The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog

Frequently Asked Questions on Ghostwriting for Experts, Reporters, and Laymen

By PAUL THACKER

With the gracious help of several scholars, POGO has assembled an FAQ on corporate-funded medical ghostwriting. We hope this will answer any questions you might have on this very disturbing practice that corrupts the medical literature, drives up healthcare costs, and puts patient safety at risk.

Read it here: Frequently Asked Questions about Medical Ghostwriting

We’d like to thank the following academics for their help on this project:

• Trudo Lemmens, Professor of Law, University of Toronto
• David Healey, Professor in Psychological Medicine, Cardiff University School of Medicine, Wales
• Adriane Fugh-Berman, Associate Professor of Family Medicine, Georgetown University School of Medicine
• Leemon McHenry, Lecturer in Philosophy, California State University-Northridge

Enjoy.  And feel free to offer any other suggestions in the comments section of our blog.

Paul Thacker is a POGO Investigator.

Image: oddsock.

Guest Post: Where to Find the Earmarks in the House Defense Appropriations Bill

By WINSLOW WHEELER

The House Appropriations Committee (HAC) has reported the bill and text for the FY 2012 Defense Appropriations Act (H.R. 2219), which handles most, but not all, of the appropriations for the Pentagon and Department of Defense (DoD) expenses in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

There are some elements to the bill that the HAC forgot to emphasize in its press releases and that the press has paid little to no attention to.

For example, I found the following to be interesting: There are a pile of earmarks in the bill. Some are sprinkled through the Research, Development, and Testing section. They start in the tables for Army R&D on p. 211. See the very first one: +$20 million for "University and Industry Research Centers," which is explained in the detailed table on p. 218 as for "Historically Black Colleges and Universities." It is explained more fully on p. 205. The explanation, however, does not obviate the fact that the add-on is an earmark to anyone who understands what earmarks are and why they are done.

Continue through with the tables for the other services, etc., and you will find many more—but fewer explanations. There are a pile of earmarks in the Defense Health Program (DHP) accounts—see the $523.5 million added to DHP (p. 269):

Deepwater Horizon: One Year Later

By Mandy Smithberger and Bryan Rahija

We decided to reflect on the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster by poring though our coverage of the spill in its immediate aftermath. One thing that struck us: it's kind of remarkable how many questions are still not definitively answered when it comes to accountability.

Have government regulators made the right adjustments? Do they have enough funding to do their jobs? Do they have enough training? Can taxpayers trust the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement to work in the public's best interest when it comes to collecting taxpayer royalties for oil harvested on federal lands? What happened to the legislative reforms proposed in the wake of the spill?

We've listed our coverage of the spill in April and May below. You can find additional material here.

The Freedom of Information Act Request Process Explained in 42 Simple Slides

For a lighthearted review of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request process, everyone's favorite way to pry information out of the federal government, have a look at this presentation by Michael Ravnitzky and Phil Lapsley.

-- Bryan Rahija