March 2008 Archives
Here is the Complaint in the case blogged below seeking too enjoin
A self-proclaimed cosmic truth seeker with a Ph.D from
Not that the scientists at CERN or elsewhere agree. They are pretty sure the universe and the space-time continuum will not be irreparably harmed even though a few tiny black holes may be generated and some other things never seen since the dawn of time may appear. Other than that ….
The Collider, the world’s largest, is the result of 14 years work by some of the world’s leading physicists and $8 billion pooled by various governments and foundations. The goal is to propel protons at such speeds that when they collide they will recreate energy and conditions equal to that which occurred at the moment of the big bang when the universe was one trillionth of a second old. All this information and more is available on CERN's website which explains how safe the project really is and why it is important to conduct such research to unwrap the mysteries of the cosmos.
Wagner and Sancho, however, are not convinced and believe a federal judge in
The folks at CERN don’t deny they just might produce these black holes; in fact, they are excited about the prospect. But they point to a 1974 paper by no one less than Stephen Hawking who theorized that such machine generated black holes would quickly and harmlessly evaporate in a burst of radiation. Whew! I feel a lot better, now.
Of course, Hawking hasn’t written about those other things Wagner is worried about and which some physicists believe might just be produced. These are something called “strangelets,” primordial particles consisting of equal numbers of up, down and strange quarks. Not that I know what a quark is but physicists explain that when these heretofore hypothetical strangelets come into contact with ordinary matter they just might convert ordinary nucleii into strange matter, much the way Ice Nine operated in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle. So within a fairly short period of time every particle on earth just might be converted into dense shrunken strangelets. That would be bad.
The lawsuit, filed March 21, seeks a temporary restraining order prohibiting CERN and its sponsors from proceeding with the Collider until they produce a safety report and an environmental impact assessment. In addition to CERN, the defendants are the federal Department of Energy, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and the National Science Foundation. A scheduling conference is set for June 16, a few weeks before CERN is scheduled to bring the Collider on line.
Alan Milstein
In 2001, Ray Sumrow was named Prosecutor of the Year in
"A public official, like Caesar's wife, must be above suspicion," the judge told Sumrow, while sentencing him to four years in prison. The Judge also told Sumrow, who is still facing trial on additional charges, including a claim that $68,000 in government expense money was improperly diverted to his personal account, “I'm sure you sent people to prison for far less than the charges against you."
Alan Milstein
Conflicts of Interest have risen their ugly head again in human subject research. This time hidden tobacco money appears to have funded a study suggesting that lung scans might help save smokers from cancer and thereby lessen the risks of smoking.
Both the New England
The issue of whether such routine scans are worthwhile is a hot topic and a critical public health issue. In fact, the American Cancer Society and numerous other groups have provided funding to the Cornell team to see if routinely screening smokers with CT scans can reveal early signs of lung cancer and prevent deaths.
JAMA’s editor in chief Dr. Catherine DeAngelis said she contacted Cornell’s lead researcher Dr. Claudia Henschke months ago after learning that the Cornell group held patents related to CT scanning technology which also were not disclosed. Said Dr. DeAngelis, "We'd been working with Dr. Henschke trying to get her to write a letter of apology — which is our policy — and to take responsibility. It was not easy to get her to do anything." DeAngelis further said that, had she known big tobacco had funded the research, “ I would have turned down the paper."
Alan Milstein
Alan Milstein
The union hopefully will not give in to Stern's demand. Even if they do, the rule will surely be challenged both in the halls of congress and the halls of justice. Notwithstanding the Second Circuit's ruling in Clarett, such a rule still would unquestionably primarily affect those outside the bargaining unit and concern matters other than wages, hours or conditions of employment, two of the three requirements for protection under the labor exemption to the antitrust laws. Stay tuned.
Alan Milstein
In
The family of John Ritter has sued
The more things change and the more advanced we are with our technology, the more they remain the same. As long as there is any human component whatsoever to a process, there will always be a margin of error. The Washington Post reports today that a government laptop computer containing sensitive medical information on 2,500 patients enrolled in a National Institutes of Health study was stolen in February. Yes, February.
Included in the stolen data was seven years' worth of clinical trial data, including names, medical diagnoses and details of the patients' heart scans. The information was not encrypted, in violation of the government's data-security policy.
NIH officials did not publicly disclose the theft and did not formally, in writing, notify the affected patients of the breach in security until last Thursday -- almost a month later. NIH officialts said they delayed because of concerns that they would provoke undue alarm. Yeah, ya think?
The Washington Post further reported that this month, the Government Accountability Office found that at least 19 of 24 agencies reviewed had experienced at least one breach that could expose people's personal information to identity theft.
Representative Barney Frank announced he intends to introduce a bill decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana. Whether it has much chance of success is another story, but hopefully the proposal will begin the much needed debate. Frank says his principal motivation is the absurd actions of federal law enforcement in prosecuting those using marijuana for medicinal purposes. Currently thirteen states allow those with cancer or aids or other debilitating illnesses to use marijuana to relieve their pain or nausea or to improve their appetite. The remaining states and the federal government would rather spend resources prosecuting the desperately ill who seek some measure of comfort from this ancient herbal remedy.
Alan Milstein
A California Superior Court awarded Starbucks Baristas $105 million dollars yesterday in a class action brought over the sharing of tips. The case was brought by
Lewis “Scooter” Libby has been disbarred by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. In a terse Opinion, the court reasoned that disbarment is mandatory when a member of the bar is convicted of a crime of moral turpitude and that perjury and obstruction of justice are each just such a crime. His friend the President, of course, has commuted his sentence because it was disproportionate to the offence, while offering no such comfort to Marion Jones who sits in prison away from her seven month old because of a similar conviction for perjury.
Alan Milstein
Here is a transcript of today’s argument before the Supreme Court in
Alan Milstein
Tuesday morning at
Here is an excellent piece by Arthur Caplan writing in Science Progress about the ethics of steroid use. Art writes:
The battle over performance enhancement is often fought out as if one size fits all—what makes performance enhancement acceptable in one domain, sports, will make it acceptable in all aspects of life. What the fight between Harris and Sandel reveals is that this is not so. There are reasons to believe that steroids don’t belong in sports, even putting safety concerns aside. But this does not mean that performance-enhancing drugs have no appropriate role in any areas of life and achievement. The decision about what role pharmacology and genetics ought to play depends on whether you are trying to travel to another planet, solve a difficult math problem, learn a new language, or hit a home run.
The Ninth Circuit yesterday issued its anxiously awaited Opinion in Lanier v. City of
The city had argued that it had a substantial and important interest in screening library pages mainly because drug abuse is a serious societal problem and might have an adverse impact on job performance. The court cogently rejected these arguments reasoning that prior decisions of the United States Supreme Court "make clear the need for suspicionless testing must be far more specific and substantial than the generalized existence of a societal problem of the sort that [the employer] has posited." The court noted that the need in suspicionless cases not involving high risk or safety-sensitive tasks must be "special" and not merely "symbolic."
Alan Milstein
Sending a message of understanding that candy popping addicts are only the victims in the war on calories, the
In today's Sacramento Bee, Peter Schrag has an excellent op-ed article titled "The State High Court's Gay Marriage Conundrum."
Where to begin?
Soon to be ex-Governor Elliott Spitzer was caught on federal wiretap in what appears to be an "integrity/public corruption investigation". Apparently, Spitzer was involved in what was described as the high-profile "Emporers Club VIP," which was accused last week of offering prostitutes to wealthy clients, some at $5,500 an hour.
The wiretap transcript with Spitzer and "Lewis" (whom allegedly was an agent of the prostitution service) purportedly reads:
Lewis said that "Kristen" would go directly to room 871.
Client 9 asked Lewis to remind him what "Kristen" looked like and Lewis said that she was American, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds.
Client 9 said that she should go straight to 871, and if for any reason it did not work out, she should call Lewis.
According to the purported transcript, "Client 9" made it apparent to the service's agent that it wasn't the first time he'd used the service. "Yup, same as in the past, no question about it," he said when referring to payment arrangements.
Later, the agent told "Kristen" that the client would "ask you to do things that, like, you might not think were safe -- you know -- I mean that ... very basic things. ... 'Kristen' responded: 'I have a way of dealing with that. ... I'd be like, listen dude, you really want the sex?' ... You know what I mean.'"
The Web site of the Emperors Club VIP displays photographs of the prostitutes' bodies, with their faces hidden, along with hourly rates depending on whether the prostitutes were rated with various numbers of diamonds, with seven diamonds being the highest.
Again, allegedly, the story goes that Client 9 wanted a high-priced prostitute named Kristen to come to
That transportation across state lines created federal jursidiction over the matter because such conduct may be violative of the Mann Act. Additionally, Spitzer purportedly paid for the prsotitution services through a direct charge to his bank account to a vendor of anonymous origin. The frequency of those charges and their amount triggered bank officials to notify the Federal government of potentially suspicious activity.
Spitzer said:
"I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my, or any, sense of right and wrong," "I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself."
The case is being handled by prosecutors in the Public Corruption unit of the U.S. Attorneys' Office. This one is going to go on for awhile.
The Seattle Biomedical Research Institute wants to infect healthy human subjects with malaria to test a new vaccine. The Center will be offering $2000 to the human guinea pigs willing to rent their bodies for the greater good. Is it ethical? Depends who you ask. Here is a study with all risk and no benefit to the healthy subjects, other than the two grand, and money is not supposed to count as a benefit. The money is the problem, of course, as it always is. The money is used to induce the needy to be subjects, not for altruism, but for the basic necessities of life or maybe just some spending money. If you doubt that, see if there are any rich folks you know who want to volunteer.
The researchers seem certain that they can quickly cure anyone infected and that the worst the subjects will experience are some flu like symptoms. Where have we heard that before?
Stay tuned.
Alan Milstein
Here is the Complaint which apparently gave rise to the fall of Governor Spitzer. Before being elected Governor, Spitzer of course was the highest ranking law enforcement officer in the state of New York who twice prosecuted prostitution rings. To say he knew better is an understatement. The governor issued the following statement:
Today, I want to briefly address a private matter. I have acted in a way that violated the obligations to my family and that violates my — or any — sense of right and wrong. I apologize first, and most importantly, to my family. I apologize to the public, whom I promised better. I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas, the public good and doing what is best for the State of
Wendy Parmet of the Hastings Center Bioethics Forum has written an excellent article on the recent moves by the Supreme Court to shield device and drug manufacturers from liability. In Safety First-Or Safety Preempted, Ms. Parmet writes what many of us know: the FDA has historically done a poor job of protecting consumers and the threat of liability is critical to keeping BigPharma in check.
On Saturday,
For more information about how to register for this and other classes at Way Gay U, go to the web site at waygay.org
A California Appellate Court has issued an opinion holding that parents who lack teaching credentials cannot homeschool their children. The ruling is a blow to the approximately 150,000
The Court ruled “Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children. Parents who fail to [comply with school enrollment laws] may be subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction, and subject to imposition of fines or an order to complete a parent education and counseling program.”
The New Jersey Legislature unanimously released an important bill out of committee today. The bill requires physicians to obtain informed consent from the parent of a child before prescribing a psychotropic drug containing a Black Box warning issued by the FDA. Testifying before the committee were firm clients
The Supreme Court issued its second opinion on preemption is as many weeks, this time in Warner Lambert v. Kent, rendering a split 4 to 4 opinion that leaves this critical issue still up for grabs. The case involved Warner-Lambert’s diabetes drug Rezulin, which was pulled from the market in 2000 when it was revealed that it caused liver damage.
The Court considered a
Still another preemption case looms on the horizon, Wyeth vs. Levine, and Roberts unfortunately does not own stock in Wyeth.
Alan Milstein
Here is an article about the work of two clients of the firm and their efforts to protect the children of
Here is an interesting article about Clemens published at CNSNews.com.
I was interviewed for my thoughts on the evidence thus far.
We previously wrote about the dangerous though ineffective injunction a
Alan Milstein
