sb admin
Posts by this author
The FDA certainly wasnât the biggest newsmaker this week, but it did create some buzz in the blogosphere â mostly due to the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, or PDUFA, which is up for Congressional reauthorization. Matt Madia at Reg Watch and Merrill Goozner at GoozNews are tracking PDUFAâs progress…
By David Michaels
An editorial in the latest issue of Nature takes up a problem that public health advocates have been battling for years: confidentiality orders that keep important scientific data hidden from the public, scientists, and even regulatory agencies.
One recent case of such data being…
Simon White has written a treatise published on astro-ph (arXiv:0704.2291v1) where he argues that Dark Energy, or, more specifically, the current bandwagon of interest in Dark Energy, is potentially harmful for astronomy.
Despite the fact that I'm deeply interested in cosmology and Dark Energy,…
 Among the victims of the tragedy at Virginia Tech were five faculty members:
James Bishop
Jocelyne Couture-Nowak
Kevin Granata
Liviu Librescu
G.V. Loganathan
Librescu was a 76 year-old Holocaust survivor who blocked his classroom doorway from the gunman while his students leapt to…
As a Nashville resident, and somebody who's really a 49ers fan but one who is developing some hometown interest in the Tennessee Titans, I was happy to see that last year's rookie quarterback Vince Young has been selected to be on the cover of the video game Madden '08.
So the only question that…
This is an edited version of an earlier post. I came to realize from the response to it that I had inadvertently pulled out a canard that colored the post into something that was different from what I intended. The post is almost entirely intact, but I've deleted (and replaced) the last paragraph…
By David Michaels
The controversy continues over NIHâs review of Bisphenol A (BPA), and the agencyâs firing of Sciences International. Members of the NIHâs BPA Expert Panel have joined the discussion, through comments to the Pump Handle, assuring the public that their work was not not influenced by…
Here are images of two more galaxies. These weren't taken during the current run, but in a previous run. Last November, I was also down at CTIO with some students. I was doing blazar work on the 1.0m telescope (not to be confused with the 0.9m telescope I'm using right now), and shot off some…
Anybody who reads this blog is probably familiar with Bad Astronomy. If you're not— if you know my blog and not his— then you live in a really bizarre alternate Earth. Just in case that's you, go and read it. He's probably the web's most popular astronomy blogger, but he's been a blogger longer…
NOTE added 04/17: from the response I've seen, and from the all-out assault Chad directed at me and others, it's clear to me that I made some mistakes in my original post, undermining what was my main by inadvertently pushing a hot button or two. I leave this post here in the interest of honesty,…
By Dick ClappÂ
Opponents in the debate over conflict of interest in cancer research are duking it out, and the current forum for their fight is the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. The article that touched off this particular scuffle was âSecret Ties to Industry and Conflicting…
By David Michaels
Weâve been wondering why the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration still hasnât issued new rules reducing worker exposure to silica, beryllium, diacetyl and other well-documented but under-regulated hazards. Now we understand. OSHA is hard at work, using its limited…
By David Michaels
The National Toxicology Program (NTP) has fired Sciences International. Last month, Marla Cone wrote in the Los Angeles Times about allegations that the consulting firm, hired by the NTP to run the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR), had significant…
I apologize for my silence of the last few weeks; real life gets busy at times. This time, I was in a crunch finishing up things before running off to an observing run at the CTIO Observatory in Chile. That's where I am right now. I'm at the 0.9 meter telescope doing imaging of "blazars," a…
By Susan Wood
Next week both the Senate and House are moving forward on legislation to reauthorize the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), along with other key FDA legislation. The Senate will be âmarking upâ a large omnibus piece of legislation that combines PDUFA with drug safety…
The owners-operators of the Kentucky Darby Mine No. 1, Ralph Napier, Connie G. Napier, and John D. North, were assessed a $336,000 penalty by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) for violations related to the May 20, 2006 explosion and death of five coal miners. Press…
By David Michaels
The federal regulatory system is in shambles. Regulated industries call the shots and career scientists are prohibited from pushing back. With the agencies in retreat, fear of litigation has become an increasingly important mechanism for discouraging bad corporate behavior. Now,…
Revere at Effect Measure updates us on the medical communityâs latest plea for Libya to release the six health care workers unjustly sentenced to death for âdeliberately infectingâ children with HIV, and links to Physicians for Human Rightsâ campaign to get the U.S. government to exert more…
By James Celenza
Driving a private car is probably a typical citizenâs most âpollutingâ daily activity, yet in many cases, individuals have few alternatives forms of transportation. Thus urban planning and smart growth are imperative.
-- American Academy of Pediatrics Ambient Air Pollution: Health…
If you only read one article on the issue of occupational health and safety this week, make it Ray Ring's "Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields," published last week in High Country News. "The core of the story can be classified as straightforward investigative coup," editor John…
By David Michaels
The Bush Administration has gone all out to make sure states play no role in setting health and safety standards. This is not surprising, of course, since many states are far more committed to health and safety protection than the folks who currently run the federal government.…
By David Michaels
Labor health advocates in California are supporting legislation banning diacetyl, the flavoring chemical implicated in numerous cases of bronchiolitis obliterans, a debilitating lung disease, among workers in the food industry. The ban may never occur, but by demanding it we are…
In continuation of the tradition begun at Jordan Barabâs Confined Space blog, Tammy has posted another edition of the Weekly Toll: Death in the American Workplace at her Weekly Toll blog. (It was posted on April 1; my apologies for not linking to it sooner.) It gives short writeups on 59…
The Supreme Courtâs decision in Massachusetts v. EPA was big news this week; Justin Pidot at Gristmill takes an in-depth look at the rulingâs implications, while Kevin Grandia at DeSmogBlog scrutinizes the stances of the parties opposing it. Then, of course, there was Bushâs recess appointment of…
When President Bush nominated Susan Dudley to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) last year, her nomination didn't make it out of the Senate committee. (See Celeste Monforton's post on Dudley's underwhelming performance before the committee.) Yesterday, Bush avoided…
This week, health advocates are drawing attention to some important safety hazards.
The Senate just passed a resolution proclaiming the first week in April National Asbestos Awarenss Week and urging the Surgeon General, as a public health issue, to warn and…
By David Michaels
The Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), through which the FDA collects money from drug makers in exchange for faster reviews of their new products, gets skewered again â this time in a piece by Christopher Moraff in the American Prospect Online. (We've been covering the issue…
By David Michaels
The Wall Street Journal (sub required) is reporting that the White House will bypass the Senate confirmation process and announce later today that President Bush has given a recess appointment to Susan Dudley to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). The…
By David Michaels
The campaign by policy experts to have Congress end the user fee system that funds FDA is picking up steam. The Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) allows FDA to collect money from drug makers in exchange for faster reviews of their new products. But PDUFA makes the FDA…
A few hours ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts vs. EPA that EPA has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide from auto emissions. (For background on the case, see this post.)
David Stout of the New York Times summarizes:
In a 5-to-4 decision, the court found that the Clean Air Act…