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He always kind of reminded me of a cat, anyway.
But this just in, the always mischievous Senator Charles Grassley (kind of like out lolcats!) has written a letter to President Barack Obama that says:
One thing I’ve asked every president since Ronald Reagan to do is to hold a Rose Garden ceremony honoring whistleblowers. No one has done so yet, but I hope that you will based on your strong statements about accountability in government. I’m writing this letter to urge you to do so.
Can the Lolcats come? If so, we’re in!
WE CUM TO ROZ GARDEN NAIM THE DAE!
It seems that pharma’s friends within the FDA are not quite ready to jump into the rose garden celebration. This recent memo just went around reminding FDAers about “trade secrets”, in other words not spilling the beans on pharma. I’ve heard that one before. It applies to pretty much everyone from wining and dining to gifting payoffs and other unlovlies. In fact in spite of the much vaunted laws requiring disclosure of payments to physicians in Vermont and a few other states, over half of the payments are not disclosed under the guise of “trade secret”, but they are not required to provide any proof of that, in other words it is a bunch of bs.
Hat tip to Nancy Fruge.
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Doug, the hat tip goes to The IN VIVO Blog, which published this story on March 16. Thanks anyway.
I do wish you would be more respectful of our hard-working elected officials.
which ones? I don’t think ‘we sel drugz’ lolcat was ever elected to public office.
I don’t get it…how was this disrespectful? or are you kidding?
FDA employees may not be the only federal employees to receive such a memo:
http://grassley.senate.gov/news/Article.cfm?customel_dataPageID_1502=19852
President Obama alluded to problems within NASA last week, when he met with reporters in the Roosevelt Room at the White House [http://www.whitehouse.gov/slideshows/]:
“I will soon be appointing a new NASA director. I think it’s important for the long term vibrancy of our space program to think through what NASA’s core mission is, and what the next great adventures and discoveries are under the NASA banner.
NASA has yielded — or the space shuttle program has yielded some extraordinary scientific discoveries. But I think it’s fair to say that there’s been a sense of drift to our space program over the last several years. We need to restore that sense of excitement and interest that existed around the space program. And shaping a mission for NASA that is appropriate for the 21st century is going to be one of the biggest tasks of my new NASA director.
Once we have that vision, then I think it’s going to be much easier to build support for expanding our space efforts. But what I don’t want NASA to do is just sort of limp along here. And I don’t think that’s good for the economy of the region either.” [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Interview-of-the-President-by-Regional-Reporters-3/11/09/]