David Relman, vice chair of the National Academy of Science committee that reported on the FBI’s anthrax letters research last week, did some clearer speaking (compared to the committee report and his statements at the NAS press conference on 2/15) about the committee’s findings for a press release from Stanford University, where he is a…

WHO Statement on Narcolepsy and Vaccination 8 February 2011 Since August 2010, following widespread use of vaccines against influenza (H1N1) 2009, cases of narcolepsy, especially in children and adolescents, have been reported from at least 12 countries. Narcolepsy is a rare sleep disorder that causes a person to fall asleep suddenly and unexpectedly. The rates…

Steve Nissen et al. hit another homer; the authors examine why bad medical devices (those eventually recalled) were initially approved by FDA, and learn it was due to skirting the standard review process.  Does abbreviated review of products benefit the public in any way?  Shouldn’t this abbreviated approval process be eliminated for all but emergency…

Today the Washington Post called for an independent commission on the anthrax letters: RESOLUTION OF THE 2001 anthrax attacks continues to prove elusive. The Justice Department and the FBI identified Maryland scientist Bruce E. Ivins as having single-handedly carried out the attacks that killed five people and seriously sickened 17 others. The department was on…

Professor Paul Keim, an anthrax genetics expert at Northern Arizona University and FBI contractor, is claiming the NAS report supports the FBI’s case.  It doesn’t.  Please review the report and judge for yourself. The NAS report has many confusing aspects.  But it basically says: The FBI totally screwed up its data collection of anthrax samples,…

1.  The FBI’s anthrax letters investigation:  points to consider November 30, 2010   2.  My summary of unresolved issues in the anthrax letters case March 7, 2010   3.  Jean Duley emerges from undisclosed location after 18 months to bolster FBI’s case against Ivins March 6, 2010   4.  The FBI’s Anthrax Case/ NYT February…

Glenn Greenwald (Salon) talks about the origins of this story.  He covers the media response to the FBI’s case in 2008, when calls for an independent investigation came from … the editorial pages of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal).  Mainstream scientific sources were equally skeptical; Nature called for an independent investigation and…

From today’s Washington Post: FBI continues to claim Ivins misled them with his original anthrax sample, although NAS pointed out that the instructions for sample collection were ambiguous, and FBI failed to collect needed information about the specific procedures used by those submitting samples. FBI claims it had to meet a stiffer standard than The…

From the LA Times: … Rep. Rush D. Holt, a Democrat from New Jersey, the site of the postal box where the letters were mailed, reintroduced legislation Tuesday to establish an 11-member commission to study the anthrax attacks. “There are still questions to be answered and still lessons to be learned,” Holt said. “It would…

There is no getting away from the NAS report conclusions, as reported worldwide:  the science does not support FBI’s claims that Ivins was the anthrax perpetrator. See articles from the AFP, NPR, AP, Science, and a later WP article. The FBI responded that their case was based on a totality of the evidence, not just…

From Jerry Markon at the Washington Post: A panel of prominent scientists is casting new doubt on scientific evidence that was a key part of the FBI’s case against Bruce E. Ivins, the deceased Army scientist accused of carrying out the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks. The National Research Council, in a report issued Tuesday, questioned…

WHO noted that narcolepsy has never before been associated with vaccines.  When there is no prior association, odd diseases occuring in temporal relationship to vaccination are generally felt to be coincidental.  Therefore, they are not generally reported to voluntary reporting systems, like the US’ VAERS.  No data get collected, and it remains unknown whether vaccination…

UPDATE:  On Feb 8, WHO acknowledged that at least 12 countries were reporting cases of narcolepsy associated with swine flu vaccinations. From the Helsinki Times, what we already knew and blogged on in 2009 here, here, here, and here finally becomes public knowledge after a vaccine-related, serious illness is identified.  Governments that purchased pandemic swine…

Finland’s National Narcolepsy Task Force released its preliminary report today, and GSK’s swine flu vaccine is implicated.  From the Associated Press: The National Institute for Health and Welfare, which published the findings, said that 60 children and adolescents contracted narcolepsy in Finland in 2009 and 2010. Fifty-two of them — or almost 90 percent —…