“Abadan and Suez are important to the local peoples only in terms of their amour propre… To us, some of these things are important in a much more serious sense, and for reasons that today are sounder and better and more defensible than they ever were in history. To retain these facilities and positions we can use today only one thing: military strength, backed by the resolution and courage to use it.”
…This decision is more than stunning, it is an outrage. This law is supposed to protect a person or group of persons who are victims of discrimination because of their origin or membership or nonmembership of a specific ethnicity, nation, race or religion. It was never intended to protect the policies of a state against the criticism of citizens, when such criticism takes the form of a call to boycott products. Organizations have repeatedly called for boycotts in the world, of Myanmar (Burma), Russia, China or Mexico without ever invoking this clause.
Despite the insistence of the justice minister, most French jurisdictions have refused in recent years to consider that calls to boycott Israeli goods rise to the level of a violation of the law.
With the Court of Cassation’s decision, France has become the only democratic country in the world where such an interdiction has been put in place. For a country which for the last year has not stopped proclaiming its attachment to the freedom of expression, it is all the more paradoxical and it is likely that the European Court of Human Rights will review this unwelcome decision….
Here’s an open letter from the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme to Justice Minister Christiane Taubira.
Non au projet de déchéance de la nationalité, non à une démocratie sous état d’urgence, non à une réforme constitutionnelle imposée sans débat, en exploitant l’effroi légitime suscité par les attentats.
Nous n’acceptons pas la gouvernance de la peur, celle qui n’offre aucune sécurité mais qui assurément permet de violer nos principes les plus essentiels.
Notre rejet est absolu. Nous appelons tous ceux et celles qui partagent une autre idée de la France à le manifester.
For the record, here’s the petition by Academics for Peace:
As academics and researchers of this country, we will not be a party to this crime!
The Turkish state has effectively condemned its citizens in Sur, Silvan, Nusaybin, Cizre, Silopi, and many other towns and neighborhoods in the Kurdish provinces to hunger through its use of curfews that have been ongoing for weeks. It has attacked these settlements with heavy weapons and equipment that would only be mobilized in wartime. As a result, the right to life, liberty, and security, and in particular the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment protected by the constitution and international conventions have been violated.
This deliberate and planned massacre is in serious violation of Turkey’s own laws and international treaties to which Turkey is a party. These actions are in serious violation of international law.
We demand the state to abandon its deliberate massacre and deportation of Kurdish and other peoples in the region. We also demand the state to lift the curfew, punish those who are responsible for human rights violations, and compensate those citizens who have experienced material and psychological damage. For this purpose we demand that independent national and international observers to be given access to the region and that they be allowed to monitor and report on the incidents.
We demand the government to prepare the conditions for negotiations and create a road map that would lead to a lasting peace which includes the demands of the Kurdish political movement. We demand inclusion of independent observers from broad sections of society in these negotiations. We also declare our willingness to volunteer as observers. We oppose suppression of any kind of the opposition.
We, as academics and researchers working on and/or in Turkey, declare that we will not be a party to this massacre by remaining silent and demand an immediate end to the violence perpetrated by the state. We will continue advocacy with political parties, the parliament, and international public opinion until our demands are met.
Repression continues (although it appears the academics detained initially have now been released), but solidarity grows:
An unprecedented coalition of 29 faith-based Palestine solidarity groups as well as peace and justice organizations are planning a rally and protest from 5-8 p.m., Monday, Nov. 9, 2015 outside the National Building Museum, where the American Enterprise Institute will be honoring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The groups will be forwarding one main message: “No US tax dollars to Israel,” as a way to protest American financial, political and diplomatic support for Israel despite its continual violations of international and American laws. The coalition calls for an end to US military aid to Israel until it complies with international law and end[s] its occupation of Palestinian lands.
WHAT: Rally and protest
WHEN: 5-8 p.m., Monday, Nov. 9, 2015
WHERE: Outside National Building Museum, 600 Block of 401 F. St. NW, Washington DC,
“Brill goes to great lengths – in 15 chapters published one per day – to document a vast amount of the Risperdal story, so it is perplexing to try to imagine whether he might have missed those crucial pages near the beginning of the Rothman Report or whether something else happened. And if it is the latter, what could it possibly be?”
When I read the otherwise excellent* Steven Brill series “America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker,” I noticed and noted that Brill mentioned the actions associated with Diagnosisgate only very briefly and, even stranger, didn’t name the prominent individuals involved. I share Caplan’s interest in the reasons for this omission. (She notes in the comments at my first link above that she contacted Brill when his series was beginning, but didn’t even receive a reply. What’s going on here?)
* He does uncritically accept the claim that “the drug benefits many people,” presumably those alleged to be suffering from “schizophrenia,” which is unfortunate.
“[F]or the rest of us Krispy Kreme represents the siren call of diabetes, obesity, clogged hearts, and death - we can only hope a death that takes place in the Krispy Kreme Challenge Children’s Specialty Clinic, which I’m sure is a very good hospital with some now very terrible branding.”
“We offer this statement first and foremost to Palestinians, whose suffering does not go unnoticed and whose resistance and resilience under racism and colonialism inspires us. It is to Palestinians, as well as the Israeli and US governments, that we declare our commitment to working through cultural, economic, and political means to ensure Palestinian liberation at the same time as we work towards our own. We encourage activists to use this statement to advance solidarity with Palestine and we also pressure our own Black political figures to finally take action on this issue. As we continue these transnational conversations and interactions, we aim to sharpen our practice of joint struggle against capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and the various racisms embedded in and around our societies.”
“The tactics used to silence advocacy for Palestinian rights frequently follow recognizable patterns. Activists and their protected speech are routinely maligned as uncivil, divisive, antisemitic, or supportive of terrorism. Institutional actors—primarily in response to pressure from Israel advocacy groups—erect bureaucratic barriers that thwart efforts to discuss abuses of Palestinian rights and occasionally even cancel events or programs altogether. Sometimes the consequences are more severe: universities suspend student groups, deny tenure to faculty, or fire them outright in response to their criticism of Israel. Meritless lawsuits and legal threats, which come from a variety of Israel advocacy groups identified in this Report, burden Palestinian rights advocacy and chill speech even when dismissed by the courts. Campaigns by such groups have even resulted in legislation to curtail Palestine advocacy, criminal investigations, and filing of charges against activists.”
“‘Kissinger’s official biographer’, writes the man Kissinger first asked to be his official biographer, ‘certainly gives the reader enough evidence to conclude that Henry Kissinger is one of the greatest Americans in the history of the republic,…’”
« Il est important d’être conscient-e-s du ‘point de vue situé’ c’est-à-dire avoir conscience d’où on parle. Je suis une femme blanche, française, sans problème de papiers, sociologue, de classe plutôt aisée donc. J’ai vécu au Mexique, au Salvador juste après la guerre, en Colombie, au Brésil, en République dominicaine. Les féministes lesbiennes noires, indiennes et les femmes ayant vécu des situations de guerre m’ont appris énormément de choses. ».
If you read French, I urge you to read the whole report. Carla Sandoval’s discussion of anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-colonial feminism in Latin America is especially important.
“Repositioning American Ps[y]chiatric Association from wise sage to caring ruler, we changed everything from messaging to their logo to support the new brand persona.”
Philip Hickey has the story. (Reading his quote from Paul Summergrad’s address at the most recent APA meeting almost makes me feel sorry for them. They so desperately want to believe that discoveries validating their bogus diagnoses and magically justifying their decades of false claims and scientific fakery are right around the corner - “That we have not yet achieved interventions based on these insights or diagnostic tests is not because we will not achieve them, but because of the complexity of what we are studying.” Indeed, in his latest piece doubling down on the bizarre and patently untrue contention that psychiatry never propounded the chemical-imbalance idea, Ronald Pies actually drags out another of these perpetually “intriguing,” “promising” notions. After chemical imbalances, brain-circuit disturbances, stress hormones, telomeres,…we now have the “immune inflammatory metabolic model.” Whitaker and Cosgrove are right: their faith is too strong and too closely bound to their personal, professional, and material interests for challenges to take root within the field. Meanwhile, they cause a lot of harm.)
This report in the Guardian about the reanalysis of the infamous Study 329 links to both the reanalysis itself and an accompanying feature article by BMJ Associate Editor Peter Doshi describing the years of frustrated attempts to get the original article retracted, both of which are open access. Doshi’s piece - “No correction, no retraction, no apology, no comment: paroxetine trial reanalysis raises questions about institutional responsibility” – is a scathing indictment of the institutions involved, specifically the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), whose journal (JAACAP) published the article by Keller et al. in 2001, and Brown University. The feature quotes several experts, including Ivan Oransky of Retraction Watch, which posted about the matter yesterday.
“In this murky area of standards for retraction, there are some no-brainers – fabrication of data and plagiarism as prime examples. I would propose that journals add another no-brainer. When an article is part of a conviction or settlement for a crime, it is by definition ready for immediate retraction.”
Arguably the most controversial drug study ever, Study 329, published in July 2001:
1. Concluded that paroxetine was a safe and effective medication for treating major depression in adolescents;
2. Is still widely cited in the medical literature, providing physicians with assurance about the usefulness of paroxetine;
3. Was criticized by a few alert and concerned journalists and academics. Their voices were buried by a tsunami of positive marketing and promotion by vested interests;
4. Resulted in a successful New York state fraud lawsuit against GSK;
5. Resulted in 2012 in the biggest fine in corporate history – $3 Billion; and
6. Remains unretracted.
They referred to this proposed protocol as RIAT, and described its purpose as follows:
Unpublished and misreported studies make it difficult to determine the true value of a treatment. Peter Doshi and colleagues call for sponsors and investigators of abandoned studies to publish (or republish) and propose a system for independent publishing if sponsors fail to respond.
A team of researchers undertook to re-analyze the original data and publish a new analysis under the RIAT protocol.
In August, 2015, after a year and seven drafts, BMJ notified the team that their submission would be published in September, 2015. This will be the first ever trial with two completely different takes on the same data.
This new study, Restoring Study 329: Efficacy and harms of paroxetine and imipramine in the treatment of adolescent major depression: restoration of a randomised controlled trial, should shock all who care about integrity in drug safety. Find out the inside story when this site goes live.
How does this thing - resulting in a $3 billion fine for GSK, almost invariably referred to with adjectives like “infamous” and “notorious” - remain unretracted?
