[Criminal*] Columbia Studies Halted at Brain Lab Over Impure Injections in Mentally Ill?

By Ed Kent
Kent, a retired Brooklyn College philosophy professor, is writing in reference to the  New York Times article, headlined: “Studies Halted at Brain Lab Over Impure Injections”

I am appalled to learn that Columbia (where I earned my Ph.D.) has been injecting mental patients with dangerous drugs as research.
*Criminal: Ed Kent’s original usage on his blog.

To quote key segments of the article: “The FDA’s latest investigation, which took place from Janunary 5 to January  21, listed six categories of violations. It found that since 2007, “at least 10 batches” of drugs had been “released and injected into human subjects” with impurities that exceeded the level the lab had agreed to set. At least four injections “had impurity masses that more than doubled the maximum limit implemented.” “Agency investigators also found a forged document, a hard copy record  that had been altered to hide a drug impurity that showed up clearly in the computer records.”

A lesson here is that not only drug companies, but some universities will stop at nothing to generate profits —  one of the major scandals involved with such research. Columbia needs money.  It has a relatively small endowment and has been spending far too much of that buying up land in Manhattanville (lower West Harlem).

We were once sued by the Columubia trustees during one of our economic collapses when my employer, CUNY, had to skip a salarary payment.  All those to whom we owed payments such as Macy’s bore with us.  We owed Columbia $150.00 in a final loan repayment for which it sued.  Their suit was thrown out of court by a disgusted judge.

Edited for style. Kent blogs at http://blogbyedkent.blogspot.com/ and he also writes for several yahoo groups.

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