I'm Back!

I'm finally back from a short hiatus. I want to thank my readers for being patient while waiting for my return to posting.

I had a few unfortunate and traumatic events happen in the last couple of weeks. The recent storms in the area caused a power surge and pooched my computer. The worst event was that my 9 month old kitten chased a fly off my balcony and fell 5 stories to the roof below.

I had to climb onto the roof myself to rescue her since no emergency units cared to help in this City. Fortunately she was alive but needed emergency surgery because the roof of her mouth was split. Animal Care and Control wanted to take custody of her if I couldn't afford the surgery. In any case, the $700 was well worth it. She is doing very well and is back to the adorable mischievious little kitten she once was.

Now for the News

Just last week I recieved a copy of the Kroll Lindquist Avey forensic report WITH schedules! Once I have the opportunity to go through it a little more thoroughly I will certainly post it and report on it. Please stay tuned.

Also, all on one day, I recieved a call from the Crown Attorney's office and two letters, one from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario regarding my requests inquiring what both were doing to accommodate the KPMG Report that I have posted on Habamus Rodentum Reports.

The responses were interesting and will post them on HRR shortly. They are interesting to note. The College waited until March of this year to take the KPMG Report seriously. I wonder if that had anything to do with me contacted the Crown's office to inquire whether or not I could press criminal charges against one of the College's investigator's for withholding evidence from the complaints committee?

Once I recieve the letter I'm waiting for from the Crown, depending on what their response is, I will post my evidence against the College if the Crown has decided not to enforce the administration of law.

Please stay tuned!

Yours truly,

Habamus Rodentum

U.S Congress Puts Limits on Pharmaceutical Influence in FDA

From the ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP)
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability

The House passed an amendment introduced by Congressman Maurice Hinchey (NY) to rein in pharmaceutical industry influence on FDA advisory panels whose recdommendations have resulted in the approval of lethal drugs.

Below Merrill Goozner write: "The vote punctuates six months of intensive research, education and lobbying work by the Center for Science in the Public Interest's Integrity in Science project, which I direct.

The issue gained national attention in February when the New York Times, relying on CSPI research, reported that 10 of 32 scientists sitting on the FDA advisory panel evaluating Cox-2 painkillers had ties to manufacturers of the drugs.

Had their votes been eliminated, two of the three drugs in the class would have received a thumbs down vote from the panel."

Congressman Hinchey's press release states: "recent FDA actions have created serious doubts about whether committee members are serving only the public interest and, as a result, industry biases now taint many advisory panel decisions. Today, we took a giant step forward to squash those doubts."

This is but a first step in the right direction. Intensive research, education, and lobbying are still needed to overhaul the FDA so that it serves the public interest.

From Gooznews:
House Votes Biz-Backed Scientists Off FDA Advisory Panels

The House of Representatives voted this afternoon to prohibit outside doctors and scientists who work for drug companies from sitting on Food and Drug Administration panels that pass judgment on those same companies' products.

The vote on a rider to the FDA appropriations bill was 218-210, with dozens of Republicans joining an overwhelming Democratic party vote in favor of the measure, which was sponsored by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY).

The measure now moves to the Senate where Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin is planning a similar maneuver.

The vote punctuates six months of intensive research, education and lobbying work by the Center for Science in the Public Interest's Integrity in Science project, which I direct.

The issue gained national attention in February when the New York Times, relying on CSPI research, reported that 10 of 32 scientists sitting on the FDA advisory panel evaluating Cox-2 painkillers had ties to manufacturers of the drugs.

Had their votes been eliminated, two of the three drugs in the class would have received a thumbs down vote from the panel.

The conflict of interest issue reared its head again in April when an FDA advisory panel evaluating the safety of silicon gel breast implants included a physician who had recently completed a video for the manufacturer touting the safety of the product.

A broad coalition of consumer and women's health groups protested his presence on that panel.

Speaking on the House floor, Hinchey quoted at length from the recent Lancet editorial that took issue with the FDA's defense of hiring part-time advisers who simultaneously worked for companies with new product applications before the agency.

The idea that the FDA can't find highly qualified, unconflicted scientists among the thousands of persons who teach at America's 125 medical schools or abroad "is simply ridiculous," Hinchey said.

The Democrats who spoke in favor of the measure included Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), whose son committed suicide while on Accutane, the acne drug, and Rep. Marion Berry (D-Ark.), the only certified pharmacist in Congress.

The Republican leadership, meanwhile, perhaps feeling the heat from its own ethics and conflict of interest scandals, couldn't round up anyone besides the floor leader to speak against the rider.
It's still a long way before the measure becomes law, and even then it would only be for the coming year. But Wednesday's vote represents a good start in rebuilding the public's faith in the agency, which has been badly shaken by the past year's safety scandals.

However, eliminating scientists with conflicts of interest from FDA advisory panels is only the first step in the larger project of reforming the FDA.

Legislation in the Senate (Grassley-Dodd) and House (Hinchey) would give the agency's safety department more power to veto drug applications, pull drugs off the market and order new clinical trials. Until those bills pass, the American people will continue to wonder if their medicines are truly safe and effective.

Posted by gooznews at June 8, 2005 09:07 PM

FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted (© ) material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without profit.

Drug Company Whistle-Blower gets 'Scarlet Letter'

Pfizer harasses vice-president for whistle blowing on its marketing practices. Reported in today's New York Times.

Public Works and Security Clearances

In this post, I noted that Public Works and Government Services Canada did security checks for contract agencies that send employees on temporary assignments to federal government agencies such as Canada Customs and Revenue.

Here is the paperwork that supports Public Works and Government Services Canada doing security checks.

Alfonso Gagliano was the Minister in charge of Public Works and currently embroiled in the sponsorship scandal. He is also alleged to be a "made member" of a well known American crime family in New York. See this post, and this one and this. Hell, why not this one or this one?

As noted in the aforementioned post, what was a elected official with alleged links to organized crime doing as the Minister of government services that provides security checks and gives security clearances to private agencies?

Over-Diagnosed Mental Illness Suits Drug Companies

This report called 'A Research Agenda for DSM-V' published by the American Psychiatric Association calls for more research on the causes of mental illness, which would incorporate specific tests such as MRI and sensitive blood tests to prove mental illness exists. It is also critical of the strict adherence terminology from the DSM-IV used by many of America's psychiatrists (including Canada's).

It's abhorrent to think that tests that include questions such as "do you prefer to work by yourself" would label business entrepreneurs as mentally ill because they are considered "narcissistic". Homosexuality is still considered a psychiatric illness according to the DSM-IV.

DSM stands for the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, which determines "mental illness" based on semantics identified by patients who fill out the questionnaires or answer a yes or no when asked specific questions by a psychiatrist. Many of these questionnaires are outdated but still used by Ontario's psychiatrists.

Very few researchers studying mental health medicine, save for the University of Ottawa are developing evidential tests to prove mental illness.

News Item from:

The Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP) :

According to the study,"Younger sufferers are especially overlooked, the survey found, even though mental illness is very much a disease of youth. Half of those who will ever be diagnosed with a mental disorder show signs of the disease by age 14, and three-quarters by age 24. But few get help."

Translation: detection of chronic mental disorders will require chronic treatment to enrich the pharmaceutical industry and mental health professionals at taxpayers expense.

Dr. Paul McHugh, former chairman of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, and a member of the President's bioethics commission, scoffed at the claimed findings: "Fifty percent of Americans mentally impaired - are you kidding me?"

Dr. McHugh noted the flawed diagnostic tool that psychiatry relies on: "the problem is that the diagnostic manual we are using in psychiatry is like a field guide and it just keeps expanding and expanding." "Pretty soon," he said, "we'll have a syndrome for short, fat Irish guys with a Boston accent, and I'll be mentally ill."

One wonders whether Congress will buy into this contrived effort to divert public budget allocations to enrich the mental health industry.

The declared mental health epidemic in the US is an irresponsible marketing ploy whose veiled purpose is to encourage increased chronic use of mind-altering prescription drugs whose hazardous effects pose a threat to the health and safety of the community.

The drugs-psycho stimulants, antidepressants, and anti-psychotics-induce severe hazardous effects in some who take them. The hazards often exceed the symptoms for which they are prescribed.

They include: insomnia, mania, agitation, akathisia (i.e., excruciating physical and psychological restlessness), sexual dysfunction, violent outbursts, liver damage, diabetes mellitus, and potentially fatal effects, including cardiovascular damage, NMS, stroke, violent suicidal /homicidal acts, not to mention they retard children's growth.

NIMH director, Dr. Insel, indicated that "mental disorders are highly prevalent and chronic."

But prevalence and chronicity are correlated to widespread use of psychotropic drugs in the US. A body of evidence shows that chronic use of psychotropic drugs--including psycho-stimulants,
SSRI / SNRI class of antidepressants, and the most dangerous drugs of all, the antipsychotics--results in drug dependency.

If the NIMH-Harvard study is taken seriously and we accept its claim that most of the US population is mad, the credibility of our leaders and our national policies will be the butt of international ridicule.

My Take on Grewal

There are some slight updates to the body of the text - June 8 '05

The Globe & Mail has the latest reports on alterations of the Grewal Tapes and they hired a U.S. forensic audio expert to confirm it.

I had promised readers to give my take on Grewal. The first question was, if Grewal had suspected that the Liberals were attempting to buy votes, why didn't he speak to the Conservative leadership about it and then have them request the RCMP to investigate? Or did they and the RCMP refused?

Excerpts from the tapes extracted by CTV has Grewal complaining to Tim Murphy:

Immigration Minister Joe Volpe had asked the RCMP and the Commons Ethics Commissioner to examine allegations that Grewal and another Tory had offered to aid immigrants in return for money. Those allegations are now being examined by the RCMP.

Murphy is overheard suggesting a retraction [from the RCMP probe] is possible, but that he could not stop the probe by Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro.

Grewal Clean?

So what is to say that Grewal wasn't taping the Liberals to bribe them out of the RCMP investigation with no intention of making the tapes public? What is to say that if the didn't get the positions he negotiated with Tim Murphy and Dosanj as they promised on the tapes that he wouldn't have used it against them after he crossed the floor?

The Liberals are in defense mode, since they can't deny what offers they made on the tapes, so they have to use the forensic sound experts to defend the allegations of more corruption.

Why doesn't the Conservative Party hire their own forensic expert? Ultimately, it's a judge who will have to decide on whether or not the tapes can be used as evidence even though the Liberals are doing everything they can to discredit them.

As for Grewal, my own anonymous sources who has some knowledge of tapes used as evidence tells me that sound copying technology is so sophisticated nowadays that whatever is on the CD's was most likely copied directly from the originals.

So how can Grewal splice and edit analogue tape cassettes? The originals will show physical evidence of being spliced.

This CTV news report asks U.S. forensic expert Jack Mitchell how the alterations occured or if they were done intentionally. Mitchell could not say.

One thing that makes me think he may have attempted some half-assed splicing job (although I don't know how) is just by perusing his website. He asks readers to vote on a yes or no question about whether or not he should have given the tapes to the RCMP, but he doesn't provide the answers. Instead, he asks those who have voted to provide their names and addresses and he will mail the "results" to those that sent in their addresses to find out at a later date.

He also provided a transcribed version of the tapes on his website with emphasis added of who was speaking to whom by indicating the initials of the speaker. Half the time it didn't make sense who was actually speaking. I didn't post the tape transcript from his site because of this.

All of this seems a little opaque to me and a tad bit unethical. This guy just doesn't come across as the epitomy of integrity to me and indicates some form of bizarre politiking.

Even if there was some editing in places that do not make up the majority of the taped conversations, the majority of them cannot and should not be ignored.

Taking Time to Get Stuff Done

There was some major maintenance issues at my place last week so I spent the remainder of the week painting, cleaning and preparing for guests again this weekend. I also suffered a little from sun poisoning from worshipping the beautiful weather we've had here lately. So, needless to say, I'm exhausted.

The beginning of this week will be spent going over responses to a human rights case I'm working on. So anyone who normally checks into my blog (and I appreciate all of you who do), I'll be somewhat distracted from posting for the next few days this week.

There are a few things that come into the news in the last week that warrant commenting on.

Namely, Quebec and its refusal to implement Sharia Law. This is welcome news which needs further comment but I have to speak to a few individuals at Justice in order to write my essay.

The Kroll report still needs further analysis. Once I am able to contact the appropriate individual(s) I'll be able to report a little more thoroughly. I'm still waiting for a copy of the report to come from the Gomery Commission communications department. I'm hoping with schedules after the rest of the private testimony is heard, but we'll see.

There is also the case of a Hamilton Spectator journalist who was held in contempt of court for not giving up the name of his source in a local scandal of a nursing home. It speaks to the need for provincial whistle blower legislation AND protection for journalists who keep secret their anonymous sources. Some individuals are deathly afraid of speaking out against abuses in their workplaces for fear of reprisal. How is democracy and accountability to flourish in Ontario if journalists are charged with contempt?

Lastly, I want to post my take on Grewal and his tapes. I went to his site but found a few strange things there. I have increasingly wondered why Grewal didn't go to the RCMP before he taped the conversations between himself, Tim Murphy and Ujjal Dosanj.

There's a lot of house keeping I want to accomplish on the blog as well including the reports section. All of this will take a little time so I appreciate your patience.

Grewal Tapes Altered

Two experts say Grewal Tapes were altered reported by the C.B.C

Is The PMO Influencing RCMP Grewal Gate Investigation?

Update Monday June 6 2005:
RCMP confirm there is no investigation into criminal intent of conversations in Grewal Tapes - CTV
Excerpt:

Later, the Prime Minister's Office asked CTV to call RCMP Chief Superintendent
Bernie Corrigan, who contradicted Cpl. Deschenes' statement. He said there was
no criminal investigation at this point, but the Mounties are considering a
formal request from the Bloc Quebecois for an inquiry.

"All we have is the letter. There is no criminal investigation. I can confirm
that 100 per cent," he said.

He could not explain why Cpl. Deschenes told CTV and the Globe and Mail that a
criminal probe had been launched.

[...]

Grewal is also overheard complaining that Immigration Minister Joe Volpe had
asked the RCMP and the Commons Ethics Commissioner to examine allegations that
Grewal and another Tory had offered to aid immigrants in return for money. Those
allegations are now being examined by the RCMP.

Murphy is overheard suggesting a retraction is possible, but that he could not
stop the probe by Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro

Update Thursday June 2 2005:
McLellan denies PMO influenced RCMP - CTV
Excerpt:

On Wednesday, there was confusion over the exact nature of the RCMP probe.

"We are looking into the allegations of what happened and what everyone is talking about if, in fact, a criminal act happened," RCMP Cpl. Nathalie Deschenes told CTV News.

Later, the Prime Minister's Office asked CTV to call RCMP Chief Superintendent Bernie Corrigan, who contradicted Cpl. Deschenes' statement. He said there was no criminal investigation at this point, but the Mounties are considering a formal request from the Bloc Quebecois for an inquiry.

"How did they know in the PMO, and can the prime minister tell us when his communications department became the official spokesperson for the RCMP?" MacKay asked on Thursday.

"Let me make it absolutely clear: No one from the Prime Minister's Office contacted anyone from the RCMP," McLellan responded.

Didn't the Nixon Whitehouse attempt to influence the FBI investigation into the Watergate building break-ins?

Didn't Tim Murphy say to Grewal in the tapes that he would make some form of arrangement for Grewal's RCMP investigation commenced by Joe Volpe?

Posted Wednesday June 1st 2005:

Woa...woa...woa...

What is the RCMP doing? A spokesperson gave CTV confirmation that an investigation was going to be launched and then 2 hours later the PMO's office told CTV to "ask a more senior officer of the RCMP" who then gave CTV the message that an "investigation was not on-going at this time".

Who was that "more senior officer"? I want to know dammit.

And what influence does the PMO have over the RCMP from investigating a possible criminal case?

The PMO should have no influence over whether or not the RCMP does its job. If the PMO has exerted influence then we have a serious serious serious problem in this country on top of the one we already have. Cannot the House of Commons act as the Attorney General as stated in s. 2 of the Criminal Code to give direction to the RCMP?

The PMO has no right to influence the RCMP. We as Canadians have the right to be protected under law, in particular the criminal code if it applies, as s. 15 of the Charter tells us.

Remember, a department within the RCMP is implicated in Adscam for money laundering and redirection of funds. Commissioner Zaccardelli gave a press conference about the influence of organized crime (the meaning is 3 or more persons involved conspiracy to commit a crime). See this archive.

I am wondering why the CBC is trying to minimize the seriousness of the Grewal tapes. On the 10 pm National tonight they allowed a professor from the University of Ottawa to state he didn't see any criminal violation because "no money was exchanged" (remind me not to study law at the University of Ottawa).

Well this discussion was brought up on Andrew Coyne's comments. That is because s. 119 of the C.C.C is about the exchange of money, which I didn't agree with.

CTV's 11 pm news had Lawrence Greenspon quoting s. 125, which I believe is appropriate to Grewal Gate as it is in line with dealing in offices for a benefit, in this case to increase the number of 'yeahs' in the recent budget vote. And since Belinda Stronach's situation was mentioned in the tapes, her defection should also be investigated.

Andersen's Conviction Reversed

Arthur Andersen's conviction of obstruction in the Enron scandal is reversed by the American Supreme Court because of poor wording in jury instruction "given by Judge Melinda Harmon of Federal District Court in Houston" to find intent. As report by the New York Times.

I have a question. Should intent be weighed as heavily in white collar crime when it comes to professional standards and knowing the legislation that regulates the auditing profession? Is there not accreditation of American CA members to indicate they are aware of the legislation and rules regarding legal, illegal and ethical conduct? If they are accredited should it not be assumed any contravention of their terms of membership is considered intent?

Up to 24,000 Canadians Die from Medical Errors

The Canadian Adverse Events Study: the incidence of adverse events among hospital patients in Canada

The interpretation of this study estimated that between 141,250 to 232,250 of 2.5 million patients admitted to acute care hospitals experienced 'adverse events' (AEs) a.k.a medical mistakes. A significant number of patients died or experienced a permanent disability because of AEs and between "9250 to 23 750 AE deaths could have been prevented."

CTV had a report on their 11 o'clock news May 31 '05 about an Ontario woman who had a bleeding ulcer, saw 4 doctors, was sent home and later died because of it. This is an example of a preventable AE.

Her daughter took the matter to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario where they dismissed her claim.

The reason? See this report to get a better idea what the daughter was dealing with.