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1. Sir Menzies Campbell Slams Legal Aid & UK ConDem Government In Sanofi-Aventis Epilim Drug Scandal

Sir Menzies Campbell: 'troubling decision' seems a 'considerable injustice'
The government's legal aid body was today accused of acting as "judge and jury" by withdrawing state funding from a test case by families of disabled children against a pharmaceutical company. Sir Menzies Campbell MP, the former Liberal Democrat leader, said the Legal Service Commission (LSC) had apparently "usurped" the high court's opportunity to determine whether an anti-epilepsy drug taken by mothers in pregnancy was responsible for the children's conditions. In a letter to the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, Campbell said the "troubling" decision to withdraw funding seemed "a considerable injustice", and appealed for a ministerial review. The case involves the families of 100 children but Irwin Mitchell, their solicitors, say they also represent families of another 169 children who claim they suffered deformities as a result of their families taking an anti-epilepsy drug called Epilim, whose active ingredien t is sodium valproate. The case against Sanofi-Aventis, the drug's manufacturers, has been in preparation for six years and is thought to have already cost more than £3m in legal aid. Campbell wrote to Clarke because a family in his constituency in North East Fife was involved in the case, which is likely to be formally abandoned in court next week. "By this decision, the LSC seems to be making itself 'judge and jury' in this claim, without allowing manufacturers to be called publicly to account," he said.
James Meikle, The Guardian
Related Links:
* ConDem Coalition Gov Arranges For Legal Aid To Be Withdrawn From Sanofi-Aventis Birth Defects Drug Class Action
BBC News
* Ulster Girl Awarded €500k Settlement Over Sanofi Aventis Birth Defects Drug
Claire McNeilly, Belfast Telegraph

2. How Corrupt Science Gets Published

In one of his latest blogs, Richard Smith reminds us that high-faluting does not come cheap, and 32% of papers published by the NEJM relate to studies paid for by drug companies, who then pay the journal up to $1M for reprints. It is this sort of thing that led Marcia Angell to her depressing conclusion that "it is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine."�
Dr Richard Lehman MD, Journal Watch, Centre For Evidence Based Medicine

3. USA Must Investigate Detainee Abuse Claims In WikiLeaks Files

Amnesty International calls on the USA to investigate how much US officials knew about the torture and other ill-treatment of detainees held by Iraqi security forces after files released by the Wikileaks organization. Watch the video.
Information Release, Amnesty International
Related Links:
* WikiLeaks: Julian Assange & Daniel Ellsberg In Conversation
Information Release, Frontline Club

4. Torture Sans Regrets - Bush Boasts About Waterboarding

Former President George W. Bush continues to be beyond shame. Those favored with an advance copy of his memoir, Decision Points, say it paints a picture of a totally unapologetic Bush bragging, for example, about authorizing the CIA to waterboard 9/11 “mastermind,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. For such a frank admission of high-level criminality, we can say, with ample justification, Shame on Bush. But that shame also sticks like Saran wrap to the rest of us – and especially to the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM), which has soft-pedalled the significance of Bush’s confession, and to his make-nice successor, Barack Obama, who has refused to demand any accountability. However, if we are still a democracy, we are all complicit. Last but hardly least, shame on Bush’s timid successor. Every time I hear that Obama is a former professor of Constitutional law I find myself muttering, “And that would be the constitution of which cou ntry?” The President’s soaring rhetoric falls flat fast the moment you stop to ponder how he has betrayed his oath to see to it that the laws are faithfully executed — in this case, by holding self-confessed torturers accountable. Bush has brought the issue of torture to a head. Shame on us all, if we allow the recent history of waterboarding and other torture techniques to go unchallenged and to end up defining us.
Ray McGovern ex-Army officer and CIA analyst, CounterPunch
Related Links:
* Massive Majority Vote For Ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair To Be Prosecuted For Iraq War Crimes
Information Release, David Lawley-Wakelin, The Frontline Club
* Disappointed Yale Student Castigates Obama & Thanks WikiLeaks
Rory Marsh, Yale News
* Should Obama Give His Nobel Peace Prize Back?
Mark LeVine, Al Jazeera

5. British Soldiers May Face War Crimes Trial Over Iraqi Civilians Torture

Three British soldiers could be charged with war crimes over the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners, two senior judges have been told. The troops have been referred to the Director of Service Prosecutions, the nation's senior military prosecutor, for investigation. Philip Havers, QC, appearing for the Defence Secretary Liam Fox, revealed the potential war crimes charges when appearing in a case involving allegations by more than 200 Iraqi civilians that they suffered abuse at the hands of the British in the aftermath of the war to topple Saddam Hussein. Phil Shiner, a solicitor with Public Interest Lawyers, who is representing the Iraqis, described the announcement of the referrals as a breakthrough. "It is plain from the evidence, and in particular from the videos of interrogation sessions, that the UK's interrogators had been trained in Iraq to use coercive interrogation techniques against detainees. These constitute breaches of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights as well as constituting 'war crimes' under the relevant domestic criminal law, namely the International Criminal Court Act 2001. There are remarkable similarities between everything that we know that the Americans did in Abu Ghraib and what we know from the evidence in this court. There are very few things that the Americans were doing in Abu Ghraib that the British were not doing," he said.
Lewis Smith, The Independent
Related Links:
* Massive Majority Vote For Ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair To Be Prosecuted For Iraq War Crimes
Information Release, David Lawley-Wakelin, The Frontline Club

6. U.S. Government Harassing & Intimidating Bradley Manning Supporters

Bradley Manning
In July of this year, U.S. citizen Jacob Appelbaum, a researcher and spokesman for WikiLeaks, was detained for several hours at the Newark airport after returning from a trip to Holland, and had his laptop, cellphones and other electronic products seized -- all without a search warrant, without being charged with a crime, and without even being under investigation, at least to his knowledge. That campaign of intimidation is now clearly spreading to supporters of Bradley Manning. Last Wednesday, November 3, David House, a 23-year-old researcher who works at MIT, was returning to the U.S. from a short vacation with his girlfriend in Mexico, and was subjected to similar and even worse treatment. House's crime: he did work in helping set up the Bradley Manning Support Network, an organization created to raise money for Manning's legal defense fund, and he has now visited Manning three times in Quantico, Virginia, where the accused WikiLeaks leaker is currently being detained (all those visits are fully monitored by government agents). Last Wednesday, House arrived at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, and his flight was met in the concourse by customs agents, who examined the passports of all deplaning passengers until they saw House's, at which point they stopped. He was then directed to Customs, where his and his girlfriend's bags were extensively searched. After the search was complete, two men identifying themselves as Homeland Security officials told House and his girlfriend they were being detained for questioning and would miss their connecting flight. House was told that he was required to relinquish all of his electronic products, and thus gave them his laptop, cellphone, digital camera and UBS flash drive. Like Appelbaum, House has never been accused of any crime, never been advised that he's under investigation, and was never told by any federal agents that he's suspected of any wrongdoing at all. The real purpose of this conduct is to intimidate and deter anyone from being involved in any way with WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning. I just want to underscore how abusive this all is. Totally independent of the intimidation aspects -- which are the worst part of this -- just consider what an absolute mockery this makes of the Constitution.
Glenn Greenwald, Salon
Related Links:
* Stand With Whistleblower Bradley Manning!
Information Release, Bradley Manning Support Network
* Collateral Murder
Information Release, WikiLeaks

7. WikiLeaks & Julian Assange Saved My Journalist Bacon & Self-Respect

Former US President George W Bush
I note that the rewards for saying the unthinkable on a regular basis are high, but often too-briefly savoured. So it was that I found myself about a month ago, about to defend George Bush's positions on terrorism. Having been absent from politics since he left office on January 6, 2009, with the lowest ratings in modern presidential history, save those of Richard Nixon, Bush had become for me the subject of a thought experiment. Julian Assange of Wikileaks saved my bacon, if not my self-respect. By publishing the graphic and detailed US Army logs of the war in Iraq, Assange reminded me and others of how the purity of the Bush administration's preoccupation with freedom is besmirched with blood and filth. According to Wikileaks, Iraqi civilians were routinely flensed into mist by a hail of bullets, combatants not given a chance to surrender (I'm not sure I'd be able to extend that courtesy in a combat situation myself); the viciousness and horror of that war were revealed in bureaucratese that strengthened the link between this dreadful carnage and the moral slipperiness of paying lip service to unpleasant propositions simply out of complacency. When journalists have thought experiments, they only embarrass themselves; when Presidents do so, innocents perish.
Tim Wilson, TVNZ
Related Links:
* WikiLeaks Triumphs Thanks To Investigative Journalism Failure
Chris Pocock, The Daily Aztec, San Diego State University Newspaper
* WikiLeaks Embodies Freedom Of Information
Phillip Reiser, The Collegian, University of Tulsa

8. UK Supreme Court Rules Expenses Piggies MPs To Face Criminal Trial

Ex-MPs Jim Devine, David Chaytor and Elliot Morley facing criminal charges over their expenses today lost their final appeal to avoid trial. The supreme court has dismissed claims made by David Chaytor, Elliot Morley and Jim Devine that they should not be tried in a criminal court because their expenses are covered by parliamentary privilege. All three deny theft by false accounting over their parliamentary expenses and their legal team has argued that the investigation and any sanctions "should lie within the hands of parliament". The supreme court – the highest court in the UK – ruled they were not protected by parliamentary privilege. They will now face separate trials at London's Southwark crown court, the first of which is due to begin on 22 November. Nine justices fast-tracked their decision today to avoid overlapping with the criminal proceedings and will give their reasons for the ruling at a later date.
Polly Curtis, The Guardian
Related Links:
* Another Eight UK MPs In Expenses Storm - Police Called In
Jason Groves, Daily Mail
* Secret Deals Being Offered To Expenses Abuse MPs
Rosa Prince, Daily Telegraph
* Taxpayer Foots Bill As Former MPs In Expenses Scandal Appeal To Supreme Court
Jason Beattie, Daily Mirror
* Abusive UK MPs Brand Expenses Staff As Fucking Idiots & Monkeys
Macer Hall, Daily Express
* Expenses Scandal MPs Granted Legal Aid
Big Pond

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