PHARMABATE: Ethics and Transparency in the Pharmaceutical Industry

PHARMABATE from Barry Durkin on Vimeo.
hat tip: pharmagossip

First, Do No Harm: A Qualitative Research Documentary

   

First, Do No Harm: A Qualitative Research Documentary

 from Tim Holland on Vimeo.

This is a qualitative research documentary that was created by Alyson and Timothy Holland. The documentary explores the ethics of global health clinical electives and volunteer projects in developing regions. It features interviews from experts and global health providers from Europe, Africa, Asia, North and South America.

It is intended for use in Pre-Departure Training for students and volunteers intending to participate in overseas projects. If you would like a free copy of the DVD for screenings or use in pre-departure training sessions, please contact timothy.holland@dal.ca.

To help us assess the impact of the video, we'd really appreciate if you could fill out the following surveys, one before watching (if you've never seen the film before) and one after watching. Thank you!

Pre-View Survey: surveymonkey.com/s/HZFGFGB
Post-View Survey: surveymonkey.com/s/8B6YMW2

picture credit

Lost in Translational Science: Anosognosia Due to Pharmacosis

Lost in Translation

via NIMH Director's Blog:

Experimental Medicine
By Thomas Insel on June 12, 2012

an couple excerpts:

"Existing antidepressants and antipsychotics have many proposed molecular targets, but none that have been shown to be necessary or sufficient for their clinical effects. 

Amazingly, after three decades of broad use of these medications, we still don’t know how they work when they are effective.

"As a result, NIMH is shifting from large clinical trials that promise an incremental improvement to a model called “experimental medicine.” In experimental medicine, drugs are used as clinical probes and the immediate goal is not to develop a treatment but to identify or verify a target." here

Psychopharmacology is, and always has been "experimental medicine."  It is not Evidence-Based.  Now, the director of NIMH is stating, "antidepressant effects have variously been proposed to involve changes in serotonin neurotransmission, hippocampal cell birth, and changes in stress hormones, among many other effects. By ruling out some targets and focusing on those involved in the biology of the disorder, we can direct treatment development much more efficiently."

What is Thomas Insel smoking?  A pathophysiological disease process causing depression has not been identified. Belief that depression is caused by an unidentified biological disease, is  not 'evidence' validating a hypothesis. Without identifying a disease and it's pathophysiology; how could anyone hope to identify a treatment target? Let me guess: the target will be identified after a drug's mechanism of action is identified.

This strategy never has worked out very well.

What 1 Boring Old Man had to say about Thomas Insel and this blog post, New Directions: 

He believes what he thinks is the truth.  At Yerkes, he was not reappointed Director after five years – largely because the staff didn’t want him back. He was toodirective. He took the term Director literally and tried to channel the direction there too vigorously. Now he’s doing the same thing at the NIMH. I gather he genuinely believes that the future direction for mental health is in newer, more effective medications. Under his direction, he’s incentivised this goal and micromanaged the direction of research efforts.

The argument he makes in this blog could’ve been made at any point in the history of psychiatry, but he presents it with a messianic sense of urgency and priority. His job at the National Institute of Mental Health is to create an environment that shepherds our best and brightest minds to follow their scientific instincts, not Tom Insel’s. Like his colleagues on the APA’s DSM-5 Task Force, he’s trying to hold on to a paradigm that is in a phase of exhaustion, now bordering on toxic. It’s a time for consolidation, for reflection, for stepping back and contemplating. It’s a time for new directions, and a new Director at the National Institute of Mental Health… here

Thomas Insel must have Pharmacosis: a loss of insight and an inability to access reality.  It is highly contagious, and is spread by disseminating biased, otherwise inaccurate, and/or  completely false 'information' about the illusion of psychiatric diseases; and the effectiveness of psychiatry's prescribed pharmacological treatments  to treat illusory psychiatric diseases...

Eugenics: Lundbeck Foundation’s Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research (iPSYCH)

first published March 27, 2012 "The Lundbeck Foundation’s Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research (iPSYCH)" Updated April 9, 2012 

Apparently, 'the causes' are assumed to be biological in nature---ethical scientific research into the cause of a phenomena does not ASSUME anything; nor does it presume to determine what the outcome will be.  e.g. "We will identify biological disease mechanisms"  How long have psychiatric researchers been saying that?  Lundbeck is obviously desperate to continue to drug people with psychiatric diagnosis---in order to do so, they are desperate to find the thus far, elusive mythological 'diseases' which cause the 'mental illnesses' they have been claiming to 'treat' for decades...


via The Lundbeck Foundation:
19.03.2012


Record-breaking grant: New research project to investigate the causes of mental disorders


Is it possible to prevent the development of schizophrenia? Can certain patients develop autism if they carry a specific gene and have been exposed to a viral fetal infection? Should all ADHD patients take the same type of medication?

This unique research project will try to answer these questions. The project is based at Aarhus University and will be known as ‘The Lundbeck Foundation’s Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research’ (iPSYCH). The grant of DKK 121 million from the Lundbeck Foundation is the largest grant ever awarded to Danish psychiatric research.

”We will investigate why some people develop mental disorders. We will identify biological disease mechanisms, and we also intend to provide the basis for better treatment and prevention”, says Dr. Børglum, Professor of Medical Genetics at Aarhus University and Scientific Director of the research project. 

The many faces of psychiatry
The project will study five specific mental disorders: schizophrenia, manic depression, depression, autism and ADHD. All disorders are associated with major human and societal costs all over the world. The new thing is that researchers will study these disorders from many different angles, ranging from genes and cells to population studies, from fetus to adult, from cause to symptoms of the disorder, and this knowledge will be combined in new ways across scientific fields. 

“People suffering from a mental disorder such as schizophrenia may have very different lives: a family life with children and a job – or a life characterized by chronic disease and homelessness. The disorders do not affect all patients in exactly the same way. We do not know why, but we do know that our current treatment methods are far from optimal because we need more knowledge about the causes behind the disorders, but also about the differences in the development”, says Dr. Børglum.

”Our main goal is to identify the causes of these disorders by studying the interplay between genetic and environmental factors and thereby find new targets for treatment. The perspective is to offer better and individualized treatment, providing a better life for each individual patient with the disorder – and perhaps even ways to prevent the development of the disorder in some cases”, he says.

Professor Mikael Rørth, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Lundbeck Foundation, is pleased with the research opportunities that the new grant will offer:
”Mental disorders are determined by a combination of genetic and psycho-social factors. The research project will combine unique Danish registers and biobanks and is expected to pave the way for better treatment in the future”, says Dr. Rørth.
International collaboration

iPSYCH consists of leading researchers within psychiatry, genetics and register-based research. The team collaborates with e.g. the SSI (Statens Serum Institut) under the Danish Ministry of Health, Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), deCode Genetics in Iceland and the Genetic Biobank of the Faroe Islands. In combination, this will provide unique opportunities for creating ground breaking new knowledge, which may result in better and more individualized treatment of patients by considering genetic profile, environmental factors and clinical symptoms in combination.

The iPSYCH project team consists of the following researchers:
Professor Anders Børglum, Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital (Scientific Director of iPSYCH): anders@humgen.au.dk; tel: 8716 7768 or 60202720
Professor Ole Mors, Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital: nielmors@rm.dk; tel: 7847 1166
Professor Preben Bo Mortensen, Aarhus University: pbm@ncrr.dk; tel:. 8716 5359
Professor Thomas Werge, Mental Health Services in the Capital Region of Denmark: thomas.werge@regionh.dk; tel: 4633 4968
Professor Merete Nordentoft, Mental Health Services in the Capital Region of Denmark: merete.nordentoft@regionh.dk; tel: 3531 6239.

More information: 
Anne-Marie Engel, Director of Research, the Lundbeck Foundation: ame@lundbeckfonden.com; 
tel: 3912 8000. here


picture credit

via Mad in America

Fe Fi Fo Fum, I Smell the Wiff of a Eugenics Drum! by Olga Runciman 

a brief excerpt:

"That pharmaceutical companies finance research is not new and neither is it surprising that a company whose major profits arise from psychiatric drugs would want to finance research in precisely that area. What is of interest though, is who will be doing the research, and one person is notable. A person who has created controversy in his claims of having found the genetic cause for schizophrenia and especially his statements regarding the future possibility of being able to identify and thus giving prospective parents the option of aborting ‘schizophrenic’ foetuses.

"Thomas Werge, a prominent Danish biochemist and initiator of the Danish Psychiatric Biobank hit the Danish newspapers when he along with others in a European consortium published a research paper in 2008 announcing that the genes for schizophrenia had (almost) been found. 

"Region Hovedstadens Psykiatri (Mental Health Services of the Capital Region of Denmark) announced without compunction “The Mystery of Schizophrenia Solved” a very bold statement indeed, considering they represent the psychiatric system. Interestingly, they were also the only ones to state with absolute certainty in 2008 that the mystery of schizophrenia was solved. Not only did they make this statement, but they featured an interview with Werge on his research findings, “These results give science a basis to think differently and to go new ways. We now know what we have always believed is true. The illness is a biological illness of the individual and not a reaction to a sick society as has been claimed in the 1960’s and 1970’s by anti-psychiatry. Therefore, we can for the first time contemplate biological diagnosis such as prenatal screening. This is a whole new way of thinking within this area of psychiatry and necessitates that we proceed extremely carefully and in a responsible manner.”[iii]" read here

It's More Than Enough For Me

one day old

I am a single parent of two adult sons; my youngest son spent more than half of his childhood from the age of six until the age of seventeen in locked psychiatric wards; there are times to this day that the grief takes all of the wind from me, and I struggle to even stand upright.  I find myself holding my breath; because I'm afraid that if I breathe, I will start to cry, and once I cry----how will I ever stop?  There was and is so very much to grieve...The experiences themselves have not so much knocked me down; as they have beat any confidence I have in my fellow man out of me.  I am grateful beyond belief to have my son at all.  I voiced for the first time aloud at the beginning of April,  a precious truth for me: Every Day is Mother's Day.  I know I'm lucky my son has survived.  It is, I believe, a miracle and a blessing he is alive at all.

I cannot describe how humbled I have been by the last several months, nor can I describe to anyone how truly horrifying it has been to discover that the practice of psychiatry is as corrupt and unethical as it is.  The publicly funded mental health system, which includes the federally funded child welfare system, (CPS and foster care) violate the Constitutional Rights of the children and families it 'serves' as a matter of course.  I am more than horrified, I am disgusted.  At one time, I believed that my son's mistreatment by psychiatric and social services professionals who treated him as if he is "less than" human; and used him in drug trials was some kind of fluke, accident, travesty, or anomaly.  I now know it is common.  Knowing this makes it so much worse...

The primary purpose appears to be to expand the market for psychiatric drugs to ensure pharmaceutical industry profits.  Whether or not those "treated" are harmed by the psychiatric drugs, in real world practice, these negative outcomes of psychiatric patients is not a story that is told with accuracy; if told at all.  Only the biased story which supports the biological disease model is put forth.  I know it is the way things are done.  I am painfully aware that psychiatric drugs have caused my son grievous harm; have traumatized and disabled him.  I am at a loss to understand how the psychiatric profession has gotten away with this...


The drugs used are teratogenic.  Psychiatric drugs in all classes can cause iatrogenic illnesses and physiological dysfunction; decreasing the quality of life, and increasing risk of fatality---How was a profession built on fraud, corruption and outright lies about the safety and efficacy of it's "treatments" be given so much unearned trust and absolute power? Power to obtain Court Orders and to use the Police as agents who deliver their unwilling patients to locked facilities?  Civil Commitment investigators/petitioners are not required to conform to the Rules of Evidence when seeking to detain and involuntarily commit individuals they target; Standard Court Procedures are not followed; Effective Assistance of Counsel is not provided.  The Police, whose duty is to protect and to serve, become agents of psychiatry compelled by Court Order to deliver unwilling patients to locked facilities.

Antidepressants and neuroleptic drugs are two classes of psychiatric drugs that are now some of the most prescribed drugs.  These drugs are widely prescribed "off-label;" in spite of the overwhelming evidence that neither of these classes of drugs was therapeutic for the majority of people who took them in drug trials conducted to gain their FDA approval. Antidepressants and neurolelptics can cause dependence; and both have serious risks, including disability and early or sudden death.  Adults who take neuroleptic drugs long term, die an average of  25-30 years early; from drug induced illnesses; although the deaths are usually classified as natural.  Neuroleptics and antidepressants can cause debilitating illnesses, heart damage, brain damage, neurological impaiments, all obviously, horrifying traumatic iatrogenic injuries.

I was told by a psychiatrist in response to posting a psychiatric summary documenting the drugs and dosages given to my son in a two month period that, "No psychiatrist would see anything wrong" with how my son was 'treated;' he further stated that, "any parent who objected would at best be perceived as 'ill-informed' and at worst, as 'impaired' themselves."    In effect, using my boy as a guinea pig in drug trials while housing him in a disgusting and filthy environment for over $600. a day, and there's nothing wrong with it. I assure you, that the effects the drugs had were terrifying to him---I know when my son is terrified.  I saw his terror-filled look; I am haunted by the memory of it to this day.  I can still hear the echo of my son begging me to rescue him.   I remember being treated like I was crazy when I protested.  How dare I question the Quack Master Jack.


There was no questioning "Quack Master Jack's Authority."   While participating as an  investigator in the TEOSS drug trials, this "lead researcher" drugged my son into a state of profound disability.   Jon McClellan was one of the investigators funded by the  NIMH trialing neuroleptic drugs not approved for pediatric use.   Quack Master Jack needed no one's consent but his own--he had no one's consent but his own.


I remember thinking, "why does it look like my son is going die?"

I knew then, and I know now the 'treatment' has more in common with Science Fiction, than it does with medicine in the Hippocratic tradition.  The 'treatment' was ineffective, which is really no surprise.  Neuroleptic drugs have repeatedly been shown to be ineffective for the majority of people with symptoms of psychosis.  The neuroleptic drugs cause iatrogenic illnesses, disability and early death.  Nevertheless, psychiatry insists that these drugs are 'necessary medical treatment' and must be used by force for those who refuse. The drugs are what psychiatry uses; patient safety and drug efficacy do not matter; what matters is that one never question or doubt psychiatric authority.

The 'treatment' did nothing but cause my son physical illness, and further traumatize him. The drugs used in psychiatric "treatment" are known to be ineffective, the "treatment" is not based on Science--it is not Evidenced-Based Medicine; it is not supported by or derived from accurately reported clinical trial data.


In reality, psychiatric drug treatment protocols, like the psychiatric diagnoses themselves, are developed by consensus which is a pseudo-democratic political process. Psychiatrists vote diagnoses and treatment protocols into existence. Ultimately, the drugs used for a particular psychiatric diagnosis and the "Practice Parameters" psychiatry develops for each diagnosis are not derived from or supported by scientific data; but are based on subjective opinions voted on in a quasi-democratic political process know as consensus.  Why would psychiatry develop treatment protocols based on a consensus of subjective opinions and not the Clinical Trial data?  Psychiatry uses subjective opinions as a substitute for empirical data because the data does not support the use of psychiatric drugs.


Neuroleptic drugs have very serious, even fatal risks.  The drugs are "effective" for only a minority of people to whom they are prescribed.   Psychiatry ignores the Science, and the existing evidence-base and proclaims the drugs to be safe and effective; in spite of the scientific record not supporting this conclusion.  Students of psychiatry are taught a false history of psychiatry.  Students are not taught what is known, but what is believed, assumed or hoped to be true about the diagnoses themselves.   Students are not taught about what is known about the actual  effects of the drugs either.   The use of psychiatric drugs is not based on ethically conducted research with an unbiased reporting of the results.  As a result, psychiatric treatment using drugs is not scientifically valid, and is not therapeutic for many. Drugging of psychiatric symptoms is the only "medical treatment" that is carried out whether it's effects are therapeutic for an individual patient, or not.  Psychiatry claims to be a medical specialty, yet does not adhere to the scientific method and does not seem to even pay lip service to the Ethical Guidelines of the Medical profession.  Psychiatry ignores altogether the Nuremberg Code; with impunity.

I know that the statement that no psychiatrist would see anything wrong made by the psychiatrist in reference to my son's treatment is wrong.  l am grateful to know there are psychiatrists who do not "treat" humans in distress this way.  It is particularly disappointing this statement was made by a psychiatrist who apparently does not believe that a parent's duty and Constitutional Right to act on a child or adolescent's behalf should only be diminished or infringed upon to prevent abuse or neglect.

I know there are psychiatrists who would not agree with his statement, and would in fact see a whole lot wrong with how my son was treated.  Just because fraud and corruption are rampant and widespread in psychiatric research and practice, does not make the distortion of ethical medical  principles acceptable. Standard Practices used in psychiatry rely on consensus, seem to use consensus instead of data. Consensus is no substitute for factual data and information; and an opinion is not magically transformed into "evidence" because the opinion is shared by one's peers. Consensus is evidence of agreement; it is not evidence of medical validity.  

six years old

The lack of insight psychiatry has into the bind they put their patients in is truly frightening; to say the very least.  Psychiatry has convinced society that people with psychiatric diagnoses are not aware of reality and somehow, this erroneous belief justifies psychiatry treating them with dangerous and ineffective drugs as if they are not worthy of being treated with dignity or respect.  Our Nation's Institutions of Higher Learning doing psychiatric research have been funded by the pharmaceutical industry; psychiatry has somehow deluded it's practitioners into believing the people who are diagnosed with "mental illness" are incapable of recognizing when they are disrespected and invalidated.  Real concerns about the negative effects of psychiatric drugs from the patient or family members are attributed to sypmtoms of the diagnosis, are minimized, declared to be 'tolerable side effects,' or are ignored altogether.  


The attitude seems to be those who are labeled with a psychiatric diagnosis don't know what's 'good' for them; so what they experience, is not important.  How the treatment impacts the person, whether it is perceived as helpful or not; is considered to be unimportant. How can it be that a patient's perceptions and experiences are  not ever considered to be valid if the patient disagrees with the treating psychiatrist?  Nonetheless, a patient's perception is never as important as the patient's agreement to take the drugs exactly as prescribed; regardless of any actual benefit, or harm experienced.  The adverse effects and the potential for disability and death are not important; as long as compliance in taking drugs as prescribed is maintained.   How is it this is not recognized for what it is?  Using coercion and manipulation are an abuse of power and authority; the nature of these acts do not become 'therapeutic' because "it's for the patient's own good," and it is done under the guise of beneficence to provide "necessary medical treatment" Under Color of Law. 

My son is now a young man valiantly struggling to overcome the effects of outrageous abuse  and trauma his "medical treatment" has caused him; the 'treatment' amounted to repeated psychiatric assault and resulted in traumatic iatrogenic injuries from neuroleptic and other psychiatric drugs.  He is struggling to come to terms with the loss of cognitive and intellectual abilities.  He asked me in agony, "How could they take so much from me, Mom?"  There is no good or sufficient answer to this question; and the pain is, at times unbearable.  The damage caused to his spirit, is heartbreaking.  The damage done to his physical health and his continuing cognitive decline are in fact evidence of the criminal nature of his psychiatric treatment, and evidence of medical malpractice.  My son's "treatment" consisted of the law being repeatedly violated by the lead researcher in the State of Washington who was funded by the NIMH, and who works for the State of Washington as the Medical Director of the State's only psychiatric facility for children; and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Washington.  Not once have any of my complaints to the appropriate authorities in Washington State ever been investigated. 

I have no doubt that this is because it is the State of Washington that is ultimately liable. In my experience, the State of Washington protects the State of Washington; it does not act in defense of any victim unless forced to do so--even if the victim is a child or vulnerable adult.   The psychiatrist who did this to my son is still employed by the State of Washington, continues in his dual role as Medical Director of Child Study and Treatment Center and professor at University of Washington to this day.

People need to understand it is not an accurate or complete depiction in public service ads to "Bust the Stigma" of mental illness of how individuals given a psychiatric diagnosis experience life in the real world. More, people need to know it is not accurate to say the drugs are "safe and effective."  The anti-stigma efforts are not so much wrong, as they are biased, incomplete and inaccurate.  They neglect to even acknowledge there is a "potential" down side to getting a psychiatric diagnosis, and to treating symptoms associated with psychiatric diagnoses with psychiatric drugs.  The mainstream advocacy and anti-stigma activists fail to advocate for those with psychiatric diagnoses who are not served well by the psychopharmacology treatment paradigm, and/or those who have been harmed or otherwise victimized by unethical treatment providers in mental health service systems.  

Mainstream mental health advocates do not advocate for my son, or offer support to our family.  It is insulting to read in education and advocacy literature and hear in "public service" announcements that these advocates speak for all those with a psychiatric diagnosis and their families.   These advocates do not represent me, or my son.  The mental health professionals and social workers in the local public mental health system have no interest in helping my son in the slightest.  Psychiatry's victims are not acknowledged, they are effectively de-voiced, invalidated, and ignored.  Advocacy groups who claim to be speaking for everyone with a psychiatric diagnosis are not.  It is not possible to be advocating for the people with a psychiatric diagnosis while ignoring victims; psychiatric survivors who have recovered; parents who are taking care of disabled adult children; and parents who are grieving a child's early death from so-called "necessary medical treatment" with "safe and effective" drugs.  

The advocacy groups are funded and advised by the pharmaceutical industry and are intentionally not questioning  psychiatry's inexplicable devotion to the disease model.  These pharmaceutically-funded groups do not seem to question the alliances between the drug industry and the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.  The obvious Conflicts of Interest have, in no small part, not only allowed but have perpetuated and even increased the harm done to real people; the devotion to the disease hypothesis and biological treatment paradigm have caused stigma to become deeply entrenched.  These advocacy groups do not advocate for victims, or for the grieving family members they leave behind.  The only people who are celebrated and advocated for are those who conform to the disease model, who are "treatment compliant."  This type of advocacy invalidates my son's lived experience; which was and is abusive.  My son's experiences were horrifying, and all too real.

What angers me the most is professionals and advocates who effectively deny the entirety of my son's history of trauma and subsequent psychiatric mistreatment.  My son has been consistently invalidated by virtually everyone who made decisions about how he would be treated and by whom.  I was also treated in this way, but my anger is for what was done to my son.


It is said that everything happens for a reason, and the only reason I can think of is so that I could see what I saw, and come to know what I know.  Some, if not most of the children who are Wards of the State do not have family involved at all and as such, are  children--who are left without protection.  Knowing these children do in fact exist, and are in need of protection, is what  motivates me more than anything else.  It is for these children in State Custody who are given no voice and no choice, that I share my family's story.   


I know the children who are in State Custody deserve better than to be given unsafe and ineffective drugs; I know that they should not be told that they have defective brains when their problems are caused by being neglected, abused and not having had basic needs consistently met.  These children deserve to be safe from unethical research, protected from being used as guinea pigs in Drug Trials, and "medically treated" using unethical "standard practices" which are not safe, effective or grounded in ethical research, or the ethical practice of medicine. The primary focus in medicine is to do what is in a patient's best interest, we fail far too often to maintain this focus when we allow children in foster care to be drugged instead of effectively helped.  Children must have their individual rights under the US Constitution preserved and defended---even if they are unaware of exactly what these rights are.  

I believe all of us have a duty to the children in State Custody.

Do you?

August 6, 2011

 post is inspired by two sentences of a commereader and was initially posted on April 8, 2011 titled, "It is More Than Enough" 

"It's enough to make anyone go insane.  Whs precisely what happens in those environments..."   Duane Sherry

In my own experience, it's more than enough to cause overwhelming grief...

Philosophy and Ethics

via The Chronicle of Higher Education Brainstorm by Bill Gleason October 14, 2011:
Do People Have a Moral Obligation to Participate in Research?

a few excerpts:
"As my colleague, bioethicist Carl Elliot, put it: “Only 16% of academic health centers in this country will pay the medical bills for research subjects who are injured in clinical trials. None will pay for lost wages and suffering. And an ethicist is arguing that we all have a duty to sign up for these trials? Give me a break.”

"But Carl was not able to attend this conference and I knew that Mary Weiss, the mother of Dan Markingson, would be there. Her son died in connection with a clinical trial at the University of Minnesota that has become notorious. I wanted to offer moral support. I met her – for the first time – before the start of the conference. She seemed in control, and we had a pleasant conversation, but I was concerned. After the first talk, on the pro side, she had to leave. I could understand why.

"Most patients are not capable of making scientific judgments about whether a clinical trial is worthwhile. Many doctors and people who sit on institutional review boards (IRBs) are not. To claim that people should risk themselves, out of beneficence, to participate in a clinical trial is unreasonable. Certainly to declare it to be a moral obligation is wrong. (emphasis mine)

"I did find a wonderful talk by Professor Susan Wolf of the University of North Carolina, who gave the Frumke lecture at NYU entitled: “Moral Obligations and Social Commands.” This talk examines the concept of what a moral obligation is and gives examples. To claim that participation in research is a moral obligation does not seem to pass the Wolf Test. This outstanding lecture is available in hard copy here and even, mirabile dictu, on YouTube.

" It was an exhausting day. Certainly caused a Brainstorm. I drove one of the speakers to the airport and came home. Took three beers to return to earth."

Welcome back Gleason. I truly appreciate your having made 'the trip', and for writing about it. Thanks for the lecture recommendation. Shall we ever meet, I'll buy you a beer--