The Food and Drug Administration does almost nothing to police the financial conflicts of doctors who conduct clinical trials of drugs and medical devices in human subjects, government investigators are reporting. Moreover, the investigators say, agency officials told them that trying to protect patients from such conflicts was not worth the effort. In 42 percent of clinical trials, the agency did not receive forms disclosing doctors’ financial conflicts and did nothing about the problem, according to the investigation, which was conducted by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services and whose results were scheduled to be made public Monday. In 31 percent of the trials in which the agency did receive the required forms, agency reviewers did not document that they looked at the information. And in 20 percent of the cases in which doctors revealed significant financial conflicts, neither the F.D.A. nor the sponsoring companies took any action to deal with the conflicts, the investigators found. Karen Riley, a spokeswoman for the F.D.A, said the agency opposed reviewing doctors’ financial conflicts before trials because they represented just one possible source of bias. A similar investigation by the inspector general last […]
There might be a credit crunch, but that’s not stopping solar companies from trying to lay claim to millions of acres of desert real estate. The federal Bureau of Land Management has seen a 78 percent jump in the number of solar energy project applications since it reversed a controversial decision last July and started to accept applications again. The number of applications has risen to 223 from 125. The applicants are vying to build solar power plants that are 10 megawatts or larger in California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado, according to the BLM data provided by Andrew Malone in the agency’s public affairs office. In all, these projects would occupy 2.3 million acres. It’s difficult to say what the total power generation capacity that has been proposed is since some developers have yet to specify that information on their applications. Many of the proposals call for building projects with hundreds of megawatts of generation capacities. ‘I didn’t realize they had gotten that many,’ said David Briery, a spokesman for BLM’s Desert District in California. Briery isn’t so surprised by the high number of projects being proposed in his district, home to […]
DETROIT — In a bid to make a splash at the Detroit auto show, Chrysler LLC said it expects to start producing an electric car in 2010. The company, however, revealed few details that normally come with such announcements, such as what type of vehicle it will make – or its name. ‘We’re not allowed to say,’ said Todd Goyer, a company spokesman. In a statement released ahead of the Detroit show, the auto maker said it will unveil a new concept for a possible future electric vehicle – a battery-powered version of its Jeep Patriot, a compact sports-utility vehicle. It will also display three electric-vehicle concepts it first shown in public in September. Those included electric versions of its Chrysler Town & Country minivan and Jeep Wrangler, and the Dodge Circuit, an two-seat sports car. Chrysler aims to have four electric vehicles in the market by 2013, the company’s statement said. A few weeks ago, Chrysler executives told dealers it plans to sell 500,000 electric vehicles by 2013. Chrysler needs a dose of good news right now. Sales plunged last year, falling 53% in December alone. The company was close to running out of […]
MOSCOW – – Russia and Ukraine prepared on Sunday to restart gas supplies to the European Union after a deal was signed on deploying international monitors to help adjudicate in Moscow and Kiev’s gas conflict. The stage was set for a resumption of supplies by the EU’s largest foreign gas provider Russia after shuttle-diplomacy by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek secured both sides’ agreement to the deployment of monitors. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin earlier said supplies to the EU could resume ‘immediately’ after the monitors began work, although he warned Ukraine that Moscow ‘will not tolerate theft’ of its gas. The Russian broadsheet Kommersant said an end to the cut-off was in sight but predicted EU states would in future unite to lessen dependence on Russian gas, meaning a resurgence of nuclear power and the use of other gas sources in North Africa and Central Asia. ‘From tomorrow, Gazprom’s gas transit to the European Union could be renewed and the gas war will again become a propaganda one,’ Kommersant said. ‘The EU will undoubtedly try to find ways of reducing dependence on Russian gas supplies and avoiding such crises in future,’ the paper said, […]
For reasons that defy logic, the nation’s food safety functions are split. The Agriculture Department inspects about 20 percent of the food supply (meat and poultry), and the Food and Drug Administration is responsible for almost everything else. And yet the Agriculture Department receives a majority of federal food safety dollars. The division of labor creates internal squabbling and some bizarre situations. Frozen cheese pizzas are inspected by the F.D.A., pepperoni pizzas by the Agriculture Department. Fresh eggs are under the jurisdiction of the F.D.A.; egg products go to Agriculture. That this makes no sense is no secret. It’s why Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, have raised again and again the idea of creating a single food agency - so far, though, to no avail. In 1999, the Government Accountability Office (then called the General Accounting Office) issued a report called ‘U.S. Needs a Single Agency to Administer a Unified, Risk-Based Inspection System. ‘The fragmented system was not developed under any rational plan but was patched together over many years to address specific health threats from particular food products, the report said. Efforts to address food safety, […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
