HADCORP NEWS: October 14, 2008

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Reward To Find Cat Serial Killer (UK)It's the subdermal crisis: the Botox is wearing off and the money is running out(AUSTRALIA)

Time to disinfect research dollars (USA)

Donation raises questions for head of FDA抯 bisphenol A panel (USA)

The F.D.A. and Engineered Food (USA)

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HADCORP NEWS: October 14, 2008

Reward To Find Cat Serial Killer

By Sky News SkyNews

A �1,000 reward has been offered to bring a serial cat killer to justice.

In the last two weeks, nine pet cats in Weston-super-Mare, six of them in the same street on the Bournville housing estate, have died after being poisoned with anti-freeze.

The recent spate of feline deaths follows an identical poisoning outbreak between April and August in nearby Bridgwater, which took the lives of 19 moggies.

All suffered vomiting, diarrhoea and fits and eventual kidney failure, caused by ingesting ethylene glycol - the agent commonly found in anti-freeze.

Animal rights organisation Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) believes the poisonings were deliberate and has stumped up a cash reward to track down the killer.

It is offering �1000 in exchange for information leading to the prosecution of the culprit or culprits.

Peta's Suzanne Barnard claimed that because animals were often the perfect "practice" victims for violent people.

"Weston-super-Mare residents have good reason to be concerned," she said.

"Research in psychology and criminology shows that people who commit acts of cruelty to animals often go on to commit violent acts against their fellow humans.

"As long as the perpetrators of this crime are at large, other animals in the area - and human residents - might also be in danger.

"Animal abusers are cowards. They take their issues out on the most defenceless beings available to them."

Peta is urging residents to keep a watchful eye on their animals and to keep all cats indoors.

A police investigation was launched last month by Avon and Somerset Police and the RSPCA.

The RSPCA said its investigation was split between searching for a malicious psychopath and an innocent source of the chemical, like a breaker's yard.

Police are awaiting the outcome of post-mortem examinations to determine the exact cause of deaths.

In September, Inspector Norman said: "Geography and distance would suggest the fact that cats being poisoned in both places is just a coincidence.

"However, as we don't know if this is an accident or deliberate poisoning, it is possible that the person responsible read about what was happening in Bridgwater and decided to be a copy-cat cat killer."

Anyone with information about the killings is asked to contact the RSPCA on 0300 1234 999.

It's the subdermal crisis: the Botox is wearing off and the money is running out

Sydney Morning Herald

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Pryor

October 11, 2008

"'It's gonna look real natural." This is the mantra of the Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. The surgeon never says "it's gonna look like you are the same age only really surprised" or "it's gonna look like that trout pout thing they talk about in the gossip mags". And I should know, having spent inordinate measures of time watching plastic surgery reality shows, in which artificially tanned surgeons carve hunks of skin and fat from wannabe actors who believe they are only one tummy tuck away from a supporting role in a television pilot.

My mind has turned to plastic surgery right now because I have been in Los Angeles, city of dreams and delusions, where you can get easy credit for liposuction if not for a house; a city so diverse that some spend tens of thousands on bum augmentations and others cross the border to Mexico for cheap root canals because it is the only place they can afford it.

The local papers are full of advertisements for every imaginable cosmetic procedure, from toe lengthening to stretch mark removal, from injectable fillers to chin liposuction, from foot narrowing reconstruction to that mysteriously vague procedure known as vaginal rejuvenation. (Don't ask. Google it, if you must.) But before you fear for the future, worry that it is only a matter of months before things are this bad in Australia, now that even the US is taking a pause on the long march towards universal Botox. The fat-sucking and face-stapling industry, hardly recession-proof, has slumped along with the economy.

The American media have been remarking on this for nearly a year now, and a few months ago more than half the surgeons who responded to a survey by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reported that business was down.

Judging by the ads in the local papers, the industry has responded by holding a bargain sale. In the LA Weekly, dozens of advertisements offer discounts. One touts "early holiday specials" including a $US4500 discount boob job with "anaesthesia included". Another offers discount liposuction of the tummy or thighs, but warns the offer only lasts until November 15 "so don't put it off for too long. This is one time you don't want to be fashionably late." That's right, don't take time to think about it - rush in and have major surgery while it's going cheap.

There was even a listing titled "Plastic Surgeons Are Starving!" "The economy has left surgeons with fewer cases and extra time to fill," it reads. "But if you walk into their offices, you still won't get lower prices." The solution offered is the services of an "industry insider" to play surgeons off against each other to negotiate the best discount possible.

Though the economy must be a big factor, I wistfully hope there is something else at play. As the public becomes more adept at picking the surgical from the natural, with the help of gossip magazine specials about surgery bloopers, perhaps plastic surgery is losing its status. Collagen lips may have looked full and luscious once, but now they are ridiculed as trout pouts. Botox may have once simply made foreheads appear smooth and youthful but now frozen foreheads are derided. The loss of status must be even greater at a time when plastic surgery is so widely available. Not only does it make you look fake, it makes you look fake and ordinary, not fake and rich and glamorous.

As well as this, it is becoming apparent that plastic surgery, far from creating a result which is "real natural", creates a look which is just as much beholden to fashion, just as painfully of-the-moment as a tattoo.

Where once surgical rejuvenation was all about pulling skin tight over the skull with a facelift, it is now much more fashionable to plump the face with injectable fillers, to create a baby face instead of the wind tunnel look. Ye olde facelifts date as badly as the tattoos of roses popular during the 1980s or the tattoos of Chinese characters which dominated the 1990s.

Of course, chances are it is not this epiphany but simply hard economic times which have created America's plastic surgery slump. And as lending tightens, it may slump further, given so much of the plastic surgery boom was built on cheap loans and easy credit. So spare a thought for those Americans who are struggling to pay off boob jobs they had four years ago. And spare a thought, too, for the credit companies. How exactly do you repossess an eyelift?

BIG PHARMA

Time to disinfect research dollars

Atlanta Journal Constitution - GA, USA

Sunday, October 12, 2008

OUR OPINION

It now seems pretty clear that researchers at major universities - including the head of psychiatry at Emory University - failed to properly disclose their financial ties to drug companies. And evidence of that failure suggests academic medical centers are not capable of policing their faculty's potential conflicts of interest.

Documents released recently by congressional investigators show that Emory's Dr. B. Nemeroff received $2.8 million in consulting fees from drug companies from 2000 to 2007; he was paid for, among other things, serving on advisory boards and giving lectures about new drugs to psychiatric colleagues. But on conflict-of-interest forms filed with Emory, Nemeroff reported his income from drug companies was much less than that, $1.6 million.

Investigators paint a disconcerting picture of Nemeroff and his financial connections to drug companies. The documents also seem to show that Emory was wholly dependent on Nemeroff to make good on his promises to fully detail his income from drug makers. Failure to disclose financial conflicts is a violation of rules governing federally funded research and could jeopardize Emory's $251 million in National Institutes of Health funding.

In 2004, Nemeroff agreed to Emory's demand that he limit his income from any single drug manufacturer to less than $10,000 a year. But congressional investigators found that Glaxo-Kline alone paid Nemeroff $170,000 that very same year. In both 2005 and 2006, Nemeroff also greatly exceeded the $10,000 limit, according to documents provided by GlaxoKline, while Nemeroff filed disclosure forms with Emory attesting he was within the yearly limits.

From 2000 through 2006, Nemeroff earned $960,000 from GlaxoKline alone, but he declared less than $35,000 on his disclosure forms. During some of that time, Nemeroff was the principal investigator of a five-year, $3.9 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health for testing GlaxoKline-provided drugs.

Had Emory known about his higher income, it would have been required to inform the institute of his potential conflict or remove him as principal investigator.

(Nemeroff voluntarily resigned his department chairmanship after news of the congressional investigation was reported in The New York Times. Emory emphasized his resignation is temporary, pending the outcome of the university's investigation of his actions.)

The Emory physician is the latest in a string of high-profile academic researchers whose ties to drug companies have shaken up the relationship between medical scientists and Big Pharma. Last spring, Sen. Grassley (R-Iowa) - who has been pushing the investigation in the Senate - reported that a University of Cincinnati researcher told her medical school that she had earned $100,000 from 2005 to 2007 from eight drug firms. But documents from one firm, AstraZeneca, revealed she was paid $235,000 from that company alone for her work during those years. In June, Grassley's investigators reported that two well-known Harvard child psychiatry researchers apparently underreported their payments from drug companies to the university for a seven-year period by hundreds of thousands of dollars each.

The congressional probe provides further evidence of just how tangled medical research has become with medical marketing. It begins with company sales representatives sponsoring lunches for medical students and extends to doctors� offices being festooned with drug advertisements encouraging patients to æ³sk your physician� about their latest product. It also extends to lucrative contracts among scientists, universities and manufacturers that sometimes include sharing large profits from patents for new drugs or products.

Much, if not most, of the research done for these products - many of them with the potential to save and improve lives - is scientifically grounded and conducted ethically. Still, it's difficult for consumers to determine the credibility of work if the drug companies are underwriting not just the researchers, but also the universities that employ them.

Grassley's investigators released a letter from Nemeroff to Emory officials labeled æ·onfidential� in 2000; the doctor warned the university that it shares some of the potential conflict connected to his work. In the letter, Nemeroff pointed out that his service on the advisory boards of several large drug companies resulted in endowed chairs and other monetary awards to Emory. The same could be said for other well-known researchers, the academic medical centers that employ them and among the medical speciality societies where word of new products is most effectively spread.

Grassley's investigation has focused heavily on drug company connections to psychiatry researchers, including Dr. Alan F. Schatzberg, a well-known Stanford University researcher and the president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association. Schatzberg holds $4.8 million in stock in a drug development company, and Big Pharma accounts for about 30 percent of the psychiatry association's $62.5 million annual budget.

A subsequent investigation by Stanford found that Schatzberg complied with the university's disclosure and conflict-of-interest rules. Nevertheless, the university decided to clamp new restrictions on industry financing of doctors - continuing education courses at its medical school.

Drug company contributions will now have to go into a pool of money to the university that can be used for any class, even ones that never mention a company's products. (In the past, drug companies routinely funded specific courses, usually those associated with new clinical practices in areas where their products could be used.) Five other major medical schools have developed similar rules for how to use continuing education grants from drug makers.

These recent disclosures are more evidence that the requirements for reporting payments from the drug industry - in essence an honor system that relies on the researchers to tell their universities what they are earning - are simply inadequate. At a minimum, Congress should approve Grassley's proposal requiring annual disclosures by companies of payments of $500 or more to researchers, a suggestion several pharmaceutical manufacturers have voluntarily adopted.

But much more needs to be done. The culture that has infected drug company sponsorship of academic medicine needs a thorough cleansing. Disinfecting it may result in a temporary reduction in the amount of money going into research and continuing physician education. But in the long run, the nation's medical schools will want to enhance the reputation of faculty members who are doing quality, independent research unencumbered by questions about whether they are protecting the lives of patients or protecting their own wealth.

Mike King, for the editorial board

Bisphenol A

Donation raises questions for head of FDA抯 bisphenol A panel

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee,WI,USA

By SUSANNE RUST and MEG KISSINGER

Posted: Oct. 11, 2008

A retired medical supply manufacturer who considers bisphenol A to be "perfectly safe" gave $5 million to the research center of Philbert, chairman of the Food and Drug Administration panel about to make a pivotal ruling on the chemical's safety.

Philbert did not disclose the donation, which is nearly 25 times larger than the $210,000 annual budget of the University of Michigan Risk Science Center, where he is founder and co-director. FDA officials learned of the link from the Journal Sentinel.

Donor Gelman, once labeled the second worst polluter in Michigan by the state's Department of Natural Resources, said in an interview that he considered the chemical, which is used to make baby bottles and aluminum can liners, to be safe. Worries about health problems that may be caused by the chemical are exaggerated by "mothers' groups and others who don't know the science," Gelman said.

He said that he had made his views clear to Philbert in "several conversations."

Philbert denied that.

"At no time have the Gelman family or any other interested/disinterested person, persons, corporations or other entity contacted me or attempted to influence my scientific judgment on the matter," Philbert said in an e-mail response to questions from reporters.

Norm Fost, director of the bioethics program at the University of Wisconsin, said Philbert should have disclosed the donation.

"The public has a right to know about those connections whether they have any effect on the outcome or not," Fost said. "It sounds like a conflict of interest."

Philbert was chosen to chair the FDA's subcommittee on bisphenol A by Barbara McNeil, head of the FDA's Science Board. She selected him from a list of 12 scientists on her board. Philbert then filled out a conflict of interest statement but did not list Gelman's donation.

McNeil said she could not recall exactly when she picked Philbert to head the committee, but she thought it was sometime in July.

Gelman's donation to the Michigan center was made in July.

Philbert's committee is expected to release its opinion this month. It will advise the FDA on whether to accept, reject or amend a draft released by the agency in September. That draft found that products made with bisphenol A are safe for food storage.

The decision of Philbert's committee is being watched carefully by chemical-makers and is expected to have huge implications on the regulation and sale of the chemical in items such as baby bottles, reusable food containers and plastic wraps.

Developed originally as a synthetic form of the hormone estrogen, bisphenol A is used to make hard clear plastic in water bottles, baby bottles and other household products. It is also used as a liner in aluminum cans and in many dental sealants. The chemical has been detected in the urine of 93% of Americans tested.

In the late 1990s the FDA and other government agencies discovered that bisphenol A was leaching from baby bottles. It was also migrating into liquid infant formula from cans.

Since then, a host of studies have found that the chemical causes cancer, heart disease, obesity, reproductive failures and hyperactivity in laboratory animals.

In April, Canada proposed classifying bisphenol A as a toxin and banning its use in baby bottles and other products for children. A number of manufacturers, such as Wal-Mart, Nalgene and Toys "R" Us, have said they will begin phasing out its use.

The National Toxicology Program, formed to advise the FDA, released its report in September citing some cause for concern about the chemical's impact on the development of children, infants and fetuses.

The discrepancy between the FDA and its advisory program has been confusing to consumers.

Last year, the Journal Sentinel reviewed 258 research papers and found that a large majority of those studies showed bisphenol A was harmful to lab animals. Those that didn't find harm overwhelmingly were paid for by the chemical industry.

Gelman, a retired manufacturer of syringes and medical filtration devices, has fought against government regulation of pollutants for years.

He is an anti-regulation activist and an outspoken supporter of organizations including JunkScience.com, the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute that attack the credibility of government and academic scientists on such topics as global warming and hazardous chemicals.

Gelman said he and Philbert talk often. He said Philbert eventually told him that he did not want to have any more discussions on the subject of bisphenol A because he was concerned about the appearance of impropriety. But, Gelman said, "He knows where I stand."

Norris Alderson, the FDA's associate commissioner of science, learned of the link from the Journal Sentinel. He looked into the matter and said he was satisfied there was no conflict of interest because Philbert's salary is not paid by the donation.

Still, the connection troubles scientists familiar with the chemical controversy.

"This definitely raises some red flags," said Vogel, a post-doctoral fellow at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia who did her dissertation on the politics of bisphenol A. "Is there an expectation that Dr. Philbert would vote one way or another?"

Philbert serves as co-director of the University of Michigan's Risk Science Center, which he helped develop in 2003 to assess health risks from environmental agents.

Gelman said he hopes his grant money to Philbert's center will get people to consider risks of chemicals outside a highly charged political atmosphere.

"Too often politicians are responding to what they think a small part of the public wants," Gelman said.

Philbert said Gelman's gift was made with the understanding that it conformed to the rules and policies of the Standard Practice Guide of the University of Michigan.

"No influence may be exerted on the Center, its management, direction or on the statements made by members of the Center," Philbert said.

He steadfastly denied any conflict of interest.

"Until today, no question has been raised with respect to my impartiality in this matter," he said in an e-mail to the Journal Sentinel. "I am not open to any undue influence and have taken on this (unwelcome) task with all due diligence and seriousness."

The announcement of the Gelmans' gift was hailed in university publications as a way to position the University to become the nation's premier center to determine health risks from environmental agents. Philbert was pictured with Gelman and his wife, Rita, in publicity press about the donation.

The FDA draft has been criticized by environmental groups for relying on two industry-funded studies and for selecting Philbert, who has no expertise or background in bisphenol A.

There are seven members of Philbert's subcommittee. Two are from the Science Board and five were picked by Philbert and McNeil. One of those five is a faculty member at Philbert's Risk Science Center.

Genetically Engineered Animals

The F.D.A. and Engineered Food

New York Times

United States

Published: October 12, 2008

LETTERS

To the Editor:

Re Coming to a Plate Near You� (editorial, Oct. 4):

We agree with you that the Food and Drug Administration's proposed regulation of genetically engineered animals is more rigorous than its regulation of genetically engineered crops or cloned animals.

Unfortunately, however, the F.D.A. will not be as rigorous as it needs to be.

The agency may assess environmental impact, but it is not required to prohibit an animal that causes environmental damage.

Although the F.D.A. says it will protect the animal's health, we note that it approved the sale of milk and meat from cloned animals even though the data show that more than 50 percent of cow clones are born with an abnormality known as large offspring syndrome, which adversely affects their health.

Perhaps more important, the F.D.A. proposal has one glaring defect: there is no requirement to label food that comes from genetically engineered animals. Surveys clearly show that the vast majority of Americans want genetically engineered animals to be labeled as such. By not requiring labeling, the F.D.A. will take away a consumer's right to know and right to choose what she eats.

Hansen

Senior Scientist, Consumers Union

Yonkers, Oct. 6, 2008

Reminder: Public comment is open on "The Regulation of Genetically Engineered Animals Containing Heritable rDNA Constructs" until Nov. 18. The 25 page document is available at www.fda.gov/cvm/GEAnimals.htm

Watch the videos and visit the links on Hadcorp's GM Foods section at http://implants.webs.com/gmfoods.htm to learn more about Genetically Modified Foods.

Pamela Thank you for supporting Hadcorp.

http://implants.webs.com/

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