Podcasts about Upjohn

In this episode, host Stacey Richter speaks with Ann Lewandowski about whistleblowing in the healthcare industry, focusing on a significant case involving a whistleblower at an employee benefit consultant (EBC) firm. This EBC allegedly pocketed their clients' pharma rebates, violating the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021.  The discussion highlights the nuances of being a whistleblower, the ethical dilemmas faced, compliance challenges, and the significant financial implications for companies and individuals involved in illegal activities.  Ann Lewandowski provides insights into documenting and protecting oneself legally and discusses the broader context of trust and transparency in the healthcare sector. Click through to the show notes below to access all of the mentioned links and prior episodes mentioned. === LINKS ===

Tom in for Nick and joined by broadcaster and host of this year's Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards Rishi Persad. We kick off with the news that Frankie Dettori is set to partner up with Emily Upjohn at this year's Breeders' Cup and Rishi tells us why this is really no big surprise. We also hear from trainer George Boughey who is set to have two runners at Del Mar and to give Billy Loughnane his first ride at the Breeders' Cup. We then turn our attention to Ireland to discuss the reduction in ban for trainer Shark Hanlon from twelve months to six months on appeal. Rishi looks ahead to the pick of the weekend action and we hear from trainer Ralph Beckett who runs Matauri Bay in the Criterium International as opposed to the William Hill Futurity. Plus we check in with Goffs CEO Henry Beeby ahead of their foal sale and with Kirtlington Stud's Chris Budgett in the latest in our Overbury People series.

Tom in for Nick and joined by broadcaster and host of this year's Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards Rishi Persad. We kick off with the news that Frankie Dettori is set to partner up with Emily Upjohn at this year's Breeders' Cup and Rishi tells us why this is really no big surprise. We also hear from trainer George Boughey who is set to have two runners at Del Mar and to give Billy Loughnane his first ride at the Breeders' Cup. We then turn our attention to Ireland to discuss the reduction in ban for trainer Shark Hanlon from twelve months to six months on appeal. Rishi looks ahead to the pick of the weekend action and we hear from trainer Ralph Beckett who runs Matauri Bay in the Criterium International as opposed to the William Hill Futurity. Plus we check in with Goffs CEO Henry Beeby ahead of their foal sale and with Kirtlington Stud's Chris Budgett in the latest in our Overbury People series.

Tim Bartik, senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, talks about distressed communities, employment trends in Rock Island and Scott Counties

Send us a Text Message.Dr. Xiaorong He, Ph.D., MBA is Senior Vice President, Head of Global Development Sciences and U.S. Site Head of Non-Clinical Development at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ( https://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/us ), where with over two decades of experience, her leadership focus lies in advancing transformative medicinal product development and fostering a culture of scientific excellence and engagement across her teams.Prior to this role, Dr. He was VP and Head of the Material & Analytical Sciences Department at Boehringer Ingelheim, leading a large team of multidisciplinary scientists to develop and apply scientific methods and tools to support new drug development of chemical and biological entities. Dr. He has previously worked for several large pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, GSK, Pharmacia & Upjohn before joining Boehringer Ingelheim. She received her Pharmacy B.S. degree from Beijing Medical University, M.S. degree in Pharmaceutics from University of Minnesota, Ph.D. degree in Pharmaceutics from Purdue University and M.B.A. degree from Western Michigan University.Dr. He has also taught several short courses, given numerous podium presentations at national and international conferences, published many peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, and held several patents. She has been a member of scientific and editorial advisory boards for the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences since 2013.Dr. He has also been volunteering with organizations such as the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) since 2005, first with the Excipient Monograph Expert Committee (2005-2010), then with the General Chapter-Physical Analysis Expert Committee (2010-2015). She has served as the Chair of the General Chapters–Physical Analysis Expert Committee during the 2015–2020 cycle.Boehringer Ingelheim Open Innovation Portal - https://www.opnme.com/Support the Show.

  The Haunter of the Dark By H. P. Lovecraft (Dedicated to Robert Bloch) I have seen the dark universe yawning Where the black planets roll without aim— Where they roll in their horror unheeded, Without knowledge or lustre or name. —Nemesis. Cautious investigators will hesitate to challenge the common belief that Robert Blake was killed by lightning, or by some profound nervous shock derived from an electrical discharge. It is true that the window he faced was unbroken, but Nature has shewn herself capable of many freakish performances. The expression on his face may easily have arisen from some obscure muscular source unrelated to anything he saw, while the entries in his diary are clearly the result of a fantastic imagination aroused by certain local superstitions and by certain old matters he had uncovered. As for the anomalous conditions at the deserted church on Federal Hill—the shrewd analyst is not slow in attributing them to some charlatanry, conscious or unconscious, with at least some of which Blake was secretly connected. For after all, the victim was a writer and painter wholly devoted to the field of myth, dream, terror, and superstition, and avid in his quest for scenes and effects of a bizarre, spectral sort. His earlier stay in the city—a visit to a strange old man as deeply given to occult and forbidden lore as he—had ended amidst death and flame, and it must have been some morbid instinct which drew him back from his home in Milwaukee. He may have known of the old stories despite his statements to the contrary in the diary, and his death may have nipped in the bud some stupendous hoax destined to have a literary reflection. Among those, however, who have examined and correlated all this evidence, there remain several who cling to less rational and commonplace theories. They are inclined to take much of Blake's diary at its face value, and point significantly to certain facts such as the undoubted genuineness of the old church record, the verified existence of the disliked and unorthodox Starry Wisdom sect prior to 1877, the recorded disappearance of an inquisitive reporter named Edwin M. Lillibridge in 1893, and—above all—the look of monstrous, transfiguring fear on the face of the young writer when he died. It was one of these believers who, moved to fanatical extremes, threw into the bay the curiously angled stone and its strangely adorned metal box found in the old church steeple—the black windowless steeple, and not the tower where Blake's diary said those things originally were. Though widely censured both officially and unofficially, this man—a reputable physician with a taste for odd folklore—averred that he had rid the earth of something too dangerous to rest upon it. Between these two schools of opinion the reader must judge for himself. The papers have given the tangible details from a sceptical angle, leaving for others the drawing of the picture as Robert Blake saw it—or thought he saw it—or pretended to see it. Now, studying the diary closely, dispassionately, and at leisure, let us summarise the dark chain of events from the expressed point of view of their chief actor. Young Blake returned to Providence in the winter of 1934–5, taking the upper floor of a venerable dwelling in a grassy court off College Street—on the crest of the great eastward hill near the Brown University campus and behind the marble John Hay Library. It was a cosy and fascinating place, in a little garden oasis of village-like antiquity where huge, friendly cats sunned themselves atop a convenient shed. The square Georgian house had a monitor roof, classic doorway with fan carving, small-paned windows, and all the other earmarks of early nineteenth-century workmanship. Inside were six-panelled doors, wide floor-boards, a curving colonial staircase, white Adam-period mantels, and a rear set of rooms three steps below the general level. Blake's study, a large southwest chamber, overlooked the front garden on one side, while its west windows—before one of which he had his desk—faced off from the brow of the hill and commanded a splendid view of the lower town's outspread roofs and of the mystical sunsets that flamed behind them. On the far horizon were the open countryside's purple slopes. Against these, some two miles away, rose the spectral hump of Federal Hill, bristling with huddled roofs and steeples whose remote outlines wavered mysteriously, taking fantastic forms as the smoke of the city swirled up and enmeshed them. Blake had a curious sense that he was looking upon some unknown, ethereal world which might or might not vanish in dream if ever he tried to seek it out and enter it in person. Having sent home for most of his books, Blake bought some antique furniture suitable to his quarters and settled down to write and paint—living alone, and attending to the simple housework himself. His studio was in a north attic room, where the panes of the monitor roof furnished admirable lighting. During that first winter he produced five of his best-known short stories—“The Burrower Beneath”, “The Stairs in the Crypt”, “Shaggai”, “In the Vale of Pnath”, and “The Feaster from the Stars”—and painted seven canvases; studies of nameless, unhuman monsters, and profoundly alien, non-terrestrial landscapes. At sunset he would often sit at his desk and gaze dreamily off at the outspread west—the dark towers of Memorial Hall just below, the Georgian court-house belfry, the lofty pinnacles of the downtown section, and that shimmering, spire-crowned mound in the distance whose unknown streets and labyrinthine gables so potently provoked his fancy. From his few local acquaintances he learned that the far-off slope was a vast Italian quarter, though most of the houses were remnants of older Yankee and Irish days. Now and then he would train his field-glasses on that spectral, unreachable world beyond the curling smoke; picking out individual roofs and chimneys and steeples, and speculating upon the bizarre and curious mysteries they might house. Even with optical aid Federal Hill seemed somehow alien, half fabulous, and linked to the unreal, intangible marvels of Blake's own tales and pictures. The feeling would persist long after the hill had faded into the violet, lamp-starred twilight, and the court-house floodlights and the red Industrial Trust beacon had blazed up to make the night grotesque. Of all the distant objects on Federal Hill, a certain huge, dark church most fascinated Blake. It stood out with especial distinctness at certain hours of the day, and at sunset the great tower and tapering steeple loomed blackly against the flaming sky. It seemed to rest on especially high ground; for the grimy facade, and the obliquely seen north side with sloping roof and the tops of great pointed windows, rose boldly above the tangle of surrounding ridgepoles and chimney-pots. Peculiarly grim and austere, it appeared to be built of stone, stained and weathered with the smoke and storms of a century and more. The style, so far as the glass could shew, was that earliest experimental form of Gothic revival which preceded the stately Upjohn period and held over some of the outlines and proportions of the Georgian age. Perhaps it was reared around 1810 or 1815. As months passed, Blake watched the far-off, forbidding structure with an oddly mounting interest. Since the vast windows were never lighted, he knew that it must be vacant. The longer he watched, the more his imagination worked, till at length he began to fancy curious things. He believed that a vague, singular aura of desolation hovered over the place, so that even the pigeons and swallows shunned its smoky eaves. Around other towers and belfries his glass would reveal great flocks of birds, but here they never rested. At least, that is what he thought and set down in his diary. He pointed the place out to several friends, but none of them had even been on Federal Hill or possessed the faintest notion of what the church was or had been. In the spring a deep restlessness gripped Blake. He had begun his long-planned novel—based on a supposed survival of the witch-cult in Maine—but was strangely unable to make progress with it. More and more he would sit at his westward window and gaze at the distant hill and the black, frowning steeple shunned by the birds. When the delicate leaves came out on the garden boughs the world was filled with a new beauty, but Blake's restlessness was merely increased. It was then that he first thought of crossing the city and climbing bodily up that fabulous slope into the smoke-wreathed world of dream. Late in April, just before the aeon-shadowed Walpurgis time, Blake made his first trip into the unknown. Plodding through the endless downtown streets and the bleak, decayed squares beyond, he came finally upon the ascending avenue of century-worn steps, sagging Doric porches, and blear-paned cupolas which he felt must lead up to the long-known, unreachable world beyond the mists. There were dingy blue-and-white street signs which meant nothing to him, and presently he noted the strange, dark faces of the drifting crowds, and the foreign signs over curious shops in brown, decade-weathered buildings. Nowhere could he find any of the objects he had seen from afar; so that once more he half fancied that the Federal Hill of that distant view was a dream-world never to be trod by living human feet. Now and then a battered church facade or crumbling spire came in sight, but never the blackened pile that he sought. When he asked a shopkeeper about a great stone church the man smiled and shook his head, though he spoke English freely. As Blake climbed higher, the region seemed stranger and stranger, with bewildering mazes of brooding brown alleys leading eternally off to the south. He crossed two or three broad avenues, and once thought he glimpsed a familiar tower. Again he asked a merchant about the massive church of stone, and this time he could have sworn that the plea of ignorance was feigned. The dark man's face had a look of fear which he tried to hide, and Blake saw him make a curious sign with his right hand. Then suddenly a black spire stood out against the cloudy sky on his left, above the tiers of brown roofs lining the tangled southerly alleys. Blake knew at once what it was, and plunged toward it through the squalid, unpaved lanes that climbed from the avenue. Twice he lost his way, but he somehow dared not ask any of the patriarchs or housewives who sat on their doorsteps, or any of the children who shouted and played in the mud of the shadowy lanes. At last he saw the tower plain against the southwest, and a huge stone bulk rose darkly at the end of an alley. Presently he stood in a windswept open square, quaintly cobblestoned, with a high bank wall on the farther side. This was the end of his quest; for upon the wide, iron-railed, weed-grown plateau which the wall supported—a separate, lesser world raised fully six feet above the surrounding streets—there stood a grim, titan bulk whose identity, despite Blake's new perspective, was beyond dispute. The vacant church was in a state of great decrepitude. Some of the high stone buttresses had fallen, and several delicate finials lay half lost among the brown, neglected weeds and grasses. The sooty Gothic windows were largely unbroken, though many of the stone mullions were missing. Blake wondered how the obscurely painted panes could have survived so well, in view of the known habits of small boys the world over. The massive doors were intact and tightly closed. Around the top of the bank wall, fully enclosing the grounds, was a rusty iron fence whose gate—at the head of a flight of steps from the square—was visibly padlocked. The path from the gate to the building was completely overgrown. Desolation and decay hung like a pall above the place, and in the birdless eaves and black, ivyless walls Blake felt a touch of the dimly sinister beyond his power to define. There were very few people in the square, but Blake saw a policeman at the northerly end and approached him with questions about the church. He was a great wholesome Irishman, and it seemed odd that he would do little more than make the sign of the cross and mutter that people never spoke of that building. When Blake pressed him he said very hurriedly that the Italian priests warned everybody against it, vowing that a monstrous evil had once dwelt there and left its mark. He himself had heard dark whispers of it from his father, who recalled certain sounds and rumours from his boyhood. There had been a bad sect there in the ould days—an outlaw sect that called up awful things from some unknown gulf of night. It had taken a good priest to exorcise what had come, though there did be those who said that merely the light could do it. If Father O'Malley were alive there would be many the thing he could tell. But now there was nothing to do but let it alone. It hurt nobody now, and those that owned it were dead or far away. They had run away like rats after the threatening talk in '77, when people began to mind the way folks vanished now and then in the neighbourhood. Some day the city would step in and take the property for lack of heirs, but little good would come of anybody's touching it. Better it be left alone for the years to topple, lest things be stirred that ought to rest forever in their black abyss. After the policeman had gone Blake stood staring at the sullen steepled pile. It excited him to find that the structure seemed as sinister to others as to him, and he wondered what grain of truth might lie behind the old tales the bluecoat had repeated. Probably they were mere legends evoked by the evil look of the place, but even so, they were like a strange coming to life of one of his own stories. The afternoon sun came out from behind dispersing clouds, but seemed unable to light up the stained, sooty walls of the old temple that towered on its high plateau. It was odd that the green of spring had not touched the brown, withered growths in the raised, iron-fenced yard. Blake found himself edging nearer the raised area and examining the bank wall and rusted fence for possible avenues of ingress. There was a terrible lure about the blackened fane which was not to be resisted. The fence had no opening near the steps, but around on the north side were some missing bars. He could go up the steps and walk around on the narrow coping outside the fence till he came to the gap. If the people feared the place so wildly, he would encounter no interference. He was on the embankment and almost inside the fence before anyone noticed him. Then, looking down, he saw the few people in the square edging away and making the same sign with their right hands that the shopkeeper in the avenue had made. Several windows were slammed down, and a fat woman darted into the street and pulled some small children inside a rickety, unpainted house. The gap in the fence was very easy to pass through, and before long Blake found himself wading amidst the rotting, tangled growths of the deserted yard. Here and there the worn stump of a headstone told him that there had once been burials in this field; but that, he saw, must have been very long ago. The sheer bulk of the church was oppressive now that he was close to it, but he conquered his mood and approached to try the three great doors in the facade. All were securely locked, so he began a circuit of the Cyclopean building in quest of some minor and more penetrable opening. Even then he could not be sure that he wished to enter that haunt of desertion and shadow, yet the pull of its strangeness dragged him on automatically. A yawning and unprotected cellar window in the rear furnished the needed aperture. Peering in, Blake saw a subterrene gulf of cobwebs and dust faintly litten by the western sun's filtered rays. Debris, old barrels, and ruined boxes and furniture of numerous sorts met his eye, though over everything lay a shroud of dust which softened all sharp outlines. The rusted remains of a hot-air furnace shewed that the building had been used and kept in shape as late as mid-Victorian times. Acting almost without conscious initiative, Blake crawled through the window and let himself down to the dust-carpeted and debris-strown concrete floor. The vaulted cellar was a vast one, without partitions; and in a corner far to the right, amid dense shadows, he saw a black archway evidently leading upstairs. He felt a peculiar sense of oppression at being actually within the great spectral building, but kept it in check as he cautiously scouted about—finding a still-intact barrel amid the dust, and rolling it over to the open window to provide for his exit. Then, bracing himself, he crossed the wide, cobweb-festooned space toward the arch. Half choked with the omnipresent dust, and covered with ghostly gossamer fibres, he reached and began to climb the worn stone steps which rose into the darkness. He had no light, but groped carefully with his hands. After a sharp turn he felt a closed door ahead, and a little fumbling revealed its ancient latch. It opened inward, and beyond it he saw a dimly illumined corridor lined with worm-eaten panelling. Once on the ground floor, Blake began exploring in a rapid fashion. All the inner doors were unlocked, so that he freely passed from room to room. The colossal nave was an almost eldritch place with its drifts and mountains of dust over box pews, altar, hourglass pulpit, and sounding-board, and its titanic ropes of cobweb stretching among the pointed arches of the gallery and entwining the clustered Gothic columns. Over all this hushed desolation played a hideous leaden light as the declining afternoon sun sent its rays through the strange, half-blackened panes of the great apsidal windows. The paintings on those windows were so obscured by soot that Blake could scarcely decipher what they had represented, but from the little he could make out he did not like them. The designs were largely conventional, and his knowledge of obscure symbolism told him much concerning some of the ancient patterns. The few saints depicted bore expressions distinctly open to criticism, while one of the windows seemed to shew merely a dark space with spirals of curious luminosity scattered about in it. Turning away from the windows, Blake noticed that the cobwebbed cross above the altar was not of the ordinary kind, but resembled the primordial ankh or crux ansata of shadowy Egypt. In a rear vestry room beside the apse Blake found a rotting desk and ceiling-high shelves of mildewed, disintegrating books. Here for the first time he received a positive shock of objective horror, for the titles of those books told him much. They were the black, forbidden things which most sane people have never even heard of, or have heard of only in furtive, timorous whispers; the banned and dreaded repositories of equivocal secrets and immemorial formulae which have trickled down the stream of time from the days of man's youth, and the dim, fabulous days before man was. He had himself read many of them—a Latin version of the abhorred Necronomicon, the sinister Liber Ivonis, the infamous Cultes des Goules of Comte d'Erlette, the Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt, and old Ludvig Prinn's hellish De Vermis Mysteriis. But there were others he had known merely by reputation or not at all—the Pnakotic Manuscripts, the Book of Dzyan, and a crumbling volume in wholly unidentifiable characters yet with certain symbols and diagrams shudderingly recognisable to the occult student. Clearly, the lingering local rumours had not lied. This place had once been the seat of an evil older than mankind and wider than the known universe. In the ruined desk was a small leather-bound record-book filled with entries in some odd cryptographic medium. The manuscript writing consisted of the common traditional symbols used today in astronomy and anciently in alchemy, astrology, and other dubious arts—the devices of the sun, moon, planets, aspects, and zodiacal signs—here massed in solid pages of text, with divisions and paragraphings suggesting that each symbol answered to some alphabetical letter. In the hope of later solving the cryptogram, Blake bore off this volume in his coat pocket. Many of the great tomes on the shelves fascinated him unutterably, and he felt tempted to borrow them at some later time. He wondered how they could have remained undisturbed so long. Was he the first to conquer the clutching, pervasive fear which had for nearly sixty years protected this deserted place from visitors? Having now thoroughly explored the ground floor, Blake ploughed again through the dust of the spectral nave to the front vestibule, where he had seen a door and staircase presumably leading up to the blackened tower and steeple—objects so long familiar to him at a distance. The ascent was a choking experience, for dust lay thick, while the spiders had done their worst in this constricted place. The staircase was a spiral with high, narrow wooden treads, and now and then Blake passed a clouded window looking dizzily out over the city. Though he had seen no ropes below, he expected to find a bell or peal of bells in the tower whose narrow, louver-boarded lancet windows his field-glass had studied so often. Here he was doomed to disappointment; for when he attained the top of the stairs he found the tower chamber vacant of chimes, and clearly devoted to vastly different purposes. The room, about fifteen feet square, was faintly lighted by four lancet windows, one on each side, which were glazed within their screening of decayed louver-boards. These had been further fitted with tight, opaque screens, but the latter were now largely rotted away. In the centre of the dust-laden floor rose a curiously angled stone pillar some four feet in height and two in average diameter, covered on each side with bizarre, crudely incised, and wholly unrecognisable hieroglyphs. On this pillar rested a metal box of peculiarly asymmetrical form; its hinged lid thrown back, and its interior holding what looked beneath the decade-deep dust to be an egg-shaped or irregularly spherical object some four inches through. Around the pillar in a rough circle were seven high-backed Gothic chairs still largely intact, while behind them, ranging along the dark-panelled walls, were seven colossal images of crumbling, black-painted plaster, resembling more than anything else the cryptic carven megaliths of mysterious Easter Island. In one corner of the cobwebbed chamber a ladder was built into the wall, leading up to the closed trap-door of the windowless steeple above. As Blake grew accustomed to the feeble light he noticed odd bas-reliefs on the strange open box of yellowish metal. Approaching, he tried to clear the dust away with his hands and handkerchief, and saw that the figurings were of a monstrous and utterly alien kind; depicting entities which, though seemingly alive, resembled no known life-form ever evolved on this planet. The four-inch seeming sphere turned out to be a nearly black, red-striated polyhedron with many irregular flat surfaces; either a very remarkable crystal of some sort, or an artificial object of carved and highly polished mineral matter. It did not touch the bottom of the box, but was held suspended by means of a metal band around its centre, with seven queerly designed supports extending horizontally to angles of the box's inner wall near the top. This stone, once exposed, exerted upon Blake an almost alarming fascination. He could scarcely tear his eyes from it, and as he looked at its glistening surfaces he almost fancied it was transparent, with half-formed worlds of wonder within. Into his mind floated pictures of alien orbs with great stone towers, and other orbs with titan mountains and no mark of life, and still remoter spaces where only a stirring in vague blacknesses told of the presence of consciousness and will. When he did look away, it was to notice a somewhat singular mound of dust in the far corner near the ladder to the steeple. Just why it took his attention he could not tell, but something in its contours carried a message to his unconscious mind. Ploughing toward it, and brushing aside the hanging cobwebs as he went, he began to discern something grim about it. Hand and handkerchief soon revealed the truth, and Blake gasped with a baffling mixture of emotions. It was a human skeleton, and it must have been there for a very long time. The clothing was in shreds, but some buttons and fragments of cloth bespoke a man's grey suit. There were other bits of evidence—shoes, metal clasps, huge buttons for round cuffs, a stickpin of bygone pattern, a reporter's badge with the name of the old Providence Telegram, and a crumbling leather pocketbook. Blake examined the latter with care, finding within it several bills of antiquated issue, a celluloid advertising calendar for 1893, some cards with the name “Edwin M. Lillibridge”, and a paper covered with pencilled memoranda. This paper held much of a puzzling nature, and Blake read it carefully at the dim westward window. Its disjointed text included such phrases as the following: “Prof. Enoch Bowen home from Egypt May 1844—buys old Free-Will Church in July—his archaeological work & studies in occult well known.” “Dr. Drowne of 4th Baptist warns against Starry Wisdom in sermon Dec. 29, 1844.” “Congregation 97 by end of '45.” “1846—3 disappearances—first mention of Shining Trapezohedron.” “7 disappearances 1848—stories of blood sacrifice begin.” “Investigation 1853 comes to nothing—stories of sounds.” “Fr. O'Malley tells of devil-worship with box found in great Egyptian ruins—says they call up something that can't exist in light. Flees a little light, and banished by strong light. Then has to be summoned again. Probably got this from deathbed confession of Francis X. Feeney, who had joined Starry Wisdom in '49. These people say the Shining Trapezohedron shews them heaven & other worlds, & that the Haunter of the Dark tells them secrets in some way.” “Story of Orrin B. Eddy 1857. They call it up by gazing at the crystal, & have a secret language of their own.” “200 or more in cong. 1863, exclusive of men at front.” “Irish boys mob church in 1869 after Patrick Regan's disappearance.” “Veiled article in J. March 14, '72, but people don't talk about it.” “6 disappearances 1876—secret committee calls on Mayor Doyle.” “Action promised Feb. 1877—church closes in April.” “Gang—Federal Hill Boys—threaten Dr. —— and vestrymen in May.” “181 persons leave city before end of '77—mention no names.” “Ghost stories begin around 1880—try to ascertain truth of report that no human being has entered church since 1877.” “Ask Lanigan for photograph of place taken 1851.” . . . Restoring the paper to the pocketbook and placing the latter in his coat, Blake turned to look down at the skeleton in the dust. The implications of the notes were clear, and there could be no doubt but that this man had come to the deserted edifice forty-two years before in quest of a newspaper sensation which no one else had been bold enough to attempt. Perhaps no one else had known of his plan—who could tell? But he had never returned to his paper. Had some bravely suppressed fear risen to overcome him and bring on sudden heart-failure? Blake stooped over the gleaming bones and noted their peculiar state. Some of them were badly scattered, and a few seemed oddly dissolved at the ends. Others were strangely yellowed, with vague suggestions of charring. This charring extended to some of the fragments of clothing. The skull was in a very peculiar state—stained yellow, and with a charred aperture in the top as if some powerful acid had eaten through the solid bone. What had happened to the skeleton during its four decades of silent entombment here Blake could not imagine. Before he realised it, he was looking at the stone again, and letting its curious influence call up a nebulous pageantry in his mind. He saw processions of robed, hooded figures whose outlines were not human, and looked on endless leagues of desert lined with carved, sky-reaching monoliths. He saw towers and walls in nighted depths under the sea, and vortices of space where wisps of black mist floated before thin shimmerings of cold purple haze. And beyond all else he glimpsed an infinite gulf of darkness, where solid and semi-solid forms were known only by their windy stirrings, and cloudy patterns of force seemed to superimpose order on chaos and hold forth a key to all the paradoxes and arcana of the worlds we know. Then all at once the spell was broken by an access of gnawing, indeterminate panic fear. Blake choked and turned away from the stone, conscious of some formless alien presence close to him and watching him with horrible intentness. He felt entangled with something—something which was not in the stone, but which had looked through it at him—something which would ceaselessly follow him with a cognition that was not physical sight. Plainly, the place was getting on his nerves—as well it might in view of his gruesome find. The light was waning, too, and since he had no illuminant with him he knew he would have to be leaving soon. It was then, in the gathering twilight, that he thought he saw a faint trace of luminosity in the crazily angled stone. He had tried to look away from it, but some obscure compulsion drew his eyes back. Was there a subtle phosphorescence of radio-activity about the thing? What was it that the dead man's notes had said concerning a Shining Trapezohedron? What, anyway, was this abandoned lair of cosmic evil? What had been done here, and what might still be lurking in the bird-shunned shadows? It seemed now as if an elusive touch of foetor had arisen somewhere close by, though its source was not apparent. Blake seized the cover of the long-open box and snapped it down. It moved easily on its alien hinges, and closed completely over the unmistakably glowing stone. At the sharp click of that closing a soft stirring sound seemed to come from the steeple's eternal blackness overhead, beyond the trap-door. Rats, without question—the only living things to reveal their presence in this accursed pile since he had entered it. And yet that stirring in the steeple frightened him horribly, so that he plunged almost wildly down the spiral stairs, across the ghoulish nave, into the vaulted basement, out amidst the gathering dusk of the deserted square, and down through the teeming, fear-haunted alleys and avenues of Federal Hill toward the sane central streets and the home-like brick sidewalks of the college district. During the days which followed, Blake told no one of his expedition. Instead, he read much in certain books, examined long years of newspaper files downtown, and worked feverishly at the cryptogram in that leather volume from the cobwebbed vestry room. The cipher, he soon saw, was no simple one; and after a long period of endeavour he felt sure that its language could not be English, Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, or German. Evidently he would have to draw upon the deepest wells of his strange erudition. Every evening the old impulse to gaze westward returned, and he saw the black steeple as of yore amongst the bristling roofs of a distant and half-fabulous world. But now it held a fresh note of terror for him. He knew the heritage of evil lore it masked, and with the knowledge his vision ran riot in queer new ways. The birds of spring were returning, and as he watched their sunset flights he fancied they avoided the gaunt, lone spire as never before. When a flock of them approached it, he thought, they would wheel and scatter in panic confusion—and he could guess at the wild twitterings which failed to reach him across the intervening miles. It was in June that Blake's diary told of his victory over the cryptogram. The text was, he found, in the dark Aklo language used by certain cults of evil antiquity, and known to him in a halting way through previous researches. The diary is strangely reticent about what Blake deciphered, but he was patently awed and disconcerted by his results. There are references to a Haunter of the Dark awaked by gazing into the Shining Trapezohedron, and insane conjectures about the black gulfs of chaos from which it was called. The being is spoken of as holding all knowledge, and demanding monstrous sacrifices. Some of Blake's entries shew fear lest the thing, which he seemed to regard as summoned, stalk abroad; though he adds that the street-lights form a bulwark which cannot be crossed. Of the Shining Trapezohedron he speaks often, calling it a window on all time and space, and tracing its history from the days it was fashioned on dark Yuggoth, before ever the Old Ones brought it to earth. It was treasured and placed in its curious box by the crinoid things of Antarctica, salvaged from their ruins by the serpent-men of Valusia, and peered at aeons later in Lemuria by the first human beings. It crossed strange lands and stranger seas, and sank with Atlantis before a Minoan fisher meshed it in his net and sold it to swarthy merchants from nighted Khem. The Pharaoh Nephren-Ka built around it a temple with a windowless crypt, and did that which caused his name to be stricken from all monuments and records. Then it slept in the ruins of that evil fane which the priests and the new Pharaoh destroyed, till the delver's spade once more brought it forth to curse mankind. Early in July the newspapers oddly supplement Blake's entries, though in so brief and casual a way that only the diary has called general attention to their contribution. It appears that a new fear had been growing on Federal Hill since a stranger had entered the dreaded church. The Italians whispered of unaccustomed stirrings and bumpings and scrapings in the dark windowless steeple, and called on their priests to banish an entity which haunted their dreams. Something, they said, was constantly watching at a door to see if it were dark enough to venture forth. Press items mentioned the long-standing local superstitions, but failed to shed much light on the earlier background of the horror. It was obvious that the young reporters of today are no antiquarians. In writing of these things in his diary, Blake expresses a curious kind of remorse, and talks of the duty of burying the Shining Trapezohedron and of banishing what he had evoked by letting daylight into the hideous jutting spire. At the same time, however, he displays the dangerous extent of his fascination, and admits a morbid longing—pervading even his dreams—to visit the accursed tower and gaze again into the cosmic secrets of the glowing stone. Then something in the Journal on the morning of July 17 threw the diarist into a veritable fever of horror. It was only a variant of the other half-humorous items about the Federal Hill restlessness, but to Blake it was somehow very terrible indeed. In the night a thunderstorm had put the city's lighting-system out of commission for a full hour, and in that black interval the Italians had nearly gone mad with fright. Those living near the dreaded church had sworn that the thing in the steeple had taken advantage of the street-lamps' absence and gone down into the body of the church, flopping and bumping around in a viscous, altogether dreadful way. Toward the last it had bumped up to the tower, where there were sounds of the shattering of glass. It could go wherever the darkness reached, but light would always send it fleeing. When the current blazed on again there had been a shocking commotion in the tower, for even the feeble light trickling through the grime-blackened, louver-boarded windows was too much for the thing. It had bumped and slithered up into its tenebrous steeple just in time—for a long dose of light would have sent it back into the abyss whence the crazy stranger had called it. During the dark hour praying crowds had clustered round the church in the rain with lighted candles and lamps somehow shielded with folded paper and umbrellas—a guard of light to save the city from the nightmare that stalks in darkness. Once, those nearest the church declared, the outer door had rattled hideously. But even this was not the worst. That evening in the Bulletin Blake read of what the reporters had found. Aroused at last to the whimsical news value of the scare, a pair of them had defied the frantic crowds of Italians and crawled into the church through the cellar window after trying the doors in vain. They found the dust of the vestibule and of the spectral nave ploughed up in a singular way, with bits of rotted cushions and satin pew-linings scattered curiously around. There was a bad odour everywhere, and here and there were bits of yellow stain and patches of what looked like charring. Opening the door to the tower, and pausing a moment at the suspicion of a scraping sound above, they found the narrow spiral stairs wiped roughly clean. In the tower itself a similarly half-swept condition existed. They spoke of the heptagonal stone pillar, the overturned Gothic chairs, and the bizarre plaster images; though strangely enough the metal box and the old mutilated skeleton were not mentioned. What disturbed Blake the most—except for the hints of stains and charring and bad odours—was the final detail that explained the crashing glass. Every one of the tower's lancet windows was broken, and two of them had been darkened in a crude and hurried way by the stuffing of satin pew-linings and cushion-horsehair into the spaces between the slanting exterior louver-boards. More satin fragments and bunches of horsehair lay scattered around the newly swept floor, as if someone had been interrupted in the act of restoring the tower to the absolute blackness of its tightly curtained days. Yellowish stains and charred patches were found on the ladder to the windowless spire, but when a reporter climbed up, opened the horizontally sliding trap-door, and shot a feeble flashlight beam into the black and strangely foetid space, he saw nothing but darkness, and an heterogeneous litter of shapeless fragments near the aperture. The verdict, of course, was charlatanry. Somebody had played a joke on the superstitious hill-dwellers, or else some fanatic had striven to bolster up their fears for their own supposed good. Or perhaps some of the younger and more sophisticated dwellers had staged an elaborate hoax on the outside world. There was an amusing aftermath when the police sent an officer to verify the reports. Three men in succession found ways of evading the assignment, and the fourth went very reluctantly and returned very soon without adding to the account given by the reporters. From this point onward Blake's diary shews a mounting tide of insidious horror and nervous apprehension. He upbraids himself for not doing something, and speculates wildly on the consequences of another electrical breakdown. It has been verified that on three occasions—during thunderstorms—he telephoned the electric light company in a frantic vein and asked that desperate precautions against a lapse of power be taken. Now and then his entries shew concern over the failure of the reporters to find the metal box and stone, and the strangely marred old skeleton, when they explored the shadowy tower room. He assumed that these things had been removed—whither, and by whom or what, he could only guess. But his worst fears concerned himself, and the kind of unholy rapport he felt to exist between his mind and that lurking horror in the distant steeple—that monstrous thing of night which his rashness had called out of the ultimate black spaces. He seemed to feel a constant tugging at his will, and callers of that period remember how he would sit abstractedly at his desk and stare out of the west window at that far-off, spire-bristling mound beyond the swirling smoke of the city. His entries dwell monotonously on certain terrible dreams, and of a strengthening of the unholy rapport in his sleep. There is mention of a night when he awaked to find himself fully dressed, outdoors, and headed automatically down College Hill toward the west. Again and again he dwells on the fact that the thing in the steeple knows where to find him. The week following July 30 is recalled as the time of Blake's partial breakdown. He did not dress, and ordered all his food by telephone. Visitors remarked the cords he kept near his bed, and he said that sleep-walking had forced him to bind his ankles every night with knots which would probably hold or else waken him with the labour of untying. In his diary he told of the hideous experience which had brought the collapse. After retiring on the night of the 30th he had suddenly found himself groping about in an almost black space. All he could see were short, faint, horizontal streaks of bluish light, but he could smell an overpowering foetor and hear a curious jumble of soft, furtive sounds above him. Whenever he moved he stumbled over something, and at each noise there would come a sort of answering sound from above—a vague stirring, mixed with the cautious sliding of wood on wood. Once his groping hands encountered a pillar of stone with a vacant top, whilst later he found himself clutching the rungs of a ladder built into the wall, and fumbling his uncertain way upward toward some region of intenser stench where a hot, searing blast beat down against him. Before his eyes a kaleidoscopic range of phantasmal images played, all of them dissolving at intervals into the picture of a vast, unplumbed abyss of night wherein whirled suns and worlds of an even profounder blackness. He thought of the ancient legends of Ultimate Chaos, at whose centre sprawls the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a daemoniac flute held in nameless paws. Then a sharp report from the outer world broke through his stupor and roused him to the unutterable horror of his position. What it was, he never knew—perhaps it was some belated peal from the fireworks heard all summer on Federal Hill as the dwellers hail their various patron saints, or the saints of their native villages in Italy. In any event he shrieked aloud, dropped frantically from the ladder, and stumbled blindly across the obstructed floor of the almost lightless chamber that encompassed him. He knew instantly where he was, and plunged recklessly down the narrow spiral staircase, tripping and bruising himself at every turn. There was a nightmare flight through a vast cobwebbed nave whose ghostly arches reached up to realms of leering shadow, a sightless scramble through a littered basement, a climb to regions of air and street-lights outside, and a mad racing down a spectral hill of gibbering gables, across a grim, silent city of tall black towers, and up the steep eastward precipice to his own ancient door. On regaining consciousness in the morning he found himself lying on his study floor fully dressed. Dirt and cobwebs covered him, and every inch of his body seemed sore and bruised. When he faced the mirror he saw that his hair was badly scorched, while a trace of strange, evil odour seemed to cling to his upper outer clothing. It was then that his nerves broke down. Thereafter, lounging exhaustedly about in a dressing-gown, he did little but stare from his west window, shiver at the threat of thunder, and make wild entries in his diary. The great storm broke just before midnight on August 8th. Lightning struck repeatedly in all parts of the city, and two remarkable fireballs were reported. The rain was torrential, while a constant fusillade of thunder brought sleeplessness to thousands. Blake was utterly frantic in his fear for the lighting system, and tried to telephone the company around 1 a.m., though by that time service had been temporarily cut off in the interest of safety. He recorded everything in his diary—the large, nervous, and often undecipherable hieroglyphs telling their own story of growing frenzy and despair, and of entries scrawled blindly in the dark. He had to keep the house dark in order to see out the window, and it appears that most of his time was spent at his desk, peering anxiously through the rain across the glistening miles of downtown roofs at the constellation of distant lights marking Federal Hill. Now and then he would fumblingly make an entry in his diary, so that detached phrases such as “The lights must not go”; “It knows where I am”; “I must destroy it”; and “It is calling to me, but perhaps it means no injury this time”; are found scattered down two of the pages. Then the lights went out all over the city. It happened at 2:12 a.m. according to power-house records, but Blake's diary gives no indication of the time. The entry is merely, “Lights out—God help me.” On Federal Hill there were watchers as anxious as he, and rain-soaked knots of men paraded the square and alleys around the evil church with umbrella-shaded candles, electric flashlights, oil lanterns, crucifixes, and obscure charms of the many sorts common to southern Italy. They blessed each flash of lightning, and made cryptical signs of fear with their right hands when a turn in the storm caused the flashes to lessen and finally to cease altogether. A rising wind blew out most of the candles, so that the scene grew threateningly dark. Someone roused Father Merluzzo of Spirito Santo Church, and he hastened to the dismal square to pronounce whatever helpful syllables he could. Of the restless and curious sounds in the blackened tower, there could be no doubt whatever. For what happened at 2:35 we have the testimony of the priest, a young, intelligent, and well-educated person; of Patrolman William J. Monahan of the Central Station, an officer of the highest reliability who had paused at that part of his beat to inspect the crowd; and of most of the seventy-eight men who had gathered around the church's high bank wall—especially those in the square where the eastward facade was visible. Of course there was nothing which can be proved as being outside the order of Nature. The possible causes of such an event are many. No one can speak with certainty of the obscure chemical processes arising in a vast, ancient, ill-aired, and long-deserted building of heterogeneous contents. Mephitic vapours—spontaneous combustion—pressure of gases born of long decay—any one of numberless phenomena might be responsible. And then, of course, the factor of conscious charlatanry can by no means be excluded. The thing was really quite simple in itself, and covered less than three minutes of actual time. Father Merluzzo, always a precise man, looked at his watch repeatedly. It started with a definite swelling of the dull fumbling sounds inside the black tower. There had for some time been a vague exhalation of strange, evil odours from the church, and this had now become emphatic and offensive. Then at last there was a sound of splintering wood, and a large, heavy object crashed down in the yard beneath the frowning easterly facade. The tower was invisible now that the candles would not burn, but as the object neared the ground the people knew that it was the smoke-grimed louver-boarding of that tower's east window. Immediately afterward an utterly unbearable foetor welled forth from the unseen heights, choking and sickening the trembling watchers, and almost prostrating those in the square. At the same time the air trembled with a vibration as of flapping wings, and a sudden east-blowing wind more violent than any previous blast snatched off the hats and wrenched the dripping umbrellas of the crowd. Nothing definite could be seen in the candleless night, though some upward-looking spectators thought they glimpsed a great spreading blur of denser blackness against the inky sky—something like a formless cloud of smoke that shot with meteor-like speed toward the east. That was all. The watchers were half numbed with fright, awe, and discomfort, and scarcely knew what to do, or whether to do anything at all. Not knowing what had happened, they did not relax their vigil; and a moment later they sent up a prayer as a sharp flash of belated lightning, followed by an earsplitting crash of sound, rent the flooded heavens. Half an hour later the rain stopped, and in fifteen minutes more the street-lights sprang on again, sending the weary, bedraggled watchers relievedly back to their homes. The next day's papers gave these matters minor mention in connexion with the general storm reports. It seems that the great lightning flash and deafening explosion which followed the Federal Hill occurrence were even more tremendous farther east, where a burst of the singular foetor was likewise noticed. The phenomenon was most marked over College Hill, where the crash awaked all the sleeping inhabitants and led to a bewildered round of speculations. Of those who were already awake only a few saw the anomalous blaze of light near the top of the hill, or noticed the inexplicable upward rush of air which almost stripped the leaves from the trees and blasted the plants in the gardens. It was agreed that the lone, sudden lightning-bolt must have struck somewhere in this neighbourhood, though no trace of its striking could afterward be found. A youth in the Tau Omega fraternity house thought he saw a grotesque and hideous mass of smoke in the air just as the preliminary flash burst, but his observation has not been verified. All of the few observers, however, agree as to the violent gust from the west and the flood of intolerable stench which preceded the belated stroke; whilst evidence concerning the momentary burned odour after the stroke is equally general. These points were discussed very carefully because of their probable connexion with the death of Robert Blake. Students in the Psi Delta house, whose upper rear windows looked into Blake's study, noticed the blurred white face at the westward window on the morning of the 9th, and wondered what was wrong with the expression. When they saw the same face in the same position that evening, they felt worried, and watched for the lights to come up in his apartment. Later they rang the bell of the darkened flat, and finally had a policeman force the door. The rigid body sat bolt upright at the desk by the window, and when the intruders saw the glassy, bulging eyes, and the marks of stark, convulsive fright on the twisted features, they turned away in sickened dismay. Shortly afterward the coroner's physician made an examination, and despite the unbroken window reported electrical shock, or nervous tension induced by electrical discharge, as the cause of death. The hideous expression he ignored altogether, deeming it a not improbable result of the profound shock as experienced by a person of such abnormal imagination and unbalanced emotions. He deduced these latter qualities from the books, paintings, and manuscripts found in the apartment, and from the blindly scrawled entries in the diary on the desk. Blake had prolonged his frenzied jottings to the last, and the broken-pointed pencil was found clutched in his spasmodically contracted right hand. The entries after the failure of the lights were highly disjointed, and legible only in part. From them certain investigators have drawn conclusions differing greatly from the materialistic official verdict, but such speculations have little chance for belief among the conservative. The case of these imaginative theorists has not been helped by the action of superstitious Dr. Dexter, who threw the curious box and angled stone—an object certainly self-luminous as seen in the black windowless steeple where it was found—into the deepest channel of Narragansett Bay. Excessive imagination and neurotic unbalance on Blake's part, aggravated by knowledge of the evil bygone cult whose startling traces he had uncovered, form the dominant interpretation given those final frenzied jottings. These are the entries—or all that can be made of them. “Lights still out—must be five minutes now. Everything depends on lightning. Yaddith grant it will keep up! . . . Some influence seems beating through it. . . . Rain and thunder and wind deafen. . . . The thing is taking hold of my mind. . . . “Trouble with memory. I see things I never knew before. Other worlds and other galaxies . . . Dark . . . The lightning seems dark and the darkness seems light. . . . “It cannot be the real hill and church that I see in the pitch-darkness. Must be retinal impression left by flashes. Heaven grant the Italians are out with their candles if the lightning stops! “What am I afraid of? Is it not an avatar of Nyarlathotep, who in antique and shadowy Khem even took the form of man? I remember Yuggoth, and more distant Shaggai, and the ultimate void of the black planets. . . . “The long, winging flight through the void . . . cannot cross the universe of light . . . re-created by the thoughts caught in the Shining Trapezohedron . . . send it through the horrible abysses of radiance. . . . “My name is Blake—Robert Harrison Blake of 620 East Knapp Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. . . . I am on this planet. . . . “Azathoth have mercy!—the lightning no longer flashes—horrible—I can see everything with a monstrous sense that is not sight—light is dark and dark is light . . . those people on the hill . . . guard . . . candles and charms . . . their priests. . . . “Sense of distance gone—far is near and near is far. No light—no glass—see that steeple—that tower—window—can hear—Roderick Usher—am mad or going mad—the thing is stirring and fumbling in the tower—I am it and it is I—I want to get out . . . must get out and unify the forces. . . . It knows where I am. . . . “I am Robert Blake, but I see the tower in the dark. There is a monstrous odour . . . senses transfigured . . . boarding at that tower window cracking and giving way. . . . Iä . . . ngai . . . ygg. . . . “I see it—coming here—hell-wind—titan blur—black wings—Yog-Sothoth save me—the three-lobed burning eye. . . .”

Welcome to the daily304 – your window into Wonderful, Almost Heaven, West Virginia.   Today is Saturday, Nov. 18  A big city native is enjoying his relaxing new life in the Greenbrier Valley, thanks to Ascend WV. The WVU Innovation Corporation touts success with its new space. And Marshall makes a name for itself in cyber security…on today's daily304. #1 – From BLUE RIDGE COUNTRY – A Detroit native who moved to Washington, D.C. shortly after college, Michael Phillips is no stranger to traffic sounds. But it wasn't until he moved to White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, that he began hearing the friendly “beep beep” greetings honk. “It's much different from D.C.,” Phillips says of the tiny burg (population: 2,198). For starters, there are no skyscrapers—just soaring mountain peaks. Southern hospitality runs deep in White Sulphur Springs. But that's not why Phillips traded his metropolitan existence for a decidedly rural one. Instead, he owes his move to Ascend West Virginia. A collaborative endeavor between West Virginia University and the West Virginia Department of Tourism, Ascend seeks to boost local tax revenues by offering $12,000 in cash, plus other benefits, to telecommuters who relocate to one of five areas in West Virginia: Morgantown, Greenbrier Valley, Eastern Panhandle, Greater Elkins and the New River Gorge. From his new home in the Greenbrier Valley, Phillips works remotely as a deferral consultant to the United States Department of Veteran Affairs. A lover of the outdoors, he says moving to West Virginia was an obvious choice. “It's four hours from D.C. in case I need to meet a client,” says Phillips. “But I can also walk out my door and immediately see mountains. And in less than 10 minutes, I can be hiking in Greenbrier State Forest or paddling down the Greenbrier River.” Learn more at www.ascendwv.com. Read more: https://blueridgecountry.com/newsstand/magazine/seeking-the-wild-and-wonderful/    #2 – From WV NEWS – The West Virginia University Innovation Corporation is “in it for the long haul,” President Stacey Armstrong says. Eighteen months after the Mylan-Viatris plant in Morgantown was closed, the WVU Innovation Corporation provides 200 jobs and offers space for burgeoning businesses to expand their operations in the once-shuttered facility. The former plant was taken over by West Virginia University and WVU Medicine on April 1 after Mylan-Viatris merged with Pfizer's Upjohn and the plant's production line was moved to India. In the 18 months since the two entities have taken ownership of the facility, they have found four full-time tenants and have 12 signed leases. The Innovation Corporation also has plans to open a new diploma-based nursing program that would provide students with classes needed to become board-certified registered nurses. Read more: https://www.wvnews.com/news/wvnews/wvu-innovation-corporation-revitalizes-former-mylan-pharmaceutical-building/article_3288bad0-7cca-11ee-8348-e774b00630a6.html   #3 – From MARSHALL UNIVERSITY –  Dr. Josh Brunty loves that moment when his students solve a challenge on their own. It's that first moment when they don't need any guidance or prompts. When they take what they've learned, and they figure it out themselves. And he loves it when he sees those students a few years later. They've embarked on those cyber careers in which they're solving problems that he couldn't even imagine while they were sitting in his classroom. That's when he knows that teaching cyber security at Marshall University is changing lives and the world. And here at Marshall, it's just getting better all the time. Earlier this fall, Marshall celebrated a $45 million state contribution to a new facility that will house Marshall's Institute for Cyber Security. Meanwhile, after years of coaching highly competitive Marshall cyber teams, Brunty was named head coach for the US Cyber Team and will lead the team for the next year in international cyber competitions. Both are outcomes of an ongoing effort among Marshall's cyber education experts to establish one of the leading cyber programs not only in the region, but the country. “The new center is going to push our program into a completely different stratosphere,” Brunty said. “When you have a facility like that, it attracts the best students and employers. You're going to have the facilities to do the things you only dreamed of 10 years ago. That's the cool thing. These dreams become a reality when you have the space to perform them in. Read more: https://www.marshall.edu/moments/2023/09/06/marshall-cyber/   Find these stories and more at wv.gov/daily304. The daily304 curated news and information is brought to you by the West Virginia Department of Commerce: Sharing the wealth, beauty and opportunity in West Virginia with the world. Follow the daily304 on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @daily304. Or find us online at wv.gov and just click the daily304 logo.  That's all for now. Take care. Be safe. Get outside and enjoy all the opportunity West Virginia has to offer.

Located on Main Street USA at Disneyland from 1955 to 1970, Upjohn Pharmacy was a beloved and popular attraction at the park. Although it no longer exists, it is still fondly remembered by generations of Disney parkgoers. This is the story of Upjohn Pharmacy. Disney Postcards: https://postcardinspirations.com    

Today, Liz and Andrew break down (former) Fox News producer Abby Grossberg's lawsuit against Fox, and what implications it may have for Dominion's pending $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox. Notes OA 694: Dominion v. Fox: Defamation Suits Are Hard But Shutting Up is Harder https://openargs.com/oa694-dominion-v-fox-defamation-suits-are-hard-but-shutting-up-is-harder/ OA 705: Can Dominion Really Take Down Fox News?? https://openargs.com/oa705-can-dominion-really-take-down-fox-news/ FMLA https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/chapter-28 Upjohn v. US, 449 U.S. 383 (1981) https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5153750416071396937 Front, Inc. v. Khalil, 24 N.Y.3d 713 (2015) https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12991806128851668843 Dominion MSJ https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/redacted-documents-in-dominion-fox-news-case/dca5e3880422426f/full.pdf Fox TRO Motion v. Abby Grossberg https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=qP3YkE2tdjchZ45eMXvjLA== Fox Emergency Motion to Seal https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.595940/gov.uscourts.nysd.595940.9.0.pdf Order Denying Motion to Seal https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.595940/gov.uscourts.nysd.595940.11.0.pdf Grossberg Amended Complaint v. Fox https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.595940/gov.uscourts.nysd.595940.12.0.pdf Grossberg Original Complaint v. Fox https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.595940/gov.uscourts.nysd.595940.1.0.pdf -Support us on Patreon at: patreon.com/law -Follow us on Twitter:  @Openargs -Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/openargs/ -For show-related questions, check out the Opening Arguments Wiki, which now has its own Twitter feed!  @oawiki -And finally, remember that you can email us at openarguments@gmail.com

Dr. Robert Hollingsworth is the current Chief Scientific Officer of Shoreline Biosciences, a biopharmaceutical company developing next-generation cellular immunotherapies based on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)- utilizing its proprietary platforms. Dr. Hollingsworth joins Shoreline from Pfizer, where he served as Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Cancer Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics. Prior to Pfizer, he was Senior Director of Oncology Research at MedImmune where he led and advanced a large portfolio of more than twenty programs, including CAR-T programs, and contributed to the approval of durvalumab.  Before that, he held several R&D positions at GSK, Pharmacia, and Upjohn.In this episode, we discuss Robert's long career in biopharma, the platform technology being developed at Shoreline, and the role of strategic partnerships in early-stage development.Hosted by Gustavo Carrizo and Joe Varriale.

I'm very pleased to present an exclusive audio version of the first 20 pages of my new book Hanging Ned Kelly, which is published this week by Affirm Press. Here's what it's about:HANGING NED KELLYWhen it came time to hang Ned Kelly, the deed fell to the nightman-turned-quack-doctor-turned-drunken-chicken-thief Elijah Upjohn. Such is life indeed. Upjohn was the latest in a long line of 19th century flogging hangmen who were allowed to run amok because they did the dirty work of the establishment that allowed officials to keep their hands clean. Despite being duly appointed ‘finishers of the law', Upjohn and his fellow boozing bunglers were so hated they were often hunted by angry mobs.In Hanging Ned Kelly, the tale of Elijah Upjohn becomes the rusty scalpel that slices open the underbelly of colonial Victoria – an underworld seething with serial killers, clueless cops, larrikin vigilantes, renegade reporters, racist settlers, furious fallen women and cunning waxwork showmen. Looming over them all: the depraved hangmen... and Australia's most infamous outlaw.Hanging Ned Kelly is available on 27 September at all good bookstores and online retailers.To support Forgotten Australia and access early ad-free and bonus episodes:Apple: http://apple.co/forgottenaustraliaPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/ForgottenAustralia Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The legendary Kalamazoo Home is up for sale, and you could own it. Plus a wild week in Football, a crabby crime in Detroit, and it's Flushing Season in Kalamazoo!

Understanding and Treating Xanax Addiction https://www.worldsbest.rehab/xanax-addiction/ https://www.worldsbest.rehab/es/xanax-addiction/ Tens of millions of people each year are prescribed Xanax. The number of prescriptions shows just how effective the medication can be to individuals suffering from anxiety. Xanax is a prescription drug that is misused, however. Some individuals that take Xanax use it in a recreational way simply to “take the edge of the day”.   Doctors in the United States have been known over the last 30 years to give prescriptions of the drug out to individuals claiming to have anxiety. Many of these people have misused the prescription medication believing it to be safer than alcohol and street drugs.   A generic form of Xanax, known as alprazolam, was initially launched in 1981 by the Upjohn company. The drug was first approved to treat panic disorder and subsequently, Upjohn became a part of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.   Valium had become one of the most popular prescription drugs in the US in the 1970s and alprazolam quickly entered the marketplace on the heels of that medication. Valium wasn't used to treat panic attacks and the makers of alprazolam used the opportunity to fill the void. Alprazolam was approved in the US in October 1981. Nine years later, the Food and Drug Administration approved alprazolam to treat panic disorder.   The American medical institution has been guilty of handing out Xanax like candy. Doctors wrote over 47 million prescriptions for Xanax in 2019 alone. It is the most popular and frequently prescribed psychiatric medicine in the country. Is Xanax addictive? Xanax is highly addictive to patients regardless of using it correctly. The drug is a benzodiazepine medication and is fast-acting when consumed by patients. It can alter the brain significantly in just a short timeframe. Xanax is considered one of the most addictive medications in the benzodiazepine family. Long-term use and misuse of the drug makes it possible for people to become addicted to it.   Although recreational users and individuals simply wanting to “take the edge off” misuse Xanax, it is more often misused by people with anxiety disorders. These individuals simply use the drug in an attempt to treat their anxiety issues.   Xanax is so powerful and potent that its use can lead to dependency even if taken in a medical fashion. The first sign of dependency that users will notice is tolerance to the drug. Like other drugs, Xanax's power stops working whether taken as prescribed or recreationally.   Anxiety sufferers will experience symptoms once more and believe the only way to reduce them is to take larger doses of Xanax. The brain becomes more reliant on Xanax forming addiction and dependency.   Xanax addiction creates a craving for the drug. It is a mental addiction that prevents the user from taking their mind off of the drug until they consume it once more. Individuals should refrain from quitting cold turkey and seek professional medical help to stop their dependency on Xanax. Quitting Xanax is incredibly difficult due to the control it has on a person's mind.   Withdrawal from Xanax can be stressful and explosive. It can affect the mind greatly as the brain becomes dependent on the drug. Individuals can experience periods of insomnia, depression, paranoia, and irritability. Medical detox allows medical professionals to treat most symptoms of Xanax withdrawal.   Up to 44% of benzodiazepine users become addicted and dependent on the drug they take, according to the Journal of Addictive Behaviors. Individuals can experience addiction due to psychological factors and these can influence people to continue using the drug. Does Xanax cause physical addiction?   Xanax has a strong effect on the mind and users struggle to stop thoughts of the drug. Physical addiction is also possible for individuals who misuse Xanax. Physical withdrawal symptoms also occur when individuals stop using Xanax.   Some of the most common withdrawal symptoms include:   Blurred vision Continuous sweating Convulsions/shakes Vomiting Nausea Headaches   As a person's body becomes used to the drug, physical addiction develops and becomes more apparent. A lack of Xanax in the body can cause a person to feel achy and in pain. The more the body processes the drug out, the more serious the physical symptoms are.   Individuals often try to detox without medical help. This can send many people to the emergency room as they are unable to cope with the intense withdrawal symptoms. Over-the-counter drugs can be used to treat some symptoms but not all. A medically supervised detox is preferable either in a hospital setting or a specialist Xanax rehab facility. Am I addicted to Xanax?   Xanax addiction is like any other addiction individuals experience. It doesn't matter what the substance is, there are some telltale signs of addiction that are clear for all drugs. These signs include:   Xanax use occurs when withdrawal symptoms appear Tolerance causes higher doses to be taken Avoid family, friends, and social events to take the drug Concerned about the Xanax supply Constantly think about the next time to take Xanax Continued use although growing conflict due to taking Xanax Inability to control how much is used Inability to control how often Xanax is used   Xanax Withdrawal   As a central nervous system depressant, Xanax is used to slow blood flow to the brain and release neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine to minimize anxiety, stress and panic. Reversing the effects of long term Xanax use needs to be done slowly and under under medical supervision. Seizures have been well documented in Xanax withdrawal and may be fatal, as documented by the American Academy of Neurological Surgeons   How can Xanax addiction be treated?   Xanax treatment must stop the mental cravings and physical compulsions individuals have to take the drug. Medical detox can help individuals counteract the physical compulsion they have to take the drug. The detox will wean users off of Xanax and other medications can be prescribed to help with the process.   Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is then used to combat mental addiction. CBT is a system of counseling that looks into the user's use of Xanax. Therapy enables users to create a healthier, more positive way to live their lives.   Users are also given skills to cope with the desire to return to the destructive world of Xanax misuse. In-patient treatment facilities enable Xanax users to get the help they need from trained professionals through both medical detox and therapy. Addiction Center https://www.worldsbest.rehab/addiction-center/ Xanax Addiction https://www.worldsbest.rehab/xanax-addiction/ Heroin Addiction https://www.worldsbest.rehab/heroin-addiction/ Fentanyl Addiction https://www.worldsbest.rehab/fentanyl-addiction/ Vicodin Addiction https://www.worldsbest.rehab/vicodin-addiction/ OxyContin Addiction https://www.worldsbest.rehab/oxycontin-addiction/ Trazodone Addiction https://www.worldsbest.rehab/trazodone-addiction/ Codeine Addiction https://www.worldsbest.rehab/codeine-addiction/ Cocaine Addiction https://www.worldsbest.rehab/cocaine-addiction/ Cross Addiction https://www.worldsbest.rehab/cross-addiction/ Worlds Best Xanax Treatment https://www.worldsbest.rehab/      

Mike Isaacson: Now when you say recommended dose… [Theme song] Nazi SS UFOsLizards wearing human clothesHinduism's secret codesThese are nazi lies Race and IQ are in genesWarfare keeps the nation cleanWhiteness is an AIDS vaccineThese are nazi lies Hollow earth, white genocideMuslim's rampant femicideShooting suspects named Sam HydeHiter lived and no Jews died Army, navy, and the copsSecret service, special opsThey protect us, not sweatshopsThese are nazi lies Mike: Welcome to another episode of the Nazi Lies Podcast. Subscribe to our Patreon to get access to early episodes and membership in our book club and Discord. Today we are joined by Dr. Tim Geary, a pharmacoparasitologist or parasitopharmacologist… He studies parasites and makes drugs. He's a professor emeritus at McGill University and still teaches courses at Queen's University Belfast. He's here to talk to us about hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and why they probably won't neutralize Coronavirus. Thanks for joining us, Dr. Geary. Tim Geary: You're welcome, Mike. Please call me Tim. Mike: Okay, Tim. Before we get into all the science, tell our audience a little bit about what you've done professionally, because you have a very extensive list of bona fides, and I don't really know where to start. [laughs] Tim: That's quite all right. Yes, I have been working on the study of drugs, pharmacology, for about 45 years, and most of that time I've been working on chemotherapy of infectious diseases, primarily parasites. This includes work in Africa. Most of my career has been on veterinary parasites or human neglected tropical diseases caused by parasites. During the course of my career I have worked on malaria, and that's where chloroquine and its derivative hydroxychloroquine come from, and also ivermectin, which I have studied for many, many years, both in animals and people. In full disclosure, Mike, I once did work for the pharmaceutical industry, the animal health arm of a company called up Upjohn that is now known as Zoetis in Kalamazoo, Michigan. [ed. It's now part of Viatris.] I also consulted and worked with the World Health Organization, with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and with the Carter Center on various problems of tropical diseases, and I continue to be a consultant for some animal health companies. That's who I am. Mike: Very good. All right. Now you've done some research on both hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, correct? Tim: I have, indeed. I worked on both how they work to kill parasites and also how parasites become resistant to them. I have studied them in clinical settings as well as in the laboratory, and I think I qualify as an expert in both medicines in the indications for which they are used, which is essentially tropical medicine and veterinary parasitology. Mike: Very good. And you've also been following the misinformation surrounding these two drugs too, right? Tim: I have, with great interest and concern. There aren't very many people in the world who are experts at drug discovery and drug development for these kinds of conditions. That's unfortunate. But yes, I have followed that, Mike, and I certainly have opinions about where the misinformation came from. It was not a malintention, it was just wrong interpretation and wrong design of some initial experiments that led to inappropriate conclusions in a rush to clinical use. Mike: Okay, so let's talk about each of these medications and then we'll talk about where the rumors started. So let's start with hydroxychloroquine. Since the beginning of the pandemic almost, it was heralded as a miracle COVID cure but was quickly discovered not to be that. What were its recognised clinical uses? Tim: So hydroxychloroquine is a derivative of a drug called chloroquine, which was also touted initially as a possible solution to COVID. Chloroquine was a miracle drug for the treatment of malaria. It saved, oh my gosh, millions and millions of lives over the course of its use. It's relatively cheap, it's reasonably safe and it was highly effective against malaria parasites until they evolved resistance to it. It's use for malaria has now diminished remarkably. Hydroxychloroquine was thought to be a safer alternative with a better sort of safety profile. But it never was really used for malaria. It just never displaced chloroquine. Instead, it found use as kind of an immunomodulator compound for people with systemic lupus erythematosus or lupus as it's commonly known, an autoimmune condition. So hydroxychloroquine for people with lupus does help to reduce symptoms, to reduce worsening of the disease, and it is a valuable drug for that purpose. Mike: Okay, and how safe is it to experiment with? Tim: Not very. I mean, it does have side effects, especially when you go over recommended dosing. We'll talk, I think Mike, in a little bit about how that relates to potential uses against COVID, if you like, but it's normal use in lupus patients, it's pretty well tolerated. But the doses are quite specific for that, and as with most medicines, it's safe when used appropriately. Mike: And what happens when it's not used appropriately? What kinds of symptoms can you... Tim: There are a variety; hearing loss is one that kind of stands out, but you can get imbalances, a sort of dizziness, classic nausea, vomiting, things like that. It's not a drug to be taken lightly. It's not as safe as many of the medicines that we use. But again, when it's used appropriately, it's fine. Mike: Okay, and how did the rumors start that this could be used to be COVID. Tim: So it's a classic story, Mike. So whenever a new condition surfaces, like COVID, there's a rush to test all the– what are known as the FDA registered medicines. These are medicines that have been approved for one use or another either by the US government or by the European agencies. It's always easier to adapt an approved drug for new indication than to register a completely new medicine. It's just way cheaper, way faster. So everyone turns to “What have we already approved just to see if by some unexpected chance it would also work in this new condition?” And that's what happened here. People can grow the SARS-CoV-2 virus in cell culture. So we grow it in cell culture and throw every compound that is registered and approved into those cultures to see, “Does any of them work?” And hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, which we'll talk about, they came out of that effort. There's a serious flaw with the strategy in this case. I will say, Mike, sometimes it works. Sometimes you find something you didn't expect. I don't think we'll have time to go into those exceptions but there are some. So a key-- and this is sort of basic science and I hope it's okay for everybody-- but a big factor is the kind of cell that you use to grow the virus to test it. Scientists typically use for viral diseases, a cell called the vero cell, which was derived from an African Green Monkey kidney. The reason they use this cell is because most viruses grow really well in it, so it's quite easy to adapt a new virus to that system. The problem is, it's not representative of the kinds of cells that say SARS-CoV-2, the COVID virus infect. Those would be human lung cells, if you will. So yes, hydroxychloroquine works at relatively high concentrations against the virus in vero cells. But it turns out if you do the same experiment with cultures of human lung cells, it really doesn't work at all, because the virus enters those cells in a way that's different than how it infects vero cells. Had we done the experiment properly, which is to use cultures of human lung cells, we wouldn't be having this conversation, Mike, because no one would have advanced hydroxychloroquine as a potential cure. I hope that answers okay, and I hope it's clear. It's not that the scientists who did this work had evil intentions, they did not. It's just that they used the wrong cell type, and people drew inappropriate conclusions from the result. Mike: Okay, let's switch gears to ivermectin. There's actually been a lot of misinformation about ivermectin on both sides of the don't-try-this-at-home debate. So in addition to the people on one side claiming that ivermectin can cure COVID, on the other side, you have people who are reducing ivermectin to just a horse dewormer. Tim: [laughs] Yeah. Well, ivermectin, like chloroquine is a wonder drug. Okay? First of all, ivermectin has revolutionized the treatment of parasites in animals, and we should not discount it. So maybe its primary use is actually in the prevention of heartworm infections in people's pets. It revolutionized the treatment of this. It's an important and extremely useful drug, but it also is very useful in people. It has been donated– More than a billion doses have been donated by Merck for the treatment of individuals infected with a couple of parasites in poor areas of the world, one is onchocerciasis or river blindness and the other is lymphatic filariasis or elephantiasis. So we have a huge history of use of the drug. It can be given once a year for these infections or twice a year. It's enormously important in tropical medicine. It is a human medicine. It is very safe as used. It's also extremely potent. So it takes very little of the drug to have a beneficial therapeutic effect. Mike: And how safe is it to experiment with? Tim: At the use doses, it's quite safe. There are isolated incidences which would never happen to people in the United States, for instance, or in regions that don't suffer from parasitic infections like this. It's very safe, but it can be overdosed. It's possible. One of the things that's really important to know, and I mentioned that it's very potent, right? So you give tiny doses to people who suffer from these parasitic infections, but the solutions that we use to treat animals, because animals are so much bigger than people, like horses or cows, for instance, they contain much higher amounts of the drug. And inappropriately taking those medicines you can get an overdose that has serious lethal concentrations and lethal implications, for instance. I think there have been a couple of fatalities in the US. So it should never be taken outside of a prescription by a physician. Mike: Okay. And where did the rumors about this one start from? Tim: [laughs] Exactly the same place, Mike. Ivermectin works against the virus in cell cultures, in vero cell cultures. It does not work in cultures of human lung cells, so there's no basis to presume that either of these drugs act by inhibiting the virus. I will also say that the concentrations of ivermectin that are required to be active even in the vero cells are 100 times higher than what you would see in a human dosed with a therapeutic amount of the drug. It's not even clear to me that even massive overdoses would give you enough of the drug in your blood to actually have this beneficial effect. The other problem, of course, that happened is people said, "Well, it's doing other things,” same with hydroxychloroquine, that maybe it's not inhibiting the virus but it has an immunosuppressive or some beneficial effect on immunity to the virus. That's unproven. I know of no real evidence that therapeutic doses of ivermectin for sure have this effect. Hydroxychloroquine is a kind of immunosuppressant and that is certainly not an effect you would like to see in acute infection, initial infection, because you need the immune system to combat the virus. It's possible that at later stages of more serious infections, when sometimes the human immune response can be over aggressive and cause pathology. That's why dexamethasone, which is a steroid that's used to suppress the immune system, has therapeutic benefit. But there's no reason to think that hydroxychloroquine will have any benefit over and above dexamethasone. And in fact, as you know, clinical trials in hospitalized patients showed no benefit whatsoever from hydroxychloroquine. Mike: And I would assume it's the same for ivermectin. Tim: It is. I'm sorry. It is. It's the same for ivermectin that we have treated hundreds of millions of people and literally billions of animals with this drug. No one has ever reported an antiviral effect or an immunosuppressive effect in these individuals. So we don't really have a mechanism that would explain either one. This becomes very important. I'm going to take a segue here if you don't mind. Mike: Hey, go for it. Tim: So right now ivermectin is undergoing clinical trials, not because of science but because of sort of public demand. These include several trials in the United States. The problem with a clinical trial like this is we have no hypothesized mechanism. So we don't have any way to judge, “How much ivermectin should we give to these people? What dose do we use? How frequently do we give it?” We have no idea what the target plasma concentration or blood concentration of the drug should be to have a beneficial effect on COVID. This makes the trial design extremely difficult. And it's going to complicate the interpretation. Right now some people think you have to take ivermectin all the time, other people think, “No, no, you just take it when you get sick.” We don't have a theoretical or any basis in theory to account for any of these outcomes. Mike: Okay. Switching gears again, I imagine in your relief work, you've encountered a bit of treatment and vaccine hesitancy, right? Tim: I think, Mike, just as a citizen, not necessarily have I sought it out. [laughs] I will say I have given a couple of other interviews about this and at least one of them generated a lot of negative feedback on my character because clearly ivermectin is a lifesaver and I'm doing a disservice. But in terms of vaccine hesitancy, I think it's coupled with enthusiasm for hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin. It's a rather bizarre demonstration of human susceptibility to anecdote and conspiracy. I will say, look, a lot of people that advocate either one of these drugs are not evil. I think they're misguided. I'm looking forward to the results of the clinical trials on ivermectin that I hope will quell some of this over-enthusiasm. I don't believe they are malicious actors, they just are misinformed. There is no scientific rationale to advocate either of them. Vaccine hesitancy is a bit different. It's grounded in ignorance. There's a political component to it, which is difficult for me to accept, that somehow it threatens individual liberty to require people to protect each other. I find that a bizarre and unhealthy development in our society. I suppose it's always been there. There is no reason to fear the vaccine. They're well-grounded in science, all of the various pipes that have been advanced. They have all been approved after regular rigorous study. None of them has nefarious intent. There is no conspiracy among major pharma companies about this. I'm a little bit concerned that the medicines that have recently been approved, I think, one from Merck and one from Pfizer as antivirals, I think they're valuable. But it also gives people an opt-out for the vaccine to say, "Well, if I get sick I can get cured." That's unfortunate. I probably haven't answered your question, have I? Mike: Well, I was gonna ask what you find motivates the vaccine hesitancy and what motivates the hesitancy to believe medical professionals, if you've encountered that in your personal interaction with patients. Tim: I have. I mean, I don't treat patients. I want to be clear about that. I'm just a scientist. But of course I have lots of conversations in my life with some people who don't agree that vaccines are important. Some people don't agree that the virus is actually real. They think it's a hoax perpetrated, somehow, I don't know how. I'm gonna-- not being a sociologist, I'm not sure how valid my opinion is, but I think one of the factors is that most people don't know any scientists. They don't really know their physicians as people. We've become a customer-client medical system. You're probably too young to remember sort of the family doctor that would sit and chat. I know there's still some GPs that do that, but a lot of this is now assembly line. You show up, you don't even get 10 minutes, and you're on to the next patient. Right? People don't know physicians as people, they don't know scientists at all. The demise of the public school system in the US and the advance of private schools means that people who are scientifically literate often send their kids to private schools, and they don't get a chance to interact with, I'm just gonna say, non-scientists very much. They don't coach softball or baseball or football teams, they don't go to PTA meetings. Our dependence on electronic communications, as you and I are now doing, diminishes the opportunity for interpersonal interaction or casual just to say, "Hey, I do this for a living and you shouldn't be afraid of me and the people like me." But there is a distrust, especially in the Western countries-- actually, it's global. In the so-called elite, there is this distrust of intellectual output. I gotta tell you, just recently, the National Science Foundation released survey data of 30% of the scientists and engineers in the US are foreign born. And that's another barrier to communication; people tend to view foreigners with suspicion. So there's been a disconnect in American society between this incredible technology that drives our society and the people who benefit from it, or participate in it almost as unwitting, unwilling guinea pigs, right? That's a long winded answer, I hope it's okay. Mike: [laughs] Well, it's a good one. So what research are you working on now? Tim: One of the things that I have become fascinated by is how parasites manipulate their hosts. So a lot of my work is how the molecules that parasites release into their hosts affect the host response to allow them to succeed. Some of the parasites I studied live for many, many years in the host, large kind of parasites, and you'd think we should be really good at getting rid of them. And we are, in fact, really good at getting rid of almost every parasite, but some few species have figured out how to 'live long and prosper' as Mr. Spock would say, in our bodies. So I'm really curious about how they accomplish that. The other project I'm involved with at the moment is with the Carter Center, and it's about a worm, a parasite called guinea worm in Africa, which has nearly been eradicated, but it has recently been found to not only infect people but dogs, and so we're trying to come up with a medicine that can be used to treat the parasite in dogs so that eventually we can eradicate it. This is a parasite that Jimmy Carter has said, "I hope the last guinea worm dies before I do." Mike: And what does a guinea worm do? Tim: Oh my gosh, you want to really get grossed out? Your listeners, go look it up. It's a parasite called Dracunculus medinensis. It's the little dragon of Medina. It lives beneath the skin. The females get to be at least half a meter long or even longer, and they burrow out of the skin, and lay their eggs basically in water. It's disfiguring. It's very painful. It's an example of a gross parasite, I will say. But it can be cured or can be prevented if you keep people from going into the water. So this is kind of a behavioral solution that the Carter Center has really promoted. Or if you use filtered straws to drink. It infects people by drinking water that's contaminated with parasites. It's a lovely story. It would be a wonderful thing to eradicate, and I hope we can do it. Mike: Oh, really important work, Tim. Thank you so much for coming on the Nazi Lies podcast to teach us about drugs. This was fun. Tim: It's a pleasure. I think it's important to recognise, Mike, that people involved in fighting this virus are not motivated by malicious intent. They really are working to benefit people to try to get control of the epidemic, and they want everyone to get vaccinated. But thank you for inviting me, I sincerely appreciate the opportunity. Mike: Well, thank you so much. Tim: And another time perhaps, my friend. Mike: Absolutely. If you liked what you heard and want to support the Nazi Lies podcast, consider becoming a Patreon subscriber. Patrons get access to early episodes and membership in our book club. The early episodes can come in on any podcast app, and the book club is on Discord. Come join us as we read the books of our upcoming guests. It's a good conversation; your question may even end up on the show. Check us out at patreon.com/nazilies. [Theme song]

Abstract: How are boards of directors of major companies coping in 2021 with the increasing expectations from so many stakeholders? How are boards equipping themselves to meet the challenge of overseeing large global organizations? In this episode of the Principled Podcast, Marsha Ershaghi Hames, Partner at Tapestry Networks, guest hosts a conversation about the critical role boards play in shaping ethical corporate culture with Don Cornwell, an accomplished corporate leader who currently sits on the boards of AIG, Natura & Company, and Viatris. Listen in as Marsha and Don talk about the importance of intention when making decisions at the board level—especially as it relates to diversity, mentor sponsorship, and professional guidance.   [1:28] Guest Don Cornwell's diverse background and pioneering career journey. [3:25] Where are we now in terms of diversity on Wall Street? [9:22] Where is the U.S. going wrong in terms of maximizing capital and production? [13:12] How can boards and corporate leaders take the first steps to open doors and drive intentional sponsorships while navigating DEI? [21:08] How can boards begin to transform their own culture? [26:09] How boards can take action to cultivate ethical culture given the context of these times.    Additional Resources: Article:  Father and Son Investment Bankers Describe Wall Street Regrets [Subscription required]   Featured guest: Don Cornwell retired as chair and CEO of Granite Broadcasting Corporation in 2009, a company he founded in 1988. Granite developed from an entrepreneurial idea into a diverse company operating 23 channels in nine television markets and became one of the nation's 25 largest television station groups. Previously, Don was employed for 17 years in the Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs. While at Goldman Sachs, he was engaged in public and private financing and merger and acquisition transactions for publicly traded and privately-owned companies, with a primary focus on consumer product and media companies. In addition to transaction responsibility, he served as the chief operating officer of the Corporate Finance Department from 1980-1988. Currently, Don serves on the board of directors of AIG, Inc., Natura Holdings, Viatris Inc. and Blue Meridian Partners, Inc. Don is also a trustee of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of NY. At AIG, he is Chair of the Compensation and Management Resources Committee and a member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. Don served on the boards of Pfizer from 1997 to 2020, Avon from 2002 to 2020, and CVS Caremark Corporation from 1994 until 2007. At Pfizer, he was Chair of the Audit and Regulatory and Compliance Committees and a member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance and Science and Technology Committees. Viatris was created as a public company as a result of a strategic merger of Pfizer's Upjohn business with Mylan Inc. At Avon, he was Lead Director of the board, Chair of the Finance and Strategic Planning Committee and a member of the Nominating and Governance and Audit Committees. Avon was acquired by Natura in 2020. Don previously served on the board of Occidental College, the Advisory Council of Harvard Business School, the MS Hershey School and Trust, the Wallace Foundation, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and as Chair of the Board of the Telecommunications Development Fund appointed by the Chairman of the FCC. Don received his BA from Occidental College in 1969 and MBA from Harvard Business School in 1971 and has been honored as Alumnus of the Year by both institutions.   Featured Host:  Marsha is a partner with Tapestry Networks and a leader of our corporate governance practice. She advises non-executive directors, C-suite executives, and in-house counsel on issues related to governance, culture transformation, board leadership, and stakeholder engagement. Prior to joining Tapestry, Marsha was a managing director of strategy and development at LRN, Inc. a global governance, risk and compliance firm. She specialized in the alignment of leaders and organizations for effective corporate governance and organizational culture transformation. Her view is that compliance is no longer merely a legal matter but a strategic and reputational priority.  Marsha has been interviewed and cited by the media including CNBC, CNN, Ethisphere, HR Magazine, Compliance Week, The FCPA Report, Entrepreneur.com, Chief Learning Officer, ATD Talent & Development, Corporate Counsel Magazine, the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics and more. She hosted the “PRINCIPLED” Podcast, profiling the stories of some of the top transformational leaders in business. Marsha serves as an expert fellow on USC's Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making and on the advisory boards of LMH Strategies, Inc. an integrative supply chain advisory firm and Compliance.ai, a regulatory change management firm. Marsha holds an Ed.D. and MA from Pepperdine University. Her research was on the role of ethical leadership as an enabler of organizational culture change. Her BA is from the University of Southern California. She is a certified compliance and ethics professional.   Transcript: Intro: Welcome to the Principal podcast brought to you by LRN. The principal podcast brings together the collective wisdom on ethics, business and compliance, transformative stories of leadership, and inspiring workplace culture. Listen in to discover valuable strategies from our community of business leaders and workplace change makers. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: How are boards of directors of major companies coping in 2021 with the increasing expectations from so many stakeholders? How are boards equipping themselves to meet the challenge of overseeing large global organizations? Hello, and welcome to another special episode of the Principled podcast, where we continue our conversations about the critical role boards in shaping ethical corporate culture. I'm your guest host, Marsha Ershaghi Hames, a partner at Tapestry Networks. And today, I'm pleased to be joined by Don Cornwell, an accomplished corporate leader who currently sits on the boards of AIG, Natura & Company, and Viatris. Don, thank you for coming on the Principled podcast. Don Cornwell: Marsha, thanks for the invitation. I look forward to our conversation. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: Excellent. So Don, let's share with listeners a little bit. You've had a very unique background from your early career at Goldman Sachs to founding and leading Granite Broadcasting, which at its peak, was the largest African American-controlled television broadcasting con in America. You've continued to lead a distinguished career of service on both corporate and nonprofit boards. Could you tell our listeners just a little bit more about your amazing journey? Don Cornwell: Well, I've done a lot of moving around for a kid who was born in segregated Oklahoma in 1948. My family moved to the Pacific Northwest when I was five, so they could frankly continue their careers as educators. And so I lived in Tacoma, Washington, until I graduated high school in 1965, then left to attend Occidental College in Los Angeles, followed immediately by a move to Boston to attend Harvard Business School. And from there, often New York to join a considerably smaller Goldman Sachs. As you know, I left Goldman Sachs in 1988 after 17 years. I started a business, you've referenced it, Granite Broadcasting Corporation, and we built that for 20 years. And then I left the company and essentially went into so-called retirement, which I've failed at miserably and have continued to serve on corporate boards. You didn't mention, I have to mention, Pfizer and Avon and CVS. I've been very proud of my association with all three of those companies. So I wouldn't want to pass that. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: Well, you mentioned your journey with Goldman Sachs. You had joined their investment banking department in the early '70s. And I actually was reflecting on that fantastic interview with Bloomberg, the profile with you and your son last year. Your story is very pioneering for African Americans working on Wall Street. As you look back on that experience, what are some of your observations on diversity on Wall Street, and essentially the being the only one in the room? Has there really been progress? Don Cornwell: So I did the interview, the Bloomberg interview with my son, because I thought it provided a context of experience by African American professionals over a significant period of time. I started at Goldman Sachs in 1971 and he joined, I should say, after I graduated from Harvard Business School. And he joined Morgan Stanley in 1998 after he graduated from Stanford Business School. I am shameless about promoting the article. So if any of your listeners have an interest, they should check it out. On your question, so I would say the industry is making what I call directionally correct movement. That's a good thing, but I guess I'm at an age in life where I can say that I think the progress is too slow and I think it's not deep enough. And so in making that comment, I can point to some really terrific success stories at various financial firms. And by financial firms, I'm incorporating everything from banks and insurance companies to the typical Wall Street firms that you think about. But in thinking about those success stories, I'm hard pressed to find what I would call an adequate pipeline of aspiring and qualified young professionals available for the succession planning of the future. I've found, in my career, that when you build a pipeline, and that's something that Pfizer talks about a lot, but when you build a pipeline of talent, the issues that we're discussing become somewhat moot. However, when you don't have a pool of talent, you then find yourself scrambling to, and I put quotes around the word "improve," from a very unimpressive baseline. And frankly, in this day and age, that does not go unnoticed by shareholders, and stakeholders, and society. So I guess I would give the industry a mixed grade. I think it's getting better. I think that there's some great success stories that I read about and know about, but much more work to be done. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: Speaking of that, I actually read another article or a derivative article. And I read a quote here that said "Wall Street has a problem with black excellence." And most super successful people on Wall Street are just excellent at what they do and how they got there. However, when someone is excellent as an African American, it is not embraced. How does that sort of land with you or resonate with you? Don Cornwell: Well, it's an interesting observation. I don't know where it comes from. I think I would sort of turn it just a little bit to say that I felt, in my time, that the process of growing in a career, no matter who you are, requires an effect. What I would describe as someone who intentionally wants to see success. So the observation, to be candid that I've made about the financial community, I think, is a problem across industry and the country. I think we simply have not done enough to hire, encourage and retain young people of color, or women, in general industry.  I think that we leave a lot of talent behind. We're getting better, but we leave a lot of talent behind. So when I talk about, I have a theme of being intentional about a success experience, I can certainly say that each and every one of the success stories that get spoken about a lot, people like Ken Chenault that Ken Frazier, just to name a few, and I can name many, many others, that they can point to those moments in their careers where they were given a helping nudge along the way. And so I'm sort of simple minded about it, which is that if people in power want to see success in that regard, they have to be intentional about it. It has to be something that's on their mind. They have to insist on it. And quite frankly, when decisions, tough decisions. Have to be made as to whether somebody's performing or not, they have to be willing and not afraid to call it. Because as I said, everybody isn't going to make the cut, but it's great if people can feel comfortable that they have that opportunity. In the Bloomberg interview, and I hope you don't mind my going on at lengthy here a little bit, but this is one of my favorite topics. I spoke about intentional sponsorship. That's my theme. And I spoke about it in context of senior managers. I read, referenced a fellow that I called my very best boss ever. He has unfortunately passed away. His widow read the interview and called me and was quite amazed at how I felt about this. And I think she understood things that I had said to her over the years about how important he had been to my life and my family's life in terms of my own success. So I always say that during that eight year period, when I had his sponsorship within Goldman Sachs, and by the way, he wasn't necessarily a great guy. I've had people contact me after the interview and say, "Well, he wasn't very nice to me." And so I get that, but I do know that once he asked me to join his team, then I became part of the team and he became my advocate. And that was the best period of my career at Goldman Sachs. And quite frankly, my worst periods were when I didn't have that guidance. I think, and I hope you'll let me go on just a little bit longer, but I think that as a country, we're not maximizing our human capital. We see that every day as we work our way through the pandemic. I mean, think about it. Human capital, with a bit of help from our global partners, came up with multiple ways to stop the coronavirus. Okay. I mean, that's amazing if you think about it. I mean, we're all somewhat concerned these days about the continuation of variants and issues about whether you get a boost, et cetera. But the facts are is that we found a way, in a very, very short period of time, to bring a halt to this really vicious virus. And so that's the wonder. On the other hand, we are also picking up the newspaper and learning that we are short of people to do the most basic jobs, as well as, quite frankly, many of those requiring much more in the way of skills. As a country, I think we've given up on our public education system. It used to be an advantage for us. We spend a lot of time bashing teachers and so forth, and fighting about the curriculum and so forth. We're resisting efforts to train people. We need the labor, but we don't want the cheap labor coming across the border, even though we don't necessarily have the labor to fill many of those jobs. And I'm going to be a little controversial in my next comment, and you guys can edit this out if you want. But I have long said that the country long benefited from structural inequity/ if you think about the quality of teachers we had many, many years ago, when one of the best jobs available to a bright woman or a person of color was as a teacher. And I used my mom as an example, she finished first in her class in college in 1942. There were no corporations or financial institutions on her campus aggressively recruiting, particularly at an HBCU. And so society benefited because you had this class of individuals who were largely directed into a profession that was the best available to them, and we're indebted to them, but that's changing. And without getting into the debate about teachers, and quality, and what have you, that's changing. And that's a debate for another day, but it goes back to my opening comment, which was that we're not spending enough time maximizing human capital. And I think that's a problem. And it ties back to DEI. It ties back to ESG. It ties back to a lot of things that we might talk about. So I'll pause there. I know I'm talking too long. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: No. Yeah. So first of all, Don, I mean, you are touching on some very, very timely issues that, I mean, companies are exploring ways to essentially future proof talent models that clearly we've got an inequity, as you say, of infrastructure and how organizations go to recruit and build their pipeline. So when I sometimes hear the comments of, "There isn't a pipeline," or "We are not able to build a pipeline." Sometimes, I often think, "Where are you looking?" And there are some organizations today that are starting to try to build bridge around skill mobility, bridges into minority serving institutions. You mentioned HBCUs. But to go and to build recruitment pipelines to offer opportunities in other types of fields that may not have been historically or traditionally built into that recruitment infrastructure. So you're really touching on an important point that we probably should set up another conversation to unpack acutely. However, you earlier also mentioned this kind of societal shift that's a lot of pressure from company consumers, and stakeholders, and investors on companies to take more responsibility. And I like how you share your reflection on that intentional sponsorship by this mentor in your life. I am wondering, in the area that you sit today from your vantage point, how can boards, how can corporate leaders take those first steps to, whether it's mentorship programs, or to be more prescriptive or surgical in driving this notion of, "We need to open doors. We need to find ways to design more intentional sponsorship." Are these conversations happening within the board? Because I know, again, this is unique to your story. And I've heard other similar stories where it was that one mentor or sponsor who took them under their wing and just offered the difficult, often difficult guidance, to chart out the path. But how can we do more of that? Because clearly, the pressure's there for companies to take responsibility, but it's the how part, it's the pragmatic. What are the steps to activate that? What are your thoughts on that and what are you hearing or observing from where you sit today? Don Cornwell: So I think every board room where I have the honor of residing, the topics on the table, the topic is one of discussion and there's work being done and reporting out on the topic. So I think it's on the agenda. I'm not sure, from my perspective, whether corporate boards today really recognize that these societal forces that we think about, how powerful those items are for the future, that we get very caught up in a variety of other topics, which are also very, very important. And I'm sure you'll ask me about a few of those at some point here. But I do think that, and to some degree, this kind of gets to one of the notions that I have about the composition of boards, which is the notion that we actually need more people in the room with not only courage to ask tough questions, but also a wider lens in many instances, because I'm not sure that we're really necessarily seeing what's coming at us from a lot of different angles. If I can go back to the comments I made about diversity and inclusion, and a little bit ESG that you had asked about that, I really think these are societal forces that are starting, whether we want it to or not, to drive the corporate board agenda. So just a couple of thoughts. Can you imagine what the board discussions in Facebook are like these days? Or if you've been following Netflix. Could be a more successful company, quite frankly than either of them. All right. I mean, Facebook was founded... My daughter is 36 now, and she's a 2007 graduate of college. And I remember when she was a freshman, she and all of her friends were talking about whether or not they would sign up for Facebook, which had only been started maybe two years before they were to be freshmen. And Facebook's the bad people, there's all kinds of negative things being said about Facebook, but just look at the corporate and business success or Netflix. I mean, my God. How many times did I find the little red envelopes around my house that had never been returned? And talk about a success story. But what are they talking about at those boards? They're talking about all the issues that here on cable television 24/7. At Netflix, you're talking about comedian who has decided to be less than politically correct in the way he talks about things. And so that raises all kinds of challenges about speech and what's appropriate. But then you move from that and you've got, [inaudible 00:16:55] Exxon. My God, what could be more... There it is, Exxon. And you literally have activists find a way with major shareholders to challenge their corporate strategy. And it's front and center around climate and sustainability. What are you doing? And they end up changing out board members. And then there's one that you may or may not have heard of, but I pay a lot of attention because of my history in the broadcast business. It's a company called Tegna, which is essentially the old Gannett company's television station group, which is quite a large group. And they have been under attack for three years by a very, very sophisticated activist shareholder. And his primary focus, his primary focus has been on the treatment of people and particularly the treatment of people of color within the company. And it's been kind of a fascinating thing to watch. The corporate, the board has succeeded in being reelected each year, but the noise gets louder and louder. And at the current time, that activist has now joined forces with one of the major private equity firms and has made it an offer to who buy the company. And so that board is very much under siege. And so I see these forces from society demanding a seat at the table. And quite frankly, these are not the topics that are ever at all candor on the agenda in most instances. You get me started on this, so I apologize, but you think about the tensions that corporations are having to navigate as between national and global interest. Anybody that's doing business in China, those of us who deal with compliance, and risk, and what have you, we spend all of our time thinking about China as a compliance issue. But you've got geopolitical stuff there. I mean, don't go to China and start talking about your great relations in Taiwan. And they've got their views about data privacy. And quite frankly, beyond China, just across the globe, there are views about that. And so that's my way of saying that boards are being forced by the outside world to think about stuff, including the issues... DEI is not just a, "Oh, we got to check that box." Okay. In my opinion, it's part and parcel of so much that's going on out there that boards are having to deal with. Then, of course, we've got to deal with cyber. I mean cyber's going to destroy us if we're not careful. Compliance and ethics is an amazingly significant issue. If you saw yesterday that the whistleblower in the LIBOR scandal is getting a $200 million payout. That's going to motivate a few people. And then I always finally point out, and by the way, we're hopefully coming out of a pandemic and we're going to be worrying about organizational culture, given that most of us have spent two years working remotely, and we got to figure out how to get back together again. So longwinded answer to your question and hopefully a little bit helpful. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: Yeah, no, no, very helpful. And I'm glad you've touched upon what we're witnessing in terms of this societal shift and the increased pressure from investors, regulators, employees, other stakeholders, just the demands on companies to show progress. Business resiliency, environmental climate transaction plans. And then, of course, there's no question in terms of not only human capital. And I don't really like the phrase human capital. Or natural capital sometimes is also on the climate stuff, but it's really our people, our talent and the innovations and the diversity of how they bring ideas to the table, can really transform and create a certain agility to business progressing. And as this is continuing to capture the board and corporate leaders' attention, I like the phrase when you said boards really are starting to get forced to think differently. And I want to unpack that a little bit. So you touched on culture. I want to start with this notion of transforming board culture. And you mentioned earlier having the courage on the agenda to maybe ask more difficult questions. But how can boards, or you have had such a distinguished career, both as an executive and on serving boards. How can boards really start to begin to transform their own culture? Before boards can take the step for oversight of culture within the organization, how do they turn the mirror back and reflect on themselves and take the steps to really help cultivate a transformation within their own board culture? Don Cornwell: Yeah. I'm probably more of a pessimist in all these things than many. And I don't know if that's helpful or unhelpful. My experience has been that crisis tends to drive focus, and we all get very comfortable doing what we do. We do it every meeting, whether it's four meetings a year or 10 meetings a year, whatever the case may be. And then it's when all of a sudden, we get something that comes in, sort of a curve ball that we're forced to try to get smarter. And so my best board experiences have been in situations where there is what I would describe as intentional diversity of voice around the table. And diversity has always thought about it from the context of gender, and ethnicity, and what have you. And I think those are very much part of it, but I also think that diversity of voice in terms of experiences and worldview is just so important. I have found that when you have that... So you have to start with the notion that you are not going to figure it all out, okay? That bad stuff will happen. And so you want to be prepared to react, but then you should spend time, not only trying to figure out the root cause... But I guess I think it was Andrew Grove, the guy who founded Intel. He had a book called Only the Paranoid Survive. And I've always found that to be, at least that my business experience, just so true. That there's a need to constantly scan the horizon, looking for what's coming over the hill, that you could just not imagine. And so I think that best boards are trying to find ways to empower the management teams, to scan the horizon, to think about risk, think about the unimaginable, think about what you do when the unimaginable happens. That's, I guess, my belief about it. I know a lot of people think that a lot of it has to do with the books and records and the control and so forth. And it certainly does, but I will tell you that I can go back and look at scandal after of scandal and crisis after crisis. And you discover that all that stuff that I just described, the books and records and stuff all seemed totally fine until you discovered that something else was going on that was much more difficult. And so I'm a big believer in trying to inject a bit of imagination, creativity, energy, new ideas, new perspectives in the boards. I'm a believer in having boards that have some longevity and some experience. I enjoyed, in my long career on the Pfizer board, ultimately being the one that the new directors would turn to and say, "Don, why did we do that?" Okay. And there was great value to that, but it was also time for me to go. And that I'm pleased to say that one of the people that was recruited in the context, not to replace me, but in the context of my leaving, Scott Gottlieb. Scott and I had gotten each other in a year of overlap, and anybody who's watched television, he's a very, very bright young person. And I just think that people who come to the party with different sorts of experiences can just bring so much to a board. And I urge boards to do that. I think some are trying hard. I think some are still, in my honest opinion, still checking boxes that satisfy the New York Stock Exchange, or some perceived notion of best practices, and not necessarily bringing enough wisdom and perspective to the boardroom table that can hopefully help management as they try to navigate their way through increasingly difficult times. So I'm talking too long. I'm going to stop there. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: No, then you're actually spot on, Don. I mean, when you say "Crisis tends to drive focus," I mean, and clearly you're drawing from, you've served on boards of so many highly regulated industries. You mentioned Pfizer, you've got pharma, you've got finance services and so forth. Tell me, when there is crisis, when there are ethical lapses, what role can boards do, especially in these times with these shifts that we're discussing in society? How can they really take action to cultivate ethical culture in the organization? What are the steps they can take there? Don Cornwell: So I don't want to get too specific, but I lived through one with one of my former boards, where the company ended up making a settlement with the government and writing a very, very large check to compensate for all sorts of perceived and admitted sins. I think that out of that, both management and the company clearly recognized that this had been an issue and that we needed to figure out how to do better. But the focus, which I greatly appreciated, and I had a little bit to do with leading, though lots of others were leading the charge, the focus had to do more with root cause, and how do we get there? What could we do to change? How could we make sure that the organization knew that that certain behavior was not part of what that company wanted to convey to the outside world? So that really became a major investment of time and resources on the part of the company and with regular reporting to the right committees, audit, and regulatory and compliance, and then ultimately, to the board, about just what was being done, not only to prevent a repeat of what had happened, but also to what was being done to make sure that, within the culture, everybody sort of knew what was expected? And to be candid, it was made a lot easier because the CEO was not, in any way, either conflicted or hesitant. Very strong views on the issue. And quite frankly, personally, very embarrassed by what had happened. So that's what I call, what do you do afterwards? And so you deal with it. I mean, we did the usual stuff of figuring out who needed to be appropriately treated, fired, terminated, remediated, what have you. We went through all that. But I think that the bigger learning, I think, for this company, and very much into it as I was leaving the board and I'm very much hoping that that will continue to be the case, was really what I would describe as, "So let's scan the horizon. Let's figure out how to identify the next issues and see if we can get ahead of it." And I mean, they literally formed a... I guess I hate to call it a committee, but I guess it's a committee, that on a regular basis, was effectively reviewing, within this particular part of their business, sales practices and new developments, et cetera, and looking at where there might be issues, my contribution, which I think they followed, was to find the person in their organization that nobody tended to like, who was not afraid to say, "But, sounds good, but..." And to empower them to find ways to reward the person for bringing an independent and a challenging viewpoint. That's hard in organizations. I don't know how well they did with that. I think they did some of it, but the point is that you're trying to be ahead of it. You're trying to recognize that bad stuff happens. That you can talk to the cows come home, but bad stuff happens and it will happen. And people for either evil reasons or innocent reasons sometimes go over the line, go where they shouldn't go. You just have to recognize that that's going to be the case. From a board perspective, I always took the position you have to recognize that. You have to make sure managers know that bad news can be delivered safely, that you're not going to all of a sudden have the hanging party go out because someone came in and told the audit committee that there had been an issue, but that what you really wanted was, "So how do we find this out? What are we doing about it? What do we think the causes were? What can we do better?" And then you go through the checklist. So again, not sure if I responded to your question, but I do think that boards are having to organize themselves around these challenges. And in my opinion, there are no right answers. There's no exact answer to any of it, which is why I always argue that you got to talk about it a lot. You got to recognize that sometimes the agenda of that's laid out isn't necessarily the agenda that you really need to be focusing on, and at least have some discussion about that, so that the person who might have a different idea can feel empowered to bring that idea up. Anyway, I'm going to stop there. Marsha Ershaghi Hames: You're hitting really excellent points. I feel like we could continue this for a good another hour because culture in and of itself, it's so elusive. And to your point, there's the agenda. And then there's the fuzzy noise. And how do we extract that clear focus? And while, so glad you said this, bad stuff happens, it'll continue to happen and crisis continues to unfold. However, I think it's, how do organizations take a step back and try to see, what are the lessons that we can learn? How can we be a little bit more acutely aware to try to identify these signals early? And how do we really foster a culture where management is also comfortable coming in and escalating, or bringing these to our attention sooner? Or what are the challenging questions we can ask of management to try to uncover these issues sooner? So it's sort of a mutual dialogue here, but clearly, Don, this is a conversation we could probably continue to have, but we're reaching the end of our time. And I have learned so much from you. I feel like I was intentionally sponsored today. So many new ideas are sparked in my head. So thank you so much for sharing your time and for joining us on this episode today. And I want to say to our listeners, this was a real special treat. We're just so thrilled to have Don share his reflections and experiences here. And I'm Marsha Ershaghi Hames. With gratitude for tuning in to the Principled podcast from LRN, and I'm going to sign off. Thank you. Outro: We hope you enjoyed this episode. The Principled podcast is brought to you by LRN. At LRN, our mission is to who inspire principled performance in global organizations, by helping them foster winning, ethical cultures rooted in sustainable values. Please visit us at lrn.com to learn more. And if you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen. And don't forget to leave us a review.

shoutout to pfizer and kalamazoo for making that vaxx #upjohn

In this Jam Session, I sit with Ken Miller, President and CEO at NASCO Healthcare. Ken is a transformational leader with more than 30 years of experience. Ken started his career as a sales representative and worked his way up through various positions of increasing responsibilities with companies such as Upjohn, Roche, and Novo Nordisk, to mention a few. His vast executive experiences landed him leadership positions in both the U.S. and Switzerland. Key Takeaways:You can be successful in business, if in fact you're able to satisfy both needs: the need to satisfy yourself personally (like financially), as well as professionally You may get the work done but don’t do it at the expense of losing the team at the same time Understand the diversity of your team, and then leverage that to become a high-performing team It's ok to take yourself out of your comfort zone and into an environment where you are less familiar. It is a little bit disruptive, and as a result, it teaches you how to be agile and adaptive As a senior leader, include your team in the development of strategy. This way, you all believe in it and can hold each other accountable to attain it Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and ask for help from your colleagues As leader, you may not always have all the facts needed to make decisions. Build trust and empower your team so that they feel safe about bringing you the facts Lastly, if you want or need more facts, figure out how to ask the right questions

We discussed a number of things including: 1. The battle against COVID and the progress on vaccines and treatments 2. The state of innovation in biotech and pharma industries 3. Forecasts for healthcare in 2021 and beyond Fred is a Director with the private equity firm, Warburg Pincus. He is also a Board member of Amgen, Intrexon, Modernizing Medicine, Theramex and Vertice. Fred is the former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Schering-Plough Corporation. Prior to joining Schering-Plough in April 2003, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pharmacia Corporation – a company that was formed in March 2000 as a result of the merger of Monsanto and Pharmacia and Upjohn. Hassan joined Pharmacia & Upjohn as Chief Executive Officer in 1997. Previously, Hassan was Executive Vice President of Wyeth, with responsibility for its pharmaceutical and medical products business. He was elected to Wyeth's Board of Directors in 1995. Earlier in his career, Hassan spent 17 years with Sandoz Pharmaceuticals (now Novartis) and headed its U.S. pharmaceuticals business. Hassan received a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from the Imperial College of Science and Technology at the University of London and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Hassan has chaired significant pharmaceutical industry organizations including The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations (IFPMA). Fred's book, "Reinvent - A Leader's Playbook for Serial Success," was published in 2013 by Wiley and has been discussed in many global organizations including the World Bank. In 2014, a CNBC panel named Hassan to a list of those who have had the most profound impact on the world of business in the previous quarter century.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic dominated the headlines  in 2020, there were other key developments in 2020. In this year in review, we look at the other key developments in 2020, including new product approvals, noteworthy deals, and other developments making the news. For the text version of this article visit dcatvci.org.Key topics: (see Chapter Markers)2020 in Review: The Top 10 Developments1.      Volume growth of pharmaceuticals declines globally.2.      New molecular entities approvals by FDA keeps pace with prior years.3.      The new AbbVie: AbbVie's $63-Bn acquisition of Allergan.4.      Viatris  launches as new company: Mylan plus Upjohn, Pfizer's off-patent branded and generic established medicines business.5.      Gilead Sciences' $21-Bn acquisition of Immunomedics6.      Danaher's $21.4-Bn acquisition of GE Healthcare Life Sciences and launch of Cytiva. 7.      Merck & Co.'s pending spin-off of women's health, biosimilars & legacy products to form a new company.8.      Reshoring drug manufacturing gains policy momentum.9.      Some drug pricing reforms in the US move forward10.   Brexit uncertainty still looms.Sponsor: Vetter Pharma International GmbHLinks:Subscribe to our e-newsletter at www.dcatvci.orgFollow us on Twitter @DCATvciSupport the show (https://dcat.org/MemberApplication.htm)

In this podcast we feature an article about what and who is behind Viatris, the new company formed from the combination of Upjohn, Pfizer's off-patent branded and generic established medicines business, and Mylan. For the text version of this article visit dcatvci.org.Key topics: (see Chapter Markers)Rationale for the new companyInside the new Viatris: productsInside the new Viatris: manufacturingInside Viatris: leadership, company structure, and cost-savings planSponsor: LabVantage SolutionsLinks:Subscribe to our e-newsletter at www.dcatvci.orgFollow us on Twitter @DCATvciSupport the show (https://dcat.org/MemberApplication.htm)

Karl Fagerström was born in Sweden in 1946. He studied at the University of Uppsala and graduated as a licensed clinical psychologist 1975. At that time, he started a smoking cessation clinic and invented the Fagerstrom Test for Cigarette Dependence. In 1981 he got his Ph.D. on a dissertation about nicotine dependence and smoking cessation. In the end of the seventies and early eighties he served as the editor-in-chief for the Scandinavian Journal for Behaviour Therapy. From 1983 through 1997 he worked for Pharmacia & Upjohn as Director of Scientific Information for Nicotine Replacement Products. He has worked with the nicotine gum Nicorette since 1975 and has been contributing to NRT developments such as patch, spray, pouch and inhaler. Ever since 1975 to 2010 he has been working clinically part-time. From 1997 to 2008 he worked with his private research clinic where he studied various drugs intended for treating nicotine dependence. Currently, he works with his own private consultancy (Fagerstrom Consulting). He is a founding member of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco and was the Deputy Editor of Nicotine & Tobacco Research from 2007-2018. He started the European SRNT affiliate in 1999 of which he has been the president up to 2003. His main research contributions have been in the fields of Behaviour Medicine, Tobacco, and Nicotine with 170 peer-reviewed publications of which he is the first author of 100. The current main interests are on understanding the positive effects of nicotine and reducing harm and exposure to tobacco toxins among all those who cannot give up smoking. He was awarded the WHO medal 1999 for outstanding work in tobacco control and 2013 he was the recipient of the Award on Clinical Science from the Society for Research on Tobacco and Nicotine.

5th grade teacher Carrie Upjohn joins John Williams to describe the experience of full online learning and teaching. That is, while also caring for two young children at home. She then evaluates the students’ experience for John.

5th grade teacher Carrie Upjohn joins John Williams to describe the experience of full online learning and teaching. That is, while also caring for two young children at home. She then evaluates the students’ experience for John.

Must an investigator warn an employee that concealing information from company lawyers conducting an internal FCPA investigation could be a federal crime? Even if the company attorneys provided the now standard corporate attorney Upjohn warning? Does a company attorney asking questions morph into a de facto federal agent during an internal company investigation regarding alleged FCPA violations and is the attorney thereby required to provide a Mirandawarning to employees during said investigation? Employees who are subject to being interviewed or otherwise required to cooperate in an internal investigation may find themselves on the sharp horns of a dilemma requiring either (1) cooperating with the internal investigation or (2) losing their jobs for failure to cooperate by providing documents, testimony or other evidence. Many U.S. businesses mandate full employee cooperation with internal investigations or those handled by outside counsel on behalf of a corporation. These requirements can exert a coercive force, “often inducing employees to act contrary to their personal legal interests in favor of candidly disclosing wrongdoing to corporate counsel.” Moreover, such a corporate policy may permit a company to claim to the government a spirit of cooperation in the hopes of avoiding prosecution in addition to increasing the chances of earning meaningful credit under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines or the FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy. Three key takeaways: Make sure you provide an Upjohn warning. If an employee demands counsel to represent them during an internal investigation, who bears the cost? Always check state law requirements around internal investigations.

Guest Michelle Peirce, co-chair of law firm Barrett & Singal’s Litigation practice, joins Sound Bar and we discuss the role of Upjohn warnings in internal investigations, including in the famous Broadcom case. Does anyone really understand Upjohn warnings? Does it matter?

What do you know about white collar crime? Welcome to Sound Bar with your host Jim Rehnquist. Sound Bar offers fresh insights on significant cases, institutions and trends from players who together shape the legal developments and trends in the high-stakes world of white collar criminal defense.

Research has shown that pain resulting from playing can be a significant issue for musicians, but one that is preventable.  In this episode we’ll hear from drummer Chris Polglase about his experiences with pain from playing and how he manages it.  We’ll then hear from physiotherapist and researcher Dr Sarah Upjohn about her work in this area and what musicians can do to protect their musculoskeletal health.   Help Musicians Health & Welfare team 020 7239 9103: help@helpmusicians.org.uk (mailto:help@helpmusicians.org.uk) Help Musicians Musculoskeletal research: http://bit.ly/375gQ7o  BAPAM performers advice on pain and posture: http://bit.ly/39g9O1Q  BAPAM free health assessment Clinics: 9am 5pm Monday – Friday, 020 7404 8444

Today we celebrate the Spaniard who brought the pineapple and coffee to Hawaii.  We'll learn about the man who gardened at Monks House so much it would cause fights with his wife. We'll honor the Japanese American Landscape Architect, who designed many of our Modern Urban Public Spaces and the man who came up with a new kind of berry in the heart of Napa Vally in the 1920s. We'll hear some thoughts about the end of Fall from various poets and writers. We Grow That Garden Library with one of the most beautiful and sophisticated books on our favorite houseplant: the orchid. I'll talk about the five microgreens you should grow for the Holidays to impress your guests, and then we'll add things up with some charming advice on starting a Walking Club from 1890.    But first, let's catch up on a few recent events.   Vote For the Best Botanical Garden Holiday Lights | USA Today | @USATODAY It's time to vote for your favorite - The Best Botanical Garden Holiday Lights @USATODAY Readers' Choice Awards. During the winter season, a different kind of color lights up botanical gardens across the United States. Instead of spring flowers, visitors find twinkling holiday lights, often accompanied by a range of other holiday activities and events. Which botanical garden puts on the best seasonal lights show? You decide by voting once per day until polls close on Monday, December 2at noon ET. The ten winning gardens will be announced on 10Best.com on Friday, December 13 The current standings are: 1. A Longwood Christmas - Longwood Gardens - Kennett Square, Penn. 2. Dominion Energy GardenFest of Lights - Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden - Richmond, Va. 3. Gardens Aglow - Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens - Boothbay, Maine 4. Nights of a Thousand Candles - Brookgreen Gardens - Murrells Inlet, S.C. 5. Million Bulb Walk/Dominion Energy Garden of Lights - Norfolk Botanical Garden - Va. 6. Illumination: Tree Lights - Morton Arboretum - Chicago 7. Lights in Bloom - Marie Selby Botanical Gardens - Sarasota, Fla. 8. River of Lights - ABQ BioPark Botanic Garden - Albuquerque 9. Fantasy in Lights - Callaway Gardens - Pine Mountain, Ga 10. Illuminations - Botanica - Wichita, Kan.     Vancouver's Seawall Proves Strong Infrastructure Can Be Pretty, Too | CityLab @CityLab @zachmortice Zach Mortice wrote this great article in City Lab about an artistic seawall barrier. Gardeners can be inspired by taking the functional and making it so much more. Fencing, borders, raised beds, etc. don't need to be eyesores.      Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck - because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There’s no need to take notes or track down links - the next time you're on Facebook, just search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.       Brevities   #OTD  Today is the birthday of the Spanish adventurer and botanist known as Hawaii's Original Farmer, Francisco de Paula Marín, who was born on this day in 1774. By the time Marin was in his early twenties, he had already made his way to Honolulu, Hawaii. It would be his home for the rest of his life. Marin became a friend and advisor to King Kamehameha I, who consolidated all the Hawaiian Islands during his rule. Marin served in the Kamehameha Dynasty in various capacities all through his life, but he is best remembered for his work in horticulture. In 1813, Marin grew the first pineapple in Honolulu - the Hawaiian word for pineapple translates to "foreign fruit." Two years later, Marin planted the first Hawaiian vineyard using vines of the Mission grape. And, in 1817, with the approval of King Kamehameha, Marin planted the first coffee seeds in Hawaii.       #OTD   Today is the birthday of the man who designed Monks House garden Leonard Sidney Woolf who was born on this day in 1880. Woolf was the husband of Virginia Woolf. Leonard was the primary gardener and garden designer of Monks House - although Virginia helped him. Virginia and Leonard lived at the house from the time they first purchased it in 1919 until their deaths. The garden at Monks Hosue was a retreat and a place that they could both escape from the chaos of London. Leonard loved to be in the garden gardening. He hated tea roses and floribunda roses. But, he loved fruit trees like apple and pears, and he sold the fruits to make money. Leonard's devotion to the garden was a source of consternation for Virginia. Leonard spent so most of his time and his money on the garden. Virginia famously complained, “We are watering the earth with our money!” Leonard recorded all of his Monks House garden income and expenditures in a gorgeous dark green and pink ledger book. The first line in the book is dated August 26th, 1919, and he recorded the first gardening work performed by gardener William Dedman. Virginia described Monks House as "the pride of our hearts.’" In July of 1919, she wrote that gardening or weeding produced "a queer sort of enthusiasm which made me say this is happiness." When Virginia suffered bouts of depression, the garden at Monks House was the place she went to recover and heal. Since both Virginia and Leonard kept diaries, the garden was a frequent topic. On September 29, 1919, Virginia wrote: "A week ago, Leonard's wrist & arm broke into a rash. The Dr called it eczema. Then Mrs. Dedman brushed this aside & diagnosed sunflower poisoning. [Leonard] had been uprooting them with bare hands. We have accepted her judgment."    One of Virginia's favorite places to write was in the garden at Monks House. She had a small converted shed that she called her writing lodge. Every morning on her way to the lodge, Virginia walked through the garden. The Monks House garden was THE place where she wrote some of her most famous works. One story is often shared to illustrate Leonard's devotion to gardening. In 1939, as the second world war approached, Virginia called for him to come inside to listen to "the lunatic" Hitler on the radio. But Leonard was in the middle of tending to his Iris, and he shouted back: ”I shan’t come. I am planting iris, and they will be flowering long after he is dead.”   After Virginia's tragic suicide, Leonard wrote: "I know that V. will not come across the garden from the Lodge, and yet I look in that direction for her. I know that she is drowned, and yet I listen for her to come in at the door."   At Monks House garden, there were two Elm trees that the Woolf's had sweetly named after themselves, “Virginia and Leonard.” Leonard buried Virginia’s ashes under one of those Elms and installed a stone tablet with the last lines from her novel The Waves: “Against you, I fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death! The waves crashed on the shore.”         #OTD   Today is the birthday of the Japanese-American landscape architect who designed some of the country’s best-known industrial parks, urban spaces, and campuses, Hideo Sasaki, who was born on this day in 1919. Sasaki was born in Reedley, Calif., and grew up on his family’s truck farm in the San Joaquin Valley. During WWII, Sasaki and his family suffered at an internment camp in Arizona, where Sasaki worked in beet fields.  As a very bright student, Sasaki went on to study at the University of Illinois and Harvard Graduate School of Design. Sasaki lived in the Boston area, where he taught at Harvard for more than 20 years, chairing its landscape architecture department from 1958 to 1968, and he founded his Sasaki Associates firm. By 1993, more than a third of all landscape architecture professors had been trained by Sasaki. Sasaki created industrial parks for big companies like John Deere and Upjohn. He also designed urban spaces like Boston’s Copley Square, New York’s Washington Square Village and the St. Louis Gateway Mall. In 1971, Sasaki became the first recipient of the American Society of Landscape Architects medal. Sasaki died of cancer back in August of 2000.     #OTD Today is the anniversary of the death of the plant hybridizer Rudolph Boysen who died on this day in 1950. In the 1910s and '20s, Boysen had been playing around with plant genetics. He worked on an 18-acre farm owned by John Lubbens in Napa Valley. On one June morning, Boysen took a walk along a creek bank to inspect some of his new berry creations. Boysen was astonished when he saw that one of the vines bore fruit that was almost two inches long. The fruit would become known to the world as the Boysenberry. Boysenberries are similar to blackberries but have a larger, juicier, and sweeter fruit. The Boysenberry is a cross between the loganberry, the raspberry, and the blackberry. In 1927, Boysen advertised them as "the sensation of the 20th Century."  The grower, Walter Knott, had been looking for new varieties of berries, and when he got some of Boysen's plants, he knew it was the berry he had been looking for over the past decade. Knott gave Boysen credit by naming the plant in his honor. But, Knott managed to make an empire for himself with the proceeds - establishing the world-renown Knotts Berry Farm. As for Boysen, he never earned a dime from the Boysenberry.       Unearthed Words   "The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear." - William Cullen Bryant   "She calls it "stick season," this slow disrobing of summer,  leaf by leaf, till the bores of tall trees, rattle and scrape in the wind." - Eric Pinder, Author   "November comes  And November goes,  With the last red berries  And the first white snows. With night coming early,  And dawn coming late,  And ice in the bucket  And frost by the gate. The fires burn  And the kettles sing,  And earth sinks to rest  Until next spring." - Elizabeth Coatsworth     Today's book recommendation: Orchid Modern by Marc Hachadourian Marc Hachadourian is the senior curator of the incredible orchid collection at the New York Botanical Garden, and his book Modern Orchidsis outstanding. The subtitle for the book is Living and Designing with the World’s Most Elegant Houseplants - so true, Marc. You can read for yourself in Marc's book about the history of orchids and all the different types of orchids, but most of us simply want to know the answer to one or two questions like 'how do I keep my orchids happy and healthy?' and/or 'how do I get them to rebloom?' To Marc, the answer to those questions is pretty straightforward. In general, we simply need to understand the growing conditions that orchids prefer. Marc teaches us what orchids like by asking us the following six questions: Does the location have natural sunlight? How strong is the sunlight? How long does the location, receive natural light each day? What temperatures will there be throughout the year? In the daytime? In the night? Is the air constantly dry or doesn't have some moisture And finally, how often will I water and care for the plants? If you have an orchid lover in your family, this is the book for them. It would make a lovely Christmas present. In addition to learning how to care for the orchids, you will get Marc's top picks for orchids, and he has 120 of them. And, Marc also shares some pretty amazing projects that will add to the decor of your home, including terrariums, a wreath, and a kokedama. There's also a project that teaches us to make an orchid bonsai tree that is absolutely stunning. All of Marc's crafts and projects are a level up from something you would typically see in a gardening book. Marc provides a level of sophistication and elegance with his work that I just have not seen in a garden book in some time. When I can look at a project and learn something - whether it's a new tool or new product that I can source for working with my own floral arrangements - I'm so appreciative. So, hats off to Marc for tackling a subject that most of us feel we could use more help with (orchids) and by not dumbing it down. Overall, Marc shares super-helpful pro-insights and modern options for incorporating our most beloved houseplant: orchids.       Today's Garden Chore Start sowing some microgreens for the holiday season.  There is nothing like a microgreens garden to satisfy your winter gardening needs and at that same time, growing those fresh, nutrient-dense, garden to table greens that you can grow in the comfort of your own home. For most gardeners, I think the biggest challenge with growing microgreens is learning what dishes can be enhanced with them. Btw, microgreens are just the little seedlings that pop up after you plant the seeds. So, what five microgreens will I be planting in time for Christmas?  Arugula - this is the perfect topping for your Christmas Lasagna or bruschetta — and it offers the same amount of calcium as spinach. Basil - the PERFECT addition to many tart Christmas drinks. Basil is an anti-inflammatory. Radishes - wonderful, fresh addition to salads and even stuffing. As tasty as a full-grown radish. Vitamin C + Protein. If you like radishes, you'll love radish microgreens. Cilantro - for soups and stews. Super easy to grow. Lutein and Beta-Caratein Powerhouse. Pea - excellent for garnishing any egg dish and FANTASTIC for adding to mashed potatoes. 7x Vitamin C of blueberries. Onion Sprouts - use just as you would an onion. The sprouts taste just like an onion.       Something Sweet  Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart On this day in 1890, The San Francisco Call shared an article with this headline: Walking Clubs. Lazy People Have No Interest in the Subject. Here's an excerpt: "You may have heard of a hundred kinds of clubs, ... and you may belong half a dozen and yet have never heard of a walking club.  If so, you have missed one of the best of all. Autumn is here, and the bracing air makes you feel like exercising briskly. The leaves are turning to gold and scarlet, the nuts are nearly ripe, and the squirrels are scampering through the trees, chattering challenges with saucy eyes. Now is the time to organize walking clubs. A number of bright, boys and girls might get up such a club in an hour, No initiation, no fees. A President perhaps and maybe a Secretary to put down anything wonderful that may happen during the walks. The only business of the club will be to settle where they will walk. No constitution, no by-laws. Take any morning when it does not rain, see that your feet are shod strongly and comfortably, and walk as many miles as you can without fatigue. Hold up your head, throw your chest forward, and walk. Don't mince along or shuffle, but strike a long, swinging step from the hip joints. Have a destination. Select a farmhouse or a country inn three miles out. Manage to get there in time for dinner or supper, and after eating, rest one hour. Then come home by a different route. At night take a bath and go to bed. Take a walk once the first week, twice the second week, and keep that up for six weeks. Then walk three times a week, if the weather permits. Begin with a six-mile walk and lengthen it to ten. Keep up these walks during the autumn and winter — in fact, up to next summer. Get a number to go, and keep on enlisting new members. Seek a new route for every walk, if such a thing is possible. If not, add variety by dividing the club into two detachments, which shall meet at some previously agreed upon place to lunch. Then "swap routes" for the return trip, or return all together by a third route. There are a hundred ways of preventing monotony. Incite members to discover new points of interest and get an amateur botanist or geologist to join you. Study natural history as you walk, discuss, argue, reason, but don't quarrel. This is the way to be healthy and wise. Never mind the wealth— that will come of itself."       Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."  

In today’s Our Take read-in, we discuss several CMS initiatives announced last Monday. The email version of Our Take includes several important links to other final and proposed rules from CMS. To sign up for the weekly email brief, click here. Other briefs include: Pfizer signed a definitive agreement to merge its Upjohn division with Mylan. HHS is working on a plan to allow the legal importation of prescription drugs. CMS denies Utah’s request for partial Medicaid expansion. Cigna and Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) sign a value-based agreement. Philadelphia’s Temple University will sell its Fox Chase Cancer Center to Thomas Jefferson University. About Darwin Research Group Darwin Research Group Inc. provides advanced market intelligence and in-depth customer insights to health care executives, with a strategic focus on health care delivery systems and the global shift toward value-based care. Darwin’s client list includes forward-thinking biopharmaceutical and medical device companies, as well as health care providers, private equity, and venture capital firms. The company was founded in 2010 as Darwin Advisory Partners, LLC and is headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz. with a satellite office in Princeton, N.J.

The S&P Pharma Guy, Arthur Wong, shares S&P Global's thoughts on Pfizer Inc.'s announcement it was spinning off Upjohn, home to legacy products Lipitor, Viagra, and Lyrica. Pfizer remains a pharma giant and leading player in the industry. However, the lessened diversity will result in a lower rating.

Todd Peters, senior vice president at Adviser Investments, has the market analysis for Monday, July 29. U.S. indexes closed with mixed results: The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1% while the S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite fell 0.1% and 0.4%, The Federal Reserve is set to cut rates for first time since 2008 in hopes of preventing a potential downturn in the economy. In the market, Pfizer’s stock announced merging its Upjohn business with Mylan. The stock was down 3% though, due to shortcomings in revenue estimates.

Uber eliminates 400 marketing jobs in a corporate reorganisation, Citigroup plans to axe hundreds of jobs in its global markets division and new data reveal more than 2,000 Chinese-made security cameras deemed a threat to national security remain in place in US government buildings. Plus, Pfizer reaches a deal to combine its Upjohn unit with generics drugmaker Mylan, Beyond Meat announces a stock sale and Sterling tumbles to its lowest level in two and a half years on Monday as market fears of a no-deal Brexit grow. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Linda Ness and Suzie Thorpe meet Tanya Lambert who turned her back on an established career and now manages her own food company. They find out about Physiotherapist, Dr Sarah Upjohn’s Doctoral work at the University of Cambridge which is focused on preventing playing-related injuries in young musicians, and Courtney Grinham, who went from temporary […]

Dr Sarah Upjohn is certainly making waves. Her pioneering doctoral work at the University of Cambridge has focused on preventing playing-related injuries in young musicians. Sarah and The Purcell School's strategy to identify risk factors and improve injury prevention awareness among pupils, staff, parents and all involved with the school, is exemplary in preparing young musicians for healthy and successful careers. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nine billion chickens are hatched every year in the U.S. Roy Curtiss and his colleagues came up with the idea of spray vaccinations, virtually eliminating the threat of salmonella for about one penny a chick. Always interested in genetics, Curtiss began became fascinated with pathogens and and has taught about them in various fields, including biology and dentistry. He eventually became a professor of veterinary science at the University of Florida and holds almost 50 patents. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:20 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:37 Vaccinating chickens. No, that’s not the name of some new indie band, but it is what may be keeping us from getting sick and here to explain this morning is Dr. Roy Curtis, a professor at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine. Welcome, Dr. Curtis. Dr. Roy Curtiss: 0:51 Glad to be here. Richard Miles: 0:52 Okay, so it makes total sense, but I never actually have thought about giving vaccines to chickens before and I know it’s, it’s been around a while. It’s not exactly a new thing, but tell us doctor, how does it work? Giving vaccines to chickens? Do they get a lollipop afterwards and a superhero bandaid or what is going on there? Dr. Roy Curtiss: 1:09 Afraid not. There’s no reward other than staying healthy, which of course is a pretty good reward. But chickens get immunized actually before they hatch against a virus that causes cancer, which can be devastating and that’s totally controlled. And then after they come out of the shell, they’re sprayed with a vaccine that protects them against bedbugs, like salmonella or viruses like bronchitis that cause devastating problems and inhibit the growth of the chickens. So before they get to the farm, they’re already immunized and vaccinated. Richard Miles: 1:41 Yes. How did this idea come about? What’s sort of the history of figuring this out? I mean it seems obvious now, but all good inventions later on seem obvious. But before they were invented, they weren’t so obvious. So that’s why their inventions, Dr. Roy Curtiss: 1:53 That’s true. You recognize that you have viruses and bacteria that caused disease. Thirty – forty years ago. We didn’t understand what the mechanism was. So the first thing to do is to figure out how do they cause disease, how do they infect, whether it’s a chicken or us and what do they do to cause the symptoms that we get, whether it’s diarrhea or a runny nose or whatever. Once we know that we can then begin if we understand something about the genetics to modify the virus or modify the bacteria so that it no longer causes disease, but it can still invade into a host animal like a chicken or us and cause the production of an immune response. Just like kids get vaccinated against measles, mumps, they get an inactivated virus and after a few months they develop a response so that they’re no longer susceptible to infection and they’re protected for life. Which is wonderful. Richard Miles: 2:50 Let’s talk about the practical application, I guess. It’s one thing to vaccinate, say a single chicken or a couple of chickens, but how did the problem gets solved? How do you do this on a mass scale? It’s obviously doable, but who came up with this idea of doing it on a mass scale so that you’ve got chickens everywhere getting vaccines? Dr. Roy Curtiss: 3:06 One of my colleagues came up with one of the ideas of inoculating the egg before the chick hatches, what they call Inovo immunization. And my group came up with this idea of spray vaccination against the Salmonella. You have to realize we raised 9 billion chickens in the United States every year. And when they come out of the hatchery, they go into a tray of a hundred chicks and you can spray that whole box in one and a half seconds and it just goes down to like a roller thing and that each box, it goes under the spray cabinet like that, those moves on. And the next one they load them all on the truck, take them to the farm. And they do this for millions and millions of birds. Richard Miles: 3:43 So essentially an assembly line. Dr. Roy Curtiss: 3:45 It’s an assembly line and the birds are never handled by a human being. It’s all mechanical and robotics and things of this sort. And that’s why we can now raise billions of chickens. When I was a kid, if you had 10,000 chickens, you were a big operator. And nowadays if you don’t have 10 million you’re a small potato. Richard Miles: 4:04 So it sounds like this isn’t terribly expensive system to implement or is it, is this a huge investment? Dr. Roy Curtiss: 4:09 No, no. The cost of immunization of a chick by spray and then they give a second booster immunization in the drinking water at the broiler farm. After 10 days, it’s less than a penny a chick and the chicken marketed by the rotor producer is worth about a dollar 25 cents less than 1% of the cost of the final product. Richard Miles: 4:29 Tell us about how your research group came up with this idea, was there a key insight or was it just an inner process where you sort of arrived at the best solution. Dr. Roy Curtiss: 4:37 In my case, it was a situation of going to a scientific meeting in immunology and learning something about how Polio vaccine worked and then knowing some things about Salmonella, which I’d worked on for many years and then realizing I could do something with chickens, which I started to raise as a kid and put all these things together as a unified concept of figuring out how to tame the Salmonella so that could no longer cause disease but could be a safe and efficacious vaccine that would protect chickens or us from future infections with Salmonella. Richard Miles: 5:13 What was the initial reaction when you came up with this idea? Did people go, “That’s a wonderful idea,” or did people say “That’s ridiculous, it’s never gonna work?” Dr. Roy Curtiss: 5:19 Yeah, I mean, I came up with the idea and I tried to get to the research funded three different ways through the government. Fortunately through one route it worked, and from there it went on to be accepted and being worked on by many people over the world. Richard Miles: 5:34 Now you have a very creative mind, you’ve got something like 49 patents, correct? Dr. Roy Curtiss: 5:39 Yeah. That’s just the US. Several hundred in Europe and other places, Japan, China, etc. Richard Miles: 5:47 So let’s talk a little bit about, you have also a fascinating pedigree that includes a signer of the declaration of dependence, a symphony conductor, and a saloon owner. And finally you a doctor, a research doctor. So tell me about growing up in your family and what ultimately attracted you to medical research. What were your influences, or did you have role models or why did you end up the way you did? Dr. Roy Curtiss: 6:09 Well, I think it’s one of these fortuitous things. My parents decided that maybe I should get out of New York City and go upstate New York to get educated so I wouldn’t become a gang member or something. And I learned how to grow vegetables. And then that led to an interest in why tomatoes were different shapes or yellow or red or whatever. And then I got interested in chickens and started raising chickens. And at the same time I was failing as an athlete because of repetitive injuries to my ankles and whatnot. Richard Miles: 6:38 What kind of athlete? Dr. Roy Curtiss: 6:40 Well, I did football and I did skiing and I did track and I even messed up in volleyball. Richard Miles: 6:46 Where in upstate New York, were you? Dr. Roy Curtiss: 6:47 Outside of Albany in a town called Delmar, New York. And I was, had a lot of interaction with many of my grandparents and great grandparents who were mostly in the New York, Connecticut, New Jersey area. So I saw them on frequent occasion and were stimulated by their stories of their progress and that of their fathers and grandfathers and grandmothers and whatnot. Resource of a very rich family life and lots of experiences. Richard Miles: 7:13 Any other scientists in the family at all? Researchers? Dr. Roy Curtiss: 7:17 Uh, the only researcher in the family was my oldest son who had developed remote sensing when he was at Caltech, when the total spectrum of the landsat satellites and whatnot. So anyway… Richard Miles: 7:30 You have a patent competition going on. I see. Dr. Roy Curtiss: 7:33 No, he’s established a company and he’s now retired. He’s the main science advisor of it, but they started a company and they’ve got a lot of hardware up in the heavens there. So he’s doing well, having fun. Richard Miles: 7:45 So you’re up state New York. You’re learning about agriculture. And then how did you end up in Florida? Dr. Roy Curtiss: 7:50 As many people remark, I’ve been all over. All over Cornell and I started going to Cornell when I was in seventh grade visiting, and it was a slam dunk that that was where I was going to go. Although all the male members of my family went to Columbia where I was born. And then I went from Cornell to Brookhaven national lab to University of Chicago to Oak Ridge National Laboratory to University, Tennessee, then University of Alabama, Birmingham, then Washington University in Saint Louis, and then Arizona State University, and then three years ago or four years ago, somebody from Florida called me up and said, Roy, what’s the chance that we could move you and your wife to Florida? I said, what you got in mind? And so two months later we’re out of here and looking around and we’d been here many times before and loved the environment, liked all the colleagues here and move again. Richard Miles: 8:39 And so in all those places, was it veterinary science, or what was your focus. Dr. Roy Curtiss: 8:44 Oh no, I’ve been in the arts and sciences. I mean I chaired the Biology Department at Washington University. I’ve been at two national laboratories, were basic science departments. I’ve been in a medical school, I’ve been at a dental school and as I say in three arts and sciences, a sanction now a vet school. And I’ve been doing veterinary research for 30 some odd years. So this is great. I feel very much at home. Richard Miles: 9:05 Right. This is very interesting cause it’s kind of a lot of adventures that we see and that we know of have these very wide range of interests. So they’re usually highly proficient or experts in at least one field. But then beyond that they have a lot of very well developed interests. It sounds like you just studied or started teaching things that interested you and developed an expertise. Was there sort of a a grand master plan when you started out or did you just see a topic and the feeling and go that sounds interesting, I’m going to learn about it. And how did that develop? Dr. Roy Curtiss: 9:36 Two things. One, you have to be a risk taker. You have to ask questions and when you’ve come across something you know nothing about, go ahead and study it. Try to figure out a little bit more. I mean learn more. And so I moved around. I mean it was one of the first people working on modes of antibiotic resistance transmission back in the early sixties for many years I studied how bacteria exchange genetic information, how they evolve, how they establish in various ecologies. And then got interested in pathogens and the genetics of how pathogens cause disease. And then once I learned that I wanted to make vaccines to prevent the infection. So it’s a transition over many years of how you use your knowledge that you acquire and that imparted by others and put it to practical use. Richard Miles: 10:20 Ah, let’s develop that a little bit more because it’s often very good inventions or breakthrough inventions are when somebody takes an idea or an insight developed in one field of study and applies it in a different field, or they understand that it has implications in a different field. Did that ever happen in your career in which something, an insight or a lesson that you acquired in one field, you looked over at a, at another and go, “oh my gosh, I can use that same insight and this is related but different field?” Dr. Roy Curtiss: 10:46 Well, I think that my background in genetics, which goes all the way back to junior high school was key. Very few people saw the insight in how to understand various bacterial and viral pathogens from a genetic point of view. Trying to understand the expression of genetic information to lead to production of toxins or means by which a pathogen colonized, invaded was deceased. And so I asked a lot of questions and because of this, my lab discovered some of the key attributes of bacterial pathogenicity and means by which Salmonella invades, for example, temperature regulation and Shigella. We made the first gene clone bank of a pathogen, one causing dental caries tooth decay, streptococcus Mutans, which is one of the most prevalent pathogens in the world, affects maybe 95% of us. And we made fundamental studies on how that caused disease. Yeah. So dentistry has gone from pediatric dentistry to geriatric dentistry because we’ve eliminated a lot of the problems that the kids get because of the knowledge we learned about how these bacteria that cause tooth decay do so, and then we can intervene and develop strategies to prevent that. Richard Miles: 11:55 So it sounds like this fundamental understanding of pathogens and genetics really informed your approach to all sorts of… Dr. Roy Curtiss: 12:01 Everything. Everything. Richard Miles: 12:02 Fascinating. Let’s talk about the business angle. You know, we talked about this earlier, great ideas. Unfortunately don’t just sell themselves. Right. They gotta be packaged in a business model and application. That makes sense for somebody. Either retail, consumer, a business consumer or so on. Describe for me your experience with that, knowing both worlds, sort of at the research end, at the genesis of the idea, but then also as it goes to market, what are the insights you’ve gained about that process? What are some of the successes and tell us about some of the setbacks or frustrations you’ve had in that. Dr. Roy Curtiss: 12:35 Well, as we developed some of the key technologies in the late 1980s I commenced to be invited to go give talks at various universities and science meetings. But then during the next four years, I started visiting pharmaceutical companies and new biotech startup companies. Gene X, Seedis, Molecular Genetics, Genentech, etc. But also Eli Lilly and Upjohn and Smithkline, companies that don’t exist anymore actually and did so in Europe as well. And so I gave my dog and pony show. And finally in 1992 it was a race between Smithkline and Upjohn. And Upjohn got there first with a about $3 million to let us set up a company called Megan Health, which we did, in St Louis, and established it finally in 1993 and that enabled us to develop three vaccines that are out there that are now commercially marketed by either Allanco or Merck to control salmonella in chickens and swine. Richard Miles: 13:35 Did you encounter any skepticism or did you just present them with the information about what this was going to do? And they were like, “we’re on board here.” Dr. Roy Curtiss: 13:43 Well, every time you give a talk, people ask you questions. Sometimes you’ve never thought of them, and many of them dealt with safety. “You tell me you’re going to develop a vaccine and you’re gonna give this to my newborn baby.” “Yes.” Now that’s a tough sell. Sure. And so we had to do things and now the newer technologies we have, we have the salmonella on a string so that they die and explode. They lyse after about 10 days so that there’s no survivors. So it becomes totally safe. But originally there was concern that spray a lot of salmonella around. Well, how doesn’t that contaminate the environment. And what’s the impact going to be on other animals? And good questions concerned with the integrity of the environment, the safety of other animals and people who might get immunized who didn’t elect to get immunized, which is a no, no. From an ethical point of view. Right. Richard Miles: 14:36 So once you figured out the answer to those questions, as you said, all good questions, you went back and said, here’s why it’s safe and here’s why it’s not going to… Dr. Roy Curtiss: 14:45 Yes, yes. And then eventually after four years of talking to all these people, I convinced a couple of companies to say, well, okay, there may be a risk, but this is a good investment. This is a good possibility that we could enhance the safety of food if we could control salmonella in poultry. Richard Miles: 15:02 So we mentioned earlier that you’ve got something like 50 us patents and sounds like a lot more overseas. What are you working on at the moment? What is your research pointing towards? Dr. Roy Curtiss: 15:11 Well, there are two areas. One is in the area of animal health. We’re developing several other vaccines for poultry, wanting to control a disease called necrotic inner riotous, which causes a devastating disease in chickens. For years they supplied low level antibiotics to promote the growth of chickens. This is now sort of a, no, no, we’re trying to decrease that, but in so doing, we’re now getting a disease caused by clostridium perfringens. This is a bacteria that causes gangrene, which was a big problem in the first world war and our military troops and this bacteria causes real damage in the intestinal track and the chickens don’t grow well and a lot of them die. And so we got a vaccine against that, which is going through a process to be marketed in about two, three years. Hopefully. We’re making another vaccine against campylobacter jejuni, which is another diarrheal pathogen that’s transmitted from chickens to humans. And it turns out the chickens get infected with a strain of e coli that is very similar, if not identical to those that cause urinary tract infections in humans. And so we’re trying to control that. So at four different areas we’re trying to make the poultry products and other farm animal products have a safer for human consumption. But on the other hand, I work on some vaccines against human disease. My wife and I work on a vaccine against tuberculosis. We worked one on bacterial pneumonia. The vaccine for newborns that the Gates Foundation has helped to fund and a variety of other things. Richard Miles: 16:39 Do you ever sleep? Dr. Roy Curtiss: 16:41 Well, yeah. Then I wake up in the middle of the night and then I started thinking, you know, I love science. Richard Miles: 16:45 I’m feeling lazier by the minute just listening to you talk, I had no idea that eating chicken could be such as dicey proposition, but I know now that every time I eat chicken and I don’t get sick, I’m going to thank you. Dr. Roy Curtiss: 16:55 No, no. It could be that you handle the chicken properly. You know, you use clean cutting board should cook things thoroughly and we don’t eat sashimi chicken and there’s a good reason for it. Richard Miles: 17:05 But I think it’s safe to say that the work of you and your colleagues has greatly reduced the risk of serious diseases, serious conditions affecting a lot of people. Dr. Roy Curtiss: 17:14 No, actually I think there’s very little salmonella infection that comes from eggs anymore because almost every laying hen in the United States is immunized and so that’s been pretty much eliminated the last five years. Richard Miles: 17:27 Dr. Curtiss, thank you very much for joining us on the show today and I look forward to seeing your future research, sounds very promising. Glad you could be here to talk. Dr. Roy Curtiss: 17:35 Well thank you, Richard. I enjoyed it very much. Richard Miles: 17:37 Thank you. Outro: 17:39 Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support. Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating and inventor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcasts and music theme. Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song featuring violinist Jacob Lawson. And special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

In Part 2 of our series on health care investigations, Mark Rush and John Lawrence continue the discussion on internal investigations. Specifically, the episode walks through how to conduct an internal investigation, including the recommended process for collecting key documents, conducting employee interviews, giving Upjohn warnings, drafting a written report of the findings, taking corrective action, and making the requisite disclosures when necessary. Presenters: Mark A. Rush and John H. Lawrence Download Presentation Materials

This time on Alfred, the podcast for Shaftesbury, The Vale and Chase areas of North Dorset and West Wiltshire: Gold Hill Museum’s Ray Simpson shares the story of a Shaftesbury family who found fame, fortune and infamy in the New World. Ray has researched the Upjohn’s. Some of the family built important public buildings in the USA. The Upjohns helped found a major pharmaceutical company. And one Upjohn executed a notorious outlaw. (00:32) We share some of the things that we learned during Alfred’s visit to this week’s Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show. Keep tuned and the AONB will tell you where to stargaze around Shaftesbury. You’ll also find out about a bright pink sheep, peddle-powered smoothies, an unusual fire service vehicle and the incredible story of The Donhead’s award-winning cider. (05:58) Rob Neely from Shaftesbury Fringe announces some of the performance festival committee’s plans for 2019. (19:57) Enmore Green hosted an event to celebrate 175 years of St John’s Church. Alfred was there to look at the pictures, documents and articles and to hear about the area’s forgotten industry - brickmaking. Nigel Garrett also shares his fascinating family history find. (20:52) Alfred meets the man who missed out on the Hovis ad ‘boy-on-a-bike’ role because he didn’t want a haircut. Alan Manby has made his first visit to the town, made famous in the 1973 bread commercial. (27:59) Sheila Messer says that the Gillingham Walking Festival will promote Shaftesbury for the first time in the event’s five-year history. (30:04) A concert of ‘exquisite’ classical guitar playing is coming to Shaftesbury Arts Centre. Alfred speaks with Mark Jennings about his set list. (31:53)

This week on MIA Radio, we present a special episode of the podcast to join in the many events being held for World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day, July 11, 2018. In part 2 of the podcast, we interview Mad in America founder, Robert Whitaker. For many of us, Robert needs no introduction as he is well known for his award-winning book, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, which was released in 2010. Robert has been a medical writer at the Albany Times Union newspaper, A journalism fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Director of publications at the Harvard Medical School. Besides many papers, journals and articles, Robert has written five books which include Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and The Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill in 2001, Anatomy of an Epidemic in 2010 and Psychiatry Under The Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform published in 2015. We discuss: What took Bob from writing as an industry insider covering clinical trials to founding Mad in America. How writing a story about the botched introduction of laparoscopic surgery led to an interest in how commerce was corrupting healthcare. How Freedom of Information requests led to an understanding of the corruption in the clinical trials of antipsychotic drugs. What led to writing the book Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and The Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill in 2001. That, when you look at the science, you see an enduring theme in psychiatry of treatments that are full of promise, but ultimately can lead to harm. That Bob came to these issues as a journalist who felt a sense of public duty to be an honest reporter of the facts and the science. The extraordinary history behind the revival of the market for benzodiazepines. How Valium became the western world’s most prescribed psychiatric drug during the late 1960s. How, in the 1970s, it became apparent that people were struggling to get off the drugs. That women’s magazines started to write about the experiences of women addicted to Valium, and it was recognised as a bigger issue than heroin addiction. That the reaction by the pharmaceutical manufacturers was to reconceptualize anxiety-related distress as depressive distress and move patients on to SSRIs. How in 1980, in the third version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, a new disorder is named: Panic Disorder, leading the maker of Alprazolam, Upjohn, to get it approved specifically for the treatment of panic disorder. How the study published showed that the reduction in panic attacks in the medicated group over four weeks was greater than the unmedicated group, but the study actually ran for eight weeks, by which time there was no difference between the medicated and unmedicated groups. That in the six-week withdrawal phase of the study, 44% were not able to stop the drugs. How newspapers reported that Xanax (Alprazolam) was an efficacious, safe and non-addictive treatment for panic disorder. That what you see in the heart of the Xanax story is a betrayal of the public. The reasons why doctors often don’t review the papers that would lead them to conclude that benzodiazepines are highly problematic drugs. A paper from a new International Task Force on Benzodiazepines which seems to be a statement of intent to increase benzodiazepine prescribing. That people should keep on telling their stories of withdrawal and iatrogenic harm. The attempt in Massachusetts to pass a bill requiring informed consent. The problems inherent in using the language of withdrawal when the symptoms are protracted and that it would be more appropriate to describe this as a neurological injury. That the benzodiazepine community is doing an incredible service by alerting the public to what should be seen as a public health crisis. Relevant links: Revival of the market for Benzodiazepines Malcolm Lader: It is more difficult to withdraw people from benzodiazepines than it is from heroin International Task Force on Benzodiazepines    

Episode 010: Is the FDA Killing You? A Discussion on the Impact of FDA Regulations on Americans' Lives with Dr. Mary Ruwart What impact do FDA (Food & Drug Administration) regulations have on Americans? Are they truly benign or could they be costing us not only extra money at the pharmacy but our lives? Today, Dr. Mary Ruwart and I discuss the true impact of FDA regulations and how they do in fact shave years off of our lives. With the passage of the 1962 amendments to the FDA the average time for a new drug to make to market has increased from 4-14 years. During that time, millions of Americans were potentially prevented from benefiting from useful pharmaceuticals. Conservative estimates put the cost of American years at between 5-10 lost due to these delays, loss of innovation, and increased costs. Listen in as Eric & Mary tell tales of the FDA battling the CDC recommendations for preventing neural tube defects (spina bifida) leading to a delay in alerting American women to cheap remedies and unexpectedly causing a tragedy worse than the Thalidomide debacle in Europe in the 1960s. Dr. Ruwart will present compelling evidence that not only has the FDA delayed drugs that could make our lives better and longer, but that it hasn't made drugs any safer either.Dr. Ruwart, former Upjohn researcher and author of the book, "Death by Regulation". show notes Mary Ruwart:The home page for Dr. Ruwart and her books, blog, and correspondence.   Abigail Alliance:The organization working to independently test and try to get faster drug approval. What Happened to All the Medicine: The interview with Dr. Mass discussing the role GPOs and PBMs have in creating meciation shortages referred to in the show.   That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen; by Frederic Bastiat:One of my favorite reads on economics with the famous example of the broken window fallacy.   Patreon- Become a show supporter today and visit my Patreon page for extra bonuses. Every dollar raised goes towards the production and promotion of the show.

After two years, Glidden abandoned production of cortisone to concentrate on Substance S. Julian developed a multistep process for conversion of pregnenolone, available in abundance from soybean oil sterols, to cortexolone. In 1952, Glidden, which had been producing progesterone and other steroids from soybean oil, shut down its own production and began importing them from Mexico through an arrangement with Diosynth (a small Mexican company founded in 1947 by Russell Marker after leaving Syntex). Glidden's cost of production of cortexolone was relatively high, so Upjohn decided to use progesterone, available in large quantity at low cost from Syntex, to produce cortisone and hydrocortisone. In 1953, Julian founded his own research firm, Julian Laboratories, Inc. He brought many of his best chemists, including African-Americans and women, from Glidden to his own company. Julian won a contract to provide Upjohn with $2 million worth of progesterone To compete against Syntex, he would have to use the same Mexican yam Mexican barbasco trade as his starting material. Julian used his own money and borrowed from friends to build a processing plant in Mexico, but he could not get a permit from the government to harvest the yams. Abraham Zlotnik, a former Jewish University of Vienna classmate whom Julian had helped escape from the Holocaust, led a search to find a new source of the yam in Guatemala for the company. Information Sourced From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Lavon_Julian Body Sourced From; https://youtu.be/KSq__sdYNNk Public Access America 
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Death by Regulation: How We Were Robbed of a Golden Age of Health and How We Can Reclaim It In 1962, Congress passed possibly the deadliest regulations of all time: the 1962 Amendments to the Food & Drug Act. This “living law” continues to metastasize to this day, reshaping the pharmaceutical cartel, the supplement industry, the practice of medicine and transforming our health care paradigm from prevention to treatment. Research shows at least half of Americans who have died since 1962 lost about 10 years of their lives to the Amendments; in all likelihood, each of us has been affected. Dr. Ruwart's new book, Death by Regulation, is now available for purchase through Amazon or Death by Regulation Website Learn why Congress passed the Amendments in the first place? Have they made a difference? Find out how The Amendments added about 10 years to the time it takes for new drugs to get from the lab bench to the marketplace. They destroyed over 50% of our innovations and censored the dissemination of life-saving information. Dr. Mary J. Ruwart is a research scientist, ethicist, and a libertarian author/activist. She received her B.S. in biochemistry in 1970 and her Ph.D. in Biophysics in 1974. As a senior research scientist at UpJohn, Dr. Ruwart was involved in developing new therapies for a variety of diseases, including liver cirrhosis and AIDS. Dr. Ruwart left Upjohn in 1995 to devote her time to consulting and writing. She teaches communications courses for scientists and provides consulting services for nutraceutical companies, clinical research organizations, and universities. Dr. Mary Ruwart served with the Center for Applied and Professional Ethics at the Univ of N Carolina, designing a medical research ethics course for the University. Her radical application of ethics to medical regulation, especially regulations regarding pharmaceuticals, has life-and-death-implications. Since 1982, Dr. Ruwart has also been involved in societal ethics with a focus on the political theory and practice of libertarianism. Her award-winning international best-selling book, Healing Our World, demonstrates how the ethical application of libertarian principles has historically created harmony and abundance. Referencing hundreds of studies, Dr. Ruwart demonstrates that many of our current policies surreptitiously violate the basic ethical standards that we hold dear, thereby leading to unintended—and highly undesirable—consequences. Over the last three decades, Dr. Ruwart has often run for public office as a Libertarian Candidate, primarily to educate voters on the impact of ethical choices on their personal and financial well-being. Mary's 1st book: Healing Our World: The Compassion of Libertarianism Dr. Ruwart’s international best-selling book integrates the morality of Christianity, the ethical compassion of the liberal, the self-responsibility of New Age spirituality, and the practicality of real world politics to take the libertarian ideal to the next level. Dr. Ruwarts Website and BlogDownload.

Death by Regulation: How We Were Robbed of a Golden Age of Health and How We Can Reclaim It In 1962, Congress passed possibly the deadliest regulations of all time: the 1962 Amendments to the Food & Drug Act. This “living law” continues to metastasize to this day, reshaping the pharmaceutical cartel, the supplement industry, the practice of medicine and transforming our health care paradigm from prevention to treatment. Research shows at least half of Americans who have died since 1962 lost about 10 years of their lives to the Amendments; in all likelihood, each of us has been affected. Dr. Ruwart's new book, Death by Regulation, is now available for purchase through Amazon or Death by Regulation Website Learn why Congress passed the Amendments in the first place? Have they made a difference? Find out how The Amendments added about 10 years to the time it takes for new drugs to get from the lab bench to the marketplace. They destroyed over 50% of our innovations and censored the dissemination of life-saving information. Dr. Mary J. Ruwart is a research scientist, ethicist, and a libertarian author/activist. She received her B.S. in biochemistry in 1970 and her Ph.D. in Biophysics in 1974. As a senior research scientist at UpJohn, Dr. Ruwart was involved in developing new therapies for a variety of diseases, including liver cirrhosis and AIDS. Dr. Ruwart left Upjohn in 1995 to devote her time to consulting and writing. She teaches communications courses for scientists and provides consulting services for nutraceutical companies, clinical research organizations, and universities. Dr. Mary Ruwart served with the Center for Applied and Professional Ethics at the Univ of N Carolina, designing a medical research ethics course for the University. Her radical application of ethics to medical regulation, especially regulations regarding pharmaceuticals, has life-and-death-implications. Since 1982, Dr. Ruwart has also been involved in societal ethics with a focus on the political theory and practice of libertarianism. Her award-winning international best-selling book, Healing Our World, demonstrates how the ethical application of libertarian principles has historically created harmony and abundance. Referencing hundreds of studies, Dr. Ruwart demonstrates that many of our current policies surreptitiously violate the basic ethical standards that we hold dear, thereby leading to unintended—and highly undesirable—consequences. Over the last three decades, Dr. Ruwart has often run for public office as a Libertarian Candidate, primarily to educate voters on the impact of ethical choices on their personal and financial well-being. Mary's 1st book: Healing Our World: The Compassion of Libertarianism Dr. Ruwart’s international best-selling book integrates the morality of Christianity, the ethical compassion of the liberal, the self-responsibility of New Age spirituality, and the practicality of real world politics to take the libertarian ideal to the next level. Dr. Ruwarts Website and BlogDownload.

Julian's research at Glidden changed direction in 1940 when he began work on synthesizing progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone from the plant sterols stigmasterol and sitosterol, isolated from soybean oil by a foam technique he invented and patented. At that time clinicians were discovering many uses for the newly discovered hormones. However, only minute quantities could be extracted from hundreds of pounds of the spinal cords of animals. In 1940 Julian was able to produce 100 lb of mixed soy sterols daily, which had a value of $10,000 as sex hormones. Julian was soon ozonizing 100 pounds daily of mixed sterol dibromides. The soy stigmasterol was easily converted into commercial quantities of the female hormone progesterone, and the first pound of progesterone he made, valued at $63,500 was shipped to the buyer, Upjohn, in an armored car. Production of other sex hormones soon followed. His work made possible the production of these hormones on a larger industrial scale, with the potential of reducing the cost of treating hormonal deficiencies. Julian and his co-workers obtained patents for Glidden on key processes for the preparation of progesterone and testosterone from soybean plant sterols. Product patents held by a former cartel of European pharmaceutical companies had prevented a significant reduction in wholesale and retail prices for clinical use of these hormones in the 1940s. He saved many lives with this discovery. Information Sourced From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Lavon_Julian Body Sourced From; https://youtu.be/KSq__sdYNNk Public Access America 
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Day 14-Miranda and Internal Investigations: What Rights Does an  Must an investigator warn an employee that concealing information from company lawyers conducting an internal FCPA investigation could be a federal crime? Even if the company attorneys handling the investigation provided the now standard corporate attorney Upjohn warnings, does a company attorney asking questions morph into a de facto federal agent during an internal company investigation regarding alleged FCPA violations and is the attorney thereby required to provide a Miranda warning to employees during a FCPA investigation?  In a recently released paper entitled “Navigating Potential Pitfalls in Conducting Internal Investigations: Upjohn Warnings, “Corporate Miranda,” and Beyond”[1] Craig Margolis and Lindsey Vaala, of the law firm Vinson & Elkins, explored the pitfalls faced by counsel, both in-house and outside investigative, and corporations when an employee admits to wrong doing during an internal investigation, where such conduct is reported to the US Government and the employee is thereafter prosecuted criminally under a law such as the FCPA. Margolis and Vaala also reviewed the case law regarding the Upjohn warnings which should be given to employees during an internal FCPA investigation. Employees who are subject to being interviewed or otherwise required to cooperate in an internal investigation may find themselves on the sharp horns of a dilemma requiring either (1) cooperating with the internal investigation or (2) losing their jobs for failure to cooperate by providing documents, testimony or other evidence. Many US businesses mandate full employee cooperation with internal investigations or those handled by outside counsel on behalf of a corporation. These requirements can exert a coercive force, “often inducing employees to act contrary to their personal legal interests in favor of candidly disclosing wrongdoing to corporate counsel.”  Moreover, such a corporate policy may permit a company to claim to the US government a spirit of cooperation in the hopes of avoiding prosecution in “addition to increasing the chances of earning meaningful credit under the US Sentencing Guidelines or the FCPA Pilot Program.  Where the US Government compels such testimony, through the mechanism of inducing a corporation to coerce its employees into cooperating with an internal investigation, by threatening job loss or other economic penalty, the in-house counsel’s actions may raise Fifth Amendment due process and voluntariness concerns because the underlying compulsion was brought on by a state actor, namely the US Government. Margolis and Vaala note that by utilizing corporate counsel and pressuring corporations to cooperate, the US Government is sometimes able to achieve indirectly what it would not be able to achieve on its own – inducing employees to waive their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and minimizing the effectiveness of defense counsel’s assistance. So what are the pitfalls if private counsel compels such testimony and it is used against an employee in a criminal proceeding under the FCPA? Margolis and Vaala point out that the investigative counsel, whether corporate or outside counsel, could face state bar disciplinary proceedings. A corporation could face disqualification of its counsel and the disqualified counsel’s investigative results. For all of these reasons, we feel that the FCPA Blog summed it up best when it noted, “the moment a company launches an internal investigation, its key employees -- whether they're scheduled for an interview or not -- should be warned about the "federal" consequences of destroying or hiding evidence. With up to 20 years in jail at stake, that seems like a small thing to do for the people in the company.”  Let’s keep on skipping down the lane and see where we go. What if the company gets its investigation wrong and wrongfully identifies an employee? At least in a few states, a wronged employee can sue for defamation. Yet not in Texas and a recent Texas civil case demonstrates why companies and internal investigators need to be aware of local laws, regulations and requirements.  The Texas Supreme Court in Shell Oil Co. v. Writt, held that an internal investigation report Shell provided to the U.S. Department of Justice about potential FCPA violations is “absolutely privileged” in a defamation proceeding and cannot be used to form the basis of a defamation claim.  Writt had alleged that Shell defamed his character when the company "voluntarily” reported to the DOJ on the findings of an internal investigation the company conducted into its relationship with Panalpina -- an investigation that culminated in the company’s 2010 FCPA settlement with U.S. enforcement authorities. Writt claimed that Shell’s internal investigation report falsely implicated him in the payment of bribes and accused him of providing inconsistent statements during multiple interviews conducted in the course of the investigation.  The trial court initially granted summary judgment in favor of Shell, dismissing Writt’s suit on the basis that Shell enjoyed an "absolute privilege" to make statements to the DOJ regarding its internal investigation. The Texas Court of Appeals overturned this decision, refusing to characterize a “voluntary” pre-prosecution internal FCPA investigation as a judicial proceeding. Instead, the Court of Appeals held that Shell was only entitled to qualified privilege, under which a speaker can still be liable for defamation if the speaker "knows the matter to be false or does not act for the purpose of protecting the interest for which the privilege exists."  The Texas Supreme Court held “at all relevant times” Shell had been the target of a DOJ FCPA investigation and asserted that this investigation, which eventually resulted in a criminal settlement with Shell, satisfied the standard that “the possibility of a proceeding must have been a serious consideration at the time the communication was made.”  The Supreme Court also highlighted “the DOJ’s leverage over Shell vis-à-vis the FCPA and its somewhat draconian penalties…,” which “compelled [Shell] to undertake its internal investigation and report its findings to the DOJ.” The court specifically pointed to the dramatic increase of FCPA enforcement actions before mid-2007 when the DOJ notified Shell of its investigation, noting that “businesses that chose not to cooperate were subject to substantially greater punishments….”  At a time when the DOJ and SEC have become increasingly vocal in calling for companies under investigation to secure and provide evidence of individual culpability, a decision that did not provide Shell with absolute privilege could have had a far-reaching impact on how companies conduct internal investigations and cooperate with enforcement authorities.  As it stands, the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Shell Oil Co. v. Writt may incentivize cooperation by companies in the early stages of the enforcement process by providing certainty to potential corporate defendants, particularly those located in Texas, that good faith efforts to disclose the results of internal investigations and expose individual culpability will not leave them open to defamation claims.  Three Key Takeaways Make sure you provide an Upjohn warning. If an employee demands counsel to represent them during an internal investigation, who bears the cost? Always check state law requirements around internal investigations.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Our Review Contest! Win a Free Book!  We have up to 18 books to give away to listeners who leave us an iTunes podcast review! For every 10 reviews that we receive, we'll pick a name out of a hat to select the winner. Each winner will get to choose which book we send them. Even if you wrote a review in the past, you can still enter the contest. Since we're waiting until we receive ten screenshots of reviews to draw a name, you have multiple chances to write reviews and enter. The more entries we receive, the more books we're going to giveaway! Here's what to do: Leave us a podcast review on iTunes Take a screenshot of your old or new review (the new review may take around 24 hours to show up on iTunes) Go to the closed Open Sky Fitness Facebook Group Leave a post in the OSF Facebook Group with your screenshot and the hashtag #OSFContest so we can easily find your entry.  You have until June 22nd to enter! Good luck! :)   Getting Down to Business with Your Fitness!   "A lot of people try to create their future from their past, but we actually get to create our future from the present." - Arriane Alexander   On this week's episode, we had the lively and awesome Rock Your Business Coach, Arriane Alexander. Whether you have goals in fitness or business, it turns out that they just have the same basic motivation principles. Arriane will be sharing her Top 10 Ways Fitness is Just Like Your Business. Consistency is Key Not One Size Fits All Start with a Focus Once You Get Committed, All Your Resistance Shows Up You Have to Change Your Old Story in Your Head Your Confidence Grows by Taking Action, Not the Other Way Around Your Fear is in the Moment Before You Take Action Your Past Does Not Dictate Your Future  You're Not a Victim to Your Fitness or Your Business. The Different Types of Practitioners  At the beginning of the episode, Devon and I share what exactly are the differences between these practitioners with backgrounds in: Integrative Medicine Functional Medicine Naturopathic Medicine Holistic Medicine Homeopathic Medicine Osteopathic Medicine Get ready for a whole lot of learning!       Arriane's Top 10 Ways Fitness is Just Like Your Business 1) Consistency is Key   "Pick a goal that you can actually show up for and be consistent for." - Arriane Alexander   Bring more of yourself to the table and bring it with intention. You can't work on something for 3 months and then completely ignore it for 3 months and expect it to be the same later in the future. Remember to be kind to yourself because this is a process. You don't have to do everything at once. Just be consistent with easy goals and your consistency will lead to long-term results and success.   2) Not One Size Fits All We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. Not everything that worked for another person will work for us and likewise. Maybe you're great at doing videos, but other people are better at using podcasts to their advantage. Similar with heal and fitness, we all have different bodies that have incredible abilities and function in varying ways. Some people can eat low carbs and higher fat protein and be fine, other people need a different diet. Some people will see results and enjoy doing weights, other prefer HIIT workouts.   3) Start with a Focus Always have a focus. You may say, "I want to be fit," but what does that really mean? You need to have a clear idea and purpose for what your goal will be. Instead of just saying, "I want to be fit," be more specific. Decide if you want to gain more muscle, run for longer distances, lose fat, get lean etc. With a business idea, you need to have at least some sort of vision for yourself. You can't go from A to Z in just one year and say I want to have a million dollar world-wide brand by next summer. What you can do, is to focus on getting from A to B within a year. Build greater focus on your brand with solid goals. Whether it's fitness or business, have an intention behind it. Are you enjoying or hating the process? You have to be happy along the way.    4)  Once You Get Committed, All Your Resistance Shows Up   "Our ego badly wants us to stay in our comfort zone. So, the minute we want to take a step out of our comfort zone, the ego goes, 'Red Alert! Get back here! You're out of the comfort zone! Come back!' Our ego will do everything it can to pull us back into the ego's comfort zone even if we want to expand." - Arriane Alexander   Life happens and it's easy to get distracted by everything it throws at you. If you're constantly putting yourself down and telling yourself, "I can't start a business," or "I can't get fit," your not allowing yourself to get out of your comfort zone. But this is the journey and everything that's holding you back will present itself to you the minute you start to take action towards your goal. It'll be uncomfortable and you'll face resistance and distractions, but that's your opportunity to work through them.   5 ) You Have to Change Your Old Story in Your Head   "The tape running in your head will always be there, but you have to be good at turning down the volume. Even successful people constantly have a negative tape playing in their head all the time, but the difference is that they choose not to listen to it." - Rob Dionne   With a business, you might be saying in your head, "I can't do it, I'm no good at this, someone else will be more successful than me etc." Or maybe you feel like you're being held back from not trying harder during your workout. It's normal to have a story running through your head; a constant tape that tells you who you are and who you can't be. In order to move forward, you have to delete the tape that's telling you you'll have lose weight or you're not good at marketing. If you don't delete your old tape, you'll never be able to create your new story.    How To Stop Believing What You Think     6) Your Confidence Grows by Taking Action   "If you start taking action, then you'll start growing your confidence and changing your tape." - Arriane Alexander   People will say, "I'll start my business or I'll go to the gym when I'm ready," but the thing is, we're never ready. We just learn as we go. Take some time to write down or come up with your ideal scene. Paint a picture and start living it. Every first step will be scary, but everyone has to take their first step at some point to move in the direction that they want to go in.   7) Your Fear is in the Moment before You Take Action   "That fear is always going to be there, but you get to walk through the fear anyway and take action." -Arriane Alexander   Don't be afraid of reaching out to people who can help you take action. You need to surround yourself by people who are doing well at business or who love to workout because they can help you grow. When you're afraid, you send yourself done a rabbit hole of fear. Don't let fear hold you back.   8) Your Past Does Not Dictate Your Future.   "If you don't define yourself, then you can be anything that you want to be." - Rob Dionne   It's not helpful to focus on your past if you want to get ahead in life. How do you want to create a new, empowered you and start to build your future from this moment? Nothing is stopping you from achieving your future except how you define yourself in your past. You can let go of what you didn't do in the past like join a gym or launch a business because those have nothing to do with your future. It takes time to get to where you want to be, but it doesn't mean that you can't enjoy the present moment and the process. Having a reason for doing something is what makes it all possible.   "If I'm creating my future from this moment, am I going to do it from a place of fear and not liking myself or am I going to do it from a place of compassion?" - Arriane Alexander   9) You're Not a Victim to Your Fitness or Your Business You have control over your situation. You are not a victim who has to give in to bad choices. It feels good to think and believe that it's not our fault. On the other hand, if something is important, we will find the time to do it. We all prioritize what's important to us. Therefore, we're actually making a choice that our health isn't important to us or starting up a new business isn't worth our attention.   "Once you can take ownership and responsibility for your life, everything starts to change." - Arriane Alexander   10) What Gets Measured Gets Done   "Not losing weight doesn't define who you are. It just means that you haven't figured out how to do it yet. It's just part of the process. Once you've measured and tracked it, you can see what's next." - Rob Dionne and Arriane Alexander   How are you going to track your progress if you don't have a starting point? Take measurements of where you're at now so you can see your growth and improvement in either your health or business. First, you need to figure out your actual action goal and what you're going to do in order to reach it. Document what you're doing to see where you get stuck and when the resistance comes up. If you decide to have a cheat meal or snack, understand that it's not going to completely throw you off from your results. You just have to find out why you were craving that food and how you can get back on track with your health.   About Arriane Alexander Arriane Alexander is a a Rock Your Business Coach with over 15 years of massive success in Sales and Marketing in Corporate America and a Masters Degree in Spiritual Psychology. Her business expertise comes from a career as a high level successful executive in Sales and Marketing in the fashion business for Brighton Collectibles as well as in pharmaceutical sales with Upjohn. She also works consistently on TV shows like The People v O.J. Simpson, Justified, Grey’s Anatomy and Mistresses. On top of that, she is the Host of two TV shows and has booked numerous commercials. Arriane works with women from all over the world –Entrepreneurs, Health and Fitness Gurus, Real Estate Agents, and Executive Business Women.    Thursday Night Live Q & A Sessions with Rob and Devon Each Thursday night at 7pm PST via the closed Open Sky Fitness Facebook Group , Devon and I will be online to answer an questions you may have about health, wellness, fitness, nutrition, lifestyle etc. Ask us anything!     Join The Open Sky Fitness Podcast Group! That's right! We have a closed Open Sky Fitness Podcast group  on Facebook where you and everyone have the opportunity to talk about your health and fitness goals in a safe environment. We post workouts and start discussions about how to be strategic around finding a healthier you. Check it out! Start Building Your Own Workouts and Meal Plan! Download Results Tracker here! Click To Download Home Workout Templates or text the word, "lifting," to 33444 to download the templates.  Download the OSF Food Journal Now! Have a Question or Review for Rob or Devon? We love answering questions and getting feedback from you, our listener! If you have any questions to ask us, want to share a review of the show, or tell us any suggestions for guests/topics that you think would be great to have on the show, just email Rob at rob@openskyfitness.com or Devon at devon@openskyfitness.com or you can also leave us a review at www.openskyfitness.com/review, ask a question in the closed Open Sky Fitness Facebook Group and even text OSFreview to 33444 to get the link.   What You'll Hear on This Episode 00:00 Open Sky Fitness Introduction 1:15  Opening comments with Rob and Devon 2:30  Today's episode: The Top 10 Ways Fitness is Like Your Business with Arriane Alexander 3:30   Check out our Review Contest Book Giveaway event! 5:30  Learn more about our One-On-One Coaching Sessions 6:30 The difference between practitioners: Integrative, Functional, Naturopathic, Holistic, Homeopathic, Osteopathic, etc. 7:45  Integrative Medicine 10:30 Functional Medicine 13:55  Naturopathic Medicine 16:45  Holistic Medicine 25:30  Homeopathic Medicine 29:20  Osteopathic Medicine 32:00 Which type of doctor should you go to? 34:30  Introduction to Arriane Alexander 35:00  Arriane's background story: How does someone follow the path to becoming a Business Coach? 36:40  How Arriane's Master's Degree in Spiritual Psychology allowed her to completely change her life from working in the corporate world to being a Business Coach. 44:00  Arriane's experience as a Life and Business Coach with a background in Spiritual Psychology 49:40  How long it takes to forgive ourselves and change our outlook on life. 52:00  What Rob has learned about himself and how he interrupts his negative thought cycle. 57:35  Arriane's Top 10 Ways Your Fitness is Just Like Your Business 58:15  1) Consistency is key 1:01:25  2) Not one size fits all 1:04:40  3) Start with a focus 1:08:10  4) Once you get committed, all your resistance shows up 1:11:15  9) You're not a victim to your fitness or your business.   1:16:50 5) You have to change the story in your head 1:21:20  6) Your confidence grows by taking action, not the other way around 1:27:55  7) Your fear is in the moment before you take action   1:32:40 8) Your past does not dictate your future. 1:37:25  10) What gets measured gets done   1:43:50  Arriane's 7 Steps to Get Out of Overwhelm and Into Action free download 1:46:30 Closing comments with Rob and Devon 1:48:00 Open Sky Fitness Closing   RESOURCES MENTIONED DURING THE SHOW: Leave us an iTunes review Join the The Open Sky Fitness Podcast Group on Facebook Contact Rob and Devon to apply for One-On-One Coaching Sessions Visit Arriane Alexander's official webiste Connect with Arriane via: Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube Check out Ep 148 with Mark Sisson: How to Heal Your Body with the Primal Blueprint Learn more about Naturopathic Care in Ep 142 with Dr. Trevor Cates: Skincare Hacks - How Nutrition Affects Your Skin Find out more about The Power of Functional Movement with Dr. Craig Liebenson (Ep. 132) Learn more about the Importance of Time Management with David Allen (Ep. 79) To Download Rob’s FREE workout templates click below** Download Templates Ask Rob a Question or tell him what is working for you: Email Rob@OpenSkyFitness.com To leave a Review for Rob and the Open Sky Fitness Podcast CLICK NOW!  Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show and I read each and every one of them. Contact our amazing sound engineer Ryan? Send him an e-mail here: info@stellarsoundsstudio.com Thanks for Listening! Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Do you have any questions (and would like to hear yourself on the Open Sky Fitness Podcast)? Click on the link on the right side of any page on our website that says “Send Voicemail.” And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. It’s free! Thanks for listening/reading Episode 152 - Arriane Alexander: Top 10 Ways Fitness is Just Like Your Business! We hope you have gained more knowledge on how to be a healthier you.

Your company should have a detailed written procedure for handling any complaint or allegation of bribery or corruption, regardless of the means through which it is communicated. The mechanism could include the internal company hot-line, anonymous tips, or a report directly from the business unit involved. You can make the decision on whether or not to investigate with consultation with other groups such as the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors or the Legal Department. The head of the business unit in which the claim arose may also be notified that an allegation has been made and that the Compliance Department will be handling the matter on a go-forward basis. Through the use of such a detailed written procedure, you can work to ensure there is complete transparency on the rights and obligations of all parties once an allegation is made. This allows the Compliance Department to have not only the flexibility but also the responsibility to deal with such matters, from which it can best assess and then decide on how to manage the matter.  Indeed the SEC considers a variety of factors around giving credit to corporate investigations including: Did management, the board or committees consisting solely of outside directors oversee the review? Did company employees or outside persons perform the review? If outside persons, have they done other work for the company? If the review was conducted by outside counsel, had management previously engaged such counsel? How long ago was the firm’s last representation of the company? How often has the law firm represented the company? How much in legal fees has the company paid the firm?  In a presentation by Jay Martin, Vice President, Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) and the Senior Deputy Counsel for Baker Hughes Incorporated and Jacki Trevino, Senior Consultant, Advisory Services at SAI Global entitled, “FCPA Compliance Best Practices: Success Stories of Robust and Effective Anti-Corruption Compliance Programs in High Risk Markets” they presented the specifics of an investigation protocol. The five steps were: (1) Opening and Categorizing the Case; (2) Planning the Investigation; (3) Executing the Investigation Plan; (4) Determining Appropriate Follow-Up; and (5) Closing the Case. If you follow this basic protocol, you should be able to work through most investigations, in a clear, concise and cost effective manner. Furthermore you should have a report at the end of the day which should stand up to later scrutiny if a regulator comes looking. Finally, you will be able to document, document, and document, not only the steps you took but why and the outcome obtained.  Step 1: Opening and Categorizing the Case. This is the triage step and this first step, to categorize a compliance violation. You should notify the relevant individuals, including those on your investigation team and any senior management members under your notification protocols. After notification, you should assemble your investigation team for preliminary meetings and assessments. This Step 1 should be accomplished in one to three days after the allegation comes into compliance, either through your reporting structure or other means. Given the number of ways that information about violations or potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) can be communicated to the Department of Justice (DOJ) having a robust triage system is an important way that a company can separate the wheat from the chaff and bring the right number of resources to bear on a FCPA problem. A key consideration is making an initial determination of whether to bring in outside counsel to head up an investigation and a determination of the of the resources that you may want or need to commit to a problem.  Step 2: Planning the Investigation. After assembling your investigation team, determine the required investigation tasks. These would include document review and interviews. If hard drives need to be copied or documents put on hold or sequestered in any way, or relationships need to be analyzed through relationship software programs or key word search programs, this should also be planned out at this time. These tasks should be integrated into a written investigation or work plan so that the entire process going forward is documented. Also, if there is a variation from the written investigation plan, such variation should be documented and an explanation provided as to why there was such a variation. Lastly, if international travel is involved this should also be considered and planned for at this step. Step 2 should be accomplished with another one to three days.   Step 3: Executing the Investigation Plan. Under this step, the investigation should be completed. I would urge that the interviews not be effected until all documents are reviewed and ready for use in any interviews. Care should be taken to ensure that an appropriate Upjohn warning is issued and that the interviewee clearly understands that whoever is performing the interview represents the company and not the person being interviewed, whether they are the target of the investigation or not. The appropriate steps should also be taken to preserve the attorney-client privilege and attorney work product assertions. This Step 3 should be accomplished in one to two weeks.   Step 4: Determining Appropriate Follow-Up. At this step, the preliminary investigation should be completed and you are ready to move into the final phases. In some investigations, it is relatively easy to determine when the work is essentially complete. For example, if the allegation is both specific and narrow, and the investigation reveals a compelling and benign explanation for the conduct alleged, then the investigation typically is complete and you are ready to convene the investigation team and the relevant business unit representatives. This group would decide on the appropriate disciplinary steps or other actions to take. This Step 4 should be completed in one day to one week.  It must be cautioned that at this step, if there are findings of specific or discrete allegations of corruption and bribery, a decision must be made as how to handle such findings going forward.  Step 5: Closing the Case. Under this final step, communicate the investigation results to the stakeholders and complete the case report. Everything done in the above steps should be documented and stored, either electronically or in hard copy form together. The case report should be completed. This Step 5 should be completed in one day to one week.  Three Key Takeaways A written protocol, created before an investigation is a key starting point. Create specific steps to follow so there will be full transparency and documentation going forward. Consistency in approach is critical. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The call, email or tip comes into your office; an employee reports suspicious activity somewhere across the globe. That activity might well turn into a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) issue for your company. As the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), it will be up to you to begin the process which will determine, in many instances, how the company will respond going forward. This month’s podcast series will provide to you all the steps you will need to consider going forward. This scenario was driven home in a FCPA enforcement action brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in July 2015 involving Mead Johnson Nutrition Company (Mead Johnson). In that case, the company performed two internal investigations into allegations that its Chinese business unit was engaged in conduct which violated the FCPA. Unfortunately the first investigation, performed in 2011 did not turn up any evidence of FCPA violations. It was not until 2013, when the SEC made an inquiry to the company that it performed an adequate internal investigation which uncovered FCPA violations.  Similarly, consider Zimmer Biomet, which (when it was only Biomet) resolved an FCPA violation in 2012 for nearly $23MM and entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA). Within the year, Biomet notified its Monitor that it has found evidence of additional FCPA violations, which in turn violated the terms and conditions of the DPA. However these additional violations by the company (now Zimmer Biomet) turned out to have been actions which occurred in 2010, well before the initial DPA but were not uncovered in the company’s worldwide investigation which led to the first settlement. Zimmer Biomet paid an additional $13MM for this oversight and extended out both the DPA and the Monitorship, all because the company had failed to fully investigate itself thoroughly. The 2012 FCPA Guidance states the following on investigations, “Moreover, once an allegation is made, companies should have in place an efficient, reliable, and properly funded process for investigating the allegation and documenting the company’s response, including any disciplinary or remediation measures taken.” That is simply it. This simple introduction was expanded upon in the Justice Department’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (Evaluation) released in February. Prong 7 in the makes the following inquiries: Effectiveness of the Reporting Mechanism – How has the company collected, analyzed, and used information from its reporting mechanisms? How has the company assessed the seriousness of the allegations it received? Has the compliance function had full access to reporting and investigative information?   Properly Scoped Investigation by Qualified Personnel – How has the company ensured that the investigations have been properly scoped, and were independent, objective, appropriately conducted, and properly documented?   Response to Investigations – Has the company’s investigation been used to identify root causes, system vulnerabilities, and accountability lapses, including among supervisory manager and senior executives? What has been the process for responding to investigative findings? How high up in the company do investigative findings go?   The Mead Johnson and Zimmer Biomet matters are but two examples which make clear the need to have robust, integrated investigations. Marc Bohn, writing in the FCPA Blog, said about the Mead Johnson matter, “Investigations that lack sufficient depth, resources, or forethought can pose significant risk because they increase the likelihood that something critical will be overlooked, potentially permitting misconduct to continue unabated.” Both Mead Johnson and Zimmer Biomet point to the critical nature of FCPA investigations and why the government takes this requirement so rigorously. But more than protecting a company from liability under the FCPA, in the internationalized world of global compliance investigations are becoming more important. Bio-Rad recently announced that its FCPA settlement was a “risk-factor” which required public disclosure under US securities law.  In the domestic arena, internal investigations can go a long way towards helping a company move past a public relations debacle or perhaps abate negative publicity. One need only consider the recently released internal investigation report commissioned by the Wells Fargo Board of Directors around the bank’s fraudulent accounts scandal. The report was merciless in its criticism of certain structural and cultural failures at the bank. It named names of culpable former senior executives at the company. However one thing it did not address were allegations from multiple whistleblowers who claimed to have reported the fraudulent conduct and were ignored or actively retaliated against. If the internal investigation turns out to have white washed these whistleblowers, the financial penalty and negative public reaction could be both swift and severe. Corrupt investigations are never a good thing for a company as they can disrupt business relationships and future opportunities. Yet today they are even more important. In the month of June I will be exploring how you can create, design and implement a robust investigation protocol for an internal investigation and when you should bring in outside counsel for an independent investigation. I will consider the Board of Director’s role in investigations and other corporate functions such as internal audit, IT and legal in any investigation. I will review special issues such as privilege, Upjohn and Miranda warnings and data privacy.  As Hallmark Seven of the Ten Elements of an Effective Compliance program states, in part, “An effective compliance program should include a mechanism for an organization’s employees and others to report suspected or actual misconduct or violations of the company’s policies on a confidential basis and without fear of retaliation” and Prong 7 of the Evaluation also deals with reporting; I will consider hotlines. Both their implementation and use in a best practices compliance program. I will feature several compliance practitioners, both lawyers and non-lawyers, who will relate how they developed their investigative strategies and navigated various stakeholders to obtain positive results for their clients.  Three Key Takeaways Failure to thoroughly and properly investigations allegations of corruption can be costly. The internationalization of global anti-corruption enforcement makes performing robust investigations even more important. Use the month of June to learn about key aspects of investigations and internal reporting mechanisms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Show Notes for Episode 47, for the week ending April 7, the Season Opener Edition In this episode, Jay and I have a wide-ranging discussion on some of the week’s top FCPA and compliance related stories. We discuss:  Wrap up from the SCCE European Compliance and Ethics Institute. SEC Unit Chief Kara Brockmeyer announces her retirement. Click here for Matt Kelly’s article on Radical Compliance. Wal-Mart announces its 2016 spend on its FCPA investigation and remediation of $99MM. Click here for Matt Kelly’s article on Radical Compliance. Upjohn warnings after the Yates Memo. See article the Grand Jury Target blog. Report on OECD Integrity Forum. Allison Taylor writes in the FCPA Blog. Astros, Red Sox and Dodgers all lead their divisions. Jay previews his weekend report. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Show Notes for Episode 47, for the week ending April 7, the Season Opener Edition In this episode, Jay and I have a wide-ranging discussion on some of the week’s top FCPA and compliance related stories. We discuss:  Wrap up from the SCCE European Compliance and Ethics Institute.SEC Unit Chief Kara Brockmeyer announces her retirement. Click  here for Matt Kelly’s article on Radical Compliance.Wal-Mart announces its 2016 spend on its FCPA investigation and remediation of $99MM. Click  here for Matt Kelly’s article on Radical Compliance.Upjohn warnings after the Yates Memo. See article the  Grand Jury Target blog.Report on OECD Integrity Forum. Allison Taylor writes in the  FCPA Blog.Astros, Red Sox and Dodgers all lead their divisions.Jay previews his weekend report. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ranking Rabbit founder, James Upjohn, talks Podcasting with Scott Paton, for local businesses and traffic generation.Internet Marketing secrets revealed in each and every episode. Listen closely as Scott Paton, the Dean of Blogonomics and Podology, shares with you the latest business-building, web traffic-exploding, power-profit news from the world of Internet Marketing.Podcasting is bigger than you think. When we survey people who listen to audio: AM/FM, streaming audio, CD's, TV Music channels, & Sirius, we discover a Power Podcast fact: Podcasts almost beat Am/FM Radio, a mere 1.6% lower in listening time!If you look at the number of people listening to Podcasts monthly, Podcasts are as popular as Twitter with 39 mIllion listeners, even if it doesn't get the same 'Love'.But instead of communicating in impersonal 150 character Tweets, with Power Podcasting, you get right into the head of your target market for as long as they let you.Podcasts are portable — and because of this, they are more personal.Imagine whispering into the ears of your ideal customers every week... building strong relationships, trust and connections. But instead of One-to-One, Power Podcasting is One-to-Many! Power Podcasters know that Podcasting is relationship building in the sales process, and not the time to go for the hard close.Podcast listeners are higher income earners. They listen daily to an hour and forty minutes more audio than the average American consumer. They are dedicated to continual learning, so just imagine what happens when your Podcast is available on new cars all over the world...