December 15, 2017
By Leonard N. Fleming
In 2015,(click here) Rosenthal allegedly helped manipulate lead testing results and falsely reported they were below the federal action level of 15 parts per billion....
I don't get it. Rosenthal is a career employee to the Michigan DEQ. By every standard that is enviable. He had his future set. Why? I don't believe he was evil or racist or any other descriptor that puts him in a category of being diabolical. Why would such a man launch into fraud that he knew would harm people.
None of this makes sense.
...The state acknowledged high lead levels in the city’s children in late September 2015 and switched back in mid-October 2015 to the Detroit area water system, now called the Great Lakes Water Authority.
Lead testing this year has found that Flint’s results have consistently been below the federal action level of 15 parts per billion. But the state has maintained advisories against drinking Flint’s water until all of the city’s lead lines have been replaced.
Three others entered pleas in connection with the scandal:
Former Flint utilities administrator Michael Glasgow pl:eaded guilty in May to a reduced charge of willful neglect of duty, a one-year misdemeanor. Sentencing for Glasgow was set aside as long as he cooperates with the ongoing investigation by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.
Corinne Miller, who retired as director of the state’s bureau of epidemiology earlier this year, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of neglect of duty in office in exchange for providing information to investigators.
Miller originally was charged with failing to respond properly to an early report that city children were affected by lead contamination in Flint and instructing state health employees to delete emails pertaining to the report. She was sentenced to one year of probation in March.
In late November, former Flint utilities director Daugherty Johnson pleaded no contest to failing to give water documents to a Genesee County Health Department employee investigating a possible connection between Flint water and Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks that eventually killed 12 and sickened 79 others in the Flint area in 2014-15. The deal resulted in two felonies being conditionally dropped in exchange for his cooperation....
This makes sense. Not that it is right, but, a member of Snyder's cabinet acting on his behalf, cutting corners and sacrificing standards for an ideology that the people of Michigan voted down, namely "Emergency Manager," is believable. The indictment of career employees just doesn't fit the picture. Snyder's power brokering to put forward an ideology more important than people's lives is something I would expect out of this investigation.
December 15, 2017
By Ron Fonger
Flint, MI -- A member of Gov. Rick Snyder's cabinet (click here) won't return to court on criminal charges related to the Flint water crisis until 2018 after a potential five-week delay.
Genesee District Court Judge David Goggins announced a short-term schedule for Nick Lyon, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, during the tenth day of Lyon's preliminary examination Friday, Dec. 15.
Lyon is facing charges of involuntary manslaughter and misconduct in office.
Prosecutors claim his actions or failure to act caused a Legionnaires' victim's death in December 2015 and say he knew about suspicions that Legionnaires' outbreaks here were related to Flint water but failed to warn the public...
Friday, December 15, 2017
Whistlebowers matter.
December 8, 2017
Syracuse, NY – A jury and judge (click here) ordered Albany-based asbestos abatement and demolition company Champagne Demolition, LLC and its owner, Joseph A. Champagne, to pay $173,793.84 to a former employee who was fired in June 2010 after reporting improper asbestos removal practices at a school worksite in Gloversville, New York.
The judgment supports a U.S. Department of Labor lawsuit that found Champagne Demolition, LLC violated the employee’s whistleblower rights. The company must pay $103,000 in back wages, $20,000 in compensatory, and $50,000 in punitive damages.
On June 10, 2010, the employee informed company management of the improper practices. The employee was fired the next day and subjected to verbal threats and legal action. A complaint was filed with the Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which opened a whistleblower investigation and found merit to the allegations.
“We are pleased with the jury verdict and the judge’s ruling to hold this employer accountable for violating the employee’s rights,” said OSHA Regional Administrator Robert Kulick, in New York. “Every worker has the right to report potential safety and health hazards without fear of harassment, termination, or retaliation.”...
The mental health community has been looking for a medication more modern, providing quality of life to patients. Seroquel has been that medication.
The surge in sales of Seroquel by Astra-Zeneca was somewhat anticipated. It is surprising the company would ignore such drug interactions that would ultimately give the drug a bad name.
Seroquel is used widely across most age groups, so the damage to the addicts of heroine seeking help through methadone substitution reaches from young to old. Astra-Zeneca was completely reckless in concealing such information. The majority of patients benefiting from Seroquel are not drug addicts. None of it makes sense.
This is what happens when hapless CEOs run a drug company. They are interested in market forces and bonuses; not the PURPOSE of the company in the first place.
Bonuses should be outlawed.
C21H27NO
December 15, 2017
By Sam Roe
Few prescription drugs (click here) were as popular as the antipsychotic Seroquel. Psychiatrists trusted it, nursing homes used it and addiction specialists prescribed it. Annual sales exceeded $3 billion.
But in the winter of 2009, one of the top pharmaceutical sales representatives selling it, Allison Zayas, began to have her doubts.
According to Zayas, one of her best clients, a doctor at a New York City outpatient clinic, told her that a patient had died while taking the drug and that the combination of Seroquel and methadone might have played a role.
Allison Zayas carried a conscience with her sales pitch. Besides, Seroquel practically sold itself. The CEO should be indicted on criminal charges. The MDs treating these patients wanted QUALITY OF LIFE, not end of life.
Allison Zayas carried a conscience with her sales pitch. Besides, Seroquel practically sold itself. The CEO should be indicted on criminal charges. The MDs treating these patients wanted QUALITY OF LIFE, not end of life.
Soon after, Zayas recalled, two other doctors told her as many as 10 patients at New York methadone clinics had died taking Seroquel and methadone together. Zayas said she reported the deaths to her company, drugmaker AstraZeneca, but that it continued to aggressively market the blockbuster drug, even to methadone clinics.
"Their goal was to get in there and sell Seroquel," she told the Tribune in an interview. "It was not, 'Let's draw back. Let's take a look at the information.' It was, 'Get in there and sell.' Everything is sell, sell, sell."
Alarmed at the inaction, Zayas quit AstraZeneca and filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the firm, alleging it concealed the true cardiac risks of Seroquel when taken with certain other medications....
Our leadership, (click here) which includes our Board of Directors and Senior Executive Team, is accountable to our shareholders for the responsible conduct of the business and our long-term success. It also represents the interests of all our stakeholders in ensuring that we deliver for patients by putting science at the heart of everything we do....
March 21, 2013
By Matthew Goodman
It would have to be his predecessor responsible for mismanaging Seroquel.
Member of the Board and CEO since October 2012.
Astra Zeneca (click here) is mission impossible. It’s a giant, old-fashioned pharmaceuticals company whose best drugs are rapidly coming off patent, and whose scientists are struggling to produce new ones. Who would take a hospital pass and become its chief executive?
Step forward Pascal Soriot, a Frenchman who trained as a vet and now calls Australia home. “A number of people looked at me and thought, ‘Are you crazy?’” he admits.
Soriot, 53, was parachuted in last October to succeed David Brennan and has spent his first few months trying to come up with a cure for Astra’s ills....
Our leadership, (click here) which includes our Board of Directors and Senior Executive Team, is accountable to our shareholders for the responsible conduct of the business and our long-term success. It also represents the interests of all our stakeholders in ensuring that we deliver for patients by putting science at the heart of everything we do....
By Matthew Goodman
It would have to be his predecessor responsible for mismanaging Seroquel.
Member of the Board and CEO since October 2012.
Astra Zeneca (click here) is mission impossible. It’s a giant, old-fashioned pharmaceuticals company whose best drugs are rapidly coming off patent, and whose scientists are struggling to produce new ones. Who would take a hospital pass and become its chief executive?
Step forward Pascal Soriot, a Frenchman who trained as a vet and now calls Australia home. “A number of people looked at me and thought, ‘Are you crazy?’” he admits.
Soriot, 53, was parachuted in last October to succeed David Brennan and has spent his first few months trying to come up with a cure for Astra’s ills....
It is a direct attack on small businesses. It is one of the biggest complaints Wall Street has made about the USA economy. They can't control small businesses.
It is the old worn out Republican Paradigm of "Trickle Down." Once the large companies have control there will blossoms of jobs and new opportunities throughout the land.
Lawsuits filed now will only gain information by the time the court hearings begin.
December 15, 2017
Ally Marotti, Samantha Bomkamp and Corilyn Shropshir
Federal regulators’ (click here) decision to end net neutrality and roll back regulations that some say kept data flowing freely on the internet has left some Chicago business owners concerned for their companies’ futures.
Lawsuits filed now will only gain information by the time the court hearings begin.
December 15, 2017
Ally Marotti, Samantha Bomkamp and Corilyn Shropshir
Federal regulators’ (click here) decision to end net neutrality and roll back regulations that some say kept data flowing freely on the internet has left some Chicago business owners concerned for their companies’ futures.
While it’s still unclear exactly what the repeal of the Obama-era rules will mean, proponents of net neutrality fear internet service providers will set up toll lanes on the internet, charging some sites to deliver content faster. That could inhibit growth at tech companies, some in the industry say.
“The bigger companies, my competitors for instance, will have a pile of cash to say, ‘Yeah, no problem, we’ll pay,’” said Stu Grubbs, co-founder of Chicago-based Lightstream. The 14-employee startup builds production software for live streaming. “By the time I do have the money to get past that block, they’ll have ... beaten me out.
“It stifles innovation. It stifles growth to be able to move to new markets,” he said....
It looks like greed won the argument in an administration that admires it.
November 29, 2017
By Todd Shields
But who? Was it supporters or foes of the open internet rules -- or was it the Russians?
A study has found more than 7.75 million comments were submitted from email domains attributed to FakeMailGenerator.com, and they had nearly identical wording. The FCC says some of the nearly 23 million comments on Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal to gut Obama-era rules were filed under the same name more than 90 times each.
And then there were the 444,938 from Russian email addresses, which also raised eyebrows, even though it’s unclear if they were from actual Russian citizens or computer bots originating in the U.S. or elsewhere.
The oddities in the FCC’s inbox have attracted scrutiny from New York’s attorney general and from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which has opened a probe.
“In an era where foreign governments have indisputably tried to use the internet and social media to influence our elections, federal and state governments should be working together to ensure that malevolent actors cannot subvert our administrative agencies’ decision-making processes,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in an open letter to the FCC....
The average life span of a dog is 10 - 13 years; Golden Retrievers 10 - 12 years. I look forward to good outcomes from this research.
By Karin Bulliard
Most dogs get poked and prodded (click here) at the veterinarian's office. Piper, a 4-year-old golden retriever in Chicago, gets far more scrutiny than that.
Her annual checkup this month took three hours. Her flaxen hair was trimmed and bagged, her toenails clipped and kept, her bodily fluids collected. Everything was destined for a biorepository in the Washington suburbs that holds similar samples from more than 3,000 other purebred golden retrievers from across the country. The dogs, though they do not know it, are participating in an ambitious, $32 million research project that researchers hope will yield insights into the causes of cancers and other diseases common to goldens, other breeds and maybe even humans....
...At its core, the study is about cancer - what Page calls "the No. 1 concern among dog owners." The disease is the leading cause of death in dogs over age 2 and something diagnosed in half of dogs older than 10. The prevalence is believed to be slightly higher in golden retrievers, which most often succumb to mast cell tumors, bone cancer, lymphomaor hemangiosarcoma (originating in the lining of blood vessels).
But that is not the only reason the bouncy, amiable breed is the study's focus. Goldens are the third-most popular dogs in the United States, which made it easier for researchers to find 3,000 subjects; they also tend to have besotted owners who pay close attention to their health - an important criteria for a project that demands years of owner commitment....
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