Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Who's telling the truth, the prosecutors or the defense?

"With all the witnesses that came forth that had immunity, you would have thought there'd be somebody that would have dropped a bomb or had the smoking gun..."

That's what a juror named Bruce said. He might not have as much experience as I do with perjury committed by the people you'd least expect it from. What good is immunity when you could still lose your job if you tell the truth? And be harmed in other, more subtle ways?

Whistleblowers are fired all the time, even though it's against the law.

On the other hand, it's clear (the Don Seligman case, for example) that US prosecutors go after innocent people for political reasons.

Why doesn't the legal profession care about the disreputable state of the American justice system?


Could the reason be money?



Here's a story from WTAE TV

Most Wecht Jurors Wanted To Acquit, Don't Favor 2nd Trial
'I'd Do Anything' To Stop A New Trial, Says One Jury Member

April 29, 2008

PITTSBURGH -- Five jurors in the federal mistrial of former Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht said the jury favored acquitting Wecht on the majority of the 41 fraud and theft counts against him.

"With all the witnesses that came forth that had immunity, you would have thought there'd be somebody that would have dropped a bomb or had the smoking gun," said a juror identified only as Bruce.

Video: Wecht Jurors Speak Out


The 11-member jury deadlocked in federal court in Pittsburgh earlier this month, and U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab scheduled a new trial on the same charges to begin May 27.

At a news conference Monday in the city's Summer Hill section, five of the jurors said they had been unable to find any criminal intent or scheme and they do not believe Wecht should be retried.

"I definitely feel it's a waste of taxpayers' money," said the jury foreman, identified as Bob. "I don't understand how they can find a juror that would convict him, to have 12 people be unanimous."

At one point, the jury was unanimous for a not guilty verdict on three counts of mail fraud for allegedly overbilling area district attorneys for mileage expenses, the jurors said.

By the time they deadlocked, the jury favored acquitting Wecht 8-3 on those counts and 24 more wire fraud charges.

The jurors said they favored convicting Wecht, 6-5, on 14 wire fraud and theft counts -- but that count would have been 6-6 if not for one member of their panel being excused for illness.

"I felt strongly that the prosecution did not present a strong enough case that there was a plan or a scheme or intent to defraud," a juror named Kimberly said.

Wecht is charged with mostly mail and wire fraud counts for allegedly having his county employees send invoices and other correspondence relating to his private practice from the coroner's office on county time.

Some jurors said they think the prosecution of Wecht is politically driven -- a claim his defense team has repeatedly made in public.

"I feel that there definitely could be some political motivations behind what's happening with Dr. Wecht," Kimberly said.

"Definitely politics, now that it's all said and done," Bob said. "Not so much that I thought that during the trial, but especially after you think about how quickly (prosecutor Gene) Stallings got up and said, 'We're retrying him' -- how quickly they had a date set."

"I don't know if it's politically motivated or not, but it seemed to me that the motivations were certainly less than pure. There was something behind it other than seeking justice," a juror named Linda said.

Jurors were also surprised that the government pressed ahead with announcing a second trial before hearing from them.

"I would do anything that it took if I could have an effect on there not being a future trial," Linda said. "I just feel that it would be punitive, that there's not a chance that another jury would find differently than we did."

The jurors said they're speaking out because they don't think the government will ever get the unanimous vote necessary to convict Wecht.

"We truly did try," said a juror named Dawn. "We went though count by count by count, just went through that barrage of paper, and it just was not there."

Wecht's defense team is asking to have Schwab removed from this case, alleging he's biased for the prosecution.

"The defense was not able to get a lot of information out to us," Dawn said. "A lot of it was stopped, and I just feel that he somewhat sided with the government."

U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan's office declined to comment on the jurors' remarks Monday.


http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/16036614/detail.html

How did artificial blood get approved by the FDA?

By Rob Stein
Washington Post
April 29, 2008

A new analysis concludes that the Food and Drug Administration approved experiments with artificial blood substitutes even after studies showed that the controversial products posed a clear risk of causing heart attacks and death.


SUBSTITUTES CALLED TOO RISKY: FDA Faulted for Approving Studies of Artificial Blood
BENEFITS, DANGERS
The review of combined data from more than 3,711 patients who participated in 16 studies testing five different types of artificial blood, released yesterday, found that the products nearly tripled the risk of heart attacks and boosted the chances of dying by 30 percent.

Based on the findings, the researchers questioned why the FDA allowed additional testing of the products to go forward and why the agency is considering letting yet another study proceed.

"It's hard to understand," said Charles Natanson, a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health who led the analysis, which was released early by the Journal of the American Medical Association so the data could be presented at an FDA meeting on the subject. "They already had data that these products could cause heart attacks and evidence that they could kill."

An FDA official defended the agency, saying it had carefully weighed the risks and benefits of each study individually and had convened this week's two-day meeting to address the very concerns raised by the analysis.

"FDA independently was aware of essentially the same concerns that have been raised, and indeed that is the reason we have convened this scientific workshop and is the reason why we have made careful decisions about allowing some studies to proceed and others not to proceed," said Jay S. Epstein, director of the Office of Blood Research and Review. "Our point of view is that FDA has been highly vigilant in its oversight."

An artificial blood substitute that has a long shelf life and does not need refrigeration could save untold lives by providing an alternative to trauma patients in emergencies, especially in rural areas and in combat settings.

But attempts to develop such products have been marred by repeated failures and fraught with controversy, in part because some products have been studied under rules allowing researchers to administer them without obtaining consent from individual patients. Such trials were permitted based on the argument that there was no alternative because trauma patients are often unconscious and time is often too limited to obtain consent from a family member.

Natanson conducted the analysis after becoming concerned about the consistent risks emerging from studies of various versions of products known as hemoglobin-based blood substitutes. After the Washington-based consumer group Public Citizen sued the FDA to gain access to data submitted to the agency, Natanson and colleagues at NIH and Public Citizen pooled data from studies conducted between 1998 and 2007.

"It didn't matter what type of patient you studied. There was no one product that was responsible for this. It was similar regardless of the patient population studied, the company that manufactured the product, whether the study was published or unpublished, or the chemical characteristics of the individual products," Natanson said. "The effect was robust."

Based on the available data, Natanson and his colleagues said, the FDA could have been aware of the risk as early as 2000.

"Since this time they did five more trials," he said, including a 2004 study involving 714 patients in which 11 patients receiving an artificial blood had heart attacks and 47 patients died.

The earlier findings should have been disclosed so that doctors at hospitals considering whether to participate in the studies would be better informed about the potential risks.

"Keeping data from being public represents real risks to patients," Natanson said. "If secret science is allowed, other companies can't build on the successes and failures and [outside reviewers] won't be able to fully assess the risk."

But Epstein said the FDA did block some studies from proceeding and allowed them to proceed only when officials were satisfied that the potential benefits outweighed the risks.

"We have viewed each product in its own right. We have needed to consider the extent to which different products and different clinical circumstances warranted an independent assessment of the relative risks and benefits. We have done that in every case," Epstein said.

Although none of the products have been approved in the United States, at least one has been approved in South Africa. Five studies are ongoing in eight other countries, and the FDA is considering a request by the Navy to conduct another study of Hemopure, an artificial blood product made by Biopure Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., on 334 trauma patients.

Biopure condemned the analysis as fundamentally flawed.

"There are vast differences among these products that make any pooling of data flawed, especially across different clinical experiences," A.G. Greenburg, the company's vice president of medical affairs, said in an e-mail. "Moreover, the analysis of Biopure's experience, based on pooling of heterogeneous trials, we believe to be significantly flawed as it fails to meet the homogeneity criteria of meta-analysis, thus invalidating the conclusions."

But a former Biopure official said yesterday that he agreed with the analysis.

"The risk appears to be a class risk. It appears to be present for all products," said William D. Hoffman, director of the cardiac intensive-care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who was Biopure's medical director and chief medical officer from 1998 to 2000. "They should all be on hold until they figure out what is causing the toxicity."

Hoffman said he tried to get the company to halt an earlier study when he became concerned about the product's safety.

"I went to the leadership at the company at the time and was outvoted," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/28/ST2008042802318.html