Big Pharma bombshell: Judge finds Merck lied in patent trial, overturns $200-million verdict

Merck

The public already holds drug manufacturers in low esteem – and now they’ve got more fuel for their opinion. Federal Judge Beth Labson Freeman of San Jose last week found that Merck & Co. lied to a business partner and to the court itself. Freeman threw out a patent infringement judgment Merck had won against Gilead Sciences, and overturned a $200-million jury award.

This was a big deal, involving one of the most profitable drugs on the market today — Foster City, Calif.-based Gilead’s blockbuster Sovaldi treatment for the hepatitis C virus — and the world’s fourth-largest drug company Merck.

Merck’s misconduct includes misusing Pharmasset’s confidential information and lying under oath at deposition and trial.

It’s also an enormous black eye for Merck, whose activities the judge said consisted of “systematic and outrageous deception in conjunction with unethical business practices and litigation misconduct.”

But the case does more than raise questions about the integrity of a huge corporation. It’s a window into the extent to which the nation’s overworked patent inspectors can be misled by applicants backed by big corporate war chests in pursuit of billions of dollars in potential profits.

As Peter Little wrote: WHY do Australian Health Ministers blindly believe Merck is creating vaccines that are safe and effective, when yet again MERCK are found in court to be corrupt! “It’s also an enormous black eye for Merck, whose activities the judge said consisted of “systematic and outrageous deception in conjunction with unethical business practices and litigation misconduct.”

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-merck-gilead-20160608-snap-story.html

Gates Foundation Funded “Fact-Checker” (POLITIFACT) Censors GreenMedInfo on Facebook for Reposting Accurate Vaccine Meme

Vaccines Not Tested

A worthy read. I found it particularly telling how few surveys (4) the committee reviewed that found no link between vaccines and autism when there are many studies which have found that link. Even the CDC themselves conducted a study that found a link. Of course the CDC suppressed it and it took a whistleblower to expose that fact.

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gates-foundation-funded-fact-checker-politifact-censors-greenmedinfo-facebook-rep

Nuclear “coffin” may be leaking radioactive material into Pacific Ocean, U.N. chief says

Nuclear Coffin

Man, in his current state, cannot be trusted with nuclear power let alone nuclear weapons!

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres raised concerns Thursday that a concrete dome built last century to contain waste from atomic-bomb tests is leaking radioactive material into the Pacific. Speaking to students in Fiji, Guterres described the structure on Enewetak atoll in the Marshall Islands as “a kind of coffin” and said it was a legacy of Cold War-era nuclear tests in the Pacific.

“The Pacific was victimized in the past as we all know,” he said, referring to nuclear explosions carried out by the United States and France in the region. In the Marshalls, numerous islanders were forcibly evacuated from ancestral lands and resettled, while thousands more were exposed to radioactive fallout.

The island nation was ground zero for 67 American nuclear weapons tests from 1946-58 at Bikini and Enewetak atolls, when it was under U.S. administration. The tests included the 1954 “Bravo” hydrogen bomb, the most powerful ever detonated by the United States, about 1,000 times bigger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Guterres said Pacific islanders still needed help to deal with the fallout of the nuclear testing. “The consequences of these have been quite dramatic, in relation to health, in relation to the poisoning of waters in some areas,” he said.

“I’ve just been with the president of the Marshall Islands (Hilda Heine), who is very worried because there is a risk of leaking of radioactive materials that are contained in a kind of coffin in the area,” he said. The “coffin” is a concrete dome, built in the late 1970s on Runit island, part of Enewetak atoll, as a dumping ground for waste from the nuclear tests.

Radioactive soil and ash from the explosions was tipped into a crater and capped with a concrete dome 18 inches thick. However, it was only envisaged as a temporary fix and the bottom of the crater was never lined, leading to fears the waste is leaching into the Pacific.

Cracks have also developed in the concrete after decades of exposure and there are concerns it could break apart if hit by a tropical cyclone. Guterres did not directly address what should be done with the dome but said the Pacific’s nuclear history still needed to be addressed.

“A lot needs to be done in relation to the explosions that took place in French Polynesia and the Marshall Islands,” he said. “This is in relation to the health consequences, the impact on communities and other aspects.

“Of course there are questions of compensation and mechanisms to allow these impacts to be minimized.”

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/enewetak-atoll-dome-un-antonio-guterres-concerns-marshall-islands-structure-leaking-radioactive-material-pacific/

Ode to the Warriors of the Light

Here’s an acknowledgement to the warriors I know, interestingly enough. most of them women Mary Szental, Sheryl Pyers, Dyan Thomson, Irene Kondostanos, Karen Hadley, Elaine Wilhelm, Jeffrey Smith, Robert F Kennedy Jnr, Del Bigtree and Rohn Walker as well as the team at Moms Across America are the ones who come instantly to mind but there are many more who don’t…

May your strength attain new highs,
May your courage only grow,
May your wisdom ever rise,
May peace each night you know.

May the strategies you devise,
Permit others to hear your truth,
May your message cut through the lies,
To restore sanity and sooth.

May others spread your word,
So the pace of progress grows,
‘Til many like voices are heard,
In song, speech, poem and prose.

Until combined efforts free the many,
From invisible chains with which they’re bound,
‘Til we’ve a land of honey and plenty,
Where peace and love and harmony abound.

by Tom Grimshaw