Friday, May 1, 2009

The American auto company Chrysler filed for bankruptcy Thursday, however a deal with European auto maker Fiat went through. The emerging Chrysler will be owned 55 percent by the United Auto Workers, eight percent by the United States Government, two percent by the Canadian Government and Fiat would begin with a 20 percent share.

Chrysler Chief Executive Robert Nardelli will step down when the bankruptcy proceedings are finalized.

Initially, the Italian company, Fiat, will appoint three members on the emerging Chrysler’s new board, and the United States government will appoint six. Fiat can assume the majority of the ownership upon repayment of American loans.

Chrysler administrators expect that the bankruptcy should take a couple of months.

“We expect this to be a very short, 30-to-60-day bankruptcy process, during which the company will function normally,” a top administration official said, “People will be able to buy cars, they will have their warranties honored, and everything should go on normally.”

The bankruptcy filing indicated that Chrysler was in debt to 20 creditors to a tune of more than $10 million each.

Meanwhile, the deal with Fiat did go through, and Chrysler should have cars designed by Fiat out on the market by 2011.

“It’s a partnership that will give Chrysler a chance not only to survive, but to thrive in a global auto industry,” said American president Obama, “Fiat has demonstrated that it can build the clean, fuel-efficient cars that are the future of the industry.”

However, automotive analyst Erich Merkle has hesitations.

“History would show that alliances really don’t work that well,” Merkle said, “even though, no matter how good they may look on paper.”

The restructuring has been managed by Steve Rattner, a former investment banker, and the U.S. Government auto task force.

Obama has set three ultimatums before Fiat. Fiat should produce a 40 mile per gallon vehicle while managing the new Chrysler, transfer fuel efficient Fiat technology to Chrysler factories in the United States, and produce cars in Chrysler factories and distribute them in Europe.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

At 12:41 p.m. local time (UTC-5), a man opened fire at Dawson College, in Westmount, Quebec, Canada; the college is located near the heart of downtown Montreal. Police report at least 20 people being injured. The gunman was reportedly killed at the scene by police. Students told reporters that they heard several shots in the building at about 12:45 local time. One student told a local radio station that she saw two people who had been shot, including one who was hit at the neck. The student said a friend told her four people had been shot.

Hundreds of students fled the building, and the area has been cordoned off. Nearby Plaza Alexis Nihon and Westmount Square were evacuated and the Green line of the Montreal Metro was shut down between Lionel-Groulx and Peel. Police officers wearing bullet-proof vests are keeping people away from the college. “They’re telling me, ‘Go the other way, lady, you’re in the line of fire,'” said CBC News reporter Nancy Wood, who reported from the scene.

Local media have reported police hotlines have been established for loved ones to gain more information: +1-(514)-280-2880, +1-(514)-280-2805, and +1-(514)-280-2806. The Montreal General Hospital has also set up a hotline at +1-(514)-843-2839.

Police have reported that the situation has been neutralized as of 20:06, September 13, 2006 (UTC). Police have been told to stand down and are no longer looking for new victims or shooters.

Dawson College is a CEGEP that hosts about 10,000 students.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Medical doctors have not been getting the full picture about newly FDA-approved drugs, concludes a research team from the University of California, San Francisco. This is because not all the studies required for FDA approval get published. New drug studies that do see publication tend to be ones where the medicine appears to perform well while poor and middling results are less likely to appear in medical journals. The result appears to be that doctors who read the available literature may get an inflated impression of new medications and may prescribe expensive new drugs in place of older medicines that perform as well or better. As Jordan Lite of Scientific American wonders, are drug companies cherry-picking the studies they publish to make their drugs look better than they actually are?

The University of California team reviewed trials that had supported new drugs approved from 1998 to 2000 and examined 909 trials of 90 medications. The search was conducted upon PubMed and other search tools that a typical medical doctor or patient could access. They concluded that less than half of the studies had been published five years after drug approval and a publication bias existed.

Erick Turner, who coauthored a similar study earlier this year, expressed concerns to Scientific American that the problem was not merely the raw percentage of studies published, but that a disproportionate share of the research that appeared in journals are examples where new medications appear to perform well:

When trials are selectively published … it will skew the efficacy of the drug and make it look like it works better than it does. It’s going to create a lot more enthusiasm among consumers of that information or in the words of Alan Greenspan, ‘irrational exuberance.’

Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), defended the pharmaceutical industry by saying FDA review of new drug applications is more important than publishing the results of medication trials in medical journals. Approved medications come with labels that give patients and doctors enough information, assures Mr. Johnson.

Yet concerns about full and appropriate disclosure have been serious enough that a new law was enacted last year. FDA Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA) requires that all trials which support FDA-approved drugs be registered at the National Institutes of Health website. The requirement goes into effect this coming Saturday. Congress enacted the legislation in response to hearings that determined pharmaceutical companies were less likely to publish studies that indicated significant side effects. One shortcoming in the legislation, according to UCSF associate professor Ida Sim, is that the FDA is still not required to specify which trials it weighs when considering applications for drug approvals. Yet she praises the new law as a major improvement. It’s critically important that we know trials exist and that we get the summary results, positive and negative, into the public domain—that’s a huge step and more than any [other] country is doing now.

Friday, March 25, 2005A lawyer who is expected to become the president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) said in a comment to Associated Press (AP) that arming teachers with firearms is a solution to be considered in preventing school shootings by students. Sarah S. Froman, an alumni of Harvard Law School and a practicing lawyer, implied that allowing teachers to carry weapons is one of the many options that should be examined.

Guns and other weapons are commonly banned on school campuses in the United States, but the high-profile incidents of students defying the bans and bringing firearms to classes could place the school at a disadvantage if the student were to fire the weapon. In the case of the recent student shooting at a Native American reservation in Minnessota the school had metal detectors and had an on-duty security guard. The guard was unarmed, however, and was gunned down by the student.

Froman told the AP that if it is the responsibility of teachers to protect students from harm, then the society must find a way to let teachers do that. She also said that gun control laws or bans cannot prevent a malicious individual from acting out, and provided an example of a 1997 shooting incident where an armed teacher was able to help police apprehend the student.

Froman is currently the NRA’s first vice president, and is expected to be elected to the post of president in the organization’s elections next month. The current president of the 4-million member organization is actor and activist Charlton Heston.

Friday, January 4, 2013

The Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban for campaigning for education for girls, was discharged yesterday from the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, England after success in the first stage of her medical treatment.

In October, Yousafzai was shot by Taliban forces on a school bus in Mingora, Swat District, Pakistan. She was given emergency treatment in Pakistan and then flown to Britain for treatment at a specialist unit which deals with injured soldiers.

Dave Rosser, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust medical director, gave a statement about Yousafzai’s release from hospital: “Malala is a strong young woman and has worked hard with the people caring for her to make excellent progress in her recovery. Following discussions with Malala and her medical team, we decided that she would benefit from being at home with her parents and two brothers. She will return to the hospital as an outpatient and our therapies team will continue to work with her at home to supervise her onward care.”

She is due to return to hospital in a few weeks for cranial reconstructive surgery.