Pfizer Pays to Have Criminal Charges Dropped

Someone once said...yes...we live by the Golden Rule...."those with the gold, make the rules." Unfortunately, this is the case with Pfizer, the largest and wealthiest pharmaceuitical company in the world. In a story from the Washington Post, ten Pfizer executives and scientists avoid criminal charges for allegations of murdering African children by offering a "Pfizer Pot of Gold".

In 1996 Pfizer had instituted an illegal clinical trial in Nigeria using a dangerous drug called Trovan. Even when Pfizer in-house physician, Dr. Juan Walterspeil, had warned the Pfizer CEO that the trial was unethical, Pfizer terminated Walterspeil and moved ahead with the trial, resulting in many children permanently disabled and 11 children dead.

What was the price Pfizer paid to avoid sending the culprits to jail? $75 million.

Dr. David Michaels Nominated as Fed-OSHA Head by Obama

Oh, the business lobbiest are in a boil over David Michaels nomation to head OSHA ... They just cannot tolerate anyone who has a record in taking a stand for public health and safety.

Professor nominated to position overseeing FedOSHA
By Alexandra Berzon (contact), Lisa Mascaro (contact)
Published Tuesday, July 28, 2009 2:06 p.m.
George Washington University professor David Michaels will be nominated as the assistant secretary of labor to run the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the White House said Tuesday.
Michaels, an epidemiologist, has been a notable advocate for workers to be compensated for health risks from chemicals and has also exposed attempts from businesses to block health regulations by making scientific research appear less certain than it is.
His nomination comes as the business lobby has made it clear it has no intention of allowing the Democrats’ labor agenda to advance without a fight.
Alongside its steady assault over the union-backed card check bill, the business community has turned its attention to one of the Obama administration’s labor-friendly nominees to the National Labor Relations Board.
This week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce asked the Senate for a full hearing to vet Craig Becker, one of the president’s three nominees for the board that administers national labor law.
The chamber has been waging a multi-million-dollar campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act, the pro-union legislation that would make it easier for workers to organize. Unions have been waging an equally strong campaign in support of the bill.
For complete story go to this link.

Hungry for Embryonic Stem Cells?

No not Hungry…but Hungary…

and it appears that Hungary is not too happy about illegal use of embryonic stem cells in their country.

Hungary detains 4 over illegal stem cell treatment
29 Jul 2009 10:14:26 GMT
-->Source: Reuters
BUDAPEST, July 29 (Reuters) - Hungarian police have detained four people on suspicion of carrying out illegal, untested stem cell treatments using embryos or aborted fetuses at a Hungarian private clinic, police said in a statement.

The statement, posted on the official police website www.police.hu late on Tuesday, said the suspects -- two Hungarians, one U.S. and one Ukrainian citizen -- were detained on July 27 just as they were preparing to treat a new patient.

Police said they launched a procedure on "suspicion of a banned use of the human body."
"There is well-founded suspicion that a U.S. citizen called Julliy B. has carried out stem cell treatments for money within the framework of a Hungarian stem cell research laboratory and a Hungarian-owned private clinic since 2007," police said.

The Ukrainian suspect prepared the stem cell doses and patients generally paid $25,000 or 5 million Hungarian forints for a treatment, police said.

Police said the suspect gained the stem cells from embryos or aborted fetuses.
The doses had not been tested, and the suspects carried out the treatments without permission from Hungary's health authorities, police said in the statement.

Police carried out house searches and seized computers and documents.
Police officials declined to give further details beyond what was in the statement.
Stem cells are the body's master cells, the source of all cells and tissue, including brain, blood, heart, bones and muscles. Embryonic stem cells come from days-old embryos and can produce any type of cell in the body.

Scientists generally harvest embryonic stem cells from embryos left over after in vitro fertilization attempts at fertility clinics. (Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall) For link go here.

The Propaganda Psychogenic Illness Phenomenon: You Are Not Sick--You're Just Nuts--

The Psychogenic Illness Propaganda Phenomenon

Well, it’s happened in the United States with Morgellen and Lyme Disease sufferers and now it is happening in China.

It is the use of labeling people “psychogenic” in a propaganda effort to limit responsibility and shroud grave concerns concerning public health and safety issues.

Today a report in the NY times describes the use of this propaganda strategy when more than 1,300 employees at a textile mill in China fell ill with symptoms of convulsions, breathing difficulties, vomiting and temporary paralysis. See the NYtimes article here for details.

Injured Workers Denied Access to Decent Medical Care

Here is an interesting article from Dr. Ron Kienitz outlining the difficulties of injured workers in Hawaii to obtain medical care. The only issue missing in his article is that this is a problem in all states. Read the article below:

Injured workers need access to medical care

By Ron Kienitz

LAST Thursday was just about the last straw for me. Since our clinic is one of the few remaining that specializes in treating injured workers, we see work injuries on a daily basis. (We're owned by a chain of 300 such clinics throughout the country.) But an injured worker's good fortune in finding someone competent willing to treat them doesn't always end there. What happens when I need a specialist to take care of an emergency beyond my expertise?

Thursday, a welder came in for care of an ear injury. He'd been welding while lying on his side when a drop of molten metal slag fell into his ear canal, burned through his ear drum and lodged in the middle ear by the sensitive organs of hearing. Is the public aware that there is not an ear/nose/throat specialist on Oahu who is willing to take a workers compensation case? Trust me; we called. Imagine my frustration as I tried in vain to find a specialist to save this patient's hearing. And this was not an isolated incident. Try to find a neurosurgeon to consult on these cases, or a psychiatrist, or whatever specialty.

I am one of very few doctors remaining in Hawaii who will treat an injured worker. Then again, since my board certification is in occupational medicine, I pretty much have to. Does the public know what's going on here? Does anyone care that if they are injured at work or in a car accident, the chances are their own family doctor will refuse to treat them? The root cause for this is the poorly thought out action taken by legislators in 1995 when they slashed reimbursements by more than 54 percent to doctors treating workers compensation injuries. Then they tagged it to Medicare, which has further decreased reimbursements to doctors ever since. This same fee schedule is used for car accident injuries.

What with the sometimes outrageous administrative hassles that go along with taking these cases, more than two-thirds of Hawaii's doctors have gradually refused to take it anymore, and many more are on the verge of dropping out. Does the public know that the entire Straub Medical system now refuses to care for these cases? If your doctor is in the Straub system and you're injured at work, you're on your own to find treatment.

THE ORIGINAL reason for this legislative misadventure was to save money. As the workers compensation committee chairman for Hawaii Medical Society, I testified repeatedly and did my best to educate our legislators with data and research proving that it wouldn't work. We warned them that if you pay doctors so little that they lose money on each patient, the result will be delays in access to care, delays in treatment, longer overall case lengths, increased temporary indemnity costs and increased permanent injuries. All of this rapidly eats up the small savings they hoped to realize from pursuing their ignorant agenda. As a result, Hawaii now boasts the third-highest workers compensation costs in the nation!

It was no surprise to the Hawaii Medical Association as costs per case steadily rose in spite of this draconian approach. What is surprising is that despite repeatedly going back to the Legislature asking that they correct their mistake, they have been absolutely intransigent to do so in spite of this clear and undeniable trend. Beyond gross economics, their action and their continued momentum-driven obstinacy has resulted in a tragic human costs, as well. We're talking about Hawaii's vibrant working men and women here. How many have become needlessly disabled because of impeded access to timely and competent care?

HMA and the Hawaii Occupational Medical Society continue with our efforts to rectify this situation so that Hawaii's injured workers receive timely, competent care. What's more, when they get it, the overall costs actually go down, not up. We will continue to try to get the Legislature to wake up to this fact and do something about it. Until they do, Hawaii's workers will continue to suffer the results of their lack of concern. In the meantime, if you or anyone you know has had a problem with finding a doctor to care for your work or no-fault injury, please speak up. Call, write, or e-mail your representative and senator and tell them to correct this mistake.

Ron Kienitz, DO, is chairman of the Hawaii Medical Association workers compensation committee, president of the Hawaii Occupational Medical Association and medical director of Concentra Medical Centers.

ref: http://archives.starbulletin.com/2005/12/06/editorial/commentary.html

New Transgenic Research Tool---Zinc Finger Nuclease Technology

ZFNs (Zinc Finger Nucleases) are engineered proteins that induce double strand breaks at specific sites in an organism's DNA. Scientists have successfully used this technology to generate transgenic Rats with heritable gene mutations without the need of using nuclear transfer or embryonic stem cells. Their study was published in July 24, 2009 issue of Science. This technology could be used to make disease state modes for research studies. It is early in development...so time will tell if it will become a useful and broad technology. For more see this link.

Big Money Budget for Francis Collins-New NIH Director

New NIH Leader Backs Personalized Medicine

From PharmExecBlog:

No one was surprised last month when the White House nominated world-famous geneticist Francis Collins for the top job at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The driving force behind NIH’s Human Genome Project for 15 years, Collins is experienced in managing large research projects and big budgets and in making friends on Capitol Hill.
In the year since he left NIH, he actively supported President Barack Obama’s election campaign and wrote a book on personalized medicine that reflects his belief in the power of molecular biology to shape medicine and the world. Collins has expressed disappointment that important genomic discoveries have not led to new life-saving therapies, and he will want to use his new position to change that.

For pharma, Collins’ offers prospects of increased emphasis at NIH on translational research and more collaboration in developing drugs for orphan and neglected diseases. Comparative effectiveness research, he says, should identify subpopulation responses to treatment and support personalized medicine.

Collins has been highly praised for bringing in the human genome project ahead of schedule and below budget; as NIH director he will need all his administrative skills to manage the vast NIH complex and shape how its disparate institutes dole out more than $25 billion in grants to research organizations and scientists. NIH staffers see him as likely to favor big, high-profile projects over the needs of individual researchers. An evangelical Christian, he also will face pressure to clarify how his personal faith can co-exist with support for evolution and science.
Collins takes over NIH at an enviable time. The agency gained some $10 billion in extra funds through the economic recovery legislation enacted earlier this year, providing a nice addition to the agency’s $30 billion budget. Although Congress is not likely to provide such largesse in the future, some increases are likely.Spurring Stem Cell Research A high-profile task for Collins is to implement recently finalized guidelines on human embryonic stem cell research (hESC), which NIH issued just as Collins’ nomination was announced. The new program calls for an NIH panel of scientists, ethicists and advocates to assess that all candidate stem cell lines meet ethical standards for government-funded research: that they are derived from leftover embryos created by in vitro fertilization, that donors understand their options and consent to research uses, and that there is no compensation to or pressure on donors to do so. NIH will establish a registry of all cell lines deemed eligible for federal funding, with an eye to reducing uncertainty and confusion in the research community.

The new rules were proposed last April after President Obama issued an executive order rescinding Bush administration restrictions on government-funded hESC studies. The new rule promises to vastly expand opportunities for research in this area, despite continued curbs on funding studies that use stem cells created solely for research purposes or cell lines derived through somatic cell nuclear transfer, a technique that many researchers consider highly promising. While life-saving medicines ultimately may emerge, a near-term benefit may be the development of new cellular assays for screening drug candidates and other methods useful in drug development.