Slices of life

Want some pie?

• Sell MSFT.
• Ya angry yet?

(HT: The latter via the former.)

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 20:24:46 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Darn, missed all the fun

Posted by: Old Grouch in Meta at 19:58:39 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Contrasts...

USA Today, April 16, 2008 (front page): Reports: Data on Vioxx Misused

Corporate and government documents from Vioxx lawsuits indicate that the drug’s maker, Merck & Co., apparently downplayed evidence showing the painkiller tripled the risk of death in Alzheimer’s-prone patients, researchers report today.
...
(para #3): Doctors involved in the analyses, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, some of whom serve as plantiffs’ witnesses, say...

The Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2008 (page B-4, Corporate News): Merck's Publishing Ethics Are Questioned by Studies

Two medical-journal studies suggest Merck & Co. violated scientific-publishing ethics by ghostwriting dozens of academic articles, and minimized the impact of patient deaths in its analyses of some human trials of a top-selling drug later linked to cardiac problems.
...
(para #4): The studies appear in Wednesday’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Five of the papers’ six authors served as paid consultants to plantiffs’ lawyers in Vioxx lawsuits...

O.G.’s comments:
• Note the weasel words in the USA Today story: Documents “indicate” that Merck “apparently” downplayed evidence. Is there any fire here, or is it all smoke?
• And speaking of appearance of impropriety, USA Today– in this day, when cigarette companies can’t be trusted to fund cancer research, and when environmental studies paid for by chemical companies are suspect, shouldn’t the fact that the majority of these studies’ authors derived income from the plantiffs’ bar as consultants against Merck be of interest to your readers?

USA Today also offers this, from JAMA editor Catherine DeAngelis:

“I’ve been... watching physicians and clinical researchers be[ing] used by pharmaceutical companies... It’s time to stop.”

Sounds like somebody with an agenda. Should we take this to mean that in the future the Journal of the American Medical Association is to be deemed as trustworthy as The Lancet?

Posted by: Old Grouch in The Press at 18:06:57 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Don't dine in Vancouver

Last night's Instapundit linked this Mark Steyn zinger at The Corner:

...The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ruled, after awarding a McDonald's employee $55,000:

There was no evidence of:

• the relationship between food contamination and hand-washing;

Thank goodness for that.

Great one-liner, though the underlying HRhero post reveals that the finding was more complex.^[1]

Still, only the most generous interpretation (the writer was being “lawyerly;” what he meant was, “McDonald’s failed to introduce any evidence of the relationship between food contaminatation and hand-washing, and therefore we couldn’t consider it”) excuses the Tribunal from a charge of bone-headedness. “No evidence of the relationship between food contamination and hand-washing” reeks^[2] of the 60s view that personal cleanliness is “just another cultural artifact.”^[3] Given Vancouver’s social climate, there are probably many of its citizens who still hold this view.

Which means it’s probably a good idea for anyone who’d prefer to skip a round of food poisoning to avoid restaurants in Vancouver– until the situation is clarified.


------
^[1] Excerpt from the Tribunal's finding (quoted in the HRhero post):

• The doctor said that [the complaintant, who had worked for the restaurant for 20 years before developing a skin condition] couldn’t tolerate “frequent” hand-washing and that she was to have “minimal detergent and water contact,” but McDonald’s didn’t inquire about how often she could wash her hands or what level of detergent and water contact was acceptable.

• There was no real attempt to see if any alternative work or modified duties were available... For example, McDonald’s didn’t explore the possibility of finding appropriately fitted gloves (e.g., “salad preparation gloves”) that [the complaintant] may have been able to use...

^[2]Intended? - ed. Yep - o.g.

^[3] See: hippies, smelly

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 16:21:18 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Sites Linked - March 2008

35 posts in March, down from February’s 62.  Alternately dull and busy:  First quarter, tax time, and waiting for spring.

Still not the lowest post count, which (for the last 12 months) is still May '07 at 25.

The March linklist is below the jump...
more...

Posted by: Old Grouch in Meta at 22:02:05 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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