Ritalin Helps Beat Cancer Fatigue

"jake" wrote in message
...

sorry you disagree with her. However the facts about Fumento speak for
themselves.He is a paid propagandist for Novartis and the
pharmaceutical industry amongst other paymasters.

But what did he say that was wrong or misleading? It is possible for someone
to be biased and right.



none of which has any bearing on the fact that ADHD is an entirely
different category to diabetes..and the analogy is inappropriate..

I'm noticing that you keep trying to keep things focused on comparing ADD
with diseases that have objective tests. That is understandable since this
would seem to support your idea that for ADD to be real it should also have
one. However, when people bring up other accepted problems that also have no
objective tests your response is to go back to discussing diabetes.

I guess that is understandable as well.

Do you also claim that there is no such thing as schizophrenia? If not - how
is the diagnostic process different than for ADD.

--
CBI, MD

"jake" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 16:07:48 GMT, "Marciosos7 Probertiosos8"
wrote:


"jake" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 20 Dec 2003 16:13:02 -0500, nknisley
wrote:

David Wright wrote:

In article ,
jake wrote:

On Sat, 20 Dec 2003 14:29:03 GMT, "Marciosos7 Probertiosos8"
wrote:


Edited for clarity


"jake" wrote in message
news:7c86uv47f8a7rhriia4eqve49albpeh04n@4ax. com...

Dr. Mary Ann Block

BTW, in some recent readsing, I came accross this little gem....

http://www.fumento.com/adhdblock.html

Imagine if anyone who is pro med used an expert that was this
tainted.....

Agreed..

Michael Fumento must be one of the most tainted authors on the
planet..


Ah, the usual "attack the messenger." Don't attempt to refute the
message, which you can't anyway, unless you're going to start
claiming that Block is an MD or something.


dealing with the issue of diabetes being qualitatively distinct

from a construct such as ADHD..is a far better idea than using smear

tactics against those with the temerity to mention it.


Reporting facts about Block is now a smear tactic. Will wonders
never
cease?

Especially coming from jake--who often attempts discredit peer
reviewed
published studies of medications merely by pointing out that the
researchers have links to pharmaceutical companies.

you ..presumeably..would wish readers to remain in ignorance of
the fact that these "objective scientific" studies are commissioned
and paid for by the producers of the drug from their billions of
dollars PR budget?

And, when i poin tout that so and so is in bed with the Sceinos, or
something about Breggin or Baughman, et al, you jump all over me. Strange
set of standards you have there. They seem "Do as I say, not as I do."

It is absurd to suggest that the scientologists criticisms of
psychiatric policies is in any way comparable with the influence
weilded by multinational pharmaceutical companies that have wormed
their way into the White House itself to plunder the public purse..

when was the last time a president signed a bill giving them billions
of dollars at a stroke..or passed legislation that appeared
anonymously in the Homeland Security Act that granted them immunity
from being sued?

It is no more comparable than ADHD and diabetes..

the accusations of scientolgy are a stale old trick..
pulled out of the hat to abuse people and derail discussions
when the issues cannot be addressed..

As I said, your double standard is showing.

"Roger Schlafly" wrote in message
et...
"jake" wrote
the accusations of scientolgy are a stale old trick..
pulled out of the hat to abuse people and derail discussions
when the issues cannot be addressed..

That's right. Scientology is just a small fringe group compared to
the drug industry.

A small fringe group that got the IRS to cry uncle.

"jake" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 18:53:16 GMT, "Roger Schlafly"
wrote:

"jake" wrote
the accusations of scientolgy are a stale old trick..
pulled out of the hat to abuse people and derail discussions
when the issues cannot be addressed..

That's right. Scientology is just a small fringe group compared to
the drug industry.

a certain clique in these forums has spent literally years
trying to build up their image to use as a bogeyman..

raving about clams and space beings..to totally drown out rational
discussion they would rather was not taking place..
If you discuss issues and not personalities all of that
drool is irrelevant.

That pharmaceutical companies doctor research..employ ghost
writers ..bribe doctors..interfere with editorial policy of socalled
learned journals..and even try to set the syllabus in higher education
is highly relevant.
just my 2c

Only worth that much due to inflation.

The small clique as you put it, has been doing so simply because the lies
the anti-psychiatry crowd reiterates are the same bilge uttered by ther
$cienos, and, a lie repeated often enough...

"jake" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 16:09:27 GMT, "Marciosos7 Probertiosos8"
wrote:


"Roger Schlafly" wrote in message
et...
"Marciosos7 Probertiosos8" wrote
Dr. Mary Ann Block
BTW, in some recent readsing, I came accross this little gem....
http://www.fumento.com/adhdblock.html
Imagine if anyone who is pro med used an expert that was this
tainted.....

They do. (Do you mean Block or Fumento?)

Block, of course, as that was the context which you snipped and did not
mention.

I usually enjoy Fumento's column, but he is a little off-base here.

Disagree. I would say "Grand slam." (pun intended)

He tries
to smear Block with a scientology charge, when the connection is very
tenuous at best.

Bull****. I looked at all of it, ans she is a fellow traveller, and in
lock
step.

"fellow traveller"???
thats a useful expresion..

IOW you are totally aware that the lady is NOT in fact a scientologist
and its just another pathetic attempt to smear using "guilt by
association"

From all my reading, she is freely travelling with them. For whatever
purpose, she has made a considered to affiliate with this Kriminal Kult.

"Roger Schlafly" wrote in message
...
"Marciosos7 Probertiosos8" wrote
Now you have to recognize that the rapid uptake of injected or
snorted
ritalin, met, etc. is what makes it addictive, and that oral use
at
the prescribed doses does not make it addictive.
Just show me the published scientific paper.
First, your selective snipping removed that portion of my post wherrein
I
pointed out, quite corectly, that you have contiuously alleged that
Ritalin,
when taken as prescribed, is addictive. Thus, you have made a postivie
statement, and bear the burden of proof.

You made the statement above, as if it is a recognized fact that I
should accept. You cannot support it.

Again, YOU have repeatedly made the converse claim, have been asked for
proof every time you have made it, and, have never done so. I will not
accept the shifting of the burden of proof of a negative to me, when you
have so miderably failed to provide one scintilla of proof for the positive
claim you have made, to wit, the methylphenidate is additcive when taken as
prescribed. All you have to do is to provide one well documented case study.

Write Nora VOlko, head of NIDA, and ask her for your proof. Her email
address is on line.

If you want to change the subject, and attack some statement that I made
in another context, then you should at least quote it.

You are, as usual, being disingenuous.

"CBI" wrote in message
nk.net...


"jake" wrote in message
...

How do you evaluate pain
with no obvious cause?

unlike some in this forum who feel quite free to diagnose unmet
strangers with ADHD and prescribe drugs for them I would not have the
hubris to even attempt to..

No - You have the hubris to claim that ADHD is not a real entity. You say
that pain is a real entity worthy of treatment but when asked how the
diagnosis/reality of the two differ you just say to ask a pain specialist.
If that is your answer for pain then why is not your solution for ADHD to
just refer the kid to a qualified specialist?



Specifically, how do you establish that it is real?

I do not..that is a matter for a neurologist..

Then how do you establish that ADHD is not real without also having to
discount pain?


How does this differ from the diagnosis of ADHD (i.e why is one valid
but
the other isn't?)?

one is a medical problem..the other is not a medical problem but the
medicalization of social issues..

How can you accept pain with no obvious cause (like RSD) as a medical
problem but not ADHD? What criterion are you using other than just
starting
with your own presumptions?

Chris, you should point out what RSD is, how it is diagnosed (especially in
the early stages) and how debilitating it is.

Newgroups restored.


"Jan" wrote in message
...
Subject: Ritalin Helps Beat Cancer Fatigue
From: nknisley
Date: 12/20/2003 3:13 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

snip

Especially coming from jake--who often attempts discredit peer reviewed
published studies of medications merely by pointing out that the
researchers have links to pharmaceutical companies.


Nancy

Which would be the truth.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...ec07,1,3201299,

print.storyhttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nih7dec07.st
ory

Stealth Merger: Drug Companies and Government Medical Research
Some of the National Institutes of Health's top scientists are also
collecting paychecks and stock options from biomedical firms.
Increasingly, such deals are kept secret.
By David Willman
Times Staff Writer

December 7, 2003

BETHESDA, Md. - "Subject No. 4" died at 1:44 a.m. on June 14, 1999, in
the immense federal research clinic of the National Institutes of
Health.

The cause of death was clear: a complication from an experimental
treatment for kidney inflammation using a drug made by a German
company, Schering AG.

Among the first to be notified was Dr. Stephen I. Katz, the senior NIH
official whose institute conducted the study.

Unbeknown to the participants, Katz also was a paid consultant to
Schering AG.

Katz and his institute staff could have responded to the death by
stopping the study immediately. They also could have moved swiftly to
warn doctors outside the NIH who were prescribing the drug for similar
disorders. Either step might have threatened the market potential for
Schering AG's drug. They did neither.

Questioned later, Katz said that his consulting arrangement with
Schering AG did not influence his institute's decisions. His work with
the company was approved by NIH leaders.

Such dual roles - federal research leader and drug company consultant
- are increasingly common at the NIH, an agency once known for
independent scientific inquiry on behalf of a single client: the
public.

Two decades ago, the NIH was so distinct from industry that Margaret
Heckler, secretary of Health and Human Services in the Reagan
administration, could describe it as "an island of objective and
pristine research, untainted by the influences of commercialization."

Today, with its senior scientists collecting paychecks and stock
options from biomedical companies, the NIH is no longer an island.

Interviews and corporate and federal records obtained by the Los
Angeles Times document hundreds of consulting payments to ranking NIH
officials, including:

. Katz, director of the NIH's National Institute of Arthritis and
Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, who collected between $476,369 and
$616,365 in company fees in the last decade, according to his yearly
income-disclosure reports. Some of his fees were reported in ranges
without citing exact figures. Schering AG paid Katz at least $170,000.
Another company paid him more than $140,000 in consulting fees. It won
$1.7 million in grants from his institute before going bankrupt last
year.

. Dr. John I. Gallin, director of the NIH's Clinical Center, the
nation's largest site of medical experiments on humans, who has
received between $145,000 and $322,000 in fees and stock proceeds for
his consulting from 1997 through last year. In one case, Gallin
co-wrote an article highlighting a company's gene-transfer technology,
while hiring on as a consultant to a subsidiary of that company.

. Dr. Richard C. Eastman, the NIH's top diabetes researcher in 1997,
who wrote to the Food and Drug Administration that year defending a
product without disclosing in his letter that he was a paid consultant
to the manufacturer. Eastman's letter said the risk of liver failure
from the drug was "very minimal." Six months later, a patient, Audrey
LaRue Jones, who was taking the drug in an NIH study that Eastman
oversaw, suffered sudden liver failure and died. Liver experts found
that the drug probably caused the liver failure.

. Dr. Ronald N. Germain, deputy director of a major laboratory at the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has
collected more than $1.4 million in company consulting fees in the
last 11 years, plus stock options. One of the companies collaborated
with his laboratory on research. The founder of another of the
companies worked with Germain on a separate NIH-sponsored project.

. Jeffrey Schlom, director of the National Cancer Institute's
Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Biology, who has taken $331,500 in
company fees over 10 years. Schlom helped lead NIH-funded studies
exploring wider use for a cancer drug - at the same time that his
highest-paying client was seeking to make the drug through genetic
engineering.

. Jeffrey M. Trent, who became scientific director of the National
Human Genome Research Institute in 1993 and, over the next three
years, reported between $50,608 and $163,000 in industry consulting
fees. Trent, who accepted nearly half of that income from a company
active in genetic research, was not required to file public
financial-disclosure statements as of 1997. He left the government
last year.

Hidden From View

Increasingly, outside payments to NIH scientists are being hidden from
public view. Relying in part on a 1998 legal opinion, NIH officials
now allow more than 94% of the agency's top-paid employees to keep
their consulting income confidential.

As a result, the NIH is one of the most secretive agencies in the
federal government when it comes to financial disclosures. A survey by
The Times of 34 other federal agencies found that all had higher
percentages of eligible employees filing reports on outside income. In
several agencies, every top-paid official submitted public reports.

The trend toward secrecy among NIH scientists goes beyond their
failure to report outside income. Many of them also routinely sign
confidentiality agreements with their corporate employers, putting
their outside work under tight wraps.

Gallin, Germain, Katz, Schlom and Trent each said that their
consulting deals were authorized beforehand by NIH officials and had
no adverse effect on their government work. Eastman declined to
comment for this article.

Dr. Arnold S. Relman, the former editor of the New England Journal of
Medicine, said that private consulting by government scientists posed
"legitimate cause for concern."

"If I am a scientist working in an NIH lab and I get a lot of money in
consulting fees, then I'm going to want to make sure that the company
does very well," Relman said.

Relman and others in the field of medical ethics said company payments
raised important questions about public health decisions made
throughout the NIH:

. Will judgment calls on the safety of individual patients be
affected by commercial interests?

. Can study participants trust that experimental treatments are
chosen on merit and not because of officials' personal financial
interests?

. Will scientists shade their interpretations of study results to
favor their clients?

. Will officials favor their clients over other companies that seek
NIH grants or collaborations?

Conflict-of-interest questions also arise in the potentially lucrative
awarding of patents.

Thomas J. Kindt, the director of in-house research at the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, accepted $63,000 in
consulting fees from a New York biotechnology company, Innovir
Laboratories, and wound up an inventor on one of its patents.

Asked why the government received no consideration, Kindt said that he
had contributed to the "basic idea" while using vacation time.

"No work was done on it as a government employee," said Kindt, whose
annual salary at the NIH is $191,200. His consulting with Innovir was
approved by NIH officials, Kindt said.

Others worry that the private arrangements can undermine the public
interest.

"The fact that paid consulting is happening I find very disturbing,"
said Dr. Curt D. Furberg, former head of clinical trials at the
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. "It should not be done."

Private consulting fees tempt government scientists to pursue
less-deserving research and to "put a spin on their interpretation" of
study results, he said.

"Science should be for the sake of gaining knowledge and looking for
the truth," Furberg said. "There should be no other factors involved
that can introduce bias on decision-making."

Dr. Ruth L. Kirschstein, who as the deputy director or the acting
director of the NIH since 1993 has approved many of the top officials'
consulting arrangements, said she did not believe they had compromised
the public interest. "I think NIH scientists, NIH directors and all
the staff are highly ethical people with enormous integrity," she
said. "And I think we do our business in the most remarkable way."

In response to The Times' findings, Kirschstein said, she would "think
about" whether administrators should learn more about a company's ties
to the NIH before approving the consulting arrangements.

"Systems can always be tightened up," Kirschstein said on Oct. 29.
"And perhaps, based on this, we will do so."

On Nov. 20, NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni told agency leaders that he
would form a committee to help "determine the appropriateness" of
employees' consulting and other outside arrangements.

"I believe we can improve our performance by subjecting ethics
deliberations to a more transparent process," Zerhouni said in a memo.

In a brief telephone interview last week, Zerhouni said he wanted the
NIH "to manage not just the reality, but the perception of conflict of
interest."

"If there is something that could be viewed as improper, I think we
need to be able to advise our scientists not to get into these
relationships," he said. "My sense is our scientists are people of
goodwill."

Temptations Abound

The NIH traces its beginnings to the Laboratory of Hygiene, founded in
1887 within a Navy hospital on Staten Island in New York. It became
the federal government's first research institution for confronting
such epidemic diseases as cholera, diphtheria, tuberculosis and
smallpox.

The laboratory's success convinced Congress of its value in seeking
cures for diseases.

In 1938, the renamed National Institute of Health moved to its
present, 300-acre headquarters in Bethesda, about nine miles north of
the White House.

The agency's responsibilities - and prominence - have grown steadily.

In 1948, four institutes were created to support work on cardiac
disease, infectious diseases, dental disorders and experimental
biology. "Institute" in the agency's name became "Institutes."

President Nixon turned to the NIH in 1971 to lead a war on cancer. The
agency has led the government's fight against AIDS. Two years ago,
President Bush enlisted the NIH to help counter biological terrorism.

Republican and Democratic administrations have boosted spending for
the 27 research centers and institutes that compose today's NIH. Since
1990, the annual budget has nearly quadrupled, to $27.9 billion this
fiscal year.

Senior NIH scientists are among the highest-paid employees in the
federal government.

With billions of dollars in product sales potentially at stake for
industry, and untold fortunes riding on biomedical stock prices,
commercial temptations abound:

Researchers poised to make a breakthrough in their NIH labs can, the
same day, land paid consulting positions with companies eager to
exploit their insights and cachet. Many companies cite their
connections to NIH scientists on Web sites and in news releases,
despite an agency rule against the practice. Selection of a company's
products for an NIH study can provide a bankable endorsement -
attracting investors and boosting stock value. If the study yields
positive results, the benefits can be even greater.

Conflicts of interest among university medical researchers have
received wide attention in recent years. U.S. Rep. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin
(R-La.) also raised questions recently about cash awards that several
nonprofit institutions made to a previous director of the National
Cancer Institute.

The consulting deals between drug companies and full-time, career
employees at the NIH, however, have gone all but unnoticed.

The wide embrace of private consulting within the NIH can be traced in
part to calls from Congress for quicker "translation" of basic federal
research into improved treatments for patients.

And for decades industry has pressed for more access to the
government's scientific discoveries.

As the number of government-held patents soared, companies sought
legislation encouraging commercialization of federally funded
inventions. The proponents said the changes also would make U.S. firms
more competitive with foreign companies whose research and development
programs were subsidized by their governments.

Laws enacted in the 1980s for the first time authorized formal
research collaborations between companies and scientific arms of the
government, including the NIH. Starting in late 1986, in-house
researchers at the NIH were permitted to arrange cooperative research
agreements with companies. The agreements were intended to benefit
both sides while advancing scientific discovery.

Other changes in law permitted the government agencies, and the
researchers, to share in future patent royalties for inventions.

The new laws said nothing about government employees being hired by
the companies.

Yet by the end of the 1980s, more companies were putting NIH
researchers on their payrolls, albeit within limits imposed by the
NIH.

Agency leaders in the 1990s began weakening those restrictions.

In November 1995, then-NIH Director Harold E. Varmus wrote to all
institute and center directors, rescinding "immediately" a policy that
had barred them from accepting consulting fees and payments of stock
from companies.

The changes, he wrote, would bring the NIH ethics rules more in line
with new, less stringent, executive branch standards. Loosening of
restrictions on employees' outside pursuits was occurring throughout
the government. And with biomedical companies ready to hire, few were
better positioned to benefit than employees at the NIH.

Varmus' memo - which until now as not been made public - scuttled
other restraints affecting all employees, including a $25,000 annual
limit on outside income, a prohibition on accepting company stock as
payment and a limit of 500 hours a year on outside activities.

His memo also offered a narrowed definition of conflict of interest:

Employees had been barred from consulting for any company that
collaborated with their NIH lab or branch. But Varmus said the ban
would be applied only if the researcher was personally involved in the
company's collaboration with the agency.

Furberg, the former NIH official, said Varmus' actions invited, at
minimum, appearances of conflict of interest.

"I'm amazed at what he did," said Furberg, a professor at Wake Forest
University. "And to do it in secrecy I find very objectionable. This
is a critical change in the NIH policy."

In 1999, Varmus wrote a letter to the institute directors that
cautioned them to "avoid even the appearance of a conflict of
interest." But in an attachment to the letter, he told them that
employees "may briefly discuss or mention current work" to outsiders,
in effect giving agency scientists permission to reveal their
unpublished, confidential research.

Varmus, now president and chief executive of the Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, declined to be interviewed
for this article. His spokeswoman, R. Anne Thomas, said that Varmus,
who in 1989 shared a Nobel Prize for research into the genetic basis
of cancer, believed that NIH employees should take personal
responsibility for avoiding conflicts of interest, regardless of what
agency rules allow.

Kirschstein, after taking over as Varmus' interim successor at the NIH
three years ago, said in a May 2000 speech to medical researchers that
conflicts of interest posed "a major concern."

"While the federal government was once the dominant force for
supporting clinical research, today we share the arena with
biotechnology companies, pharmaceutical firms and many others - all
interested in the possibility of financial gain from their research.

"Profit raises issues of public trust," she said. "When scientific
inquiry generates findings that can make a profit for the researcher
and the institution, their images become clouded."

Yet officials have lifted controls on consulting even as industry's
stake in NIH research has deepened. When Zerhouni, the current NIH
director, appeared before the House Subcommittee on Environment,
Technology and Standards last year, he cited 274 ongoing research and
development agreements between the federal agency and industry.

At the same time, NIH leaders have moved to what they describe as
"managing" conflicts of interest. Employees are allowed to consult if
they receive prior clearance from an administrator at their institute
or, in the case of most institute directors, from NIH headquarters.

An Honor System

Potential conflicts are typically addressed by allowing employees to
sign "recusals." Under these agreements, NIH employees pledge not to
participate in decisions affecting an outside client. Agency
officials, Kirschstein said, rely on an honor system to enforce
recusals and other conflict-of-interest rules.

The Times found instances in which the recusals did not work as
intended.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, Eastman, the diabetes researcher,
participated in a series of decisions affecting the drug company
employing him as a consultant, despite having signed a recusal.
Separately, Katz, the director of the arthritis institute, signed a
recusal involving his client, Schering AG, which nevertheless supplied
the NIH with the drug involved in the kidney patient's death in 1999.

Katz said that he did not know at the time that Schering AG was the
maker of the drug his institute was testing.

Compliance with the recusals can, itself, undercut the interests of
the NIH and taxpayers, who support the agency. When heads of
institutes and laboratories recuse themselves, they sometimes
constrain their ability to carry out their government duties.

Kirschstein, who for the last eight years has personally reviewed
requests from the institute directors to consult privately for pay,
said she tended to approve the deals, unless she saw "real conflict."

"I've disapproved some - and I've approved many," she said.

In her view, recusals have worked "extremely well" in avoiding
conflicts of interest.

Other present and former officials say it is difficult, if not
impossible, for researchers to keep separate their confidential
government information when they consult for companies.

"You can't police the thing," Philip S. Chen Jr., a senior advisor in
the NIH director's office who has served as an agency scientist or
administrator since the 1950s, said in an interview last year. "The
rules are there - whether they follow the rules is another thing."

A former NIH director voiced surprise at the agency's loosened
approach to conflicts of interest.

"There has been a lot of relaxation," said Dr. Bernadine P. Healy, who
served as director from 1991 to 1993. Before, Healy said in an
interview, "there were very strict ethics rules for NIH scientists.
You couldn't have virtually any connection with a company if your
institute was in any way doing research involving their products."

At least one vestige of the old days remains.

During last year's holiday season, workers were advised to refuse
gifts from outsiders worth more than $20.

"Just a reminder," ethics coordinator John C. Condray wrote,
introducing a five-page memo, "that sometimes gifts and events can
create the appearance of a lack of impartiality."

Fewer Public Filings

While making it easier for scientists to cut consulting deals, the NIH
has made it harder for the public to find out about them.

The Ethics in Government Act requires yearly financial-disclosure
reports from senior federal employees. This year, employees paid
$102,168 or more generally must disclose outside income by filing a
"278" form, which is available for public review. Other employees may
file a "450" form - which does not specify the amount of money
received from an outside party and is kept confidential.

At the NIH, 2,259 employees make more than $102,168, according to data
provided by the NIH. Those records show that 127 of the employees -
about 6% - are filing disclosure forms available to the public.

From 1997 through 2002, the number of NIH employees filing public
reports of their outside income dropped by about 64%, according to the
agency records. Most of those employees have switched to filing the
confidential 450 form.

At the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases - which
researches treatments for AIDS and other life-threatening maladies -
only three officials file public reports revealing their outside
income, according to NIH records.

Officials at the NIH said that an advisory legal opinion from the U.S.
Office of Government Ethics gave them the discretion to bypass public
disclosure.

Issued in 1998, the opinion said that the threshold for public
disclosure was to be set, not by a federal employee's actual salary,
but by the low end of his or her pay grade. If the minimum salary in
an employee's grade is beneath the $102,168 threshold, he or she is
exempt from filing a public report.

The NIH has shifted many of its high-salaried employees into pay plans
with minimums that dip below the threshold.

For instance, two prominent NIH laboratory leaders, Schlom and
Germain, make $180,400 and $179,900, respectively. Within roughly the
last year, NIH changed each of their pay plans, and they now are
exempt from public disclosure.

They file confidential forms, which instruct employees to not specify
the dollar amounts they receive from outside parties.

Asked why the NIH has assigned highly paid staff to plans that
eliminate public disclosure of employees' outside income, an NIH
spokesman, John Burklow, provided a written response:

"The primary benefit of the alternate pay plans is to attract and
retain the best scientists in a highly competitive environment."

Said Donald Ralbovsky, another NIH spokesman: "What it really boils
down [to] is that fewer people are filing 278s because of changes in
pay plans."

The shift imparts an implicit message to employees, said George J.
Galasso, a former NIH researcher and administrator who retired in
1996:

"If you've got something to hide, you file a 450. If you don't, you
file a 278."

Make-or-Break Grants

As director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal
and Skin Diseases, Katz is one of the few at the NIH who still must
file public financial-disclosure reports.

Katz, 62, is paid $200,000 a year - more than members of Congress,
justices on the Supreme Court and the vice president.

His institute leads the government's research into the causes,
treatment and prevention of disorders of the joints, bones and overall
muscle-skeletal system.

With a yearly institute budget of $485.4 million, Katz's decisions are
watched closely by industry. The director's office decides how much of
the budget will be spent on grants and contracts coveted by companies.

And Katz has been available for outside consultation: From 1993
through 2002, Katz took between $476,369 and $616,365 in fees from
seven biotech and pharmaceutical companies, according to his annual
disclosure statements. He consulted while chief of the dermatology
branch at the National Cancer Institute and continued after becoming
arthritis institute director in 1995.

Katz said that his private consulting broke no rules and that he
relied in part on Varmus' 1995 memo while entering arrangements with
companies.

"The consultations provided my global knowledge as a dermatologist and
research scientist," Katz said in written responses to questions from
The Times. "I have always received official permission to perform
these consultations and have performed these consultations outside of
my normal NIH work schedule and according to strict government
guidelines and rules."

One of his clients was Advanced Tissue Sciences Inc.

The struggling biotech company in San Diego hired Katz as a consultant
in 1997, a year after he had announced a new NIH research initiative
for bone and connective-tissue repair.

Advanced Tissue installed Katz on its scientific advisory board and
paid him fees between $142,500 and $212,500 from 1997 through 2002,
according to his income-disclosure reports.

During that time, Katz's institute pledged $1.7 million in
small-business research grants to the company. The company announced
nearly every grant in a news release; Advanced Tissue's president
termed the grants "an endorsement by the government."

In his written response, Katz said that he had signed a recusal
"withdrawing myself from any interactions between Advanced Tissue
Sciences and the government to remove any real or potential conflict
of interest." The grants were awarded following evaluations by NIH
reviewers outside of Katz's institute.

Responsibility for administering the grants to Advanced Tissue was
delegated to one of his subordinates, Katz said.

The NIH policy manual says officials may not take fees from companies
seeking or receiving agency grants "if the employee is working on or
involved in these matters" or "supervising others who work on these
matters."

Katz said his subordinate "handled all decisions regarding these
grants without informing me."

However, Advanced Tissue kept him apprised as NIH grants were
obtained, a company executive said.

"He was informed," said Anthony J. Ratcliffe, the firm's vice
president for research until its collapse a year ago. "We would have
made a written report to the SAB [scientific advisory board] members
twice a year. There would have been a report to the SAB meetings on
all grants, all grant activities."

Ratcliffe said the company dealt with Katz's potential conflict of
interest by paying him in fees alone, and not stock options. Both men
said Katz did not advise the company on the NIH grants.

His consultations, Katz said, were limited to his scientific expertise
and "never involved, directly or indirectly, the preparation or
discussion of material which could relate to any financial dealings
between [Advanced Tissue] and the NIH."

Kirschstein, the senior NIH official who each year approved Katz's
consulting with Advanced Tissue, said she did not learn the company
held grants with the arthritis institute until The Times inquired.

"I didn't even know there were grants," Kirschstein said.

As it turned out, the grants would be among the few positive financial
developments for Advanced Tissue.

By December 2001, its cumulative net operating losses were
approximately $292.7 million. Barely a year later, the company entered
bankruptcy and shut its doors, having collected about $1.5 million of
the $1.7 million in small-business research grants.

Life-and-Death Decisions

While Katz was consulting for Advanced Tissue, he also was on the
payroll of Schering AG, which made Fludara, a drug that his research
staff was using as an experimental treatment for autoimmune diseases.

From the time he began consulting for Schering AG in 1996 through
2002, Katz collected between $170,000 and $240,000 in fees from the
company, his disclosure reports show.

In his responses to questions, Katz said that he "first became aware"
that Fludara was a Schering AG product when The Times made inquiries.

Fludara had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1991
to treat leukemia, but the company wanted to expand its use to other
diseases, a goal the NIH studies could advance.

Two people died in the studies conducted by Katz's institute.

In one study using Fludara to treat muscular disorders, a patient
suffered what agency researchers reported in July 1998 as a "sudden
death . not thought to be drug related."

The second fatality, indisputably, resulted from the treatment. It
involved "Subject No. 4," who had enrolled in a separate study,
designed to treat kidney inflammation related to lupus, a disease of
the immune system.

Schering AG provided Katz's institute with a supply of Fludara and
with analyses of patients' blood samples through its U.S. affiliate,
Berlex Laboratories, records and interviews show. The company also
contributed a total of $60,000 to the institute to support the
research, eliciting a July 1, 1998, thank-you letter from Katz.

Jan

"jake" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 10:21:56 GMT, "Marciosos7 Probertiosos8"
wrote:


"jake" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 16:09:27 GMT, "Marciosos7 Probertiosos8"
wrote:


"Roger Schlafly" wrote in message
et...
"Marciosos7 Probertiosos8" wrote
Dr. Mary Ann Block
BTW, in some recent readsing, I came accross this little gem....
http://www.fumento.com/adhdblock.html
Imagine if anyone who is pro med used an expert that was this
tainted.....

They do. (Do you mean Block or Fumento?)

Block, of course, as that was the context which you snipped and did
not
mention.

I usually enjoy Fumento's column, but he is a little off-base here.

Disagree. I would say "Grand slam." (pun intended)

He tries
to smear Block with a scientology charge, when the connection is
very
tenuous at best.

Bull****. I looked at all of it, ans she is a fellow traveller, and in
lock
step.

"fellow traveller"???
thats a useful expresion..

IOW you are totally aware that the lady is NOT in fact a scientologist
and its just another pathetic attempt to smear using "guilt by
association"

From all my reading, she is freely travelling with them. For whatever
purpose, she has made a considered to affiliate with this Kriminal Kult.

now here come the capital letters and conspiracy theories..

I dont know about my double standards but your obsessions are sure
showing..
As I said ..anything to avoid facing the fact that ADHD is nothing
remotely like diabetes..

However, it is like chronic pain, RSD, CFS, MCS, etc.

And, NONE of those have clearly objective tests.

"CBI" wrote in message
ink.net...
"jake" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 04:13:22 GMT, "CBI" wrote:
"jake" wrote in message
.. .
Specifically, how do you establish that it is real?

I do not..that is a matter for a neurologist..

Then how do you establish that ADHD is not real without also having to
discount pain?

the onus is on the person wishing to put an infant on a lifetime of
amphetamines to establish the reality of their construct..

the existence of referred pain in no way justifies this..

You continue to dodge my question about the difference. You accept
treatment
for one subjective syndrome with no objective test but reject another
becasue it lacks an objective test. Please tell us how you logically
defend
this apparent contradiction.



Come to think of it...are not vision problems such as near- and
far-sightedness also diagnosed the same way? "OK, tell me which one works
for you better...which lens helps you see better"

Buny