The Patriots

by Amy Swearer

There is no denying that lawful gun owners use their firearms in self-defense far more often than those decrying the “myth” of a good guy with a gun would care to admit. Firearms are, in fact, used for self-defense often and effectively.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, notorious for its anti-gun bias, acknowledges as much in its 2013 report on gun violence research.

There, in conjunction with the National Research Council, the CDC concluded that almost all national, comprehensive studies on the subject find that firearms are used for lawful defensive purposes between 500,000 and 3.5 million times every year in the United States.

Even assuming that the actual number of defensive uses is on the low end of that range (and there’s good reason to believe that, in fact, it falls at the higher end), firearms are used to protect life and property more often than they are used to commit crimes, according to the CDC.

The month of June 2018 provided ample evidence of just how valuable a firearm can be in the hands of a law-abiding citizen.

A cursory review of news stories from that month reveals the following:

• On June 1, a concealed carry permit holder in Cape Coral, Florida, shot a convicted felon who had pulled a firearm on employees of a roofing company. Police said the unnamed good Samaritan acted in self-defense and will not face criminal charges, while the convicted felon—who was legally prohibited from possessing a firearm—will be charged with aggravated assault.
• On June 4, a 63-year-old Chicago man with a concealed carry license used his lawfully owned firearm to fight off three young, would-be robbers, one of whom pulled out what was only later discovered to be a replica firearm. The man shot one of the robbers in the leg, which caused the other suspects to flee.
• Also on June 4, an 18-year-old man in Arlington, Tennessee, found himself “rejected” at gunpoint when he assaulted and attempted to rape his friend’s mother during a sleepover. The man forced the woman on a bed and began putting his hand down her shorts before she was able to knee her attacker in the groin and retrieve her handgun, which was stored in the bedroom. The woman sustained a black eye, but told law enforcement officers that she prevented the man from sexually penetrating her.
• On June 8, a Jacksonville, Florida, man stole cash from a Walmart register and then tried to steal a truck at knifepoint before the truck owner pointed a handgun at the man. The man fled to a nearby Starbucks parking lot, where he again an attempted carjacking—only to be confronted by another armed civilian. Police finally arrived to find the man barricaded inside a Supercuts bathroom, where he was eventually arrested.
• Also on June 8, in DeKalb County, Georgia, three armed individuals followed a couple out of a grocery store, where police believe they intended either to rob or carjack the couple. The would-be attackers failed to account for the possibility that the couple might also be armed, and all three suspects found themselves in the hospital after a shootout, while neither of the victims was injured.
• On June 10, two armed men broke into the Cleveland home of an 84-year-old man, where they found themselves in a shootout when the elderly homeowner did not back down. The homeowner suffered a gunshot wound to his side, but the attackers fled the scene. The homeowner’s 17-year-old grandson called 911 after climbing out a window and onto the roof to escape the gunfire.
• On June 13, a Toledo, Ohio, resident intervened to save the life of a woman being attacked by a man with a hatchet. Police say the resident retrieved a firearm out of his home after witnessing a man in a truck at the nearby intersection repeatedly strike the woman. Neighbors told the media that the woman was screaming for help before the gun owner shot the man attacking her.
• On June 14, a quick-thinking 5-year-old saved his mother’s life by handing her the family firearm to defend herself. The woman’s ex-husband had broken into her Houston home, where he started choking the woman in front of their four children. The woman’s 8-year-old daughter attempted to pry the ex-husband off of her mother until the 5-year-old obtained the weapon, which the mother then used to shoot the ex-husband in the arm. The mother survived, and none of the four children—ages 8, 5, 2 and 1—were hurt in the confrontation.
• In the early morning hours of June 16, a Parkland, Washington, woman shot a 16-year-old who broke into her home and continued approaching her after she fired a warning shot and told him not to move. When the intruder continued to approach her, she shot him in the shoulder. The teenager allegedly collapsed to the floor and continued to yell, “I’m so high” until law enforcement arrived. He is expected to survive the wound.
• On June 17, in Tumwater, Washington, an armed local pastor was credited with stopping a potential mass shooting when he shot and killed a gunman in a Walmart parking lot. The gunman had fired rounds inside the Walmart, apparently trying to break into an ammunition display, before shooting two people during an attempted carjacking. The pastor was aided by a second lawful gun owner.
• Also on June 17, across the country in Pennsylvania, a man and his 17-year-old daughter teamed up to successfully defend their home against a would-be arsonist who entered their home and started pouring gasoline all over the floor. The father tried to push the would-be arsonist out of the door, but was overpowered and assaulted until the daughter was able to retrieve his handgun. He then fired one shot at the intruder, striking him in arm and stomach, and neutralizing the threat until law enforcement could arrive.
• On June 22, a Virginia woman successfully used her firearm to defend her 14-year-old daughter against a knife-wielding would-be kidnapper who had flown to the United States from New Zealand as part of a “carefully planned trip.” The New Zealand man was also carrying pepper spray and duct tape when he used a landscaping brick to smash a glass door, only to be confronted by the teen’s better-armed (and presumably very angry) mother.
• On June 30, a Tennessee teenager used her father’s shotgun to ward off a would-be burglar who approached the front door after stealing two pressure washers from the driveway.

As these stories demonstrate, lawful gun ownership can often mean the difference between a “victim” and a “would-be victim.” This is also consistent with the CDC’s conclusion that “[s]tudies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive gun uses have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other strategies.”

There are, of course, individuals who would use firearms to commit heinous criminal acts. But the proper response to this reality is not the wholesale stripping of constitutional rights from otherwise law-abiding citizens, or the prohibition of entire classes of firearms commonly used by those law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.

That framework of broad gun control makes no one safer — least of all the brave citizens highlighted above.

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Amy Swearer is a visiting legal fellow at the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

by Health Impact News/MedicalKidnap.com Staff

Marvin Siegel was proud of his youngest daughter when she followed in his footsteps and graduated from law school. Now, attorneys won’t let him see his daughter at all. Photo provided by family.

Lisa Belanger says that she was always “Daddy’s girl.” She is the youngest daughter of Marvin Siegel of Boxford, Massachusetts, and she and her father have always been very close.

It has now been more than a year and a half since she has seen her father, not by her choice or the choice of her father. A court, guardians, and lawyers have medically kidnapped her father, essentially imprisoning him in his own home, and they have forbidden his baby girl from having any contact with him.

Lisa Belanger is an attorney who followed in her father’s footsteps, and she is not taking this cruel twist of life lying down. She has been fighting to get him back since he was taken under state guardianship in mid December 2011.

See original story:

The impact of her father on Lisa Belanger’s life was readily apparent as she spoke in Nashville on June 9, 2018. Photo by Health Impact News.

Let Freedom Ring

In a recent interview with Health Impact News, Lisa told us that:

My dad was a warrior. He fought hard for “we the people.”

He taught me to have a moral compass and to have compassion.

He taught me to not be silent when wrongs are being done to others.

I’m just doing what my dad taught me to do. It’s my obligation as a human being.

Like most Americans, Lisa Belanger had no idea that this kind of thing could happen in the United States. She was shocked at the level of corruption that she saw and that she continues to see.

Instead of making her crawl into a hole and hide, what she has learned has ignited a fire within her. Lisa is determined to fight for what is right, just like her father taught her:

Everything that I’ve done is for my dad.

This is so much more than about just the law: it’s good over evil.

It’s about standing up and doing the right thing. It’s being loyal to your family.

I’m not just fighting for my father, but I’m fighting for every other person that’s been subjected to this inhumanity.

It’s about my moral compass. It’s about giving hope to other people.

Always “Daddy’s girl,” Lisa misses hugs from her dad. She vows never to stop fighting for him and others wronged by injustice. Photo supplied by family.

The Boston Broadside Continues to Expose Corruption

While many media outlets shy away from stories like this, the editor of The Boston Broadside, Lonnie Brennan, takes seriously the role of the press envisioned by the Founding Fathers. The cradle of the Boston Tea Party is home to a print newspaper that does not hesitate to hold government accountable to the people.

The most recent edition of the paper contains the latest chapter in Lisa Belanger’s fight for her father.

Excerpts from Governor Baker’s Appointee to the Supreme Judicial Court Nominating Commission, Atty. Marsha V. Kazarosian Attempts to Silence Whistleblower:

90-Year Old Marvin Siegel Remains Under 24/7 House Guard
as High-Profile Lawyers Drain Millions from His Estate

The Boston Broadside has previously detailed in a four-part series the systematic draining of the estate of 90-year-old Boxford resident Marvin Siegel by Governor Charlie Baker’s 2016 appointee, Attorney Marsha V. Kazarosian, and other lawyers.

During the past seven years, millions have been drained from the retiree’s estimated $9 million estate. He’s expected to be tapped out within a year. [Massachusetts is under Romneycare, a socialized medicine system that is the model for Obamacare.  Robbing the elderly becomes a convenient means of keeping the failing system afloat without raising taxes. This is how the wealthy elderly will be forced to 'pay their share'. If allowed to stand the Mass health system will become the federal model for any single payer health system. - ED]

Where has the money gone? To lawyers, lawyers, lawyers, elder service providers, and the like. Heck, the lawyers even charge one another to talk to each other and to send e-mails to one another, and then bill the estate. They also spend money on the daily care of Marvin, including their posted 24/7/365 “guards,” as Marvin’s daughter Lisa Siegel Belanger refers to his round-the-clock paid “caregivers,” whom she has detailed keep the senior isolated in his Boxford home. Lisa has also detailed how these “so-called medical providers have denied her dad his basic dignity: he can’t even use a cell phone to talk to his grandchildren!”

Fighting Back, Getting Betrayed

Marvin hired Atty. Kazarosian as private legal counsel in August of 2011 for the specific purpose of fending off a state “elder protective service” agency (Elder Services of Merrimack Valley) from unlawfully making him a ward of the state (assigning a guardian to him). He never envisioned that Atty. Kazarosian would quickly switch sides and work against him, as has been charged by members of Marvin’s family.

In March of 2015, Marvin’s daughter, Attorney Lisa Siegel Belanger, filed an extensive federal civil action in which she claims that Atty. Kazarosian is part of a long-embedded insidious enterprise of corrupt lawyers and judges using the Massachusetts Probate & Family Court system to exploit elders—and any person of any age for that matter who happen to be vulnerably labeled as “incapacitated.” Lisa’s extensive, detailed complaint and accompanying exhibits can be viewed by the public free of charge at http://www.belangerlawoffice.com/free-marvin/federal-civil-action-2015/.

Soon after Lisa filed her racketeering action with the U.S. District Court, she provided a copy to Governor Baker. In her complaints to the governor, Lisa revealed a systemic pattern of elder abuse, money laundering, and embezzlement. Governor Baker refused to reply to Lisa and in less than a year from the first complaint, appointed Atty. Kazarosian to the commission that nominates Massachusetts’ highest court judges—known as the Supreme Judicial Court Nominating Commission. [See link here.]

On December 1, 2017, Lisa filed another formal complaint, this time directly to Governor Baker, Lt. Governor Karen Polito, counsel for the Governor, and the Executive Director of the Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission. In her complaint, Lisa extensively detailed what she termed the continuous, vicious exploitation of her elderly father and family by Atty. Kazarosian and her associates. As of press time, Governor Baker and the above-specified officials have not responded to Lisa’s complaint.

But it Gets Worse: Atty. Kazarosian Seeks to Disbar Lisa Belanger

Over the course of seven years, Lisa has fought to get her father released from what she terms the clutches of Atty. Kazarosian and associates. Lisa has filed numerous legal petitions, and has even received a court-ordered fine for speaking to her own father!

Marvin Siegel with his family in happier times. Photo supplied by family

In response to her actions in defending her father, Lisa has informed The Boston Broadside that Atty. Kazarosian seeks to disbar her. Lisa claims this is to silence her from fighting for her father. She has detailed that now that Marvin’s plight has been publicized in The Boston Broadside, Atty. Kazarosian has “made it her personal mission and vendetta to maliciously and unlawfully thwart my continuous exposing of this long-embedded corruption in the Massachusetts Probate & Family Courts. At the behest of Marsha Kazarosian, on May 25, 2018, Adam LaFrance, Assistant Bar Counsel, filed formal charges against me,” Lisa shared.

As Lisa has summarized, “the Office of Bar Counsel documentation states that they are prosecuting me to silence my exposure of this corruption of epidemic proportions and for specifically having sought legal relief in the federal court. Conspicuously, LaFrance, fails to state how my substantiated allegations are in any manner false or dishonest as they charge. The Office of Bar Counsel seemingly forgets that truth is an absolute defense.” [Emphasis added by HIN]

Good for the Goose, But not the Gander?

In sharp contrast, the Office of Bar Counsel has blatantly and flagrantly ignored Lisa’s filing of complaints against Marsha Kazarosian and other specified counsel since 2012. Repeatedly, from 2012 through 2014, the Office of Bar Counsel wrote to Lisa stating that no investigation would be conducted due to matters being actively “pending” in the Essex Probate & Family Court.

Yet, even though matters are still actively taking place in the Essex Probate & Family Court, in May of 2017 the Office of Bar Counsel opened an investigation against Lisa as a result of a complaint filed by Marsha Kazarosian—the very first complaint initiated against Lisa from the time this matter commenced in 2011. One year later, the Office of Bar Counsel began formal procedures against Lisa (May 25, 2018).

Marvin Siegel expected that his wishes would be honored when he hired Kazarosian. Instead, he has been robbed of his family. Photo supplied by family.

Self-admittedly, Marsha Kazarosian has close and substantial inner-workings with those presiding in the Massachusetts judiciary—all the way up to the state’s highest court justices. In Kazarosian’s many self-published profiles, she boasts being appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s Advisory Committee for Clerks of the Courts and having served on the Superior Court Civil Working Group; that in 2014, she served on the SJC’s Access to Justice Commission Committee on the Bar Exam.

Of particular significance, Marsha Kazarosian openly flaunts her having acted as a Hearings Committee Officer for the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers for a 6-year term.

Kazarosian has also openly touted having been a part of the Board of Governors during Deval Patrick’s administration, along with documented big-dollar political contributions to high-profile Democrats including former Attorney General Martha Coakley, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Ed Markey, Joe Kennedy III, Barak Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Tom Daschle, and various Democratic organizations. [Boston Broadside Editor’s Note: So-called Republican Gov. Baker appointed a heavy-financial-donor to extremist Democrats? Then turned a blind eye on complaints against her?]

Lisa says, “It can be of no surprise by the outlandish backroom antics resorted to by Obama appointee U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs and First Circuit Court of Appeals Justices Sandra Lynch (Bill Clinton appointee), when they dismissed the federal civil actions I filed in 2015 and 2017.” Lisa added, “Kazarosian is high-profile and a big donor. Oh, and Judge Burroughs just happens to be one of the foremost, early-on federal judges to have nixed President Trump’s initial travel ban.”

Read the full article at The Boston Broadside.

How You Can Help:

Governor Charlie Baker may be reached at 617-725-4005 or contacted here. His Facebook is here.  His Twitter is here.

Representative James Lyons Jr. may be reached at 617-722-2460 or contacted here.

Senator Bruce E. Tarr may be reached at 617-722-1600 or contacted here.  Facebook is here.  His Twitter is here.

Attorney Lisa Siegel Belanger’s website is here. Her Twitter is here.

[A 2014 article from transhumanist Amon Twyman who is an advocate of radical social and technological change leading to a zero state, no gender, no individuality, no freedom, where the majority are nothing more than engineered man-machines comprising the vast part of a one world community under autocratic control.  His statement; ".. direct democratic action to circumvent obsolete political institutions." promotes the 'social justice' of Aldous Huxley's eugenics world dream via 'mob rule' anarchy  - ED ]

Interview with Zero State founder and transhumanist Dr. Amon Twyman. [Emphasis DNI]

Rapid advances in technology are paving the way for new ideas about the future, including those of the communities we live in. I had a chance to catch up with transhumanist, Zero State founder, and cognitive scientist Dr. Amon Twyman, who is a leader of one such community that is exploring new directions for the betterment of humanity. 

Dr. Amon Twyman

 

Q. Dr. Twyman, What is Zero State?

A. Zero State (ZS) is a community that grew out of the transhumanist movement back in 2011. It’s now part of a broad coalition of groups and movements that we call WAVE, referring to a coming wave of radical technological and social change. The basic ZS idea is to create networks of people and resources which could evolve into a distributed, virtual State. Right now there are only a few thousand ZSers (albeit well connected to much larger networks), but in a hypothetical full-blown Zero State there would be tens of millions or more, all supporting each other and being part of a single nation no matter where they live in the world. Our motto is "positive social change through technology."

 Q. How does transhumanism relate to ZS?

A. Our core principles and ideas are deliberately compatible with transhumanism. That comes naturally, as ZS grew out of transhumanism and our most active “citizens” tend to self-identify as Transhumanists. That said, it’s important to stress that people don’t have to be transhumanists to join ZS. More generally, we consider ourselves to be a “Social Futurist” community, which is to say that we believe technological breakthroughs don’t happen in a social vacuum. There are social, economic, and political issues which not only stubbornly continue to exist in the face of techno-optimism, but which are sometimes greatly exacerbated by technological change. In short, we believe that technology should be applied to improving the human condition on both physiological and societal levels.

Q. How can ZS help the world?

A. In the first instance, we are focused on helping ZS’ citizens, or more accurately, helping them to help each other. An increasing number of people are finding themselves in need of help of one type or another these days, and we would like to demonstrate that mutual support is made more achievable than ever before thanks to the power of cutting-edge technologies. We tend to focus on bringing together people and ways to access current technologies such as meshnets, cryptocurrency, Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence, while exploring ideas such as longevity, super-intelligence & wellbeing, accelerating change, and direct democratic action to circumvent obsolete political institutions. Beyond working to help our own people, we actively work to support the wider network of like-minded groups and believe that compassionately, intelligently applied technology has the potential to improve the lives of everybody in the world.

 Q. How did you come to be the founder of ZS?

A. My background is in a combination of psychological research (consciousness and decision making, Artificial Intelligence) and digital & performing arts. Although I’d read my fair share of science fiction as a kid, I decided I was a transhumanist while studying at university, after reading “Mind Children” by Hans Moravec. Over time, my various interests in art, science, transhumanism, and contemporary social/political issues coalesced into a coherent worldview, and I eventually decided to form an organization to pursue these ideas. The result, Zero State, was heavily informed by my experience as a co-founder of the UK Transhumanist Association, which has since evolved into Humanity+ UK. I started building WAVE, the broader network ZS is part of, two years later. That was once we’d had time to realize that there was a bigger picture emerging; a large number of like-minded groups forming to address a vast array of specific issues with a common outlook. That common outlook is characterized by technological savvy, distaste for old thinking and limits, and a keen awareness of social issues.

A. What does the future hold for ZS?

Q. ZS-affiliated project groups continue to work on developing tools for our members. A lot of these projects are collaborative and many have a distinctly transhumanist flavor, such as experimentation with Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (using electrical charge to help concentration—work being done in collaboration with Dirk Bruere and Andrew Vladimirov). Some of the projects seem more like simple fun than serious experimentation at first glance—such as the ZSers building Minecraft environments in which to test their AI software—but that’s half the point; For people to do something useful and have fun at the same time. Our most vigorous efforts are currently going into WAVE, expanding the wider, networked context in which ZS operates, doing what we can to help out like-minded groups. We’ve been establishing connections with large networks, such as The Zeitgeist Movement and an emerging coalition of online transhumanist organizations. We live in extremely exciting times, with lots of rapid change both good and bad, and it looks like Zero State will soon get its chance to help people help each other in that brave new world. If you believe in the promise of technology, the importance of social justice, and the power of community building then feel free to jump in and join the fun!

Zoltan Istvan is an award-winning journalist, philosopher, and activist. You can find him on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Zoltan is also the author of the recently published #1 Philosophical bestseller novel The Transhumanist Wager. Available in ebook or paperback, the controversial novel is a revolutionary reading experience. You can check it out here

 

by Alice Dreger and Ellen K. Feder

[A 2014 article that details the questionable practices of modern medicine which both involves fraud and an overt application of eugenics rather than health care.  It is offered as a public service information source along with the caveat to beware of scientific studies which are usually wrong. . [Emphasis - DNI] - ED]

Newly available documents show conflicts of interest for the FDA ethicist who investigated a fetal drug experiment.  

Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New, now at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, is an internationally-recognized specialist in congenital adrenal hyperplasia, a genetic condition that can cause female fetuses to develop intersex (in-between male and female) genitals. For over a decade, Dr. New has encouraged pregnant women at risk of having a child with congenital adrenal hyperplasia to take the steroid dexamethasone starting as early as 3 weeks of pregnancy to try to prevent intersex development.

Dr. New has consistently described this extremely controversial off-label (i.e., not government-approved) use as safe and effective. In truth, there has never been a placebo-controlled trial of this use, and the only long-term prospective trial ever conducted resulted in so many “severe” adverse events that, in 2010, that study’s research team (a Swedish group) went to their ethics board to say they were halting the use altogether.

Dr. New’s aggressive “safe and effective” promotion of this fetal intervention—an intervention designed to cross the placenta and change fetal development—would be shocking enough. But we were shaken in late 2009 when we discovered that, even while she was direct-to-consumer advertising the intervention as having been “found safe for mother and child,” she was taking NIH grant money to study retrospectively whether it was safe and effective.

 In February of 2010, we along with thirty colleagues in bioethics and allied fields sent letters of concern to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) asking them to investigate the actions of Dr. New. At the FDA, the investigation was assigned to Robert “Skip” Nelson, a pediatric ethicist. Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information request suggest that Nelson proposed to OHRP that he handle the main part of the prenatal dexamethasone investigation for that agency as well. Ultimately the OHRP findings relied largely on a memo provided to them by Nelson as an FDA official.

While the federal investigation was ongoing, in May of 2010 the American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB) circulated a manuscript (in advance of publication, inviting open peer commentaries) attacking our letters of concern, saying they represented an instance of “unethical transgressive bioethics.”

At the time, we were not aware of conflicts of interest in the federal investigation or the AJOB article, because none were disclosed. Here is what we now know, including from material obtained just this week through the Freedom of Information Act:

First, neither the original AJOB manuscript (May 2010) nor the final published article (September 2010) included a conflict of interest statement from the authors. The lead author, Larry McCullough, failed to disclose that he held paid positions with the two medical schools implicated in the investigation (Mount Sinai and Cornell). The second author, Frank Chervenak, failed specifically to disclose that he was (and still is) Chair of Obstetrics and head of the Maternal-Fetal Medicine unit at the medical school where New “treated” over 600 pregnancies with prenatal dex.  Chervenak also failed to disclose that he served as “key personnel” on New’s NIH grant.

Responses to our Freedom of Information requests show that Larry McCullough gave the AJOB original manuscript to the federal investigators at OHRP prior to publication, in an attempt to undermine the claims in our complaints. No conflict of interest disclosures were attached to the manuscript. This suggests that OHRP personnel would have seen the McCullough and Chervenak criticisms of our request for an investigation, but would not have known of the authors’ conflicts of interest.

Second, it appears that Nelson did not disclose to his FDA or OHRP colleagues that he was a member of the editorial board of AJOB – the journal in which the criticisms were published. One might feel less concerned about this particular undisclosed conflict were it not for the fact that, like the AJOB target article, Nelson’s official FDA findings on prenatal dex misrepresented key facts, including whether the FDA had previously reviewed New’s use of this steroid on first-trimester fetuses.

Third, this week we have obtained additional material through our Freedom of Information request showing that Nelson was, in fact, developing an even deeper relationship with AJOB while he was conducting the prenatal dex investigation. At the very time Nelson was investigating our complaints, he was also negotiating to become editor-in-chief of a new AJOB journal, AJOB Primary Research (since renamed AJOB Empirical Bioethics).

A May 2010 email conversation between Nelson and others at the FDA shows that Nelson was to be compensated by AJOB not only with the editor-in-chief title, but also with $10,000 per year, for editorial assistance. In the email conversation about the new position with AJOB, Nelson never disclosed that the journal was being used to aggressively (dare we say “transgressively”?) undermine complaints he was investigating.

Curiously, Nelson’s FDA memo and the associated OHRP findings on prenatal dex were released on virtually the same day in September 2010 that AJOB published the McCullough and Chervenak “target article” and responses to it. The timing of this “coincidence” was openly celebrated by Glenn McGee, then editor-in-chief of AJOB: “With the release of the September issue of the Journal, both the FDA and OHRP have released letters responding to the complaints that are the subject of the Target Article…”

What might once have been thought fortuitous timing must now be examined through the lens of conflicts of interest, as we now know that, by September 2010, Nelson was working in titled and compensated positions for both the FDA and AJOB.

Fourth, in December 2010, AJOB published a “vindication” by Dr. New that consisted mostly of a long quote from Nelson’s FDA response to our letter. Consistent with the established pattern of non-disclosure, nowhere in conjunction with New’s “vindication” does one find disclosure of Nelson’s dual role as FDA investigator and key member of the AJOB editorial team.

We have repeatedly appealed to the editorial board of AJOB to add disclosures to all the dex-related publications. That has gotten us nowhere, except to force disclosure of who is on the AJOB conflict-of-interest committee. The committee includes Larry McCullough, specifically representing AJOB Empirical Bioethics, the journal given to Skip Nelson.

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Larry McCullough, one of the founders of “bioethics”, pop control, research using children, pro-human embryonic stem cell research, etc.:  https://www.google.com/#q=%22Larry+McCullough%22+%22bioethics%22

Frank Chervenak, M.D., ObGyn specialist in maternal and fetal medicine, pro-abortion and woman’s rights, anti-personhood for the unborn, pro-euthanasia, etc.: https://www.google.com/#q=%22Frank+Chervenak%22+%22bioethics%22+%22controversy%22

Glenn McGee, partner with bioethics founder Art Caplan, pro-“designer babies” and human cloning, implicated in conflict of interest in the Celltex corruption case, etc.:  https://www.google.com/#q=%22Glenn+McGee%22+%22bioethics%22

Skip Nelson, Senior Pediatric Ethicist at FDA, promotes research using children, etc.:  https://www.google.com/#q=%22Skip+Nelson%22+%22bioethics%22&start=10

See also “Charges of editorial misconduct at American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB), at: 

http://www.healthnewsreview.org/2011/06/charges-of-editorial-misconduct-at-american-journal-of-bioethics/.

For an extensive analysis and critique of “bioethics”, with extensive references, see my article, "What is 'bioethics'?" (June 3, 2000), UFL Proceedings of the Conference 2000, in Joseph W. Koterski (ed.), Life and Learning X:  Proceedings of the Tenth University Faculty For Life Conference (Washington, D.C.:  University Faculty For Life, 2002), pp. 1-84, at:

http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_36whatisbioethics01.html.  As a First Generationer in this “bioethics”, I hold one of the few Ph.D. concentrations in bioethics the field from the KIE and Dept. of Philosophy, Georgetown University (1991).

--  DNI]