Dr Michael Stebbins: The ways it could help “shape“ the debate about one of its chemical product. The firm proposed developing blue ribbon panels constructing a study to establish that DuPont’s chemical was safe and arranging the publication of papers; dispelling the alleged nexus between the company’s chemical and its alleged harmful effects.
Kirsten: Arranging the publication of papers.
Dr Michael Stebbins: Yeah.
Kirsten: That’s nice.
Dr Michael Stebbins: “We will harness the scientific intellectual capital of our company with one goal in mind – creating the outcome our client desires “- the 2003 letter stated.
Kirsten: Oh.
Dr Michael Stebbins: Unbelievable.
Kirsten: Oh my goodness!
Dr Michael Stebbins: Needless to say congress was a little bit miffed.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Dr Michael Stebbins: So indeed. So that one is just one of these things where you get a little bit queasy when you here about it.
Kirsten: It’s so completely blatant.
Justin: Yeah! It was so much nicer when it was kept in the smoky back rooms and …
Kirsten: (Laughing)
Justin: …you didn’t have any insight …
Kirsten: Know about it.
Justin: …into how evil our big corporations – and now we know it’s like it’s typical isn’t it? I mean are we really surprised?
Kirsten: (Laughing).
Dr Michael Stebbins: No.
Kirsten: Not really.
Justin: Okay. (Laughing).
Dr Michael Stebbins: Unfortunately, but this is one, there are lot of companies that do exactly this. But the problem here is not that they are coming out with a company’s position on this in trying to support the position but they’re trying to manufactures scientific data and really cherry pick blue ribbon panel to get a desired result.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: Yeah, that’s.
Dr Michael Stebbins: Not actually to truly evaluate the product.
Kirsten: Rather than.
Justin: That’s why I don’t
Dr Michael Stebbins: So I don’t have that.
Justin: Let’s line them up against the wall.
Kirsten: Rather than harnessing the power of the scientific method and the scientific community…
Dr Michael Stebbins: Right.
Kirsten: …to find out how safe something actually is, they’re just trying to get they’re just -it’s like the smoking industry.
Dr Michael Stebbins: Right. Now this doesn’t mean that this chemical is necessarily bad. There is some evidence that it could be …
Kirsten: I know.
Dr Michael Stebbins: …in laboratory animals like that. But this type of manipulation actually is what actually makes the company look bad – DuPont.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Dr Michael Stebbins: It makes them look terrible for hiring these guys. Anyway, this company is being investigated for this sort of practice and we talked about it in a number of times and but in this particular case, I think they got caught red handed with this particular letter.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Dr Michael Stebbins: And so now here’s another one I mean just a horrible story where …
Kirsten: Ah, thank you.
Dr Michael Stebbins: … for more than seven months, the nation’s top health agency, the Center for Disease Control has blocked the publication of an exhaustive federal study of environmental hazards in the eight great lakes states. Because it concerns potentially alarming information as evidenced by an elevated infant mortality and cancer rates.
Now there’s a-400 page study called “The Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances” in 26 US great lakes areas of concern.
Kirsten: Hmm, that is.
Dr Michael Stebbins: So it’s pretty clear of what it is?
Kirsten: Yeah.
Dr Michael Stebbins: So now it was actually commissioned on behalf of the International Joint Commission, which is an independent bilateral organization that advises the US and Canadian governments on the use of and quality of boundary borders between the two countries.
Now the study was originally scheduled to be released in July of 2007, so last year. And by the IJC and the CDC’s agency for toxic substances and disease registry.
However, the senate for public integrity got a hold of the study and it warned that more than 9 million people who lived in more than 2000 areas of concern, including a metropolitan areas of Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee may face elevated risk from being exposed dioxins, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury and six other hazardous pollution. The research found …
Kirsten: Mixed that with vodka and it’s my favorite cocktail.
Justin: (Laughing).
Dr Michael Stebbins: Oh my God, it’s so good.
Kirsten: (Laughing)
Dr Michael Stebbins: But you have to serve it in a high bowl.
Kirsten: That’s right. (Laughing).
Dr Michael Stebbins: Yeah.
Kirsten: Two ice cubes.
Dr Michael Stebbins: Exactly.
Kirsten: (Laughing).
Dr Michael Stebbins: So now researchers found low birth weight, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature birth and elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer and lung cancer in this region.
Kirsten: Oh.
Dr Michael Stebbins: So this is a huge study. Now, last July, just a couple of days before the study was going to be released, the CDC withdrew it. So …
Kirsten: Did they give any like real reasons as to why it would be withdrawn? Not enough …
Dr Michael Stebbins: They have not given …
Kirsten: Not enough peer review? Or …
Dr Michael Stebbins: Other that they want to review it further. Okay. But this is a study that has been on going for years and years and years. And just a couple days before they realized – maybe we should look at this more.
So Representative Bart Gordon of Tennessee, who is chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology in the house representatives complained about the release of the report and when he asked the CDC about it, he did not get an answer. So …
Kirsten: Huh.
Dr Michael Stebbins: So he wrote a letter to the CDC and they have not responded yet to this letter and so now they’re going to start investigation of that. So again we’re in the situation where science is being delayed and maybe …
Kirsten: For public policy.
Dr Michael Stebbins: …there really was good reason for this. But without answering a congressman’s request on this and telling him: “Oh! Well, here’s the obvious reason why we want to do that”.
Kirsten: There’s just silence and …
Dr Michael Stebbins: And you answer with silence and you create the impression that there is something wrong there and that’s real problem. So …
Kirsten: And especially in an organization like the CDC that has – there’s so much that they are in charge of like controlling in terms of the public health. It’s like …
Dr Michael Stebbins: Now this is a …
Kirsten: Transparency is …
Dr Michael Stebbins: I can understand the desire if this was not a conclusive study. Their desire to make sure that the results are all clean because it sounds like the result are explosive.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Dr Michael Stebbins: And it’s the kind of thing that that really will create a stir in this region and certainly amongst environmental groups. They’re going to have a fit over this. And of course it’s an international issue because this is the boundary borders between Canada and the United States that we are talking about.
So it affects Canadian provinces too. So it could wind up to being a really big issue but again we wind up with at the very least they owe a congressman who asked about this, an explanation of why they delayed it?
Kirsten: Yeah.
Dr Michael Stebbins: And because it looks like again shenanigans.
Kirsten: Hmm.
Dr Michael Stebbins: And you know we’re just seen way too many cases of this in this administration and so they’re immediately put under suspicion whenever anything like this happens even if it’s done for the right reason.
Justin: Hmm.
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: (Laughing).
Kirsten: Right. And we don’t know that because they haven’t given an explanation.
Dr Michael Stebbins: Exactly.
Justin: Yeah, it’s just – let me see your hands!
Dr Michael Stebbins: (Laughing).
Kirsten: (Laughing).
Justin: No I need to see your hands and don’t know! Let me okay! So you got nothing. All right boy. OK! I just, I just needed to see him.
Kirsten: (Laughing).
Dr Michael Stebbins: (Laughing).
Kirsten: Exactly. Oh!
Dr Michael Stebbins: So.
Kirsten: What news this week?
Dr Michael Stebbins: A million and
Kirsten: This is just like
Dr Michael Stebbins: The latest
Kirsten: My jaw is open.
Dr Michael Stebbins: The latest one that it though has nothing to do with Washington necessarily. But it impacts the Food and Drug Administration where an inappropriate – The New Scientist has an new article out where the inappropriate analysis of clinical trial data by researchers like GlaxoSmithKline seems to have obscured suicide risks associated with one of their big drugs Paxil.
Justin: Oh.
Kirsten: Hmm.
Dr Michael Stebbins: And also under the name (Deroxat) but this drug has been associated with suicide now but as it turns out at this didn’t come out until 2006. But now they’re saying that US lawyers are seeking damages and they are suggesting that the company had trial data demonstrating an eight fold increase in suicide risk as early as 1989.
Justin: Wow.
Dr Michael Stebbins: So yeah, so the worst state was virtually impossible that Glaxo simply misunderstood the data because it was an eight-fold increase. So we’re going to find out what’s going on there. That’s actually going to court in Los Angeles and we’ll see what happens.
Justin: That’s it!
Dr Michael Stebbins: And there’s a certainly there’s going to be and we are going to see more congressional hearing on this.
Kirsten: Yeah, absolutely.
Justin: That’s one thing that’s really weird to me, is I’ve never understood the suicide drug connection. Like how? Suicide just seems like such a – I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like a mental condition to me. It seems like a …?
Kirsten: Ah, well
Justin: …decision that you would have to make at some point.
Dr Michael Stebbins: Well, except that that decision …
Kirsten: What is it?
Dr Michael Stebbins: …there is an underlying mental state that makes you come to that decision.
Justin: Really? Like
Kirsten: (Laughing).
Dr Michael Stebbins: Probably.
Justin: No, no, no I mean that might be – it’s kind of like obvious, but it just seems to me like you could be completely miserable and whatever. But like how does it …? It just seems like a very specific compunction. It almost seems to me like if the drug made you go onto the roof and howl at the moon. That would be like another sort of symptom that would make about as much sense as somebody committing suicide from a state of mind. That to me, but that’s I guess is just because I don’t get it.
Dr Michael Stebbins: Now Glaxo does have an explanation for this. Whereas some of suicides from people who washed out of the original studies were not included in it. And so people who were in the placebo group from the original studies were not included and they say that actually obscures the fact that that there’s no association between the two.
And of course if you’re treating people for depression, there’s a higher likelihood that they are going to be a …
Kirsten: Suicidal.
Dr Michael Stebbins: … they’re going to commit suicide.
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: Anyway the some.
Dr Michael Stebbins: Or at least try to and so
Justin: That’s probably what …
Dr Michael Stebbins: And so the jury is still out literally on this and we’ll find out what’s going on when that data comes to light though it could be more bad news for Glaxo.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: It seems like that something they’d want to fix, because it seems like they are losing their client base that way.
Kirsten: (Laughing).
Justin: You know.
Kirsten: (Laughing). They will lose a lot more than just their client base if they don’t fix it.
Justin: Oh yes, there is that too.
Dr Michael Stebbins: Yeah.
Kirsten: Thank you so much for joining us this morning Michael.
Dr Michael Stebbins: Thank you guys very much.
Kirsten: Thank you for all the “Weird from the Washington”.
Justin: Once again.
Dr Michael Stebbins: Oh! And tell everyone to visit the Scientists and Engineers for America and the SHARP network.
Justin: Well, I think you just did.
Kirsten: You just did.
Justin: I think you just did.
Kirsten: (Laughing).
Dr Michael Stebbins: Oh! There you go.
Justin: (Laughing).
Kirsten: (Laughing). There you go
Dr Michael Stebbins: It just falls in there sometimes.
Justin: (Laughing).
Kirsten: (Laughing). Have a great couple of weeks. Bye!
Dr Michael Stebbins: Thank you! Bye!
Justin: That was Dr. Michael Stebbins.
(Music)
Justin: From Washington
Kirsten: Weird from Washington and Dr. Michael Stebbins always brings us the interesting news out of D.C. related to the science world. I have a really fun little quickie here. Let say, so if, have you heard of Gogol Bordello?
Justin: Hmm.
Kirsten: Yeah, Start Wearing Purple.
Justin: Mm.
Kirsten: I’m going to see if this works.
Justin: Purples is like the slow color.
(Music: Start wearing purple)
Kirsten: The reason I’m bringing that song up, is that there is a study this week published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that suggests that the eating of purple pigments might help prevent obesity.
So not just eating fruits that are purplely pigmented. Purple pigments have a particular compounding called anthocyanines. They are a color compound but that seem to have – when concentrated and given to mice, an anti-obesity effect.
Justin: Hmm.
Kirsten: Yeah, mice that were given the anthocyanine compound in a very, very highly purified state actually lost weight. They were fed a high fat diet for 8 weeks and lost weight.
Justin: Yes, that’s right.
Kirsten: As compared to a mice that did not. So …
Justin: What’s purple food?
Kirsten: I don’t know.
Justin: What? We got beats?
Kirsten: (Singing) Start wearing purple. Eating purple.
Justin: Beets, grape, jelly like what’s purple food?
Kirsten: Blueberry?
Justin: Blueberries. Those are purple. They are not blue for sure.
Kirsten: Yup. They are not blue.
Justin: Blueberries
Kirsten: Purplely blueberry, blackberries …
Justin: Poison?
Kirsten: Purple corn, grapes skins, maybe purple potatoes. But they did find that (Laughing).
Justin: It’s the purple diet.
Kirsten: The purple diet.
Justin: The big fat.
Kirsten: That’s right.
Justin: Okay.
Kirsten: But it wasn’t the foods themselves. It was the very purified anthocyanine compound that actually led to the weight loss so.
Justin: Can we get that in pill form yet?
Kirsten: Maybe someday soon on a shelf near you.
Justin: Hey! Maybe we could be like – you could like …
Kirsten: (Singing) Start eating purple, eating purple.
Justin: And if you call in right now.
Kirsten: (Laughing).
Justin: If you call in right now I mean give you card on the phone and dial right now. We’ll send you a signed autograph by Liz for remember them. What was it?
Kirsten: Anthocyanine.
Justin: Anthocyanine.
Kirsten: Anthocyanine. Whatever, whatever emphasis you put on whichever syllable.
Justin: Hmm.
Kirsten: That’s it for our show today.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Thank you so much for listening everybody. This is been This Week in Science. We will be back next week with more great science for you.
Justin: And if you learned anything from the today’s show remember.
Kirsten: It is all in head.