March 2016

The Aveo Fraud By Leonard Zwelling https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/29/sec-charges-biotech-aveo-with-misleading-investors/yGs9lcKVl8i2NlcoolH72L/story.html https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2016/comp-pr2016-59.pdf https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-59.html        The article from the Boston Globe  and the SEC release summarize the 30-page document released by the federal court in Massachusetts. The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against Aveo and three of its executives for fraud in not telling investors about the request […]

Close To A Whitewash By Leonard Zwelling http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/DePinho-s-big-fight-7182843.php http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/DePinho-s-big-fight-7182843.php?t=b8a62a8186438d9cbb&cmpid=twitter-premium          I am five time zones from you as I write this. I didn’t get on the Chronicle web site until 11 PM your time on Sunday when I read the above article. I am sure many of you have already read it.          I have

You Can’t Unring the Bell By Leonard Zwelling          This is a phrase often used by lawyers (at least the ones on Law and Order) to protest testimony in open court that might be prejudicial to their side because once something is said, even if an objection to it is sustained by the judge, the

Conflict and Creativity By Leonard Zwelling          I spent the morning of March 21 at a seminar on creativity called “The Architecture of the Mind.” It was about how the mechanics of human thought processes influence group dynamics and creativity.          Although the majority of the concepts about group dynamics, groupthink, perception, bias, and the

Political Pornography By Leonard Zwelling “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it” —US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, 1964          I

Cost, Quality, Value and Malarkey By Leonard Zwelling          M. Gregg Bloche, a physician and attorney from Georegtown, has written a superb opinion piece in the March 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine entitled “Scandal as a Sentinel Event—Recognizing Hidden Cost-Quality Trade-offs.” Here’s the link: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1502629          In the piece he discusses

Garland, Bork, and DePinho By Leonard Zwelling          President Obama has done exactly what any thinking person hoped he would do. He chose a nominee for the vacant Supreme Court seat of Antonin Scalia who is unassailable in his credentials, not a member of any of diversity’s many groups du jour, and right down the

Making American Medicine (and MD Anderson) Great Again By Leonard Zwelling          Why has Donald Trump so captured a significant proportion of the American electorate?          Both he and his hats claim to be able to Make America Great Again.          But Hillary Clinton has this right. America is great and always has been. And

Obama Going to Cuba But Not To Scalia’s or Nancy Reagan’s Funeral By Leonard Zwelling          Isn’t this the perfect metaphor for the entire Obama Presidency?          One of the most distinguished jurists of the last 50 years and the longest serving member of the Supreme Court dies and the President does not attend his

Is Donald Trump Just the Latest Incarnation of the German American Bund? By Leonard Zwelling          I suspect I am beginning to sound like quite an alarmist to my regular readers, a Johnny One Note in a distinctly minor key.          Donald J. Trump scares the hell out of me.          First, he is basically