

Washington Post Stein_Irresponsible Reporting on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Trial

The Washington Post published an embarrassing article entitled the "First patient treated in stem cell study" by Rob Stein on October 11, 2010.  The study that Stein's article refers to is the first human clinical trial performed using human embryonic stem cells to treat recent spinal chord injury in the United States.  Stein writes, "Doctors will, however, also conduct a series of specially designed tests to see whether the treatment helps the patients." 

Stein has it WRONG....dead wrong.  This study is designed only as a SAFETY study.  The results of this study cannot begin to access if the actual embryonic stem cell treatment helped or not.  Scientifically...it isn't possible.

Any suggestion that this study can provide insight into assesssing whether the treatment helped the patient is utterly irresponsible.

In fact, this clinical trial does not even have the proper scientific controls to access benefits of the treatment.  It can only provide information if it is SAFE or NOT.  Period.

One of the problems is the patient selection criteria.   Many skeptics were questioning why the human subjects for this trial were only selected from the recently injured, instead of from a population who had experienced more long term spinal injuries which no longer benefited from physical therapy.  Since many recent spinal chord injured patients have been found to improve slowly over time with only physical therapy, using only recently injured patients makes it difficult and impossible to access treatment effectiveness.

The reason why only recently injured patients are selected is suspicious.   Proponents of the embryonic stem cell community can "twist" the results of this safety study in the media, purporting that the patient improvement was specific to the treatment, when in fact, many of these patients would improve on thier own without treatment.

And here comes Stein...doing exactly that...twisting the facts...making statements that this study can access treatment effectiveness.  It is untruthful and dishonest.

The human clinical study has been designed specifically to access the safety of the treatment.   It has not been designed to assess if the treatment is effective or not.  Reporting that this study can provide any insights on effectiveness, is plain ridiculous and reckless.

Is Stein being a scientific baffoon...or is he promoting propaganda on purpose?  Who knows.  But one thing is for sure...Stein's Washington Post article is irresponsible.   There is no excuse for this type of reporting.

The Business Behind Academic Research

Academia is in business.  The public has been sold out.

Below are two well-written articles describing how academia has left its mission toward the public's good, and instead has developed into academic-industrial complex. 



Doctor Who? By Neil Munro

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0211.munro.html

The Kept University
by Eyal Press and Jennifer Washburn
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/03/press.htm

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/The-Kept-UniversityMar00.htm

BL3 Lab Safety

A good article recently published by Gene Watch Magazine provides a insiders perspective of BL3 laboratory safety.  Here is the link:

A VIEW FROM THE INSIDE

By Nancy Connell
http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/GeneWatch/GeneWatchPage.aspx?pageId=287



Biolevel Safety 3 labs are under some regulatory control.  BL2 laboratories are not.  One could estimate that there could be at least 10,000 BL2 labs in the US,   Therefore, although BL3 labs work with dangerous select agents, BL2 labs pose more threat to the public since they are unregulated and unregistered and can cause human disease.

Biotech Workers Denied Medical Care from Exposures to Biological Agents

Sandi Trend, mother of injured biotech worker speaks out at CA Commission on Health and Safety and Workers Compensation.  Injuries to Biotech workers are being discounted due to little regulation and oversight in the field.  Biotech workers are even denied exposure records necessary for medical treatment.  Corporations "game" the system and deny injury since they know that biotech workers cannot "prove" that their exposure caused their illness since they are denied exposure records.  Worker's who are desperately ill must go on social security or medicare.  The cost shifts to the public instead of the profit-driven corporation.

It is the same old story.  The public loses.  The corporations win.