Titled:      Human guinea pig 'in coma for a year'

As we read of things going wrong on another medical trial, it is time to consider the methods and motives behind the use of human volunteers for medical testing. Drug development is a costly and time-consuming affair and this is often used as a defense for the cost of drugs when they reach the consumer.

Pharma spend many years sifting through existing compounds and creating new chemicals to search for likely candidates. This is followed by lab testing and further study to weed out the most promising candidates. The next step is usually animal testing, which is conducted under great secrecy and security and finally human trials. These come in two flavors: firstly, tests to see which level of dose is safe to administer, which is done by giving increasingly higher doses to healthy volunteers until adverse side effects are seen. Secondly, it is given to those volunteers with the targeted disease or condition, to see how effective a cure or treatment it is.

With increasing pressure to reduce animal testing and political moves to reduce the costs of drugs, it is more likely, not less, that drugs will be tested on humans earlier in the process than traditionally done, despite careful oversight.

In this case everything looked great up until the time human dose testing began:

"Now we're being told that Ryan might be in this coma for six to 12 months. He can't even breathe on his own."

Yesterday it was reported his head had ballooned immediately after being given the drug and his limbs turned purple.

The previously healthy men had volunteered to test a drug designed to treat rheumatoid arthritis, leukaemia and multiple sclerosis.

Dr Suntharalingam, clinical director of intensive care, said: "There is an inflammatory process going on that seems to have been triggered by something."

I would guess that "something" that caused his head to balloon and body to turn purple would be closely linked to the administration of an experimental drug?

We need more treatments, we need more volunteers and we need the best testing procedures available to make sure drugs are safe and effective.

Putting undue pressure on drug companies is not going to make it any easier.

Titled:   Does the Census Bureau go too far?

SayUncle brings up the American Community Survey. Every year, one in forty households are asked to answer a long series of questions, concering a myriad of topics as diverse as "What time do you leave for work in the morning" to the amount you pay for your mortgage each month. 

You can see the 2005 survey here.

The same law that protects the confidentiality of your answers requires that you provide the information asked in this survey to the best of your knowledge.

The GAO published a paper investigating the Legal Authority for the ACS and finds in the conclusion:

For the reasons set forth above, the Bureau has authority under 13 U.S.C. §§ 141 and 193 to conduct the American Community Survey.  The Bureau also has authority to require responses from the public to this survey.  

It does however note the following:

While Census clearly has authority to conduct the ACS, we found no public laws, committee reports, or other congressional actions in which Congress has required the Bureau to develop and implement the ACS. 

So this would seem to be an example of unneccesary prying, though legal, at the behest of unelected and unanswerable bureaucrats. Please note that refusing to answer carries a fine of $100 and that for pretending to be an Eskimo and other false information is $500.

Titled:   Judge lets 6,000-square-foot garage stand

Paul Piscopo's garage covers 6,000 square feet and has room for 28 full-sized trucks.

It seems that his neighbors weren't too chuffed to see what he had built in his yard.

Several of Piscopo's neighbors contended the 150-foot-long, 60-foot-wide, 20-foot-tall corrugated sheet metal building - which they dubbed the "Monster Garage" - has hurt their property values and ruined the residential feel of their sedate neighborhood.

Maybe they would have prefered vehicles all over his lawn?

... Oakland County Circuit Judge Michael Warren reversed a decision by the Troy Board of Zoning Appeals demanding the garage be reduced in size or torn down.

The court ruled that a garage of this scale was allowed under the Troy zoning ordinance as it and the house didn't cover more than 30% of the lot and was far enough from the boundaries.

 Now all he has to be worried about now is eminent domain abuse.

Titled:    More Eminent Domain Thievery

SayUncle points to a worrying article of eminent domain abuse. It seems the Port of Houston is taking someone's land that has been in his family for a hundred years for less than a cent an acre.

The guy concerned is not a speculator or some wealthy investor. The land had been in his family over 100 years. But even if he'd just bought it the week before, he should be entitled to more than a fair price, to make up for the fact that the state is taking it at the point of a gun, whether he wants to sell or not, and his expenses of fighting the condemnation, which he did not ask for, and fairly evaluating the land should rightly fall on those initiating the suit. Last I checked, it wasn't a crime to own land. Even felons and illegal immigrants and foreign nationals who never set foot in our country are permitted to do so. Why are we punishing our own citizens?

Read the rest at Searchlight Crusade while you still have a house to live in.

Titled:    Americans Okay With Current Balance Between National Security and Individual Liberty

Americans are generally comfortable with the current balance between national security concerns and individual liberties. Nearly a third of the respondents in a Rasmussen Reports survey (32%) say that our legal system worries too much about individual rights at the expense of national security. A similar number (29%) say there is too much concern for national security at the expense of individual liberties. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say that the current balance is about right.

Titled: NHS could refuse patients who will not mend ways

Patients who refuse to change their unhealthy lifestyles could be refused medical treatment, under proposals from the Government's NHS watchdog.

The controversial suggestion from the National Institute of Healthcare and Clinical Excellence would mean that a smoker in need of heart surgery might be denied the operation unless he or she promised to give up the habit.

The proposal is contained in a document which sets out for the first time the social values that should underpin decisions by the institute on which treatments to provide on the NHS.

It says all patients should be treated equally regardless of their age or social responsibilities and rules out discrimination on the grounds of gender, race or socio-economic status.

The only exception should be where a patient's age might affect the chances of success of the treatment. "Health should not be valued more highly in some age groups rather than others," it says. On self inflicted illness - that caused by "unhealthy lifestyles", such as casual sex, smoking, drinking or dangerous sports - it rejects the idea of "deservedness" in deciding who should receive treatment and says it would be impossible in many cases to determine which illnesses were self-inflicted.

It adds: "If the self-inflicted causes of the condition influence the likely outcome ... of an intervention, it may be appropriate to take this into account." A spokesman admitted there was a "grey area" between denying treatment on clinical grounds, because a patient might not benefit from it, and "blackmailing" them to change their behaviour in line with medically accepted health norms.

Let this serve as a warning for Americans. This is what national health care will get us. If or when it is put into place it will not take very long for the bureaucratic bean counters to determine that it is certain life styles that are driving up the costs of health care. Therefore anyone who doesn't live up to their standards of good health will be refused or forced to pay a very high premium. Some of you may be OK with that but I'm not. Those of us who take personal responsibility seriously better be able to opt out and have the option to make our own medical choices. And don't even get me started on the huge cost to taxpayers such a system will be.