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Medicine

Submission + - Drug company disguised advertising as science (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "A former pharmaceutical company employee has blown the whistle on drug promotion disguised as science.
Drug companies occasionally conduct post-marketing studies to collect data on the safety and efficacy of drugs in the real world, after they’ve been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. “However,” writes the anonymous author in an editorial in the British Medical Journal (subscription), “some of the [post-marketing] studies I worked on were not designed to determine the overall risk:benefit balance of the drug in the general population. They were designed to support and disseminate a marketing message.”
According to the whistleblower, the results of these studies were often dubious. “We occasionally resorted to ‘playing’ with the data that had originally failed to show the expected result,” he says. “This was done by altering the statistical method until any statistical significance was found.” He adds that the company sometimes omitted negative results and played down harmful side effects.
Nature says it was unable to work out who the writer was but they likely worked on diabetes and the studies criticized were from the Denmark-based pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk."
China

Submission + - Attacks Targeting US Defense Contractors and Universities Tied to China (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Researchers have identified an ongoing series of attacks, possibly emanating from China, that are targeting a number of high-profile organizations, including SCADA security companies, universities and defense contractors. The attacks are using highly customized malicious files to entice targeted users into opening them and starting the compromise.

The attack campaign is using a series of hacked servers as command-and-control points and researchers say that the tactics and tools used by the attackers indicates that they may be located in China. The first evidence of the campaign was an attack on Digitalbond, a company that provides security services for ICS systems. The attack begins with a spear phishing email sent to employees of the targeted company and containing a PDF attachment.

In addition to the attack on Digitalbond, researchers have found that the campaign also has hit users at Carnegie Mellon University, Purdue University and the University of Rhode Island. Also, the Chertoff Group, a consultancy headed by former secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and NJVC, another defense contractor, have been targeted. Carnegie Mellon and Purdue both have high-profile computer security programs.

Submission + - Netflix has decided to invalidate your right to sue them (netflix.com)

Submitted by ebombme
ebombme writes: Netflix has decided to go the route of AT&T and others by trying to take away the rights of their users to form class action lawsuits against them. A copy of the new terms of use states "These Terms of Use provide that all disputes between you and Netflix will be resolved by BINDING ARBITRATION. YOU AGREE TO GIVE UP YOUR RIGHT TO GO TO COURT to assert or defend your rights under this contract (except for matters that may be taken to small claims court). Your rights will be determined by a NEUTRAL ARBITRATOR and NOT a judge or jury and your claims cannot be brought as a class action. Please review the Arbitration Agreement below for the details regarding your agreement to arbitrate any disputes with Netflix."

Comment Re:Nuremburg Defense (Score 1) 156

by ebombme (#38540042) Attached to: Warrantless Wiretapping Decisions Issued By Ninth Circuit Court
In my opinion, this explanation would be fine if they were just an everyday person who has no knowledge of the law. But this was companies with lawyers who were asked to assign facilities, resources, technology, and reroute their networks to make this happen. This is unprofitable, and unprofitable is not the way you run a business. They wouldn't just expend all these resources without looking for a way around it. You certainly don't expend money on doing something like this for free. In my opinion, this was a calculated move by the telecoms to benefit elsewhere. They most certainly had their lawyers look at it, and were in collusion with some part of the Govt. to get this setup. Either they got something out of it or their hands were forced and either way it was wrong, and it should have been taken to court and publicized instead of being hidden and co-operated with. Just because someone in authority tells you to do something does not mean you blindly follow, and these large companies were blindly following instead of protecting their customers privacy which is part of what we pay them to do. Violating peoples privacy is out of bounds for any level of authority without a proper justification. Our society has recognized the warrant to be that justification.

Comment Re:The article is much too kind ... (Score 1) 381

by ebombme (#38228696) Attached to: Dell's Misleading Graphics Card Buying Advice
If you live in a household that watches multiple streams at a time it is quite likely that you will need a much faster connection. Myself and my former roommate used to stream Netflix individually and we would both be downloading content from the web. In scenarios like this where there are multiple HD streams coming into a household (quite common these days with most new middle tier televisions & bluray players being able to stream Netflix, Vudu and other online video services) it should be considered. I can see households where there are 3 TVs watching different Netflix programs, while grandma is in the bathroom streaming HD pr0n and little Jimmy is torrenting the latest patch for WoW. Most families aren't like this at this time, but it seems that we aren't that far away from television being completely internet based. I am not defending them at this time because I know it is an oversell of their top data tier right now, but I don't think we are very far away from most people needing plans like this.They should at least list it as a recommendation if you ONLY stream multiple HD connections.

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