Friday, February 09, 2007

Zyprexa, NAMI, and Operation Restore Confidence

Furious Seasons is starting to write on the Zyprexa documents posted on his site. He details that Lilly planned to give a huge grant to NAMI to "help educate physicians and patients on the inherent risks of diabetes -- regardless of the antipsychotic" -- in other words, to help deflect the attention being given to Zyprexa. This seems a strange positon for a patient advocacy group such as NAMI to find itself in.

There is more posted on the site about the relationships between NAMI and Lilly. The memo also noted that Michael Fumento was taking a positive position about Zyprexa in his writings. What is unknown is whether Fumento received any Lilly funding.

Lilly's attempt to combat Zyprexa's crumbling reputation was apparently called "Operation Restore Confidence." Is your confidence restored?

Read the whole piece at Furious Seasons and be on the lookout for more.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Scripps Howard News Service announced Jan. 13 that it's severing its business relationship with columnist Michael Fumento, who's also a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. The move comes after inquiries from BusinessWeek Online about payments Fumento received from agribusiness giant Monsanto (MON ) -- a frequent subject of praise in Fumento's opinion columns and a book....

In his career at Hudson, Fumento has carved out a specialty debunking critics of the agribusiness and biotechnology industries.


http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jan2006/nf20060113_2851_db035.htm

The Hudson Institute is supported by donations from companies and individuals. Corporate contributors include Eli Lilly and Company,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Institute

It's not clear to me if Fumento's work is best classified as reporting or advertising...

Anonymous said...

Scripps Howard News Service announced Jan. 13 that it's severing its business relationship with columnist Michael Fumento, who's also a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. The move comes after inquiries from BusinessWeek Online about payments Fumento received from agribusiness giant Monsanto -- a frequent subject of praise in Fumento's opinion columns and a book....

In his career at Hudson, Fumento has carved out a specialty debunking critics of the agribusiness and biotechnology industries.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jan2006/nf20060113_2851_db035.htm

The Hudson Institute is supported by donations from companies and individuals. Corporate contributors include Eli Lilly and Company,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Institute

It's not clear to me if Fumento's work is best classified as reporting or advertising...

Anonymous said...

More info on Fumento, some of which might cross over some of the links already given by Anonymous. I'm not sure:

1. On Pesticides and Plastics

http://www.konformist.com/2000/stossel.htm

":...Stossel's main hatchet man on the segment, Dennis Avery, was not identified on 20/20 as the author of SAVING THE PLANET WITH PESTICIDES AND PLASTIC, or as an employee of the Hudson Institute. Agribusinesses such as Dow, Monsanto, ConAgra, and Novartis are leading funders of the Hudson Institute..."

"...Apparently, Stossel hasn't learned his lesson: on July 15, he did another dishonest slam piece of the story behind the film ERIN BROCKOVICH. Though the giant utility company PG&E admits to illegally releasing the carcinogen chromium-6 in Hinkley, CA (they settled for $333 million with local residents), Stossel claimed there is no proof that chromium in drinking water can cause cancer. PG&E's own documents concede "the material is toxic," and covered up the fact that they had released high concentrations of the material in the water (up to 20 parts per million, according to PG&E's own measurements.) ... His main source for the piece, incidentally, was Michael Fumento, a Senior Fellow of the Hudson Institute..."


2. Re the 'Novartis' reference in the first paragraph, Novartis make Ritalin and Fumento defends Ritalin:

http://www.fumento.com/adhd/adhdtnr.html

"...Myth: Ritalin is "Kiddie Cocaine.
One of the paradoxes of conservative attacks on Ritalin is that the drug is alternately accused of turning children into brain-dead zombies and of making them Mach-speed cocaine junkies. Indeed, Ritalin is widely disparaged as "kiddie cocaine..."

"... Like most headaches, ADHD is a neurological problem that can usually be successfully treated with a chemical. Those who recommend or prescribe ADHD medicines do not, as The Weekly Standard put it, see them as "discipline in pill-form." They see them as pills..."



3. On Endocrine Disruption

http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/Commentary/Opinion/1998-1116fumentodisrupted.htm#

"Michael Fumento published a broad-side attack on the integrity of endocrine disruption science, scientists and Our Stolen Future in the 19 November 1999 issue of Forbes Magazine, entitled "Truth Disruptors."

It is an artfully constructed piece, but one that rests squarely upon misrepresentation, distortion and innuendo from the very first paragraph..."

4. On GM food

http://www.connectotel.com/gmfood/gmspin.html

Caton, Greg (caton@ifu.net)
Owner of Lumen Foods, whose website hosts pro-GM articles by Dennis Avery and Michael Fumento of the Hudson Institute.

Consumer Alert
Consumer Alert website includes articles by Henry I. Miller, Michael Fumento and Frances B. Smith.
Published a "declaration of support" for agricultural biotechnology signed by over 600 scientists including signatories from Monsanto (67 individuals), Pioneer Hibred (22 individuals), Dow (21 individuals) and Amercian Council on Science and Health (2 individuals)

Hudson Institute
Has published numerous articles by Dennis Avery and Michael Fumento
Funded by, amongst others :
AgrEvo
Dow AgroSciences
Monsanto Company
Novartis Crop Protection
Zeneca

Fumento, Michael (michaelf@hudson.org)
Member of the Hudson Institute
Author of :
City slickers off target in pesticide report - an article published (15 December 1998) in the Idaho Statesman which criticises "...the environmentalists' never-ending campaign against pesticides" and suggests that if pesticides were banned that "...we'll all be forced to eat expensive, ugly, shriveled-looking organic produce...".

The truth is that the NCPPR's own "Environmental Policy Task Force" consists of a list of 141 "real environmental scientists, economists and experts" including Dennis Avery, Michael Fumento and Frances B. Smith. As can be seen from the references to these people on this page, these members of the pro-GM lobby people also have "little or no practical experience or scientific training"...


5. On tobacco

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/01/fumento_unhinged.php

"...Fumento has a long desperate history as a corporate shill and industry-funded spewer of contrarian nonsense.

He's all over the tobacco documents: http://tinyurl.com/ygdk5t

And here he is being dangled in front of Philip Morris by the Competitive Enterprise Institute as a contrarian worth funding. http://tinyurl.com/rm2d6 [page 3 of 4]

The boy just smells like a dirty ashtray..."

5. On dioxin

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Science%2C_Economics%2C_and_Environmental_Policy:_A_Critical_Examination

"...Michael Gough
Michael Gough co-authored a book with Steven J. Milloy, appropriately and ironically titled Silencing Science published by Cato Institute. Gough is listed as "hired gun" for trial testimony by Atlantic Legal Foundation, which is a Koch-Scaife-Coors-Bradley funded organ. [11] [12] Moore's activities are known to blow smoke at Dioxin dangers, and climate change worries in manners uncannily similar to his co-authors Michael Fumento, [13] and Steven J. Milloy, all of which hang their hats at the same set of institutes and front organs.

In one tract, THE FEAR PROFITEERS [14], Gough, Fumento, and Milloy were all included among the eight authors, tying them together in an undisputable package. In the hands-washing-each-other theory, Fumento from Monsanto-funded Hudson Institute needs to whitewash Dioxin that Monsanto produced, and Gough slips into his white labcoat and helps his buddy. [15] ..."


6. On synthetic implants

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/03.10.04/saline-0411.html

"...Although they are required to, few doctors show patients the FDA site that presents photos of the serious disfigurements possible. Meanwhile, scholars like Michael Fumento of the conservative Hudson Institute, which receives agribusiness funding, likened the anti-implant evidence to snake oil and dismissed the postsurgical scarring known as capsular contraction a "minor problem" though contracture, a serious problem in 20 percent of cases, can even in mild forms make the breast as hard as a football. In extreme cases, the pain is so severe as to demand immediate surgery.

Like Fumento, Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, another corporate citizen group (funded by big tobacco, health insurance companies and Dow) and Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (also Dow-funded) beat their synthetic breasts over the scourge of frivolous suits based on fraudulent science. The truth is that product liability and medical malpractice cases amounted to only 2 percent and 4.4 percent, respectively, of civil cases in 1996; the bulk of frivolous suits are in fact pursued by businesses against other businesses..."


7. On Gulf War Syndrome

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/fumento200412220824.asp

"Unhealthy Hype
The myth of Gulf War Syndrome lives on.

By Michael Fumento

For a decade now, countless studies in both the U.S. and U.K, along with myriad government-appointed panels that have reviewed them, have found that in no meaningful sense is there a "Gulf War Syndrome." GWS is simply any illness any Gulf vet (or spouse or child of one) has or thinks he has..."



Michael Fumento reminds me of Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch.