Repetition Compulsion to the Death or Beyond?

March, 29, 2020 | 6 Comments

Comments

  1. Jewish people have a great record of tracking and bringing to book those who would rather not be recognised – here they are investigating Koren

    Haaretz – Israel NewsMarch 30, 2020
    Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare Provider Investigates Wrongdoing by Senior Doctor in Canada
    Pediatrician and researcher Prof. Gidi Koren downplayed risks that could be caused by a drug he researched and ran unreliable tests for Canadian welfare authorities, organization Physicians for Human Rights Israel claims

    The Maccabi healthcare fund is looking into allegations leveled by the organization Physicians for Human Rights Israel that one of its senior researchers, the pediatrician Dr. Gideon Koren, behaved unethically while doing research in Canada.

    One of such instances of unethical behavior was research into a drug at Toronto University two decades ago, with the support of Apotex, the company that developed the medication. According to a report by a Toronto hospital with which Koren worked in the study, risks were discovered, but the drug company prevented notification to patients, in violation of professional and ethical obligations. According to Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Koren published findings that the drug was safe, and the company used his writings to push use of the drug. Physicians for Human Rights Israel notes that the hospital and university both took disciplinary action against Koren because of misconduct.

    In a second incident exposed in 2017, The Star reported that in 1999, Koren wrote anonymous “poison pen” letters about a whistleblower colleague, Dr. Nancy Olivieri, sending them to his colleagues at SickKids and to the press, among other things calling her and her supporters a “group of pigs”.

    Among the fallout is doubt shrouding no less than thousands of child protection decisions throughout Canada based on flawed tests for drugs and alcohol in hair from 2005 to 2015. The tests Koren used were not credible, other doctors have charged. A local Canadian court refused to allow a class action to proceed against him and the lab he led; Koren himself stated that the tests had not been the overriding consideration in the welfare authorities’ decisions and that most results were verified by other sources.

    Pediatrician Dr. Gideon Koren, who is accused of unethical behavior
    Pediatrician Dr. Gideon Koren, who is accused of unethical behaviorBat Sheva Koren
    The suspicions against Koren, founder of the Motherisk and SickKids programs, were reported in Canada a year and a half ago, when The Star revealed that in a rare move, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario confirmed its investigation into Koren.

  2. Sorry – I missed a chunk out of the above comment =re where he is working now

    Haaretz – Israel NewsMarch 30, 2020.

    Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare Provider Investigates Wrongdoing by Senior Doctor in Canada
    Pediatrician and researcher Prof. Gidi Koren downplayed risks that could be caused by a drug he researched and ran unreliable tests for Canadian welfare authorities, organization Physicians for Human Rights Israel claims

    The Maccabi healthcare fund is looking into allegations leveled by the organization Physicians for Human Rights Israel that one of its senior researchers, the pediatrician Dr. Gideon Koren, behaved unethically while doing research in Canada.

    One of such instances of unethical behavior was research into a drug at Toronto University two decades ago, with the support of Apotex, the company that developed the medication. According to a report by a Toronto hospital with which Koren worked in the study, risks were discovered, but the drug company prevented notification to patients, in violation of professional and ethical obligations. According to Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Koren published findings that the drug was safe, and the company used his writings to push use of the drug. Physicians for Human Rights Israel notes that the hospital and university both took disciplinary action against Koren because of misconduct.

    In a second incident exposed in 2017, The Star reported that in 1999, Koren wrote anonymous “poison pen” letters about a whistleblower colleague, Dr. Nancy Olivieri, sending them to his colleagues at SickKids and to the press, among other things calling her and her supporters a “group of pigs”.

    Among the fallout is doubt shrouding no less than thousands of child protection decisions throughout Canada based on flawed tests for drugs and alcohol in hair from 2005 to 2015. The tests Koren used were not credible, other doctors have charged. A local Canadian court refused to allow a class action to proceed against him and the lab he led; Koren himself stated that the tests had not been the overriding consideration in the welfare authorities’ decisions and that most results were verified by other sources.

    Pediatrician Dr. Gideon Koren, who is accused of unethical behavior
    The suspicions against Koren, founder of the Motherisk and SickKids programs, were reported in Canada a year and a half ago, when The Star revealed that in a rare move, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario confirmed its investigation into Koren.

    Related Articles
    On Sunday, Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children announced a review of all of Koren’s published work, The Star said, which reports its own investigation finding “what appear to be problems” in more than 400 of Koren’s papers.

    The local probe in Israel ensued after the Physicians for Human Rights Israel organization urged the ethics bureau at the Israel Medical Association and the Maccabi management, in October, to investigate.

    The Physicians organization called for that Koren’s work at Maccabi, including his guidance for researchers, to be terminated. “It is only proper that caution be exercised regarding a person who has fallen badly twice, and that he not be chosen for a position in which ethics, integrity and fairness are necessary conditions,” the Physicians for Human Rights Israel’s ethics chief Hadas Ziv wrote. The allegations focus on two issues in which Koren was involved.

    Koren, 71, completed his medical degree in the 1970s and now lectures at a number of Israeli universities and volunteers at the Asaf Harofe medical center. He has been considered a global expert on toxicology and teratology, not least regarding fetal alcohol syndrome. He has published 15 medical books and over 1,700 papers. He also founded the Israeli band The Brothers & the Sisters, which was active from 1971 to 1983 and had a number of hits to its credit; he also wrote the children’s play “Fitz the Mouse”.

    Koren commented that there is nothing to prevent him from engaging in research. “After the Olivieri report was published, I continued to hold senior positions,” he stated. Regarding the lab tests, he said that not a single child had been taken from its parents, or returned to them, based on the findings.

    “The lab I headed was clinical, not forensic, and even won praise,” he said. He also claimed umbrage at the organization for “attacking without checking the facts” and said that claims of biased or misleading research were outright libel. Maccabi, commenting further to the letter it received some weeks ago, said a team is looking into the matter.

  3. ‘ The cases of Olivieri, Healy and Blumsohn illustrate this point.13 17 ‘ – Arthur Schafer

    Thalassaemia major: the murky story of deferiprone

    BMJ 2004; 328 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.328.7436.358 (Published 12 February 2004)

    Nancy F. Olivieri, MD, FRCPC
    Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine
    University of Toronto, Canada

    I join my colleagues 30 in urging doctors and patients to examine
    critically the data regarding deferiprone, with the help of individuals of
    integrity and independence 45, 17, rather than to accept opinions
    expressed in discussions at selected meetings (see 46.)

    https://www.bmj.com/content/328/7436/358/rapid-responses

    Review written by: Arthur Schafer

    Nancy Olivieri is famous for raising doubts about an experimental drug with which she was treating thalassemia patients. Her principled stand, and the resulting scandal, led universities to offer researchers some protection against illegitimate drug company pressure. Medical journals changed their publication rules. Research hospitals changed their policies. She became an international icon

    https://umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/departments/philosophy/ethics/media/Drug_Trial.pdf

    No one knows who did it or why, but everyone has a theory.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-apotex-billionaire-murder/

    UKTS conducted its own campaign in favour of the FDA licensing of deferiprone.

    We funded the research ourselves because no pharma companies were interested at the time. The money raised by the Society enabled Professor George Kontoghiorges to continue to develop the drug, working under Professor Victor Hoffbrand in his laboratory at the Royal Free Hospital. With the cooperation of clinicians Bernadette Modell and Beatrix Wonke, the Whittington Hospital in North London became a world leader in ground breaking thalassaemia treatment

    USA thalassaemia patients celebrate the licensing of the oral chelator deferiprone –

    https://ukts.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/issue119.pdf

    Apotex sells global rights to deferiprone to Chiesi Group in carve-out transaction

    https://www.lexpert.ca/article/apotex-sells-global-rights-to-deferiprone-to-chiesi-group-in-carve-out-transaction/

    Now in other ‘hands’ …

  4. My thinking is nothing new i guess but what seems to happen is that strong group bonds are encouraged to form with rituals and rewards By the time individuals realise mal practice taking place they have or feel they have in a sense colluded by benefiting from membership of the group ,which increases anxiety about speaking out or acting out. In medicine people are encouraged to form ‘clubs’ in different specialities and to act as rivals with other clubs, It’s meant that protecting their own turf for example has damaged both the NHS and their rivals social service I was invited to sit on a joint cttee once but left when I realised both parties together stitched up a strategy before meetings even began. Women as well as men, ‘leaders’ have been notable in encouraging other women to ‘network ‘to gain rewards conferred by cronyism and inauthentic loyalty, or ‘sucking up’ to the strongest group within their group. ,For that to happen it means making others ‘enemies’ rather than collaborators. When an initially naive lonewolf is perceived to signal ‘danger’ of some sort or the group is about to be ‘betrayed’ by breaching a code of silence – there are steps taken to take advantage of naive expectations that right action will take place by ‘leaders’ , When that doesn’t lead to silencing the person they will gather support from other groups to outlaw the one who in good faith imagined ethical behaviour underpins medicine in this case. The primary duty is to protect the professional group not the public or those who consult them. How often is the same spiel gushed after yet another scandal eg of baby deaths. The leaders of the packs usually don’t believe someone in an ‘inferior’ or weaker position could or would risk their wrath if they are exposed in wrong doing and it can get incredibly nasty to a point of no return. They are then unable to listen or try to collaborate or remedy things. Whats left is for anyone who can stomache pursuing a cause is to find their inner terrier and never take any expectations of ethical behaviour of any group for granted. Why in this case did the institutions in Israel appoint Koren when his back ground surely must be known to them ?

  5. One of ‘our own’ …

    A Furry Tale on Furry Tails …

    The father of four also served as a medic in the Israel Defence Forces in the mid-1960s, as well as a year as a flight surgeon with the Israeli Air Force, according to the resumé.

    https://www.yorkregion.com/news-story/5152481-inside-the-career-of-motherisk-founder-dr-gideon-koren/

    Dr, Gideon Koren
    Director at Motherisk Israel. 
    Senior Scientist, Maccabi-Kahn Institute of Research and Innovation and Ariel University.

    https://www.isopisrael2019.org/prof-gideon-koren

    In recent years, Koren and the hospital have come under media scrutiny for Motherisk’s support of the use of SSRI antidepressants during pregnancy

    GSK acted responsibly, he says: “They ran to the government the minute they thought they saw something.

    https://www.macleans.ca/society/life/theres-a-pill-for-that/

    Apotex and the Paxil / Paroxetine Warning Label

    https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/prescription-drugs/paxil-injuries/apotex-generic-paxil-warning-label/

    Professor Hoffbrand received the Sultan Bin Khalifa Grand International Thalassemia Award.

    And so it all rumbles along …

  6. … to the Death or Beyond …

    Arthur Schafer

    https://umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/departments/philosophy/ethics/media/Let_Them_Eat_Prozac.pdf

    Want to eliminate evidence of dangerous side effects from your new anti-depressant? First, ensure that company scientists design the experiment and tabulate the data before it is turned over to the university scientist whose name will grace the eventual publication. Better yet, when volunteers enrolled in the experiment become agitated (and potentially suicidal or violent) code them as “failing to respond to treatment”. Amazingly, by this simple sleight of hand, the alarming side effects entirely disappear. What isn’t recorded doesn’t exist. The respected scientist whose name goes on the ghost-written publication – a widespread practice, as Healy shows – seldom sees the raw data, and is happy to collect a generous fee from the company along with the status that comes with having “his” research published in a prestigious journal.

    Leading drug industry figures play an unsavoury role in this story, but it cannot be said that the medical profession or government regulators emerge with armour shining. Those charged with protecting the public from unjustifiable harms seem not yet to have taken on board the central lesson of the 1962 thalidomide tragedy: All drugs are inherently risky. Only honest and well-designed research can tell us which drugs offer which patients the likelihood of more benefit than harm.

    All over.
    Bar a Whistle..

    On 8 November 2019, the English Court of Appeal handed down judgment in favour of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) on the permitted scope of the long-running Seroxat litigation.

    https://www.addleshawgoddard.com/en/news/2019/court-of-appeal-judgment/

    An alerter and copy of the Court of Appeal judgment can be found on the attached links.

    https://www.hendersonchambers.co.uk/2019/11/11/court-of-appeal-dismisses-claimants-appeal-in-the-seroxat-group-litigation/

    World news

    Drug giant faces huge law suit

    ‘Prozac miracle’ could end in disaster

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/06/medicalscience.businessofresearch

    Sarah Boseley, health editor

    Thu 6 Sep 2001

    Concern over the potential for addiction of the SSRIs has been growing in recent years. Charles Medawar of the UK watchdog organisation Social Audit said: “I would think that the scale of the problem in the UK is comparable and I can’t see a lawsuit not happening here. I think people are extremely angry. It was obvious this was going to happen two to three years ago, but the Medicines Control Agency – the regulators – have done nothing to forestall it.”

    The US lawyers allege that all the SSRI class of antidepressants have the potential to cause withdrawal reactions when people try to stop taking them, but that Paxil/Seroxat is the worst. The drug, which has the generic name of paroxetine, is at the top of a league table produced by the World Health Organisation which records complaints from 60 countries of bad reactions to medicines.

    GlaxoSmithKline insists there is no problem with its drug. “There is absolutely no reliable scientific evidence that Paxil is addictive or leads to dependence,” said a spokesman.
    He added: “As far as we’re concerned, all of the regulatory bodies are quite happy with the product.”

    “I can’t see a lawsuit not happening here.” – Charles Medawar

    “it cannot be said that the medical profession or government regulators emerge with armour shining.” – Arthur Schafer .

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