Busted: Wyeth Used Ghostwriters To Place Over 40 “Scientific” Articles In Medical Journals

(NaturalNews) Documents unsealed as part of a lawsuit against drug giant Wyeth Pharmaceuticals reveal that the company used ghostwriters to prepare at least 40 medical journal articles promoting the use of its hormone-replacement drug Prempro.

Hormone replacement therapy drugs such as Premarin and Prempro were widely popular in the 1990s among women seeking to avoid the symptoms of menopause. The drugs became some of Wyeth’s best sellers, raking in more than $2 billion for the company until a 2002 study showed that they significantly increased women’s risk of invasive breast cancer, heart disease and stroke. Later research also implicated the drugs in an increase dementia risk among the elderly.

Use of hormone replacement therapy plummeted, with a corresponding drop in breast cancer rates. Since then, approximately 8,400 lawsuits have been filed against drugmakers Wyeth and Pfizer by more than 10,000 women affected by side effects. More than 8,000 of these lawsuits have been consolidated into a single case, before U.S. District Judge William Wilson in Arkansas.

Wilson ordered Wyeth’s ghostwriting documents unsealed in response to a request by the defendants, the journal PLoS Medicine and the New York Times. The documents reveal that between 1997 and 2005, Wyeth paid medical communications firms to ghostwrite at least 40 articles that promoted hormone replacement for treatment of not just menopause symptoms, but also other conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. These articles, many of them reviews of prior studies, played up the benefits of the hormone drugs while downplaying their risks. The communications firms also secured doctors to put their names on the studies as authors.

The articles were published in 18 different medical journals. Neither Wyeth nor the studies’ purported authors informed the journals that the company had funded the studies and employed their writers.

The case of DesignWrite Inc. is indicative of Wyeth’s larger ghostwriting practices. Wyeth hired the firm in 1997, at which time DesignWrite proposed a two-year plan to promote the company’s hormone drugs by securing the publication of 30 different articles.

In 2003, the company drafted a 14-page outline of one article, with the author listed as “to be determined.” This outline was sent to Dr. Gloria Bachman of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in July, and she agreed to put her name on the study. She was sent a draft of the completed article in September and replied, “I had only one correction which I highlighted in red.”

The article, which was published in The Journal of Reproductive Medicine in 2005, disparaged non-hormonal treatment for hot flashes, referring to hormone replacement therapy as the “gold standard.”

Wyeth paid DesignWrite $25,000 for the production of the article.

The Prempro case is not Wyeth’s first ghostwriting scandal; the company was previously forced to pay $21 billion in lawsuits over the diet drug fen-phen, which was also marketed using ghostwriters. Indeed, the new documents suggest that ghostwriting journal articles is a standard practice for many pharmaceutical companies, raising concerns that doctors might have their prescribing habits influenced by articles that were actually produced as part of corporate marketing campaigns.

“The filter is missing when the reader does not know that the germ of an article came from the manufacturer,” said attorney James Szaller, representing many of the plaintiffs.

Medical journal publisher Elsevier has announced an investigation into ghostwriting practices, and some journals have started requiring full disclosure of each author’s role in producing a paper, as well as any conflicts of interest. Many journals, however, do not require this disclosure, and the extent of ghostwriting practices remains unknown.

“It’s almost like steroids and baseball,” said Joseph S. Ross, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “You don’t know who was using and who wasn’t; you don’t know which articles are tainted and which aren’t.”

Sources for this story include: www.philly.com; www.nytimes.com.

Facebook adds face detection for photos, only 1% of users have it so far

downloadsquad.com
by Jay Hathaway (RSS feed) Jul 2nd 2010 at 2:30PM

Facebook is testing out a new face detection feature in its photo app, according to AllFacebook.com. This is the first big change to Photos since Facebook bought up Divvyshot a couple of months ago. Face detection recognizes faces in photos, and gives you a prompt to tell FB whose faces they are. This reduces the amount of clicking required to go through and tag that huge album from last night’s party. Of course, this feature won’t help you identify the strangers who appear in those photos … that would be a bit creepy.

It doesn’t sound like this is full-on facial recognition and auto-tagging … yet. That seems like the obvious next step for Facebook, though. If they go that route, they’ll already have the ability to pick a face out of a photo, and then plenty of user data about who the faces belong to. Geez, it’s hard enough to untag my ugly mug in photos as it is!

If you don’t see face detection on your photos yet, don’t worry. Only 1% of users have it so far, according to Facebook.

Reuters suggests BP possesses nuclear weapons

Perhaps we were so busy trying to prevent Iraq and Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons we didn’t notice that BP now has its own.

(Reuters) Special Report: Should BP nuke its leaking well?

I won’t even bother reposting the text of this article. It’s so manipulative I can’t bear to read it again.

No, WE (The United States) should have nuked that damned thing on day 1.  We need to send a friggin navy ship out there into international waters, take control of BP’s relief well, by force if necessary (or drill our own), lower a small nuke down the shaft, and END THIS STUPIDITY ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Nuke that thing now
Nuke that thing now, Part 2

Run from the Cure

Cannabis Cures Cancer – “Run From The Cure” The Rick Simpson Story

(Google Video) After a serious head injury in 1997, Rick Simpson sought relief from his medical condition through the use of medicinal hemp oil. When Rick discovered that the hemp oil (with its high concentration of T.H.C.) cured cancers and other illnesses, he tried to share it with as many people as he could free of charge. When the story went public, the long arm of the law snatched the medicine – leaving potentially thousands of people without their cancer treatments – and leaving Rick with unconsitutional charges of possessing and trafficking marijuana!

Enter the New World Order of brain scanning

There’s almost always a political spin on NPR’s reporting and this is no exception. This entire article (included below) is fascinating, and almost believable until the last line:

“Enter the new world of “neurolaw” — in which neuroscience is used as evidence in the courtroom.”

Translation:

“Enter the New World Order of brain scanning and persecuting you for predisposition to undesirable behaviors.”

Who decides whether neurological predisposition has contributed to or will contribute to any behavior?  What if the crimes are not really harmful or immoral? How about file sharing, protesting, using Marijuana, being homeless, failure to pay taxes, etc? Communist bureaucrats might consider these sociopathic behaviors.

Say you’re accused of a crime, and made to submit to a functional MRI or PET brain scan.  “Ah, looks like you have low activity in the orbital cortex. We’re going to recommend anti-psychotic medication to control your impulses.  Or if you resist treatment your social worker can probably find a nice place for you in a work camp where you’ll be at lower risk for criminal behavior.”

There’s a reason why “lie detector” tests aren’t admissible in most courts- because they’re inaccurate and subjective. PET scans are looking broadly at overall electrical activity in areas of the brain. They only provide the most vague information about a person’s behavior.

The brain has billions of neurons interconnected in remarkable ways that are not fully understood.  We can not reliably extract thoughts and memories from the human brain yet.  We are definitely not ready to “Enter the new world of neuroscience in the courtroom”  and definitely not with regard to trying violent criminal cases, which is the implication in this context.

But at least they’re exploring the issue of nature vs nurture, and acknowledging that predisposition does not amount to criminal intent or behavior, which is why I reposted it.  Snip off the last paragraph and you’ve got an interesting read.

A Neuroscientist Uncovers A Dark Secret

NPR | by Barbara Bradley Hagerty
June 29, 2010
Listen to the Story

First in a three-part series. You can hear this piece on Tuesday’s Morning Edition.

Courtesy of Jim FallonFallon with his wife, daughters and son. When he compared the brain scans of his family — including his wife, siblings, children and mother — his was the only one that resembled the brain of a pyschopath.

Courtesy of Jim FallonFallon with his wife, daughters and son. When he compared the brain scans of his family — including his wife, siblings, children and mother — his was the only one that resembled the brain of a pyschopath.

The criminal brain has always held a fascination for James Fallon. For nearly 20 years, the neuroscientist at the University of California-Irvine has studied the brains of psychopaths. He studies the biological basis for behavior, and one of his specialties is to try to figure out how a killer’s brain differs from yours and mine.

About four years ago, Fallon made a startling discovery. It happened during a conversation with his then 88-year-old mother, Jenny, at a family barbecue.

“I said, ‘Jim, why don’t you find out about your father’s relatives?’ ” Jenny Fallon recalls. “I think there were some cuckoos back there.”

Fallon investigated.

“There’s a whole lineage of very violent people — killers,” he says.

One of his direct great-grandfathers, Thomas Cornell, was hanged in 1667 for murdering his mother. That line of Cornells produced seven other alleged murderers, including Lizzy Borden. “Cousin Lizzy,” as Fallon wryly calls her, was accused (and controversially acquitted) of killing her father and stepmother with an ax in Fall River, Mass., in 1882.

A little spooked by his ancestry, Fallon set out to see whether anyone in his family possesses the brain of a serial killer. Because he has studied the brains of dozens of psychopaths, he knew precisely what to look for. To demonstrate, he opened his laptop and called up an image of a brain on his computer screen.

“Here is a brain that’s not normal,” he says. There are patches of yellow and red. Then he points to another section of the brain, in the front part of the brain, just behind the eyes.

“Look at that — there’s almost nothing here,” Fallon says.

This is the orbital cortex, the area that Fallon and other scientists believe is involved with ethical behavior, moral decision-making and impulse control.

“People with low activity [in the orbital cortex] are either free-wheeling types or sociopaths,” he says.

Fallon’s Scans

He’s clearly oversimplifying, but Fallon says the orbital cortex puts a brake on another part of the brain called the amygdala, which is involved with aggression and appetites. But in some people, there’s an imbalance — the orbital cortex isn’t doing its job — perhaps because the person had a brain injury or was born that way.

“What’s left? What takes over?” he asks. “The area of the brain that drives your id-type behaviors, which is rage, violence, eating, sex, drinking.”

Courtesy of Jim FallonFallon’s brain (on the right) has dark patches in the orbital cortex, the area just behind the eyes. This is the area that Fallon and other scientists say is involved with ethical behavior, moral decision-making and impulse control. The normal scan on the left is his son’s.

Fallon says nobody in his family has real problems with those behaviors. But he wanted to be sure. Conveniently, he had everything he needed: Previously, he had persuaded 10 of his close relatives to submit to a PET brain scan and give a blood sample as part of a project to see whether his family had a risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease.

After learning his violent family history, he examined the images and compared them with the brains of psychopaths. His wife’s scan was normal. His mother: normal. His siblings: normal. His children: normal.

“And I took a look at my own PET scan and saw something disturbing that I did not talk about,” he says.

What he didn’t want to reveal was that his orbital cortex looks inactive.

“If you look at the PET scan, I look just like one of those killers.”

Fallon cautions that this is a young field. Scientists are just beginning to study this area of the brain — much less the brains of criminals. Still, he says the evidence is accumulating that some people’s brains predispose them toward violence and that psychopathic tendencies may be passed down from one generation to another.

The Three Ingredients

And that brings us to the next part of Jim Fallon’s family experiment. Along with brain scans, Fallon also tested each family member’s DNA for genes that are associated with violence. He looked at 12 genes related to aggression and violence and zeroed in on the MAO-A gene (monoamine oxidase A). This gene, which has been the target of considerable research, is also known as the “warrior gene” because it regulates serotonin in the brain. Serotonin affects your mood — think Prozac — and many scientists believe that if you have a certain version of the warrior gene, your brain won’t respond to the calming effects of serotonin.

Fallon calls up another slide on his computer. It has a list of family members’ names, and next to them, the results of the genotyping. Everyone in his family has the low-aggression variant of the MAO-A gene, except for one person.

“You see that? I’m 100 percent. I have the pattern, the risky pattern,” he says, then pauses. “In a sense, I’m a born killer.”

Courtesy of Jim Fallon

Fallon was prompted to study his brain after his mother, Jenny, told him his ancestry was full of alleged murderers.

Fallon’s being tongue-in-cheek — sort of. He doesn’t believe his fate or anyone else’s is entirely determined by genes. They merely tip you in one direction or another.

And yet: “When I put the two together, it was frankly a little disturbing,” Fallon says with a laugh. “You start to look at yourself and you say, ‘I may be a sociopath.’ I don’t think I am, but this looks exactly like [the brains of] the psychopaths, the sociopaths, that I’ve seen before.”

I asked his wife, Diane, what she thought of the result.

“I wasn’t too concerned,” she says, laughing. “I mean, I’ve known him since I was 12.”

Diane probably does not need to worry, according to scientists who study this area. They believe that brain patterns and genetic makeup are not enough to make anyone a psychopath. You need a third ingredient: abuse or violence in one’s childhood.

“And fortunately, he wasn’t abused as a young person,” Diane says, “so I’ve lived to be a ripe old age so far.”

The New World of ‘Neurolaw’

Jim Fallon says he had a terrific childhood; he was doted on by his parents and had loving relationships with his brothers and sisters and entire extended family. Significantly, he says this journey through his brain has changed the way he thinks about nature and nurture. He once believed that genes and brain function could determine everything about us. But now he thinks his childhood may have made all the difference.

“We’ll never know, but the way these patterns are looking in general population, had I been abused, we might not be sitting here today,” he says.

As for the psychopaths he studies, Fallon feels some compassion for these people who, he says, got “a bad roll of the dice.”

“It’s an unlucky day when all of these three things come together in a bad way, and I think one has to empathize with what happened to them,” he says.

But what about people who rape and murder — should we feel empathy for them? Should they be allowed to argue in court that their brains made them do it? Enter the new world of “neurolaw” — in which neuroscience is used as evidence in the courtroom.

Nuke that thing now, part 2

Even your precious Clinton says blow it up!

But I disagree about the use of conventional explosives over a nuclear bomb.  The intense heat of a nuke can fuse rock whereas a conventional explosive small enough to fit in a shaft they drill will probably not be powerful enough to close the well.  Oil can still leak thru cracked rock.

A conventional explosive on the surface might not close the well at all.  Just piling a bunch of rock on this thing is not going to cut it.  If they attempt to blow it shut from the surface (of the sea floor), it would definitely have to be a nuke.

The best option is to use a robot to send a nuclear warhead down one of their relief wells, or if those aren’t close enough, drill a new hole alongside the leaking shaft like they did here.  Using a nuke it would be critical to know the thickness and composition of the earth between the sea floor and the oil, but the drilling company probably has this information, since they drilled through it already once to reach the oil.

This is a perfect use for a small demolition nuke.  And if they had a nuke this small in 1962, I guarantee you they have one now that could slide down a 6 inch shaft.

Let’s end this madness already and nuke it.

Lawsuit likely over “baby DNA” being secretly stored in military database

David Gutierrez
Natural News
June 28, 2010

A civil rights lawyer is threatening to sue the Texas Department of State Health Services for secretly handing over genetic data on 800 newborns to the U.S. military for a law enforcement database.

Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, only recently settled a lawsuit with the department for collecting the DNA in the first place without parents’ consent. After it became known that hospitals were taking blood samples from the heels of newborn infants and storing them indefinitely, Harrington and four parents took the state to court over unlawful search and seizure. The case was settled when the department agreed to destroy 5.3 million blood samples.

After the case became public, the Texas Legislature passed a law requiring health workers to inform parents before taking such blood samples, giving them a chance to opt out.

According to Harrington, the Department of Health Services never admitted during negotiations that any off-site use had been made of the blood samples.

“I can’t tell you how many times we sat there, and they said no law enforcement,” Harrington said. “They said, ‘It’s only about medical research, it’s only about medical research.”

“This is the worst case of bad faith I have dealt with as a lawyer,” he said.

Recently, however, the Texas Tribune discovered information on the department’s web site indicating that 800 of the samples had been sent (without identifying information) to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory database project.

The genetic material might help identify “ethnic or ancestral origins of unidentified corpses using mitochondrial DNA,” said department spokesperson Carrie Williams, defending the decision to participate in the program. “We believed it was an important research project that could potentially help in missing persons cases.”

Regarding why no one was notified that DNA collected without consent was being sent to the military, she said, “We don’t publicize every agency initiative or contract, and obviously this is a sensitive topic.”

Harrington has threatened another lawsuit unless the samples are destroyed.

Sources for this story include: www.statesman.com/news/texas-politi….

NASA Flight Director Confirms 9/11 Aircraft Speed As The “Elephant In The Room”

06/22/2010 – (PilotsFor911Truth.org) Recently Pilots For 9/11 Truth have analyzed the speeds reported for the aircraft utilized on 9/11. Numerous aviation experts have voiced their concerns regarding the extremely excessive speeds reported above Maximum Operating for the 757 and 767, particularly, United and American Airlines 757/767 Captains who have actual flight time in all 4 aircraft reportedly used on 9/11. These experts state the speeds are impossible to achieve near sea level in thick air if the aircraft were a standard 757/767 as reported. Combined with the fact the airplane which was reported to strike the south tower of the World Trade Center was also producing high G Loading while turning and pulling out from a dive, the whole issue becomes incomprehensible to fathom a standard 767 can perform such maneuvers at such intense speeds exceeding Maximum Operating limits of the aircraft. Especially for those who research the topic thoroughly and have expertise in aviation.

Co-Founder of Pilots For 9/11 Truth Rob Balsamo recently interviewed a former NASA Flight Director in charge of flight control systems at the NASA Dryden Flight Research facility who is also speaking out after viewing the latest presentation by Pilots For 9/11 Truth – “9/11: World Trade Center Attack”.

Retired NASA Senior Executive Dwain Deets published his concerns on the matter at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) as follows:

A Responsibility to Explain an Aeronautical Improbability
Dwain Deets
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (Senior Executive Service – retired)
AIAA Associate Fellow

The airplane was UA175, a Boeing 767-200, shortly before crashing into World Trade Center Tower 2. Based on analysis of radar data, the National Transportation and Safety Board reported the groundspeed just before impact as 510 knots. This is well beyond the maximum operating velocity of 360 knots, and maximum dive velocity of 410 knots. The possibilities as I see them are: (1) this wasn’t a standard 767-200; (2) the radar data was compromised in some manner; (3) the NTSB analysis was erroneous; or (4) the 767 flew well beyond its flight envelope, was controllable, and managed to hit a relatively small target. Which organization has the greater responsibility for acknowledging the elephant in the room? The NTSB, NASA, Boeing, or the AIAA? Have engineers authored papers, but the AIAA or NASA won’t publish them? Or, does the ethical responsibility lie not with organizations, but with individual aeronautical engineers? Have engineers just looked the other way?

The above entry remained at the moderated AIAA Aerospace America Forum for approximately two weeks before being removed without explanation. Click “Who is Ethically Responsible” submitted by Dwain Deets at the Pilots For 9/11 Truth Forum for discussion on this entry at AIAA.

Dwain Deets credentials and experience are as follows:

Dwain Deets
MS Physics, MS Eng
Former Director, Aerospace Projects, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center
Served as Director, Research Engineering Division at Dryden
Recipient of the NASA Exceptional Service Award
Presidential Meritorious Rank Award in the Senior Executive Service (1988)
Selected presenter of the Wright Brothers Lectureship in Aeronautics
Associate Fellow – American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
Included in “Who’s Who in Science and Engineering” 1993 – 2000
Former Chairman of the Aerospace Control and Guidance Systems
- Committee of the Society of Automotive Engineers
Former Member, AIAA Committee on Society and Aerospace Technology
37 year NASA career

It is established based on corroborated expert statements, raw data, and precedent, that the extremely excessive speed reported for the 9/11 aircraft is truly the “Elephant In The Room” and needs to be thoroughly investigated.

For summary of speed analysis, please see article 9/11: Speeds Reported For World Trade Center Attack Aircraft Analyzed.

To view the scene from “9/11: World Trade Center Attack” analyzing the reported speeds in more detail, please click here.

For full detailed analysis covering the events which took place in New York City on September 11, 2001, interviews with experts, including analysis of “Hijacker” pilot skill, Black Box recovery and more… please view the latest presentation from Pilots For 9/11 Truth, “9/11: World Trade Center Attack“.

Founded in August 2006, Pilots For 9/11 Truth is a growing organization of aviation professionals from around the globe. The organization has also analyzed Flight Data provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for the Pentagon Attack and the events in Shanksville, PA. The data does not support the government story. The NTSB/FBI refuse to comment. Pilots For 9/11 Truth do not offer theory or point blame at this point in time. However, there is a growing mountain of conflicting information and data in which government agencies and officials refuse to acknowledge. Pilots For 9/11 Truth Core member list continues to grow.

http://pilotsfor911truth.org/core.html for full member list.

http://pilotsfor911truth.org/join to join.