Allergan Inc., the maker of wrinkle-smoothing Botox, has agreed to pay $600 million to settle a years long federal investigation into its marketing of the top-selling, botulin-based drug. (GazetteXtra)

As counsel for the researcher plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) on experiments using human embryonic stem cells, I write to correct your assertion that the progress of the suit poses a threat to “the very framework of federal funding for science” [Premium (Nature)]

The Obama administration asked a federal judge Tuesday to allow the government to continue funding embryonic stem-cell research while a case challenging the program makes its way through the courts. (Wall Street Journal)

That science and politics are nonoverlapping magisteria (vide Stephen Jay Gould’s model separating science and religion) was long my position until I read Timothy Ferris’s new book The Science of Liberty (HarperCollins, 2010). Ferris, the best-selling author of such science classics as Coming of Age in the Milky Way and The Whole Shebang, has bravely ventured across the magisterial divide to argue that the scientific values of reason, empiricism and antiauthoritarianism are not the product of liberal democracy but the producers of it. (Scientific American)

For a while there, things didn’t look too good for British writer Simon Singh. The best-selling author of the science histories Big Bang and Fermat’s Enigma knew he was heading into controversial territory when he switched tracks to cowrite a book investigating alternative medicine, Trick or Treatment? What Singh didn’t count on, however, was that writing a seemingly innocuous article for London’s The Guardian newspaper about especially outrageous chiropractic claims—one of the subjects he researched for the book—would end up threatening his career. The British Chiropractic Association sued Singh, hoping to use Britain’s draconian libel laws to force him to withdraw his statements and issue an apology. Losing the case would have cost Singh both his reputation and a substantial amount of his personal wealth. Such is the state of science, where sometimes even stating simple truths (like the fact that there’s no reliable evidence chiropractic can alleviate asthma in children) can bring the wrath of the antiscience crowd. What the British chiropractors didn’t count on, however, was Singh himself. Having earned a PhD from Cambridge for his work at the Swiss particle physics lab CERN, he wasn’t about to back down from a scientific gunfight. Singh spent more than two years and well over $200,000 of his own money battling the case in court, and this past April he finally prevailed. In the process, he became a hero to those challenging the pseudoscience surrounding everything from global warming to vaccines to evolution. It’s not necessarily a role he sought for himself, but it’s one he has embraced—he’s currently touring the world, talking about his case, libel reform, and how important it is to make sure scientists can speak truthfully and openly. Wired spoke with Singh about his case and the struggle against the forces of irrationality. (Wired Magazine)

The Obama administration is rewriting new rules on medical privacy after an outpouring of criticism from consumer groups and members of Congress who say the rules do not adequately protect the rights of patients. (New York Times)

When the geneticist Francis Collins was named director of the National Institutes of Health, last summer, he became the public face of American science and the keeper of the world’s deepest biomedical-research-funding purse. He was praised by President Obama and waved through the Senate confirmation process without objection. There also came a peer review of a sort that he’d never experienced, conducted in the press and in Internet science forums. Collins read in the Times that many of his colleagues in the scientific community believed that he suffered from “dementia.” Steven Pinker, a cognitive psychologist at Harvard, questioned the appointment on the ground that Collins was “an advocate of profoundly anti-scientific beliefs.” P. Z. Myers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota at Morris, complained, “I don’t want American science to be represented by a clown.” (The New Yorker)

The Journal of World Intellectual Property (Volume 13, Issue 4, July 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Relevant articles include:

• “Patent Policy for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research in Taiwan” by Jerry I.-H. Hsiao, 540-555.

Stem cell research supporters in Congress are hoping to take quick action to reverse the research ban imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth on Monday. They expect to take up the issue when Congress returns from recess on 13 September. The question is how: by passing a new law, or by modifying Dickey-Wicker, a 14-year-old law banning federal research that destroys embryos. Either way, with House of Representatives and Senate Democratic leadership so far silent on the issue, it’s unclear how far their efforts will get less than 2 months before elections in November. (ScienceInsider)

Congress may take up the issue of embryonic stem cell research when it reconvenes next month. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) says there is a “new urgency” to pass legislation after a federal judge’s ruling on Monday essentially halted the research. (9NEWS.com)

Legislators have begun to recognize the medical, humanitarian and economic value of helping terminally ill patients and their families navigate treatment options as they approach the end of life. (New York Times)

A BRAIN damaged teenager has been ordered by a Sydney court to undergo blood tests against her wishes in an effort to explain her disability. (The Australian)

True or false: The new health care law will cut Medicare benefits for seniors. It will slash Medicare payments to doctors. It will ration health care. (USA Today)

When scientists play politics with science, society and science both suffer, sometimes with life-threatening implications. One recent example is Climategate, with revelations that leading global warming researchers played with the data, concealed and tried to suppress data that challenged their assertions, and attempted to game the peer review system. And as a result of scientists caught playing politics with science, claims of man-made global warming have been met with growing skepticism. (American Thinker)

NEJM (Volume 363, Number 3, July 15, 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles Include:

• “Facing the Wild West of Health Care Reform - Donal Berwick, Pioneer” by J.K. Iglehart.
• “Disclosing Industry Relationships - Toward an Improved Federal Research Policy” by E.G. Campbell and D.E. Zinner.
• “The Renaissance in HIV Vaccine Development - Future Directions” by W.C. Koff and S.F. Berkley.
• “The Havasupai Indian Tribe Case - Lessons for Research Involving Stored Biologic Samples” by M.M. Mello and L.E. Wolf, 204-207.
• “Becoming a Physician: The Case for Primary Care - A Medical Student’s Perspective” by I. Ganguli, 207-209.
• “Case 21-2010L A Request for Retrieval of Oocytes from a 36-Year-Old Woman with Anoxic Brain Injury” by D.M. Greer, A.K. Styer, T.L. Toth, C.P. Kindregan, and J.M. Romero, 27-283.
• “Drug Management of Obesity - Efficacy versus Safety” by A. Astrup, 288-290.
• “Trajectories of Disability in the Last Year of Life,” 294-295.
• “Advance Directives and Surrogate Decision Making Before Death,” 295-296.

Journal of Medical Ethics (Volume 36, Number 8, August 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles Include:

• “Acceptability of Offering Financial Incentives to Achieve Medication Adherence in Patients with Severe Mental Illness: A Focus Group Study” by Stefan Priebe, Julia Sinclair, Alexandra Burton, Stamatina Marougka, John Larsen, Mike Firn, and Richard Ashcroft
• “End-of-Life Decisions as Bedside Rationing: An Ethical Analysis of Life Support Restrictions in an Indian Neonatal Unit” by I. Miljeteig, K.A. Johansson, S.A. Sayeed, and O.F. Norheim
• “Defending Human Enhancement Technologies:Unveiling Normativity” by Immaculada de Melo-Martin
• “Normative Consent and Presumed Consent for Organ Donation: A Critique” by Michael Potts, Joseph L. Verheijde, Mohamed Y. Rady, and David W. Evans
• “Between the Needy and the Greedy: The Quest for a Just and Fair Ethics of Clinical Research” by Volnei Garrafa, Jan Helge Solbakk, Susana Vidal, and Claudio Lorenzo

NEJM (Volume 363, Number 5, July 29, 2010) is now available.

Articles Include:

• “Buying Health Care, the Individual Mandate, and the Constitution” by Sara Rosenbaum and Jonathan Gruber
• “The Renaissance in HIV Vaccine Development - Future Directions” by Wayne C. Koff and Seth F. Berkley
• “Don’t Mess with the DSMB” by Jeffrey M. Drazen and Alastair J.J. Wood

Second International Conference on Science in Society
Carlos III University of Madrid
Madrid, Spain
11 to 13 November 2010

This Conference will address disciplinary and interdisciplinary challenges in the sciences, and in particular the relationships of science to society.

Key themes addressed by the Conference include the social impacts of science, the values and ethics of science, the pedagogies of science, the knowledge-making processes of science, the politics of science and the economics of science. At first glance, the scope and concerns of the Conference are enormous. However, in contrast to conferences with a specialist disciplinary focus, this Conference aims to explore, in an interdisciplinary spirit, linkages between different areas of concern and practices of investigation. We welcome presentation proposals which range from broad explorations of philosophical, theoretical, methodological and policy questions, to proposals which present finely grained evidence of the connections of science to society in microcosms of research, teaching and practice.

For more information

An undercover investigation of some firms that sell genetic test kits to consumers found misleading test results and “egregious examples of deceptive marketing,” according to a report published today by the Government Accountability Office. (New York Times)

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues convened last week for its first meeting. The commission—created by executive order with the “goal of identifying and promoting policies and practices that ensure scientific research, healthcare delivery, and technological innovation are conducted in an ethically responsible manner”—was tasked by President Barack Obama to study first the implications of synthetic biology. The president’s request came on the heels of J. Craig Venter’s announcement that his lab had successfully created a single-cell organism with a genome synthesized entirely from scratch. (Science Progress)

The federal government issued new rules Tuesday that will reward doctors and hospitals for the “meaningful use” of electronic health records, a top goal of President Obama.

The rules significantly scale back proposed requirements that the health care industry had denounced as unrealistic. (New York Times)