Ethics: Government and Science

Gerrymandering Census, Ransomeware, seafood traceability, Pfizer Enbrel Alzheimer, Music linked to suicide

GOP Paid Millions to Gerrymandering Expert Behind Census Citizenship Question

This isn’t getting enough attention: The GOP paid millions to the gerrymandering expert behind the census citizenship question

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/06/gop-paid-millions-to-gerrymandering-expert-behind-census-citizenship-question/

Tom Hofeller wasn’t just an outsider who happened to push a narrative identical to the Trump administration’s.

Last week brought a bombshell revelation in the fight over a controversial question about citizenship status on the 2020 census: Despite the Trump administration’s insistence that it wants to add the question for better voting rights enforcement rather than political gain, key wording in its legal rationale matches memos written by Tom Hofeller, a Republican gerrymandering expert. Hofeller, who died last summer, wrote that if the 2020 census asked about the citizenship status of respondents, it “would clearly be a disadvantage to the Democrats” and “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.”

Republican Party financial filings with federal regulators add a twist to this backstory: The party’s main political apparatus paid Hofeller more than $2 million for his work. That suggests that Hofeller’s memos weren’t simply independent advocacy for a pet issue, but that he and his work were deeply embedded in the heart of the GOP’s strategic operations.

According to Republican National Committee filings with the Federal Election Commission, from June 2009 until just weeks before his death last August, the GOP’s main political apparatus paid Hofeller just over $2 million for “legal and compliance” work. In fact, from Trump’s inauguration until July 2018, Hofeller was paid $422,000, in what appear to be regular monthly payments of $22,247.

Pennsylvania Senate Democrats paid $700,000 to recover from ransomware attack https://www.zdnet.com/article/pennsylvania-senate-democrats-paid-700000-to-recover-from-ransomware-attack/

Steven Aftergood: Pentagon Cancels Contract for JASON Advisory Panel
https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2019/04/pentagon-jason/

Petya cyber industry loss passes $3bn driven by Merck & silent cyber: PCS – Reinsurance News
https://www.reinsurancene.ws/petya-cyber-industry-loss-passes-3bn-driven-by-merck-silent-cyber-pcs/

ETHICS? ? ? cause they won’t be making any money off of it
Pfizer MADE $2.1 billion in 2018, FROM rheumatoid arthritis therapy Enbrel now faces generic competition. A clinical trial on thousands of patients, which they estimated would cost a measly $80 million but because going off patent so they laid off 300 employees.  Now pushing Xeljanz patent expires in 2025 in the United States and 2028 in Europe. “
https://www.ohio.com/zz/news/20190604/pfizer-had-clues-its-blockbuster-drug-could-prevent-alzheimers-but-kept-it-secret

ETHICS ??  Pfizer also should at least have published its data, making the findings broadly available to researchers. “Of course they should. Why not?’’ said Rudolph E. Tanzi, (617) 726-6845 a leading Alzheimer’s researcher and professor at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. “It would benefit the scientific community to have that data out there,’’ said Keenan Walker, Ph.D. an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins who is studying how inflammation contributes to Alzheimer’s. “Whether it was positive data or negative data, it gives us more information to make better informed decisions.’’ Find his research here https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.15470

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/pfizer-had-clues-its-blockbuster-drug-could-prevent-alzheimers-why-didnt-it-tell-the-world/2019/06/04/9092e08a-7a61-11e9-8bb7-0fc796cf2ec0_story.html

Science

2018 MUSIC  Young heavy metal fans five times more likely to self-harm or attempt suicide  but we all knew this in 1997 !! !! !! !! !!