• #Wyoming law against data collection: Protecting ranchers by ignoring the environment.
    http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/05/wyoming_law_against_data_collection_protecting_ranchers_by_ignoring_the.html

    Wyoming doesn’t, of course, care about pictures of geysers or photo competitions. But photos are a type of data, and the new law makes it a crime to gather data about the condition of the environment across most of the state if you plan to share that data with the state or federal government. The reason? The state wants to conceal the fact that many of its streams are contaminated by E. coli bacteria, strains of which can cause serious health problems, even death. A small organization called Western Watersheds Project (which I represent pro bono in an unrelated lawsuit) has found the bacteria in a number of streams crossing federal land in concentrations that violate water quality standards under the federal Clean Water Act. Rather than engaging in an honest public debate about the cause or extent of the problem, Wyoming prefers to pretend the problem doesn’t exist. And under the new law, the state threatens anyone who would challenge that belief by producing information to the contrary with a term in jail.

    Why the desire for ignorance rather than informed discussion? The reason is pure politics. The source of E. coli is clear. It comes from cows spending too much time in and next to streams. Acknowledging that fact could result in rules requiring ranchers who graze their cows on public lands to better manage their herds. The ranching community in Wyoming wields considerable political power and has no interest in such obligations, so the state is trying to stop the flow of information rather than forthrightly address the problem.

    #eau #pollution #industrie_bovine #répression #écologie #environnement

    • The Wyoming law transforms a good Samaritan who volunteers her time to monitor our shared environment into a criminal. Idaho and Utah, as well as other states, have also enacted laws designed to conceal information that could damage their agricultural industries—laws currently being challenged in federal court. But Wyoming is the first state to enact a law so expansive that it criminalizes taking a picture on public land.

  • #FDA inspections: Fraud, fabrication, and scientific misconduct are hidden from the public and doctors.
    http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/02/fda_inspections_fraud_fabrication_and_scientific_misconduct_are_hidden_from.s

    It’s not just the public that’s in the dark. It’s researchers, too. And your doctor. As I describe in the current issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, my students and I were able to track down some 78 scientific publications resulting from a tainted study—a clinical trial in which FDA inspectors found significant problems with the conduct of the trial, up to and including fraud. In only three cases did we find any hint in the peer-reviewed literature of problems found by the FDA inspection. The other publications were not retracted, corrected, or highlighted in any way. In other words, the FDA knows about dozens of scientific papers floating about whose data are questionable—and has said nothing, leaving physicians and medical researchers completely unaware . The silence is unbroken even when the FDA itself seems shocked at the degree of fraud and misconduct in a clinical trial.

    (...)

    Why does the FDA stay silent about fraud and misconduct in scientific studies of pharmaceuticals? Why would the agency allow claims that have been undermined by fraud to appear on drug labels? And why on earth would it throw up roadblocks to prevent the public, the medical community, its advisory panels, and even Congress from finding out about the extent of medical misconduct? The answers the FDA gives are fascinating—(...).

    (...) But even the most paternalistic philosophy of public health can’t explain why the FDA would allow drug companies to put data on its labels that the agency knows are worthless, or to fail to flag bioequivalence problems in a publication that is specifically designed for the purpose of flagging those very problems.

    (...)

    It’s a sign that the FDA is deeply captured, drawn firmly into the orbit of the pharmaceutical industry that it’s supposed to regulate. We can no longer hope that the situation will get better without firm action from the legislature.

    #corruption #conflit_d’intérêt #big_pharma #fraude #santé #Etats-Unis