Commerce – Page 327 – Public Intelligence Blog

Dollars for Docs Payments Approach $300 Million

by Charles Ornstein , Tracy Weber and Dan Nguyen
ProPublica, Dec. 22, 2010, 1:36 p.m.

Today we’ve added another $13 million in payments to our Dollars for Docs database of drug-company spending on doctors and other health professionals. That brings the total to nearly $295 million.

ProPublica launched Dollars for Docs in October, creating the most accessible accounting yet of pharmaceutical payments to doctors for speaking, consulting and other duties. It includes disclosures from Eli Lilly & Co., AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., Pfizer and Cephalon for various periods of 2009 and 2010.

The new payments were made by Glaxo and Ortho-McNeil, a division of Johnson & Johnson, in the third quarter of this year. Other Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries have yet to update spending totals beyond the first quarter.

Interestingly, Glaxo’s spending on speaking and consulting dropped markedly in the third quarter compared to its average in prior quarters. In the past, the company paid large amounts to doctors to promote its diabetes drug Avandia. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration severely restricted the drug’s use in September amid concerns about its heart attack risks.

Continue reading “Dollars for Docs database of drug-company spending on doctors and other health professionals”

2011/01/132011/01/13

Mobile Apps Strive to Translate Real-Time Speech

Civil Society, Commerce, Mobile, Technologies, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

A new feature built into Google Translate for Android, Conversation Mode is a little rough around the edges, but it's basically your own personal Babel Fish. It does what Wordlens does but in real-time speech, translating English and Spanish.

Illingual

Also see: http://mashable.com/2010/09/13/translation-mobile-apps/

Phi Beta Iota: A new book is about to come out on Google's last few years' investment in R&D. Rumor has it–we've heard the book summarized but not read the book itself–they have very little to show for the money in comparison with Chinese and other options that are emerging. One down, 182 to go…

2011/01/132011/01/13

Reducing Afghan Corruption Through Mobile Payments to National Police

08 Wild Cards, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Corruption, Ethics, microfinancing, Military, Mobile, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Non-Governmental, Open Government, Technologies, Waste (materials, food, etc)

M-Paisa: Ending Afghan Corruption, one Text at a Time

Monty Munford Oct 17, 2010

Afghanistan supplies 92% of the world’s opiates. According to the latest available figures, the country produced 8,200 tons of heroin in 2008, more than double the the amount three years earlier.

But even being the heroin capital of the world, bringing in more money than most Afghans can dream of, the on-going war and rampant corruption means the money goes to the wrong people and the country has no infrastructure. There are no decent roads, no railways… But they do have mobile phones.

Four months ago, the Afghan National Police began to pay salaries through mobiles (using a text and Interactive Voice Response system), rather than in cash. The platform used was based on the M-Pesa service that has become highly successful in Kenya. Branded M-Paisa in Afghanistan, it was introduced by the operator Roshan in partnership with the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) and had an immediate effect.

Full article

Thanks to Vinod Khosla via his Twitter feed.

Also see: Afghanistan War Wealth + Corruption Cycle (Opium, Hashish, Minerals, Past Pipeline Attempts)

2011/01/132011/01/13

NIGHTWATCH Extract: US C/JCS & China Arms Race

02 China, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, History, Intelligence (government), Military, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

China- US: CJCS Admiral Mullen said today that China's high-tech military capabilities, including the radar-evading stealth J-20 fighter, focus on America.

China has every right to develop military capabilities, Mullen said, adding that he cannot understand why many appear to target the United States despite North Korea's being an evolving threat to the region and to the United States. If Pyongyang obtains long-range nuclear missile capabilities, its provocations may become more catastrophic, Mullen stated, adding that China must pressure North Korean leadership to cease development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and expansion of nuclear weapons capability.

Comment: It is difficult to accept at face value that Admiral Mullen does not understand the Chinese obsession with the threat from the United States.

Taking the statement at face value – and not as an act of political manipulation – it implies that the J2 and J5 staffs have failed to brief him about the origins of Chinese national defense strategy since the death of Deng Xiao Ping. If the Chairman's statement is genuine and not posturing, it is astonishing.

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2011/01/122011/01/13

Poor in the USA: 50 Million & Rising + RECAP

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist

Misery With Plenty of Company

By BOB HERBERT

Published: January 7, 2011

Consider the extremes. President Obama is redesigning his administration to make it even friendlier toward big business and the megabanks, which is to say the rich, who flourish no matter what is going on with the economy in this country. (They flourish even when they’re hard at work destroying the economy.) Meanwhile, we hear not a word — not so much as a peep — about the poor, whose ranks are spreading like a wildfire in a drought.

The politicians and the media behave as if the poor don’t exist. But with jobs still absurdly scarce and the bottom falling out of the middle class, the poor are becoming an ever more significant and increasingly desperate segment of the population.

How do you imagine a family of four would live if its annual income was $11,000 or less?

Continue reading “Poor in the USA: 50 Million & Rising + RECAP”

2011/01/122011/01/12

Economics of Happiness: Going Local

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, 12 Water, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Gift Intelligence, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence, Reform

the Economics of Happiness

A film by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Steven Gorelick & John Page

‘Going local' is a powerful strategy to help repair our fractured world – our ecosystems, our societies and our selves. Far from the old institutions of power, people are starting to forge a very different future…

FeaturingVandana Shiva, Bill McKibben, David Korten, Michael Shuman, Juliet Schor, Richard Heinberg, Rob Hopkins, Andrew Simms, Zac Goldsmith, Samdhong Rinpoche

Film Trailer & Web Site

2011/01/11

High Speed Rail in America: Identifying Mega-Regions

03 Economy, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Government, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Policy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

A new study released today by America 2050 identifies the high-speed rail corridors with the greatest potential to attract ridership in each of the nation's megaregions. Corridors connecting populous regions with large job centers, rail transit networks, and existing air markets scored best. The study also recommends that the federal government adopt a quantitative approach to evaluating future investment in high-speed rail.

Download the press release.

The 56-page study, entitled, “High-Speed Rail in America,” cites ridership potential as the number one factor in determining if a corridor is suitable for investment, identifies the specific conditions that generate ridership demand, and scores each corridor according to strength in those areas. The top performing corridors in each region determined to have the greatest potential demand for high-speed rail ridership include corridors such as: New York-Washington, DC; Chicago-Milwaukee; Los Angeles-San Diego; Tampa (via Orlando) to Miami; Dallas-Houston; Atlanta-Birmingham; Portland-Seattle; and Denver-Pueblo.