On Apr 22, 1:54=A0pm, Ilena Rose <B...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Big Bravo from Health Lover, Ilena
Rosenthal:http://ilenarose.blogspot.com=
>
> http://foodconsumer.org/7777/8888/L_aws_amp_P_olitics_42/041803422008...
>
> Integrity in Science Watch
>
> Week of 04/14/2008
>
> EPA Sued over Pesticide Approval
>
> A coalition of environmental and farm worker groups sued the
> Environmental Protection Agency after the agency approved the sale of
> four organophosphate pesticides that the groups say pose unacceptable
> risks to the environment and human health. The lawsuit alleged that
> the agency violated the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and
> Rodenticide Act and the Endangered Species Act when it decided in 2006
> to allow the continued use of the chemicals, which are sprayed on
> fruits and vegetables in California. California has classified one of
> the pesticides as a cancer-causing substance, another as an air
> pollutant, and a third has been banned or severely restricted in 13
> countries. The approval came despite a letter from unions representing
> EPA scientists urging Administrator Stephen Johnson to reject the
> applications. ?Our colleagues in the Pesticide Program feel besieged
> by political pressure exerted by Agency officials closely aligned with
> the pesticide industry,? the letter stated. ?We are concerned that the
> agency has lost sight of its regulatory responsibility in trying to
> reach consensus with those that it regulates, and the result is that
> the integrity of the science upon which Agency decisions are based has
> been compromised.?
>
> According to Earthjustice the environmental law firm that represents
> the coalition, the substances have severe impacts on birds, fish,
> honeybees, threatened, and endangered species and have carcinogenic
> and neurotoxic effects on human health. The class of organophosphate
> pesticides is derived from nerve gas poisons developed during World
> War II. Clinton-era efforts to ban the pesticides were reversed by the
> Bush Administration. The EPA approved the four substances as part of a
> ***ulative risk *****sment of 20 organophosphate pesticides in 2006,
> in which the Agency concluded that with the adoption of risk
> mitigation measures, they posed no significant ***ulative risk. The
> EPA and CropLife America, the trade association representing
> manufacturers of organophosphate and other pesticides, could not be
> reached for comment on the lawsuit.
>
> FDA Warns GSK on Failure to Re****t Data
>
> GlaxoSmithKline received a warning from the Food and Drug
> Administration last week for failing to file regular re****ts about
> clinical trials on Avandia, a widely prescribed diabetes drug. The FDA
> called Glaxo?s failure to provide re****ts a serious violation and
> urged the drug company to take steps to prevent future violations. The
> re****ts, which are required by law and used to catch potential safety
> issues, were discovered by the FDA in Glaxo?s records. The FDA
> inspection found that between 2001 and 2007, the company did not
> inform the agency about the start of nine clinical trials and failed
> to provide progress updates on another dozen studies.
>
> Avandia was linked to increased risk of heart attack in a New England
> Journal of Medicine study and now carries a ?black-box? warning on its
> label. Once the highest-selling diabetes drug in the world, Avandia?s
> sales have plummeted since the FDA ordered a warning label on the drug
> in November of last year.
>
> UNC Renames Public Health School after CEO Gift
>
> The University of North Carolina School of Public Health will soon be
> known as the Dennis and Joan Gillings School of Global Public Health
> because of a $50 million donation to the school by Quintiles
> Transnational Corp. CEO, Dennis Gillings. Quintiles Transnational, a
> research contract and services provider for pharmaceutical companies,
> has annual revenue of $2 billion. Gillings, who announced the gift
> last year, was a professor in the UNC department of biostatistics for
> 17 years before he founded Quintiles Transnational in 1982. Currently,
> he serves on the advisory council of the school of public health.
> Gillings has previously given over $3 million to the university.
>
> While UNC officials have praised the Gillings? charitable gifts, some
> local professors have voiced concern. Steve Wing, an associate
> professor of epidemiology at the UNC School of Public Health, and Cat
> Warren, an associate professor in department of English at North
> Carolina State University, wrote in the Raleigh News Observer last
> month that the Gillings donation to the school could extend cor****ate
> influence over the school of public health. The editorial also pointed
> out that the school has recently developed relation****ps with
> executives of Nestle, McDonald?s, PepsiCo, and Kraft Foods. ?If
> universities are skewed more toward the agenda of for-profit
> companies, they will be increasingly unable to promote public welfare
> when it conflicts with industry?s bottom line,? the professors wrote.
>
> In the week following the professors? editorial, Barbara K. Rimer,
> dean of the UNC School of Public Health responded with her own
> editorial in the News Observer. ?The Gillingses? gift was subjected to
> great scrutiny within the university to assure that it conforms to
> university policies and principles, including academic integrity and
> autonomy. Their $50 million pledge is a personal not a cor****ate
> gift,? Rimer wrote. The school of public health?s director of
> communications, Ramona Dubose, added, ?The university does indeed have
> regulations designed to protect the integrity of our research, no
> matter what the source of funding. We do this in a variety of ways
> through agreements that stipulate our freedom from constraints in
> publi****ng results and disclosure forms that disclose potential
> conflicts.? The university?s policy on research relation****ps between
> the school and private entities is also available online.
>
> Study Suggests Ending Cancer Trials Early Could be Unsafe
>
> A study published in the Annals of Oncology suggests new cancer drugs'
> effectiveness could be exaggerated when clinical trials are halted
> early. Trials are discontinued early if the drug appears to be unsafe,
> provides no benefit, or is so beneficial that denying access to the
> treatment would be unethical. Giovanni Apolone, author of the study,
> told the Guardian that pharmaceutical companies could be ending
> successful trials prematurely in order to gain ?quicker access to the
> market.? Halting trials too early because of patient benefit could
> lead to incomplete and imprecise information about the drug. Potential
> adverse (or additional beneficial) impacts of the medications could
> also go undetected if the trials are shortened. The authors found that
> 25 cancer trials were stopped early between 1997 and 2007. For 75
> percent of those trials, the data gained from them was used to apply
> for FDA or European Medicine Agency approval.
>
> Paul Meuller, an associate professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic,
> warned that such data could be unreliable and lead to dangerous
> decisions by government agencies. ?Decisions are being made on some
> fairly shaky evidence,? Mueller told the Wall Street Journal Health
> Blog. While Mueller noted that halting trials early and bringing drugs
> to the market sooner could benefit the industry and patients' health,
> he said, ?Trials should be carried out long enough in order to obtain
> data about outcomes im****tant to doctors and patients.?
>
> Odds and Ends
>
> House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman
> (D_CA) last week issued a subpoena to the EPA demanding unredacted
> copies of do***ents concerning the agency?s refusal to grant
> California a Clean Air Act waiver. The do***ents pertain to
> communications between the agency and the White House prior to the
> agency?s decision to deny the waiver, which would have allowed
> California to proceed with policies to curb greenhouse gases. . . .
> The Food and Drug Administration held two days of hearings last week
> on possible agency guidelines designed to regulate embryonic stem-cell
> therapies. The FDA continues to face pressure to approve clinical
> trials of stem-cell-derived drugs from biotech companies.
>
> Cheers and Jeers
>
> =A0 =A0 * Cheer to Lauran Neergaard of the Associated Press for noting
> that Andrei Gudkov of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute also founded
> Cleveland Biolabs Inc., a drug company currently working on a new
> medical treatment that prevents radiation damage during cancer
> treatment and biodefense.
> =A0 =A0 * Jeer to to Barnaby J. Feder of the New York Times for quoting
> Mary F. Hazinski, spokesman of the American Heart Association (AHA)
> about the benefits of home defibrillators without disclosing that last
> year the AHA received money from Zoll Medical, Medtronic, and Philips,
> three of the largest manufacturers of home defibrillators. Hazinski
> extolled the usefulness of home defibrillators for some consumers
> despite the results of a long-awaited, government-sup****ted clinical
> trial published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine,
> which suggested otherwise.
> Response from Health Lover, Ilena Rosenthal:
> www.ilenarose.blogspot.com
> www.ilena-rosenthal.blogspot.com
> www.BreastImplantAwareness.org/
On the pages cited above, serial scammer Ilena Rosenthal says you can
make a
tax-deductible donation to her fraudulent charity "Humantics". If you
like, you can
tell PayPal what you think of their abetting Rosenthal's criminal
activity by sending an
email to nonprofit@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
California Attorney-General and the IRS might take notice as well.
|
