From today’s NY Times on yet another medical research project (performed at 23 top academic medical centers) that was done sloppily, missing a standard-care arm, and failed to provide truly informed consent… performed on unconsenting very low birthweight newborns, who were at extremely high risk of a bad outcome, but who might also lead a normal…

Finally, human rights advocates are asking the US government on what legal basis it can choose to assassinate people, and by the way, what is the process for choosing who gets offed and another thing, what’s up with the drones?!  The usual administration response is just too precious: “Our approach is marked by scrupulous adherence to…

A US government-Harvard-Hopkins study confirmed what was obvious from many prior, similar studies:  flu shots cause occasional cases of paralytic Guillain Barre Syndrome, with or without adjuvants.  In this case, about 1.6 additional GBS cases per million vaccinations, or approximately double the baseline risk in the six weeks following the vaccination.  From the Lancet: Dr Daniel…

Here’s the verbatim recommendation (from the Commission press release) about testing anthrax vaccine in kids: “Recommends that multiple steps must be taken before ethical pediatric anthrax vaccine trials can be considered by the U.S. government… In keeping with its recommendation of a strict risk limit in pre-event pediatric MCM research, the Bioethics Commission called for…

Reading 26 media reports describing the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues’ report on testing anthrax vaccine and other countermeasures in children, one learns very little: This was a really hard job for the Commission.  They had to get it precisely right.  The safety of kids is our most important priority.   The…

The Presidential Bioethics Commission Report on testing anthrax vaccine and other countermeasures on children was issued today, March 19, 2013. It was accompanied by a press release, an article in the NEJM, and a conference call with the press yesterday.  The result is many news articles, but there is confusion about what the report actually recommended….

The NY Times ‘ Donald McNeil has followed up the juicy story of how billionaire political donor Ronald Perelman got a sweetheart contract (OMG, read David Willman’s story and weep, that deal was so sweet) for a high-priced smallpox drug, which isn’t actually needed cause we have enough vaccine for every American, and if you…

Pertussis (whooping cough) cases are occasionally vaccine-resistant. Sometimes what looks like pertussis is a related disease, parapertussis, and the pertussis vaccine is useless at preventing this infection.  In fact, the vaccine may actually enhance nasal carriage with parapertussis strains. Usually, vaccine-induced protection is weak and doesn’t last long. Clearly a new vaccine that is safe…

Katherine Sebelius, Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has proposed testing anthrax vaccine in children—ostensibly to protect American children in the unlikely event of an anthrax attack.[1] But no credible evidence of an impending anthrax threat has ever been cited. The only US anthrax threat, in 2001, was traced by…

I attended the Selling Sickness conference in DC 2 weeks ago and also came away impressed and morose at where my field has gone… Elizabeth Loder: How medical journals can help stop disease mongering6 Mar, 13 | by BMJ Group It would be hard to collect a more fascinating bunch of topics or people in…

The full article in the BMJ is here.  It simply confirms the same increased incidence in the UK as has been found elsewhere in countries that used Pandemrix, although initially it was said Scandinavians had very high rates of autoimmune disorders and were at higher risk than others. Given the up to 10 year interval…

Study:  Getting flu shots 2 years in a row may lower protection Robert Roos  News Editor a Mar 1, 2013 (CIDRAP News) – Experts are puzzled by a new study in which influenza vaccination seemed to provide little or no protection against flu in the 2010-11 season—and in which the only participants who seemed to benefit…

Do vaccines ramp up the immune system, sometimes to the significant detriment of patients?  Yes. Why then are they pushed so hard in patients who are especially vulnerable?  The answer relates more to the religion than to the science of vaccines. You have just had a heart transplant.  You do not want to reject your…

I am honored to be on the board of the Alliance for Human Research Protection and to be working with its dynamic President, Vera Sharav, on stopping a dangerous trial of anthrax vaccine in healthy children.    Why sacrifice healthy children for this purpose, when the vaccine does not even have a useful role in post-exposure prophylaxis…

per CDC, Feb 8, 2013

I’m 3 months late on this.  Since this article came out, it became clearer that ASO3 caused narcolepsy in more countries than just Scandinavia and Ireland, and that adults were also at risk of developing narcolepsy after the vaccine.  And these are BAD cases of narcolepsy, not the minor cases I have seen in clinical…

Of 364 older Danes who were seropositive for H3N2 infection and about 1000 who were negative, it turned out those who were positive were a bit more likely to have been vaccinated this season for flu. This may mean the vaccine was of no use due to high rates of mutation.  Or it could mean…

“If you aren’t vaccinated, you must wear a mask throughout flu season, or be fired!” But what if you are in the 45-55% of healthcare workers who got vaccinated but lack immunity to circulating flu strains?  Shouldn’t you be wearing a mask too? What if you are in the 75-100% of vaccinated workers who get…

Thanks for telling us, BBC.  But this is no surprise.  You should be investigating why England denied having an increase in cases earlier.  Furthermore, the 10-16 fold increased risk of narcolepsy within 6 months will lowball the actual risk–as recent studies show some victims taking much longer than 6 months or a year to be diagnosed….

From CDC’s Fluview:

You read it here 3 days ago.  Just because Pandemrix caused a 700%-1300% increase in narcolepsy cases in children did not mean that cases of the vaccine-induced illness were confined to children.  And now we see they were not.  Grownups also get it.  And what else was caused by Pandemrix that did not shout out…

An estimated 30-60 lives may have been saved in Sweden due to use of Pandemrix, but more than 200 Swedish children developed narcolepsy due to the Pandemrix vaccine. So now Pandemrix, with the ASO3 adjuvant, won’t be used in children.   But the more important issue imho is why will it continue to be used…

Finally, a major US network, CNN, tells the truth about flu vaccine policy: The flu hasn’t hit Europe as hard as it has the United States, health officials say, but when and if it does, don’t expect a call for vaccination of the entire population.  Only the U.S. and Canada actually encourage everyone older than…

from CDC’s FluView

You have to give credit to the two federal advisory committees tasked with advising the government on a trial of anthrax vaccine in children. THEY KNOW THE SCORE, whether they acknowledged it, or not. The members knew this was one issue that could really burn them. They understood that this is a dangerous vaccine with…

An excellent piece discusses how turning over aspects of healthcare to private industry led to greater costs without accompanying benefits, and compares the US with other first world countries.

Today’s NY Times’ front page says, “Sales of Guns Soar in U.S. as Nation Weighs Tougher Limits.   The Times’ Quotation of the Day is:  “If I had 1,000 AR-15’s I could sell them in a week.” The quote is from Jack Smith, a gun dealer in Des Moines, Iowa, referring to a popular style…

CDC posts its latest stats for flu on Fridays.  See how, despite the pandemonium over flu, things are improving, and it looks like this season is less severe than 2003-4, 2007-8, and 2009-10. UPDATE #1:  January 12:  Aetna said this week it has seen a spike in flu cases this year but it is not…

What exactly is a “state of emergency”? According to Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), state declarations “may also identify state rules and regulations that are waived or suspended during the emergency…  They can include: Activation of statutory immunities and liability protections for those involved in response activities. Suspension and waiver of rules…

CDC’s weekly flu data with tables and graphs is here.  This flu season looks ho-hum, occurring earlier than usual but following a standard trajectory.  CDC, why the barrage of disinfo?  Can this really be only about the flu, or is it about encroaching on our civil rights and our bodies? Here are even earlier flu seasons…

Puh-Leeze.  A State of Emergency?  I’d laugh except declaring an emergency gives states new political powers.  Powers designed by CDC and Lawrence Gostin.  Begun by 1999, before the anthrax letters or comparable public health emergencies existed, CDC “called for strengthening the legal foundation for public health practice.” The Model Emergency Health Powers Act was only…

From UpToDate, the highly regarded online textbook of medicine, on flu vaccine: It has been difficult to demonstrate an improvement in survival after influenza vaccination in elderly patients in randomized controlled trials because mortality is a rare end-point. The systematic review cited above found a significant reduction in death from influenza or pneumonia [46], but…

The May 2012 updated anthrax vaccine package insert (a.k.a. label) provides cause for concern.  Would you give this vaccine to your dog, let alone your child?  Next week the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues will have their final meeting to discuss giving anthrax vaccine to children.  Whose children would be sacrificed? 1….

You can’t make this stuff up.  Conflicts of interest abound at the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues with respect to anthrax vaccine.  Coincidence or forethought? Before Emergent Biosolutions made anthrax vaccine, the vaccine was made by the Michigan Department of Public Health.  Before Michigan, it was made by Merck. Might Merck Vaccine’s President…

Poland served as “faculty” for this little paper, whose goal was to push flu vaccinations beyond the end of flu season, helping to use up the oversupply: Access to influenza vaccination is no longer constrained by problems in supply and distribution, as more manufacturers are providing more influenza vaccine to the US market than ever before….

Poland’s 2005 paper is one of those designed to pay the way to mandatory influenza vaccinations.  Back in 2005 Poland did not dare to ask for healthcare worker (HCW) firings, nor to junk philosophical exemptions, as he does now.  The paper uses Polandese to make the benefits of vaccination appear much greater than they are….

One person has been instrumental in creating flu vaccine mandates in the US, and he continues to push them overseas as well:  Mayo’s Greg Poland, MD. Poland is a scoundrel.  He enjoys throwing punches below the belt, and brags about it.  He placed on his Mayo website:  “In Dr. Poland’s war, there are no rules…

National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. Call to action: Influenza immunization among health care personnel. Bethesda, MD, 2008.  Sponsored by Sanofi. *  In the context of this document, the term “health care personnel” extends to all persons working in health care settings, including home health care, who have contact with patients. This includes not only traditionally…

Yet another just-published literature review, this time from Israel, finds mandatory healthcare worker flu vaccinations unsupported by the literature. Int J Family Med. 2012;2012:205464. doi: 10.1155/2012/205464. Epub 2012 Nov 11.  What, in Fact, Is the Evidence That Vaccinating Healthcare Workers against Seasonal Influenza Protects Their Patients? A Critical Review. Abramson ZH.  Source Department of Family Medicine, Hebrew University-Hadassah…

I did not have to look far to find the source of that meaningless little factoid used by the Goshen hospital spokesperson and the British Columbia chief medical officer:  “Influenza is the most frequent cause of death from a vaccine-preventable disease in the United States.”   It was the very first sentence in a flu vaccine…

No, the vaccinators don’t write their talking points themselves.  They get them from the same playbook. The spokeswoman for Goshen Hospital, which just fired 8 employees, justified forced vaccinations with the identical (meaningless) argument as British Columbia’s Chief Medical Officer: … hospital spokeswoman Melanie McDonald told the Elkhart Truth: “The flu has the highest death rate of…

Professor Ken Flegel, an editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, wrote an editorial last fall supporting mandatory flu shots for healthcare workers.  I blogged about his standard for vaccination last November, but did not critique many other problems with the article.  Somehow, like Perry Kendall, Dr. Flegel got his citations (and his ideas) all…

British Columbia ‘s chief medical officer pushed mandatory flu shots for healthcare workers, then backed up the policy with specious claims, showing he had not a clue what the science really said.  The Cochrane Collaboration’s Tom Jefferson, MD, a flu vaccine expert who had reviewed the world literature and coauthored several Cochrane meta-analyses on the…

Canada’s first mandatory flu shot policy, announced in August 2012 for all healthcare workers, was reversed in early December, following an uproar by nurses and other health workers. The nurses’ union, the HSA and the Hospital Employees’ Union, together representing more than 100,000 health-care workers, objected to their members being forced to have a flu…

The Lancet investigated flu vaccine effects with the following two interesting studies: 1.  Simonsen et al. showed that as rates of flu vaccination in the elderly rose in the US from 15% to 65%, there was no corresponding decrease in elder deaths from flu! 2.  Carman et al. found that:  Vaccination of health-care workers was…

The Cochrane Collaboration, the most respected organization of health professionals to evaluate the evidence behind medical therapies, studied flu vaccine of healthcare workers in 2006 and again in 2010. In 2006 they concluded: There is evidence that vaccinating the elderly has a modest impact on the complications from influenza. There is also high quality evidence…

What is up with firing workers who don’t get vaccinated for flu?  Indiana’s Goshen Hospital just fired 8 workers for refusing the shots.   Hospital spokeswoman Melanie McDonald told The Elkhart Truth the new requirements came as a recommendation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Medical Association and other major…

I missed this November article on flu shots from the NY Times blog.  Yes, it repeats material I have covered before.  But as healthcare workers continue to be fired from their jobs for refusing flu shots, I will continue to post on why their firings make no sense. Here are excerpts: It’s flu-shot season, and…

Medicine has become so replete with financial conflicts of interest, it becomes very hard to sort out what the ethical standards are these days. Yesterday, the NY Times told us that the AMA put out a warning to doctors that doctors’ primary responsibility is to the patient and not to their employer.  In other words,…

This piece and the one below need no introduction.  The surveillance state is developing/installing its hardware at warp speed.–Meryl Transit authorities in cities across the country are quietly installing microphone-enabled surveillance systems on public buses that would give them the ability to record and store private conversations, according to documents obtained by a news outlet….

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324478304578171623040640006.html?KEYWORDS=US+Terrorism+Agency+to+Tap+a+Vast+Database+of+Citizens–and+share+with+other+countries 12/12/12 Wall Street Journal    page 1 By JULIA ANGWIN Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a…

Very few countries offer seasonal flu vaccines to their general (not high risk) populations, let alone mandate them for groups of healthy people.  With less institutional bias, the international literature usually fails to support mass flu vaccinations, for a variety of reasons.  Here are short excerpts from medical literature around the world of which I’ve…

From a public health standpoint, a true pandemic flu–a la 1918–is what might cause really large mortality and morbidity.  Seasonal flu causes a few hundred deaths in healthy people, and perhaps a few thousand in the frail elderly in the US each year.  (We don’t have a good count of cases, and rely on modeling…

From the Mayo Clinic and Wisconsin Medical Journal comes the following letter from Preventive Medicine specialist William Buchta, M.D., MPH: While the intent of Aurora’s mandatory influenza vaccination1 of health care workers might be noble, ie, patient protection, the research on the subject is lacking. Only 2 studies have tracked hospital-acquired worker-to-patient influenza (a relatively simple infection control…

Many healthcare institutions are imposing mandates on staff for flu vaccinations, with penalties ranging from wearing masks throughout the workday (even for those with no cough or sneeze–which demonstrates the lack of scientific basis for this measure, since merely breathing on someone has never been demonstrated to transmit influenza) to blanket firings of employees who refuse to…

Although I have deep concerns about how government would manage healthcare were it the sole provider of health insurance, there are so many terrible problems with the current system that single payer seems the only way out.  Here is an example of why the concept of markets doesn’t work in healthcare:  it is impossible to…

Happy Thanksgiving:  You’re fired.   Donald Trump couldn’t have done it with more aplomb. “Health system TriHealth had a message for 150 employees Wednesday: We really mean it this time.   The 150 workers who didn’t get the required flu shots by the Nov. 16 deadline received termination notices the day before Thanksgiving…” On November 20,…

This has been a big week for long articles about the role (read: SCANDAL) of money in the so-called science of medicine.  Scientific American has a very worthwhile article with a focus on drugs for osteoporosis.  I covered this subject once before.  Charles Seife, the author, is an academic who worked very hard to piece…

Spiriva had an unusual marketing strategy when it came out:  I was told (while eating a free lunch) it was a great drug, but could take a very long time to show benefit:  therefore, give it to patients for 6 months before concluding lack of benefit.  A six month trial cost the patient about $1,000….

Another blockbuster article from the BMJ:  Medtronic paid hundreds of millions of dollars (most to doctors) to write its own articles on a spinal fusion device and genetically engineered protein to stimulate bone growth: The US medical device company Medtronic was “heavily involved in drafting, editing, and shaping the content of medical journal articles authored…

Dr. Flegel, a professor of medicine and senior associate editor of the CMAJ, last week weighed in to support compulsory flu vaccinations on the basis that the following was met: “… there must be an outbreak of serious illness; immunity levels must be low; the vaccine must be effective, safe and available; and vaccine uptake must be low.”…

Re: Clinical trial data for all drugs in current use 31 October 2012 Dr. Godlee’s editorial (BMJ 2012; 345 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e7304) underscores the importance of the GlaxoSmithKline decision to allow access to anonymized patient level data from its clinical trials. Meta-analysts can now work more efficiently in summarizing knowledge relating to the benefits and risks of…

The courageous BMJ and editor Fiona Godlee have dared to suggest the only way forward through the quicksand of clinical trial data in which we find ourselves.  When only the manufacturer knows what is in a drug’s database, and the manufacturer’s primary duty is to shareholders, medicine progresses backwards to a new Dark Age. Simply,…

The Globe updates us on the NECC tragedy/scandal. The outbreak of fungal meningitis due to contaminated drugs from New England Compounding Center  brings to mind a 1997 FDA inspection and report of the Lansing, Michigan anthrax vaccine manufacturer, which at that time was a state of Michigan subsidiary:  Michigan Biologic Products Institute.  Many of the…

Merck’s new vaccine candidate, V710, was designed to prevent post-op staph infections, a frequent and potentially devastating complication that occurs after many types of surgery.  However, in a large clinical trial that studied over 3500 patients, not only did the vaccine fail to provide this protection, but there were many initial adverse reactions, and recipients…

Opinion 9.133 Routine Universal Immunization of Physicians (from the AMA Code of Ethics) is very clearly against universal immunization mandates.  Here is the language: As professionals committed to promoting the welfare of individual patients and the health of the public and to safeguarding their own and their colleagues’ well-being, physicians have an ethical responsibility to take…

After 50 years of flu shots, governments still cannot demonstrate they save lives.  In fact, getting a flu shot in 2008 made you twice as likely to actually get sick from a case of the flu in 2009.  But these facts, discussed in earlier blog posts, are ignored as mandates increase for yearly flu inoculations….

Flu vaccines would be fine for everyone to take each year if the benefit exceeded the risk plus cost.  The cost in a drug store to be vaccinated is about $25.  No benefit can be demonstrated in those over 65 or in younger children, where 90% of flu deaths occur.  (See several posts from earlier…

From the September 2012 European ECDC report titled, “Narcolepsy in association with pandemic influenza vaccination” commissioned by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, but produced by the Brighton Collaboration: (page 149) Finland’s Squalene — ASO3 blockbuster: “Contrary to previous studies, studies at THL suggest that squalene (AS03) produces an antibody response. Preliminary studies suggest that…

From Helsiningin Sanomat: Report delayed on correlation between swine flu vaccinations and various illnesses  print this The (Finnish) National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) report on the correlation between swine flu vaccinations and incidences of various illnesses will be delayed, writes the Oulu-based daily Kaleva.      Originally, results were meant to be available already during the…

From AFP/ Raw Story: … In Finland, 79 children aged four to 19 developed narcolepsy after receiving the Pandemrix vaccine in 2009 and 2010, while in Sweden the number was close to 200, according to figures in the two countries. Both countries recommended their populations, of around five and 10 million respectively, to take part…

From yesterday’s Scientific American: Despite government recommendations, there is little evidence that flu vaccines help individuals older than 65 or younger than two. Every year around this time, 120 million Americans roll up their sleeves to get their annual flu shots. Since 2010, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended yearly jabs…

The entire article from the Calgary Post is below, as it is important.  The article cites well known flu experts Danuta Skowronsky and Michael Osterholm (who is first author of a report that forms the basis of the piece) acknowledging the vaccine just doesn’t work all that well as has been claimed.  The report “… suggests…

It seems we have been hearing about the “new” swine flu over and over again.  Why should we care? Only 290 cases throughout the US have been identified this season.  There have been either no or next-to-no cases of human to human transmission.  CDC thinks there may have been 3 people (1%) who caught the…

Not a single doctor or paramedic of the 2,000 working at public hospitals in Pune, India have accepted free flu shots offered to them by state government, according to the Times of India. Yet hospitals in the US increasingly force their employees to receive these inoculations, although they have not been shown to reduce infections…

 Oops! Copyright Cops Return Seized RojaDirecta Domain Names – 19 Months Later From Wired:  So you thought your passwords were memorized and totally secure?  Think again.  Do you really want to bank online?  These discoveries and devices are gamechangers, and the game is life as we know it.  | Edit <img class=”size-full wp-image-47189″ title=”eeg_headset” src=”http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2012/08/eeg_headset.jpg” alt=””…

From the article “Reform Driving Physicians Out of Private Practice to Reduce Costs” a few issues are raised about rapid and dramatic changes occurring in health care, about which consumers have little knowledge.  Health care conglomerates are being forcibly created due to the new payment structure, which can only increase costs considerably in the short…

Just another example of the crazy billing environment for medicine in the US.  From the WSJ: “After David Hubbard underwent a routine echocardiogram at his cardiologist’s office last year, he was surprised to learn that the heart scan cost his insurer $1,605. That was more than four times the $373 it paid when the 61-year-old…

I was glad to see this piece, which explains that public horror at “Total Information Awareness” caused it to be cancelled in 2003–only to have a much grander, insidious and dangerous NSA program grow up in its place. The current program lacks two critical pieces, including a way to track and record who accesses data…

Pauline Chen, MD blogs at the NY Times about what it feels like to be a doctor today.  Here she discusses a new survey of 7,000 practicing doctors, 48% of whom experienced at least one symptom of “burnout.”   Excerpts from her article follow: …Research over the last 10 years has shown that burnout –…

Interesting comments were made at the last meeting of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, reported on the Commission blog.  They include the following: Anita Allen, J.D., Ph.D., Commission member and Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania: “Military families are subject to extraordinary pressures on the need…

Below is my recent letter to the Chair of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, preceding the Commission’s meeting last week.  The Commission’s blog mentions some of what was discussed.  The Commission will report its views to the DHHS Secretary by year’s end. Meryl Nass, MD Board Certified in Internal Medicine Mount…

I have to give the WHO editors kudos for being brave enough to commission commentaries on WHO’s pandemic planning. Peter Doshi wrote about WHO’s waffling over the definition of pandemic, which morphed into a meaningless definition that allowed even the common cold to be called a pandemic, since severity was missing from the definition. Bonneux…

Remember the 2009 Swine Flu Pandemic?  There were going to be a huge number of illnesses and deaths, but then it turned out the flu virus caused less severe disease than usual.   Since then, the H1N1 swine flu virus has remained in circulation, and we have continued to have fewer reported flu deaths in the…

From MedicalNewsToday comes the following misleading information on the dramatic benefits of flu vaccine for kids:  The UK is set to become the first country in the world to provide all children free of charge with a comprehensive flu vaccination program…  Once the program is up and running, it will cost the government over £100 million annually,…

Canberra, Australia’s capital, has about 365,000 people and has a medical school.  Its health staff totals 5,122 people.  Only 48% were vaccinated against the flu this year, down from 60% during the swine flu pandemic of 2009. But is this a problem? ACT Health said there have been fewer than five deaths a year for…

As has been noted previously, vaccination is a black art, basically a trial and error process of discovery, which has the potential to either prevent or enhance disease, and therefore must be studied carefully before vaccines are administered to large populations, despite issues of expediency.   Vet Pathol. 2012 Mar 28. Kinetics of Lung Lesion Development…

 Ellen Nakashima at the Post reports that Charles Grassley has evidence the Office of General Counsel at FDA authorized extensive spy probe of disgruntled employeess, Congressional offices and media.  This suggests authorization came from the highest levels at FDA: “Congressional investigators said Monday that the chief counsel’s office at the Food and Drug Administration authorized wide-ranging…

One CDC high-containment lab (BSL-3, the level of containment required to study anthrax) fails to contain air efflux.  And it was discovered because visitors touring the facility saw a puff of air exit through a slot in a door window.  How long had this been going on?   USAToday points out that the BSL-3 lab doors…

The FDA, reprising the Justice Department, had its own criminal enterprise going.  Using commercial $99.95 spy software, it was able to illegally read emails of its employees, members of Congress and their staffs, and journalists, and much more. Eric Lichtblau and Scott Shane of the NY Times report, although who authorized the illegal surveillance and who…

The FBI crime lab seems to have been run as an illegal enterprise to support desired convictions–evidence be damned–for decades.  Maybe justice will now be served for some of those convicted as a result of FBI criminality. This story didn’t  just come out.  There was a Justice Department review years ago… which let the original…

From Wired and ScienceNOW comes this very worrisome piece about how two different, attenuated live virus vaccines for infectious laryngotracheitis in chickens recombined to form a virus twice as deadly as the disease the vaccines were intended to prevent.  (The death rate in chickens increased from 8% to 17%.)  Chickens in multiple parts of Australia were…

According to Reuters, the US ranks close to the bottom on a number of healthcare indices, compared to   the 33 other countries in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development).  Of course, the US ranks at the top in terms of cost:  17.9% of GDP is spent on healthcare in the US. There is…

From the NY Times: In the largest settlement involving a pharmaceutical company, the British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges and pay $3 billion in fines for promoting its best-selling antidepressants for unapproved uses and failing to report safety data about a top diabetes drug, federal prosecutors announced Monday. The agreement also…

From Eric Lichtblau at the NY Times: WASHINGTON — In the first public accounting of its kind, cellphone carriers reported that they responded to a startling 1.3 million demands for subscriber information last year from law enforcement agencies seeking text messages, caller locations and other information in the course of investigations. The cellphone carriers’ reports,…

David Willman does another deft job with the story of BioWatch, hopefully in time to influence the upcoming purchase of BioWatch’s next generation of detectors.  None have yet worked as billed.  The “detectors” are simply air samplers:  filters attached to vacuum tubes.  The filters have to be collected, then tested elsewhere using PCR devices specific…

From the Irish Times: In a final vote of no confidence, Ireland’s ill-fated e-voting machines are finally headed to the scrap heap. From the June 29 Independent: THE Government has sold the infamous €54m e-voting machines for scrap — for €9.30 each. [Sold as scrap for about 15 cents per ten dollars spent on their…

The Gang who Couldn’t Shoot Strait at Emergent BioSolutions gain more largesse from the USG.  Yet this company cannot do anything right except obtain government contracts, kill off the competition, co-opt watchdog nonprofits and set up their own education agencies. See “Anthrax Vaccine:  to the Victor the Spoils” “This award underscores Emergent’s core competencies not only in product…