Ella Does Squamish

For some reason blogsome’s spaminator interpreted this comment as spam whereas it is an excellent comment.  FYI.

Certainly one of THE fairest and one of the more
comprehensive posts on the Provenge saga I\’ve read on the net. Thank
You! for getting most all of this story as you wrote it
right.

Couple comments…

1. While \"reported\" that Hussain of University of
Michigan and Scher of Sloan Kettering allegedly received \"death
threats\", there has been NO REPORTS that:
a. a police report has been filed which, of course, would
bring the emailer to justice is short order as tracking
emails over the net is child\’s play to law enforcement

b. The alleged \"death threats\" have not been made public
nor have they been reported to be have seen by anyone other
than the good doctors. Reports only state what the good
doctors say… without proof!

Where are these threats and what do they say?

3. As to the \"threat\" wishing cancer on the male \"The
Cancer Letter\" staff… this NON-peer reviewed, rumor
publication has a staff of TWO… Paul Goldberg and his wife
which is published out of their Washington DC home\’s basement.
  Hardly a reputable or mainstream cancer
publication–especially having no peer review of their OPINIONS.

3. As noted in the above comment/article, Howard Isador
Scher of Sloan Kettering is on the Board of Directors of the
hospital as well as an Executive of that institution. In
those capacities, he surely must makes decisions at Sloan
Kettering regarding their business and financial matters as
well as admininstering to prostate cancer patients.

Those positions are NOT part of the below 17 Conflicts of
Interest found on the internet involving Scher.

Scher reported only 3 COI\’s to the FDA per his filing in
late February available at the FDA website which appears to
be composed of ownership of 1 stock and 2 competing
industry interest.

Internet research shows the following for Scher thus far
and please particularly note #1 and #17:

1. NOVACEA: grants & research support; STUDY CHAIR of
DN-101; Direct competitor to Provenge

2. GPB BIOTECH: financial conflict of interest per Scher in
MedPage

3. PHARMION: financial conflict of interest per Scher in
MedPage

4. SANOFI-AVENTIS: grants & research support

5. BRISTOL MYERS SQUIBB: consultant, grants & research

6. MILLENNIUM PHARMCEUTICALS: grant of research support

7. COUGAR BIOTECHNOLOGY: principal investigator; advisory
board;

8. INNOVIVE PHARMACEUTICALS: principal investigator

9. INFINITY PHARMACEUTICALS: principal investigator

10. BIOGEN-IDEC: jointly held stock with spouse

11. PFIZER: jointly held stock with spouse

12. GENTA: scientific advisory board (as of March 6, 2007;
since removed from web, but cached)

13. CONFOMA THERAPEUTICS: scientific advisory board

14. DEPARTMENT of DEFENSE: Principal Investigator PC
Clinical Trials-P1 and P2

15. AMBRILIA BIOPHARMA INC: Principal Investigator PCK3145,
Phase I/II

16. MEDIVATION, INC: principal investigator MDV3100

17. PROQUEST INVESTMENTS: consultant, scientific advisory
board; Limited Partner FINANCIAL interest

There appears to be a significant and disturbing difference
between his 3 disclosures to the FDA and the alleged 17
COI\’s found so far on the internet. It seems
incomprehensible for someone with the training and education Scher has to
\"forget\" so many apparent COIs… that is simply beyond
all reasonableness and suggests intentional dishonesty or
deceit.

Even more disturbing is the FDA\’s Office of Inspector
General and others at the FDA to whom this information has been
supplied and their apparent failure to investigate these
charges that Scher has more COI\’s than he disclosed to
them. When such information is provided and such allegations of
potential federal law violation is involved, any ordinary
citizen has the right to expect our government to
investigate such allegations timely and thoroughly.

As a \"temporary government employee\" at the FDA, he is
obligated, under Federal law, to provide full and complete
disclosure. If he didn\’t, he may have the potential for
liability for law violation(s) as well as for providing false
data to the FDA under which he secured a waiver in order to
participate on the Provenge AC meeting March 29th.

Hope that you\’ll look further into these alleged Conflicts
of Interest; it gives all the indications of a very foul
stench and suggests illegality and corruption.

Those wanting to help cancer patients can check at the CARE
TO LIVE website to see what contributions they can make or
to check on the status of the lawsuit against the FDA in
seeking to secure faster access to potentially life-saving
or life-extending cancer treatments.

… and remember, 83 men die needlessly each day from
prostate cancer. Those totals are over 11,000 men since May 9th,
2007. Compare that to the Iraq War casualties of some
3,800 men since March 2003… quite a difference, yet it is
disgusting to see the loss of so many American men in both
cases.

Please help prostate cancer victims!!!