Investigations
While Grownups Squabbled, Children Died
Meanwhile, tests to save childrens' lives stalled
Automakers and federal regulators fought for more than a decade over who could create an adult crash test dummy, stalling development of a simulated 6-year-old to test child seats. Commonplace reason behind such delays: Opposition from industry lawyers and expert engineers.
Feds Shrug Off a Life-Saver for Commuter Planes
Safety device will be required...eventually
Again and again, commuter airline flights crashed into the ground for the same reason: Lack of a simple device known as a ground proximity warning system that alerts the pilot when he flies too low. Safety officials repeatedly urged requiring the device, but the FAA declined. Planes kept crashing. (The Plain Dealer)
Cessnas Crash, but Agencies Do Nothing
Part maker's urgent plea fails to move regulators
For three decades, Cessnas choked from a flaw in their carburetors known to the manufacturer, federal aviation officials, and repeatedly highlighted by the National Transportation Safety Board. Yet pilots had never heard of the problem, and the government required no fix. (The Plain Dealer)
Foreign Tests Don't Meet U.S. Criteria
Hype, hope and heartbreak a chronic condition
The cycle of hype, hope and heartbreak surrounding clinical trials has become a chronic condition in the global pharmaceutical industry, which now initially tests two-thirds of all products for Americans overseas. The experiments often involve fraud, concealed side effects, improvised experiments and human rights abuses. (The Plain Dealer)
Research Standards Overseas Vary Greatly
Europeans worry about fraud, sloppy drug experiments
With human lives and huge investments at stake, the global pharmaceutical industry increasingly relies on research from outside the United States, where fraud and the use of unwitting test subjects is commonplace. “It’s our little secret…frightening,” acknowledges an overseer of experiments on four continents. (The Plain Dealer)
Secrecy in Tests Led to Trouble
Parents of babies not told of therapy
Doctors confront a dilemma when they experiment on people: Are they healers or scientists? Should they give a patient the best treatment possible? Or do they use their patients as a means to discover better treatment for others? (The Plain Dealer)
The Ugly Side of Microlending
Investors prosper as working poor borrowers sink in debt
Microlending is a popular tool for nonprofit economic development. It’s also turning the working poor into one of the world’s least likely sources of untapped profit. After all, they’ll pay interest rates most Americans would consider outrageous if not usurious. Many families are being drawn into a maze of debt. Meanwhile, banks, investors and executives prosper. (BusinessWeek)
Wal-Mart Banks on the 'Unbanked'
New Mexican lending arm taps fresh source of growth
Microlending isn’t only for nonprofits. In Mexico, Wal-Mart is taking advantage of a market where annual interest rates often exceed 100%. (BusinessWeek)
The Deadly Side Effects of Net Pharmacies
Is it time to regulate the 'doc-in-a-box'?
Operating in a legal grey area, doctors working for online pharmaceutical sellers write thousands of prescriptions for people, sight unseen. Is better regulation required? (BusinessWeek)
Living Proof
In U.S-run study, Ugandans expected treatment. They got dummy pills.
American researchers let tuberculosis worsen, unchecked by an effective drug, in a control group of 500 Ugandans with HIV, as they charted its deadly progression. Some thought “placebo” was a medication that would help them. In the U.S, the practice would have been unethical. (The Cleveland Plain Dealer)
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