PHARMA ETHICS, AGAIN

If this week's SCOTUS ruling on Wyeth vs. Levine wasn't enough, there are two New York Times stories by Duff Wilson about the influence of corporate pharmaceutical companies on faculties - and their veiled threats on students - at Harvard Medical School.

One is about the ethics of faculty being paid consultants of pharmaceutical companies:-- In a first-year pharmacology class at Harvard Medical School, Matt Zerden grew wary as the professor promoted the benefits of cholesterol drugs and seemed to belittle a student who asked about side effects.

Mr. Zerden later discovered something by searching online that he began sharing with his classmates. The professor was not only a full-time member of the Harvard Medical faculty, but a paid consultant to 10 drug companies, including five makers of cholesterol treatments.

“I felt really violated,” Mr. Zerden, now a fourth-year student, recently recalled. “Here we have 160 open minds trying to learn the basics in a protected space, and the information he was giving wasn’t as pure as I think it should be.”

Mr. Zerden’s minor stir four years ago has lately grown into a full-blown movement by more than 200 Harvard Medical School students and sympathetic faculty, intent on exposing and curtailing the industry influence in their classrooms and laboratories, as well as in Harvard’s 17 affiliated teaching hospitals and institutes.

This is all to reminiscient of the commotion in 2006 about pro-fluoridationist Dr. Chester Douglass, a professor of Dentistry at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, who also served as editor of one of COLGATE's company publications and was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Delta Dental Foundation of Massachusetts, a trade organisation. Harvard did indeed investigate Dr Douglass' questionable ethics, but it was a whitewash. We'll have to wait and see what comes of the med students' protests.

In 2005, a scientist at NIH was punished by that government agency for asking that pharmaceutical companies' payments to academic researchers be made public.

The second article concerns Pfizer photographing Harvard Medical School student protesters:-- ... David Tian, a first-year Harvard medical student, said he found it “strange and off-putting” last fall when a man who identified himself as a Pfizer employee took a cellphone photo of students as they demonstrated against pharmaceutical industry influence on campus. “We could only assume he intended to share this with his company,” Mr. Tian said.

The students did not get the man’s name, but they took his picture.

Asked about the mysterious Pfizer man on campus and shown his picture, a company spokesman said he had recently contacted the employee and concluded that he had done nothing wrong. Declining to name him, the spokesman, Ray Kerins, said the employee had photographed the students for personal use.

Mr. Kerins preferred to talk about Pfizer’s support of the medical school, which, according to Harvard officials, includes private payments to at least 149 faculty members, corporate donations of $350,000 to the school last year, $234,000 for continuing medical education classes, and two Pfizer-financed research projects on campus.

QUESTIONS: What are the pressures of pharmaceutical companies put on students, researchers and faculty UVM's College of Medicine and the Dartmouth Medical School? Which members of their respective faculties are paid consultants of corporations and trade organisations? Is there a code of ethics in place against such influence?

(Thanks to The Cockroach Catcher for the heads-up about the NYT story.)

FDA GUIDELINES ADDRESS JOURNAL REPRINTS ON UNAPPROVED DRUG USE

The FDA has released guidelines concerning journal reprints distributed to physicians that cite the off-label use of drugs and devices. Although some welcome the guidelines as a way to help clear up the issues surrounding the practice, others say they may cause confusion about what should or should not be considered promotional.

Source: AMANews (subscription required)

HOW CORPORATIONS AND TRADE ASSOCIATIONS ATTEMPT TO INFLUENCE SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY

From TRNN:



It's old news, really. And I'll bet you all the hydrofluorosicilic acid in Burlington's water that the same kind of lobbying of "scientists" - the squelching of knowledge for profit - regarding fluoride goes on at the Vermont Department of Health, too.

YOU CAN'T PARK HERE

We’ve all heard about the NIMBY mentality prevalent in our neighborhoods and towns. Gated communities have sprung up all over this land: press a secret code, and you’re in; if you don’t pass the security gate, you’re out in the cold. Even if you live in a condominium, you have to prove you're legitimate, so your neighbors will know you’re not a stranger intruding on their turf.

So, picking up on debates and discussions on a few neighborhood Front Porch Forums, the Free Press reports that Burlington's restricted/residential parking is increasing its scope to neighborhoods around the city. It started out up on the hill, on the streets with swankiendas near UVM and Champlain College. The proponents may live in an exclusive area of Burlington, but our city is not River Oaks or Short Hills or Scarsdale. Oh! the tyrrany of the "nice neighborhood"! The program - let alone its expansion - approved in neighborhoods by the DPW commission is fraught with bureaucratic problems. It should never have been considered in the first place, or allowed to expand.

Nobody owns our streets - they are public thoroughfares (not privatised streets), for use by all sorts and conditions to travel on or stop along the way.

Former mayor Peter Clavelle refused to sign the petition for restricting parking on his street for that reason. I bet the 60% who said yes to the petition for the scheme on South Union Street couldn’t tell you what it meant in detail - probably just thought it was a "good idea" for "our" neighborhood. But not for the city, no sirree. The proponents who screamed for restricted parking show a selfishness which again pits residents against college students. I asked a resident of South Union Street and a Champlain College student who lives a few doors away from Peter Clavelle how he found out about the resident parking stickers. He told me he "found out" by having received a ticket for parking in front of his apartment, which, in order to get reversed, he had to prove to the police authorities that he was a bona fide resident - not of Burlington - but of South Union Street!

Shame on the city administration and DPW in catering to the chosen fews and not doing what they're supposed to do: work for the common good of all Burlington.

Student Tasered and Arrested at Kerry Speech

Thanks to Martin Wisse at Wis[s]e Words for alerting us about this story. Jeralyn Merritt also has a post about it at Talk Left.

OCALA.COM - Student Tasered at Kerry speech -

Toward the conclusion of Kerry's UF forum, Meyer approached an open microphone at the University Auditorium and demanded Kerry answer his questions. The student claimed that University Police Department officers had already threatened to arrest him, and then proceeded to question Kerry about why he didn't contest the 2004 presidential election and why there had been no moves to impeach President Bush.

A minute or so into what became a combative diatribe, Meyer's microphone was turned off and officers began trying to physically remove him from the auditorium. Meyer flailed his arms, yelling as police tried to restrain him.

He was then pushed to the ground by six officers, at which point Meyer yelled, "What have I done? What I have I done? Get away from me. Get off of me! What did I do? ... Help me! Help."

Police threatened to user a Taser on Meyer if he did not "comply," but he continued to resist being handcuffed. He was then Tased, which prompted him to scream and writhe in pain on the floor of the auditorium.

After the incident, Capt. Jeff Holcomb of the UPD said Meyer had been charged with disrupting a public event and placed in the Alachua County Jail. Holcomb said there would be an investigation into whether the officers used force appropriately, adding that employing a Taser gun would only be justified in a case where there was a threat of physical harm to officers.

As Meyer was escorted away, he was followed by several students, including Matthew Howland, 20. Howland, a UF senior who said he didn't know Meyer, said he was "appalled" by the way UPD officers handled the situation. Howland acknowledged that Meyer had acted inappropriately by "rushing" the microphone and forcing a question on Kerry.

Read and watch the video of the OCALA.COM news story in toto.

First hit the pets, then the people

Andrew Lindzey writes about the relationship between animal cruelty and interpersonal violence -

First hit the pets, then the people

“If any passages in holy scripture seem to forbid us to be cruel to brute animals,” wrote St Thomas Aquinas, “this is . . . to remove man’s thoughts from being cruel to other men, lest through being cruel to animals one becomes cruel to human beings.”

Leaving aside Aquinas’s questionable interpretation of scripture, the assumed link between animal cruelty and interpersonal violence has found wide resonance in Western society. Thinkers as diverse as Pythagoras, St Augustine, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and many others have all advanced similar views.

The evidence?

There are two principal kinds of evidence...

In a control-group study by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) and Northeastern University, 153 individuals prosecuted by the MSPCA between 1975 and 1986 were tracked for 20 years — ten years before the abuse, and ten after. Seventy per cent who had committed violent crimes against animals also had — or went on to have — criminal records for violent, drug, or disorder crimes.

Compared with their next-door neighbours, those who abused animals were five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people. The FBI now places animal cruelty on its list of risk indicators and warning signs for future violence.

The second piece of evidence comes from research on domestic violence. In situations where women or children were abused, so, invariably, were their animals. In 1981, a study by the RSPCA reported that 83 per cent of families with a history of animal abuse had also been identified by social services as at risk from child abuse or neglect.

In 1983, a study of those receiving services for child abuse from the New Jersey child-protection agency found that animals had also been abused in 88 per cent of pet-owning families. Extensive “triangling” took place within families, whereby pets were mistreated as a means of hurting another member of the family. Further US research in 1995 suggested that 71 per cent of battered women in a shelter asserted that their violent partner had harmed, or threatened to harm, the family pet.

Two pioneers in the field, Frank Ascione and Phil Arkow, argue that “Violence directed against animals is often a coercion device and an early indicator of violence that may escalate in range and severity against other victims.”

What to do?

None of this shows that people who are cruel to animals will always be violent to humans. There is no simple cause and effect. Rather, cruelty to animals is one of a cluster of potential or actual characteristics held in common by those who commit violence or seriously anti-social acts. The American Psychiatric Association, for example, identifies animal cruelty as one of the diagnostic criteria for conduct disorders.

In the light of this accumulating evidence, what should be done? The first course of action should be humane education by parents and teachers. Macho acts of violence to other creatures are not a normal phase of development, and, unless checked, can form pathological traits. Teaching young children respect for living creatures is a large civilising task, but, lamentably, it has no place in the National Curriculum, and is seldom undertaken by schools. By their example, or lack of it, parents crucially influence children’s propensity to violence.

The second point is the need to address and report incidents of abuse. Clergy are now well aware of this obligation in relation to children, but are reluctant to act in relation to animals. Yet, since clergy are one of the few professional groups whose work involves home visits, they are often (like it or not) in key front-line positions. Cross-reporting among professionals is now increasingly common, and it is a mistake to leave any case of abuse, child or animal, unreported. Under the 2006 Animal Welfare Act, all who keep animals have a “duty of care”.

The third course of action concerns our theological vision of our place in creation. The idea of the interdependence of creation is now commonplace, but when it comes to articulating its practical significance, theologians and preachers are often mute. It is as if we can speak of creation only in generalities, always emphasising the differences between “them” and “us”. One result of this split thinking is that we fail to see the common patterns of violence in which we are caught — both as abusers and the abused.

A beleaguered animal protectionist was once confronted by an angry person wanting to know how she dared work for animals while there was still cruelty to children. “I’m working at the roots,” she replied.

First hit the pets, then the people by the Revd Professor Andrew Linzey, Director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, in Church Times (Church of England newspaper), 17 August 2007

See my previous post on the Centre.

The Power of the Vermont Pigs

It’s obv to me that Sam Hemingway is pro-taser. Check out his shoddy inaccurate reporting in today's Free Press. Why doesn’t that paper's copy editor do his job?

He reports on an incident this past week involving a tasering of two "pro-environment protesters" in Brattleboro. Labeling these individuals the way he does gives the article a political slant, and shows his bias. As opposed to anti-environment protesters? Why not just write two persons, or two environment protesters?

Agenda or not, the implication is that they deserved to be tasered. In a story that was supposed to be 'just the facts.

In it's coverage, the Brattleboro Reformer calls the individuals non-violent protesters.

The Boston Globe just identifies them as two protesters

The man and the woman were planting flowers to protest the development of a truck stop on the Putney Road.

Another inaccuracy -

CBS News reported in 2004 that 70 people have died as a result of being zapped by Taser guns.

Huh, CBS News?!? That’s an outdated stat. Again, Hemingway gives a lower number to minimize the seriousness of the deaths. No where does he indicate that the numbers have increased. Amnesty International has identified over 150 taser deaths since 2001.

Sixty-one people died in 2005 after being shocked by law enforcement agency TASERs, a 27 percent increase from 2004's tally of 48 deaths, finds an Amnesty International study released today. Including 10 TASER-related deaths through mid-February of this year, at least 152 people have died in the United States since June 2001 after being shocked with the weapons.

"Despite a lack of independent research on TASER safety, police officers are using these weapons as a routine force tool -- rather than as a weapon of last resort," said Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). "These weapons have a record that's growing longer each week -- and it's not a good one. The increasingly frequent TASER-related deaths underscore the need for an independent, rigorous and impartial inquiry into their use."

Burlington Police are thrilled with 'em:

"It's the most effective new tool to come along in the police community in the last 25 years," Burlington Police Chief Tom Tremblay said. "We have significantly reduced injuries to officers and the number of confrontations with offenders by utilizing this tool."

First off, Chief Tremblay, it's not a tool. It kills, it's a weapon. So, because the po-lice are pro-taser, there’s no debate. Actually, there was never a debate in Burlington. BPD just started using them without public discussion. Tasers are dangerous, but the false sense of safety has caused the police to use them too freely. So much for the effects of NPA community PR: TASER use replaces the humanity and compassion that good officers develop, which make it unnecessary to endanger the public with.

I wrote last November, Last summer, Burlington Police obtained tasers to use on citizens here. Seven Days newspaper reported an incident last June where a taser gun was used on a dog. No protests were made by the Humane Society, of course.
The voice of the experts?

"The times where a Taser can cause harm are very, very, very rare," said Dr. Wendy James, an emergency room doctor at Fletcher Allen Health Care hospital who has helped Burlington develop its policies for using Tasers. "I'd much rather someone be Tased than have a bullet hole in them."

Taser International claims tasers are safe, "non-lethal" or "less lethal" They even sell a consumer version (keep your family safe), with the same effective zap as the po-lice kind. (I love these euphemisms!)

Is Dr James an expert on “non-lethal” weapons? How does Heminway know this fact? How much compensation did she receive from the BPD?

Hemingway’s story does not mention that the USDOJ is studying TASER use.

Nor does he mention Tasers new "tool". From New Scientist - Taser unveils long-range and 'scatter' weapons - there's the new XREP:

The new projectile, known as XREP can be fired from a standard shotgun. A barbed electrode sticks to the target on impact. The rest of the projectile then falls away on a short tether and another spiked electrode makes a second contact point on the target. This ensures that the two electrodes are sufficiently spaced out to affect the entire body.
---
But Neil Davison, head of non-lethal weapons research within the peace studies department at Bradford University, UK, points to potential hazards of XREP. "It combines the well-known dangers of impact projectiles – inaccuracy, potential for serious injury – with a Taser shock four times longer than usual, which also carries an increased risk to the health of the victim," Davison says.
---
Davison sees a risk that targets may be hit more than once. "My overall concern with all three developments is that they would further remove the process of human interaction, negotiation and reasoning from the decision by police to use force," he says.

See my related post from June.
AI's multimedia dossier on TASERS
AI's News dossier on TASERS

China Charade

Vermont, a bastion of progre$$ive capitalist enviro-politics, has formed an alliance with China, a flawless model for human rights and environmental justice. VERMONT SNARKY BOY comments.

Their blood is on our hands

Wis[s]e Words (Martin Wisse): Their blood is on our hands -

The thing to remember about the civil war between Hamas and Fatah now raging in the Gaza Strip and the Westbank is that it isn't some unexplainable eruption of senseless violence, but something that has been carefully engineered ever since Hamas won the 2006 elections. Fatah was of course loath to relinquish its power from the start, but more importantly both Israel and the socalled international community never had the intention to treat any Hamas led government as a true representative of the Palestinians, no matter if it had been democratically elected. the reason being that Hamas is a terrorist organisation and you don't talk to terrorists.

Read the rest of "Their blood is on our hands..."

The Politics of Stem Cell Research

Linda Glenn, a contributor on the Women's Bioethics Project Blog, alerted me to this video - From USA Today:
"Hollywood figure, filmmaker Jerry Zucker, is trying to influence the [stem cell] debate with his own video, this one a slickly produced spot posted on youtube.com.

Queer protest against Israeli Independence Day

From Orthodox Anarchist (an interesting blog I've discovered via Anglican Resistance) - A group of queer activists painted pink the memorial canon in Jersualem’s “Davidka” square, and added the graffiti “Lesbians against arms” (which in Hebrew also translates as “Lesbians against dicks”). This act is meant as a protest against the occupation of Palestine and social gaps in Israel.

Waters of Life: Sacred and Profaned

Interfaith Confrence at St Mike's - WATERS OF LIFE: SACRED AND PROFANED

This interfaith conference will explore religious and ethical
perspectives on issues concerning water and a sustainable
future. It will be held at Saint Michael's College, Colchester,
from April 19 - 21. The conference is free and open to the
public. It is sponsored by the Edmundite Center for Faith and
Culture. It will begin on Thursday evening in the Hoehl
Presentation Room with the keynote address by Dr. Mary Grey.
It continues all day and into the evening on Friday, finishing
at noon on Saturday. Other speakers at the conference include
Dr. Allen Betts, Rabbi Simenowitz, Ms. Ellen Bernstein, Dr.
John Carroll, Professor John Elder and more. For a schedule
or for more information, please contact Edward Mahoney at
Saint Michael's: mahoneye@smcvt.edu

St Michael's College conference link

See Cross Currents for a series about Ecotheology - Nature as Thou

People are reawakening to nature as a sacred sphere; a rediscovery of Native American spirituality, the Gaia Hypothesis, and the Ecological Spirituality of Matthew Fox and Wendell Berry.

The Democratic War Profiteers

Senator Diane Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee pending allegations of war profiteering.

Metroactive's exposé of her ethics.

Joshua Frank on the Dems' Daddy Warbucks.

You can read about Senator Patrick Leahy's relationship with General Dynamics here.

Mr Welch has neither the balls nor the conscience to do the right thing

Well, I joined the group of 30 that gathered at the Peace & Justice Center yesterday and marched down to 30 Main Street to ask Congressperson Welch NOT to fund the war. Got there about 1 p.m.


Get this: His staffperson, Tricia Coates, said Mr Welch had not made up his mind, but "was working hard to stop the war." We were welcomed to his new offices with plates of choccy chip cookies and pleasant banter from Ms Coates, as she scribbled notes to give to her boss.

We asked to speak by phone to Mr Welch. Were told he was busy on the floor voting on consecutive bills, which could take up to one or two hours to complete. (He was voting for tax breaks for Katrina funding - so I guess that's okay - to ask him to leave and come talk to us NOW would have been like asking him to be against Motherhood and Apple Pie.)

A few of the group sat quietly, respectfully reciting names of the dead and their ages, alternating between Iraqi and American victims.




The repetition of the names became almost a soothing sound of a meditative mantra, but then it hit me that most of the people named were so young, in their early twenties.

Finally at 3:30 the congressperson got on speaker phone to chat with the group.

Several of the protesters pleaded with him not to fund. He had not made up his mind and would not give a reason why he was indecisive.

Welch cried out that he had always been against the war, but he wanted to assure the funds were there for the troops safety.

"You're just talking out of both sides of your mouth," said a UVM student pointedly.

How can someone who was elected by Vermonters as an anti-war candidate...still want to approve $124 billion in an "emergency spending bill" to fund the continuing murder?

The emergency is that the soul of America is at stake!

As several of the protesters pointed out, if Mr Welch votes for the bill, he is complicit in murder.

I would have stayed, but I had to leave at 4:00 p.m. to go to a board of health meeting.

I did get to meet some fine, but frustrated and angry people today. The protesters ranged in age from young students in their early twenties to the white haired ladies in their 70s or 80s who gather at the top of Church Street for the silent vigil every day at 5 p.m. There was a group of Orange County folks who car-pooled up to the protest. Turns out we have mutual friends in the area (I went to high school over in that county and recently owned a house in Vershire.) Got to meet Snarky Boy. He has a few things to say about what happened on March 21, 2007.

Snarky emailed me this evening to say that around 7:00 p.m. 6 people were escorted out of the building and arrested.

Here's the Burlington Free Press story.

In his remarks, however, Welch appeared to be leaning toward supporting the measure, saying it might be the best way for Congress to mandate a quick, orderly troop withdrawal from Iraq.

"What my decision will be based on is my judgment, and I'll have to make this judgment as to whether voting for or against the bill is going to hasten the day when we can end this war," Welch told the group.

Monks profit from cruelty to animals

Via Joshua Frank, from the Associated Press: S.C. monks deny cruelty allegations --

MONCKS CORNER, S.C. -- Trappist monks who operate a chicken farm in South Carolina are disputing accusations from a national animal-welfare group that their birds have been mistreated.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals allege the monks at Mepkin Abbey crammed thousands of chickens into small cages and periodically starved them to increase egg production.

I like the Trappists. I eat their jams! The Trappist monk and mystic, Thomas Merton, would undoubtedly have called this treatment an obscenity. This is not what St. Francis would have done. This is no Lenten fast. This is cruelty for profit.

On the PETA video, one monk discussed forced molting, a process that involves starving the chickens to make them lay more eggs. The monk compared the practice with a fast.

It's like running an Abu Ghraib chicken coop.

What you can do NOW.

Foie gras is a disease not a delicacy

MickeyZ/Cool Observer writes about foie gras on his blog, with identical posts on Smirking Chimp (don't miss the "liberal" comments at the end) and more liberal reactions to it on Daily Kos.

We're in deep, deep trouble

Martin Murie, MR Zine, February 14, 2007 reviewin Al Gore's book, An Inconvenient Truth:

If the struggle to temper global warming is dependent on corporate profitability, we might as well give up before we start. The pursuit of perpetual expansion, of greater and greater profit margins, and of worldwide empire building for the sake of profit has to be pulled down from its pedestal. We and Earth can't have the money-laden tail wagging the lean dog much longer. We the people will have the pleasure and hard work of figuring out how to do that. Politicians dependent on corporate welfare will not do it; they are simply not up to the job. It's up to us. We have to face the job, study it, boldly pursue it. We the people. That is not mere sentiment; that is a historical fact: fundamental changes have always depended on action from below, collective action arising from thought as well as anger.

More on Bottled Water

Canadian environmentalist, David Suziki: Buying bottled water is wrong


I'm not surprised David Suziki would be against buying bottled water.
In the article, though, he encourages people to use tap water. Unfortunately, there are 100's of questionable chemicals in our own Burlington drinking water - one of which is fluoride (you all know how I feel about that!). The Burlington Board of Health's actions on fluoride and the local People Concerned about Chloramines' work to stop chloramination of water by CWD are hugely uphill battles when the Dept of Health supports the status quo! We don't know what is in the bottled water either, or how many people might be losing their drinking water, as it is being sold to the bottling corporations.

I blogged about the importance of our water in earlier posts here, here, and here.

Make Poverty History (and profit from it, too)

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: Bono, who preaches charity, profits from buyouts, tax breaks -- ``U2 were never dumb in business,'' Bono says in Bono on Bono. ``We don't sit around thinking about world peace all day.''

What a business it is. Bono's empire encompasses real estate, private-equity investments, a hotel, a clothing line and a chain of restaurants. Along with fellow band members, he also owns a stake in 15 companies and trusts, including concert-booking agencies, record production firms and trusts that are mostly registered in Ireland. U2 was one of the first successful bands in the world to have obtained all rights to its own music.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

We can honour Dr King by re-reading his Letter from Birmingham Jail.

He wrote his letter in response to a statement of Birmingham religious leaders who did not approve of Dr King's non-violent protests.