… [Jonathan] Leo had first notified JAMA of problems with the study, but had heard nothing from the editors for several months. So he decided to go public. The editors said that on the day Leo posted on the Web site, JAMA was six days away from publishing a letter and detailed correction about the study. In other words, they say Leo was right, but he should have been more patient.

JAMA, you’re not looking good here.

Leo says he uncovered the conflict in a simple Google search, the kind that anyone, say, at JAMA could do in a few minutes. He wonders why JAMA took so long to confirm the information.

Good question….

Background here.

… With Bryant Gumbel interviewed me yesterday about the Florida State scandal.

In the works for UD: Color commentary at the next Auburn v. Alabama game.

From an interview with Michael Ignatieff way back when.

“… [M]y own writing isn’t plain enough yet and isn’t transparent enough yet. There’s too much kind of straining and pretending to be a writer in it. I love writing where it just feels so completely natural. So that makes me a great fan of Richard Ford and Raymond Carver and that school. Very, very fond of Don DeLillo.”

DeLillo recently won the Common Wealth Award.

… Full Professor?

Subpoena.

… will now investigate, via a special committee, how it came to appoint a couple of bullies to edit its journal.

A professor at [Turkey’s] Antalya Akdeniz University was fined 100 Turkish Liras yesterday by the university for whistling a traditional folk song in the faculty corridors.

Professor Orhan Kuruüzüm, an academic in the management and economics faculty, was accused of “whistling in the corridor while holding a tea glass” and “continuing to whistle until he entered his room” earlier this month. The deputy dean of the faculty, Professor Şafak Aksoy, filed the complaint. A professor from the agriculture faculty assessed the complaint and suggested a “warning” as a punishment for Kuruüzüm’s conduct.

The dean of the faculty of management and economics, Professor İsrafil Kurtcephe, argued the punishment was too light for the act, increasing to a fine of 100 Turkish liras.

Kuruüzüm’s lawyer Mustafa Necati Şahiner said his client faced persecution by the faculty, arguing that the faculty management’s aim was to create the environment where they could fire him. The fine is the fourth such punishment the 15-year academic has faced since Professor İsrafil Kurtcephe took over as the dean of the faculty in November. The first inquiry focused on claims that Kuruüzüm had called Kurtcephe “worthless” and “appointed from the top.”

In addition to the whistling charge, Kuruüzüm has been accused of “untoward acts in the faculty building and at official meetings,” “defiance” and “failure to respond to questions by the deputy dean.” When the inquiry faced by Kuruüzüm first made the headlines earlier this month, many in the province of Bolu were offended because the folk song whistled by the professor originated from there. The tune Kuruüzüm whistled was a traditional song called “Halimem.” Güllü Yaman, the branch chief of the Bolu Education Personnel Union, or Eğitim-Sen, at the time condemned the inquiry against Kuruüzüm, calling it “politically motivated.” Kuruüzüm has appealed against the previous three penalties at local courts and is expected to do the same again.

… makes contact with Morrissey at his Philadelphia concert. The photo ran in the Philadelphia City Paper.

UD‘s impressed.

A man of principle.

… with Paul Thacker, a Charles Grassley staffer.

They ate at Two Quail, a place UD used to go to quite a lot when she lived on Capitol Hill, and which now seems to have gone out of business.

Tufts University invited Senator Grassley to speak at a conference there on conflict of interest, and because he wasn’t able to attend, he suggested to Tufts that Thacker, a specialist on the matter, attend in his place. For reasons that remain obscure, Tufts said no to Thacker.

One of the conference organizers has pulled out, in protest.

… Sheldon Krimsky, an environmental-policy professor at Tufts who is co-chairman of the university’s Committee on Ethics…. wrote [in an email message] that he had recused himself after feeling his role as organizer had been “compromised,” and the university’s commitment to academic freedom diminished, by the refusal of Tufts administrators to accept Mr. Thacker’s presence.

Bravo, Krimsky. Just because some of what Thacker says at the conference will embarrass your university doesn’t mean university officials should bar speakers and shut down discourse. Major black mark for Tufts. If I were Grassley, I’d take another look at my schedule and figure out some way of attending this conference.

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Update: An insider’s account, from the excellent Carlat Psychiatry Blog.

… a powerful writer, gets to the core of a complex situation. This is from today’s San Francisco Chronicle:

… Virtually all researchers say they are not influenced by drug company money. Doctors rarely out-and-out lie about their research, but spin influences how a study is set up, its statistical analysis and interpretation. Research on drug studies repeatedly shows that drug trial results are tilted toward a positive description of the drug’s effects when the research is funded by a drug company rather than the government or an independent agency.

Big Pharma money is most powerful when promoting [Joseph] Biederman‘s research and point of view over competing models. Drug companies copy and mail his important papers on psychiatric drugs to every American physician working with children. A member of the Biederman team is at every important meeting on children’s psychiatric issues and medical education. Their presence, and often the conference, itself, are supported by drug industry dollars.

Only when children die or side effects are severe – as in the FDA hearings on children and antidepressants in 2004, and in the recent publicity over obesity and diabetes caused by the bipolar drugs – do opposing viewpoints get the country’s eyes and ears.

Biederman’s conflict of interest problems have exposed his strong pro-drug views to the public for scrutiny. Until now, fear of the Biederman team has operated quietly on the small club of child psychiatric researchers. Only when 2-year-olds started taking three psychiatric drugs simultaneously under a Biederman protocol for bipolar disorder did the emperor’s clothes become so invisible as to begin the naming of names…

Two-year-olds on three drugs simultaneously. Jesus.

… a (really well-written) scandal-sheet. Or it might be exactly the sort of clearinghouse for developing stories, and public commentary on them, that strong journalistic blogs are meant to be.

Its target, Clemson University, is already experiencing terrible publicity because of its Animal Farm-based management structure. FITS suggests that there’s more wrong with Clemson than that.

We’ll see.

… about which UD‘s already posted, has now been released as a movie. Here’s the New York Times review.

… for Harvard’s outrageous mismanagement of its endowment, but Alex Beam (one of UD‘s favorite writers) doesn’t really have enough evidence for what he’s trying to pin on him here.

Ward Churchill, that is. And yes, you’ve noted correctly that UD isn’t covering Ward’s trial. She’s had enough of Ward. I think you can watch the whole trial on Fox News or something.

But Ward’s vile words about 9/11 look almost mild compared to those of his British counterpart, who has now been suspended from his university post because of the violence of his threats against capitalists.

Chris Knight, of the University of East London, told BBC Radio 4 things “could get nasty” after ex-bank boss Sir Fred Goodwin’s Edinburgh home was attacked.

The university confirmed in a statement the professor of anthropology had been suspended from duties on Thursday.

An investigation was being launched into his comments, it said.

… The professor was interviewed for BBC Radio 4’s PM programme after the home and car of former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred were attacked by vandals early on Wednesday morning.

Mr Knight, who was organising [G20] protests next week, said: “We are going to be hanging a lot of people like Fred the Shred [Sir Fred Goodwin] from lampposts on April Fool’s Day and I can only say let’s hope they are just effigies.

“To be honest, if he winds us up any more I’m afraid there will be real bankers hanging from lampposts and let’s hope that that doesn’t actually have to happen.

“They [bankers] should realise the amount of fury and hatred there is for them and act quickly, because quite honestly if it isn’t humour it is going to be anger.

“I am trying to keep it humorous and let the anger come up in a creative and hopefully productive and peaceful way.

“If the other people don’t join in the fun – I’m talking about the bankers and those rather pompous ministers – and come over and surrender their power obviously it’s going to get us even more wound up and things could get nasty. Let’s hope it doesn’t.”

What can UD tell you about the friend she’s known for almost thirty years now that he’s a very big deal?

He was the best man at her wedding. He gave a glorious toast.

He and Mr UD go way back. Both sons of Harvard professors, the two lads lived only a couple of blocks away from one another in Cambridge, and they were among the first to attend Charles Merrill’s Commonwealth School in Boston. (Mr UD loves to tell the story of Merrill one afternoon awkwardly announcing that the kids were going to have a guest speaker that day, a poet… Uh… the headmaster’s brother… Guy named James Merrill…)

Both went to Harvard, where they remained close friends. Both moved to Washington, Peter to work for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Karol to work at the University of Maryland.

Over the years, Mr UD has accompanied Peter to Kurdistan, Baghdad, and East Timor to work with him on political issues.

Les UDs have spent many moody, meditative New Years in Vermont with Peter (he has long had a house there), his family, and other friends.

Peter is a loyal and loving friend.

He has an excellent sense of humor. UD once made him laugh so hard he almost lost it. Les UDs and Peter and Peter’s girlfriend were driving back from kayaking in Virginia somewhere. Peter was at the wheel. UD, notorious for being unable to tell even a simple joke correctly, was trying to tell the first of these two jokes. It all went terribly wrong, and became far more obscene than necessary, in her hands.

Somehow the total ineptitude of UD‘s telling, and the desperate obscenity of her version, sent Peter into such a spin that he almost lost control of the car.

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Peter has the driven, complex, difficult personality you’d expect with his high-powered background, his politically active and ambitious family, and the legacy of his world-historical father. In fact it looks as though the Number One diplomat in Afghanistan (Peter will be the second in command) didn’t want him appointed.

“Galbraith is a much stronger personality, he’s a bigger name, from a bigger country and he is going to carry more weight [than the Norwegian at the head of the UN team,” one diplomatic] official said.

Yeah, I guess he’s a strong personality. Sure. Very strong.

***********************

Update: UD doesn’t have any pictures of herself with Peter on this computer, so she’ll run this one instead. He’s standing somewhere nearby.

Les UDs visited Peter when he was the American ambassador to Croatia, and they spent a day yachting and eating excellent food on various islands with Croatia’s then-president, Franjo Tudjman. In this photo, La Kid, showing a good deal of sense (Tudjman was an unsavory character), is hiding her face rather than be photographed with him. UD has no such reservations, and smiles, as you see, broadly.