You just might want to save this graphic as you follow the mandate cases and others

Nature’s Declan Butler examines and rebuts the claim that WHO experts’ paid consultancies affected the advice they gave WHO on the swine flu pandemic.  Butler correctly notes that many governments ordered some swine flu vaccine before WHO declared a Level 6 Pandemic.  He further reports that scientists said, “severity is impossible to pin down until…

Yes, thanks to a tiny $2.6 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security, local Seattle police know everywhere your cell phone, ipad, and laptop have been for quite awhile.  There is likely video of you as well.  The “mesh network” that the police bought is capable of identifying and storing  “the IP address, device…

This am’s Hartford Courant carries a sensible Op-Ed. It ends, Congress should press the Justice Department for a full and public accounting of this case. Forcing the FBI to lay out its evidence against Mr. Ivins is the only way the public can be sure the agency’s methods were reasonable. It’s only fair.

Here is today’s NY Times’ update on negotiations between Germany and the US on spying; it appears we have not given Germany much besides a promise to leave Angela’s phone alone… Just as European and American negotiators resumed work on a groundbreaking trade accord meant to tie their two continents closer together, René Obermann, the…

Drug companies spent the most money to promote the most useless drugs, according to the following study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal: The relation between promotional spending on drugs and their therapeutic gain: a cohort analysis Joel Lexchin MSc MD Abstract Background: Whether drug promotion helps or hinders appropriate prescribing by physicians is debated. This study…

I love the Lancet. I have my own subscription, and it isn’t cheap. However, the Lancet took a cheap shot last week, when it retracted a paper on autism by Wakefield et al. immediately following a ruling by the UK’s General Medical Counsel. The Lancet has been embroiled in controversy (and repeatedly tried to extract…