No surprise then

The global pharmaceutical industry has racked up fines of more than $11bn in the past three years for criminal wrongdoing.

Including withholding safety data and promoting drugs for use beyond their licensed conditions.

In all, 26 companies, including eight of the 10 top players in the global industry, have been found to be acting dishonestly. 

The scale of the wrongdoing, revealed for the first time, has undermined public and professional trust in the industry and is holding back clinical progress, according to two papers published in a recent addition of the New England Journal of Medicine. 

Leading lawyers have warned that the multibillion-dollar fines are not enough to change the industry's behaviour.

The 26 firms are under "corporate integrity agreements", which are imposed in the US when healthcare wrongdoing is detected, and place the companies on notice for good behaviour for up to five years.

The largest fine of $3bn, imposed on the UK-based company GlaxoSmith-Kline in July after it admitted three counts of criminal behaviour in the US courts, was the largest ever. 

But GSK is not alone – nine other companies have had fines imposed, ranging from $420m on Novartis to $2.3bn on Pfizer since 2009, totalling over $11bn.

Kevin Outterson, a lawyer at Boston University, says that despite the eye watering size of the fines they amount to a small proportion of the companies' total revenues and may be regarded as a "cost of doing business". 

The $3bn fine on GSK represents 10.8 per cent of its revenue while the $1.5bn fine imposed on Abbott Laboratories, for promoting a drug (Depakote) with inadequate evidence of its effectiveness, amounted to 12 per cent.

Mr Outterson said: "Companies might well view such fines as a quite small percentage of their global revenue. 

If so, little has been done to change the system. 

The government merely recoups a portion of the financial fruit of firms' past misdeeds.

He argues that penalties should be imposed on executives rather than the company as whole. 

However the power of the industry lobby is such that unless and until there is some huge disaster this is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Add more scepticism to your list of products and industries not to be trusted.

Also think twice before ingesting any drugs from the pharmaceutical industry.

Update on something smelly

The Government's plan to "work together" with manufacturers to introduce voluntary cuts to fat, sugar and salt levels in food as like "putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank.

Professor Capewell, a leading expert on effects of diet on cardiovascular disease and a member of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges committee on obesity, said he had lost faith in the ability of government to take on the food industry.

In my opinion, the government is guilty of a gross dereliction of duty in relation to public health, he said. it has actually moved Britain back in terms of public health from where we were before they were elected. 

They have officiated over a responsibility deal which is a pantomime – and has been a huge public relations coup for the industry.

Under the Government's plan, launched in March last year, companies are supposed to voluntarily help to improve the health of the nation by labelling food in restaurants with calorie counts and reduce saturated fat, salt and sugar in products. 

But earlier this year Which? found only a handful of the top 10 restaurants and pub groups had agreed to provide calorie information on menus with many well-known brands such as Pizza Express, Café Rouge and Strada failing to sign up..

In its report into the Responsibility Deal the House of Commons Heath Select Committee concluded it was "unconvinced" that it would be "effective in resolving issues such as obesity". 

It called on the Department of Health to set out clearly how progress will be monitored and tougher regulation applied if necessary. 

Those with a financial interest must not be allowed to set the agenda for health improvement, it concluded.

Professor Capewell said such low uptake was unsurprising as the companies involved only had a duty of care to their shareholders – and not to those who consumed their food. "

Even a moment of reflection should show that this is a spectacular conflict of interest," he said. 
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It is breathtaking that when deciding on public health policy in relation to food you should be sitting around the table with the very people who make large amounts of money from selling this stuff.

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Professor Capewell cited the case of a chocolate manufacturer who claimed to have reduced the size of their bars were in fact just selling the amount of chocolate in a different way. 
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The food industry has done things like saying they will no longer sell 500 gram packs of chocolate – and instead they are selling a double pack of two 250 gram bars. 
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These sort of voluntary agreements are not worth the paper they are written on.

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The academy, which is expected to draw up its own recommendations for tackling poor health caused by obesity later this year recently highlighted statistics showing that a quarter of women and just over a fifth of men in the UK are classed as obese. 
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The UK has the highest rate of obesity in Europe with one in three children overweight or obese by the age of nine. 
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On current trends, half of the children will be obese or overweight by 2020.

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Professor Capewell, who was a member of Andrew Lansley's Public Health Commission, set up before the election with representatives of both industry and the medical profession to help draw up Tory policy in the area said he should have been more critical when it suggested a voluntary approach. 
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I suppose I agreed because Labour were clearly on the way out and thought it was better to be inside the tent than outside," he said.

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And at first they listened very respectfully to everything we had to say. 
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But everything robust we recommended from a health perspective was watered down in the final report.

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But sources close to the government insisted that real progress had been made as a result of the voluntary agreement – and said it was far more effective to work with the food industry than against it.
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Breathtaking bullshit indeed!
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And here's where it's going

£50bn Predicted annual cost of obesity to the British economy in 2050

68 Percentage of adults who are obese or overweight, according to the NHS

16 Percentage of children classed as obese

50 Percentage of children expected to be obese or overweight by 2020

Who’s doing what? Tackling obesity

Denmark became the first country in the world to ban trans-fatty acids from the food supply in 2003, and to pass a law taxing saturated fats in 2011. 

It is currently considering passing a 'sugar' tax.

New York bans the use of artificial trans-fats in restaurants and catering outlets and recently Mayor Bloomberg announced plans to prevent the sale of any cup or bottle of sweetened drink larger than 16 fluid ounces (470ml) – smaller than a common Coke bottle.

Sweden and Norway both ban the advertising of "junk food" aimed at children under 12.

And the effects

In Poland, a 26 per cent decrease in coronary deaths followed a substantial reduction in the consumption of animal fats and increased consumption of vegetable oils and fruit after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

In Mauritius, coronary vascular disease (CVD) deaths fell following the introduction of legislation to make it mandatory to use polyunsaturated oils as a substitute for highly saturated cooking oils.

A substantial fall in CVD deaths also followed a reduction in saturated fat intake in Finland, Iceland and Norway following intensive public health campaigns.

Conversely, rapid rises in CVD mortality have been seen in China and elsewhere, principally owing to the adoption of a Western diet rich in saturated fats.

Drones on their way

Unmanned aircraft, known as drones, are the eyes and ears of the US military, providing troops with an "eye in the sky" in situations where manned flight is considered too dangerous or difficult.

A decade ago less than five per cent of US military aircraft were unmanned, now 40 per cent have no pilot on board - from small surveillance craft light enough to be launched by hand, to medium-sized armed drones and large spy planes.

But the role of the drone is now changing.

Millions of pounds are being sunk into civilian projects - everything from border security to police surveillance and even transporting goods.

This year the US Congress passed legislation giving US airspace regulator the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) until September 2015 to open up its airspace to drones, and Britain is expected to follow suit.

Continue reading the main story

The UK's airspace regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), has told BBC Newsnight that large unmanned drones could be flying in British skies by the end of the decade.

The CAA has already handed out 120 permits to fly small, lightweight drones. 

By 2020 this may be extended to larger unmanned aircraft.

In aviation terms you can probably equate where we are with unmanned technology now to manned flight in 1918 or the early 1920s, Gerry Corbett at the CAA said.

We've found them useful in war fighting and we can see the way ahead for commercial use.

Large defence companies and small start-up firms are investing heavily in what many think could soon be a market worth tens of billions of pounds.

To date the development of unmanned aircraft has been driven by the huge increase in military spending in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Now the sensors and cameras used in drones are cheap enough for a whole raft of civilian applications to be possible.

'Quiet revolution'

Already the first tentative steps are being taken.

Five police forces have tested small, lightweight drones as an alternative to traditional air support units, although only one force - Staffordshire - still uses the device.

Reaper drones have been used by US forces to carry out missile strikes

Earlier this year Kent Police signed a deal with partners in the UK, France and the Netherlands to develop an unmanned aircraft to monitor shipping in the English Channel.

On the commercial side, small wing-shaped drones are already being used to photograph and analyse agricultural land.

The data can be used to pinpoint where extra fertilizer and pesticide is needed.

When in the air, the 2m (6.5 ft) long wings can fly by themselves from point to point using the same GPS technology found in most smartphones.

It's potentially a quiet revolution that's going to come in, Sue Wolfe from the aerospace company Callen-Lenz, one of the two small British firms behind the project, said.

It's a very exportable technology. 

You can see this scaling up for some of the big plains in Canada, for example.

But the real money in the civilian market is likely to come not from small, lightweight drones, but from much larger unmanned aircraft.

Unmanned cargo planesThe US Department of Homeland Security is already using unarmed versions of the military's Predator craft to search for illegal immigrants along the Mexican border.

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Multinational freight firms like Federal Express are looking at using unmanned aircraft to deliver mail and cargo long distance.

But before the emerging civilian drone industry can really get going, some serious safety and privacy hurdles have to be overcome.

The US airspace regulator the FAA said it expects 10,000 unmanned commercial aircraft to be flying in American skies by 2017, a plan that has been met with some fierce criticism.

Campaigns are now underway to make a number of US cities "drone free" and politicians are debating a privacy bill which would require drone operators on the US mainland to inform the government of any data collected.

The public is just not aware how quickly this is happening. 

We're talking in the US of opening up the skies by 2015 and in the UK by 2020.

There is a real failure to have a proper discussion and debate about this in the UK. 

Very few parliamentarians for instance are talking about this.

Avoidance systems

But behind the scenes a large amount of public money is already being spent here in Britain.

A consortium of defence companies led by BAE Systems has been given almost £31m in regional funding to try and prove civilian drones can safely share the skies with other airspace users.

Aberporth in west Wales is home to the largest drone test site in Europe

Another £17m has been spent turning an old military base at Aberporth in west Wales into Europe's first centre for flying and testing civilian drone aircraft.

The key piece of technology currently missing is a "detect-and-avoid" system for civilian drones that will automatically steer the pilotless craft away from commercial airliners and crash land in a safe area if necessary.

The CAA has made it clear that it will not approve the use of drones larger than 20kg in UK airspace until it is convinced the drone can automatically sense and avoid other aircraft

If there is an accident at this stage it would set the industry back a long way, Mr Corbett at the CAA said.

We're not there yet but there are a lot of people working on it very closely, he added. 

Whoever cracks the 'detect-and-avoid' nut first will, I think, have a winner on their hands.

BBC

Transparency grenade

Artist Julian Oliver has put together a “transparency grenade” that lets users leak information from closed meetings by just pulling the pin.

The body is the shape of a Soviet F1 Hand Grenade, made out of the sturdy Tusk2700T resin. 

The metal parts are created from silver, complete with an operational trigger mechanism that begins the recording process. 

“I wanted it to look elegant, a bottle of high-class perfume, as much as a weapon,” said Oliver in an interview with We Make Money, Not Art.

The grenade includes a computer with a microphone and powerful wireless antenna that captures network traffic and audio in a location and anonymously streams it to an external server that mines it for information — including e-mail excerpts, web pages, images and voice.

 The server then uploads that data to a public website and positions it on a map.

Inside, there’s a a “Gumstix” ARM Cortex-A8 computer, Arduino Nano, LED Bargraph (for wireless signal level), 802.11 board antenna, 3.7-volt battery, 64×32 pixel LCD RGB display, 5mm cardioid microphone and an 8 GB microSD card. 

The computer runs a modified GNU/Linux embedded operating system.

Oliver added: “The volatility of information in networked, digital contexts itself frames a precedent for clamouring (and often unrealistic) attempts to contain it. 

One could even say it’s this desperate fear of the leak that produces images like my grenade, images that will continue to take violent forms in popular culture, journalism and presidential speeches in time.

Oliver says that he’s also working on a version of the grenade’s functionality that’s a little more subtle — it uses a rooted Android phone to achieve the same aims.

This will allow activists (or those simply sick of the relative opacity of their organization) to deploy Transparency Grenade-like functionality on their rooted Android phone and send the data over an encrypted channel via their GSM provider to a publicly available map, displaying the detonation as data from that site.

An exploded view of the Transparency Grenade.
Photo: Julian Oliver

Smile time

The fattest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.   He acquired his size from too much pi.

I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island,  but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian

She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.

A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption.

No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.'

I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

A backward poet writes inverse.

In a democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.

If you jumped off the bridge in Paris , you'd be in Seine ..

A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion
      allowed per passenger.'

Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't
      have your kayak and heat it too.

Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my electron.' The other says 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'

There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh.
       
No pun in ten did.

Premarital sex

Religion and science don't normally make for happy bedfellows, especially when it comes to sex. 
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But now, it seems, they're in total agreement. 
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A study into the effects of having sex before marriage suggests it's much better not to. 
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Those who abstain during their courtship or build up a gradual sexual relationship, rather than leaping into bed on the first date, are more likely to have happier and longer relationships.
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The researchers who carried out the study, the first of its kind, say that early sexual satisfaction may stunt the development of other key ingredients of healthy relationships, such as commitment, caring, understanding and shared values. 

Precocious premarital sexual activities may have lasting effects on relationship quality.

Courtship is a time for exploration and decision-making about the relationship, when partners assess compatibility, make commitments and build on emotional and physical intimacy.

Almost 50 years since the sexual revolution, which began, according to Philip Larkin, in 1963, the evidence suggests an open-legs policy is not so rewarding after all. 

The postponement of sexual involvement is associated with higher levels of relationship quality, say the researchers from Cornell University. 

Women who deferred sexual involvement for over six months reported significantly higher levels of relationship satisfaction, commitment, intimacy and emotional support, as well as sexual satisfaction with their partner, than did those who became sexually involved within the first month.

In the research, being reported in the latest Journal of Marriage and Family, the researchers analysed data from 600 couples about their relationships. 

In each case, the woman was aged under 45. 

Results show that for one in three men and women, sexual involvement took place within the first month, while about 28 per cent waited more than six months.

Most of the couples cohabited before marriage, with 40 per cent marrying directly. 

More than half the women who married directly had deferred sexual involvement for longer than six months, compared with only 6.5 per cent of women who were cohabiting. 

The couples were also asked about the quality of their relationships, including giving scores for commitment, intimacy, sexual satisfaction, communication and conflict. 

Results show that for women, all the scores were better if sex was delayed for one month. 

A similar trend was found for men, but the differences were not so great.

The researchers say the gender differences they found may be explained by women being more sensitive to the quality of their relationships. 

That fits in with other research showing that women are more likely to initiate a break-up.

The way cars are going

Criss-crossing the Essex countryside in a Ford Focus cannot be described as an earth-shattering experience.

In fact, the cost to the planet is really rather small.

Little petrol is burnt by the car's tiny three-cylinder engine, and not much carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted either.

Yet, Ford's newest petrol engine is just as powerful as the engine it replaces, even though it is 30% lighter.

"The downsizing has actually achieved a carry over power, with a one-litre engine replacing a 1.6 litre engine," observes Tim Winstanley, Ford of Europe's powertrain manager.

"And we've managed to get a 15-20% fuel economy improvement.

Fiat's Twinair engine is described as 'revolutionary' by some analysts

But if the smaller engine gives Ford a bit of an edge on its rivals at the moment, the carmaker is not the first to go down this road.

We see engine downsizing across the industry, though the car companies are taking different routes to get there.

Fiat, for instance, uses a single turbo two-cylinder engine in its dinky 500 Twinair, true to the original Cinquecento from 1957.

The engine has been designed to be fuel efficient thanks to careful management of the amount of air that enters the engine, which helps it manage its combustion.

It is all done with the use of electro-hydraulic controls of the inlet valves, in place of a camshaft.

Smaller, lighter engines help improve handling, making driving more fun

Ford's engine is evolutionary

But Fiat's is revolutionary.

The retro-designed Fiat is said to return almost 70mpg, with CO2 emissions of just 95g/km.

Though this will obviously not be the case for drivers who are seduced by the engine's excited note.

It sounds like a mix between a moped and an old American muscle-car so it is hard to resist driving it hard.

Meanwhile the Volkswagen group is another pioneer in the field, having introduced a downsized, boosted direct injection petrol engine as early as 2005.

Continue reading the main story

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VW's 1.4 litre TSI petrol engine is twin-charged, so it delivers better power and torque characteristics than a 2.3 litre naturally aspirated engine, again with much improved fuel economy and reduced emissions, the carmaker insists.

Volkswagen's approach is different again it is unique and very successful. 

Few car makers have come up with engines that are both turbocharged and supercharged.

Similar developments are taking place across the motor industry, with even high-end manufacturers such as the world's largest luxury car company BMW preparing to introduce frugal three-cylinder engines in its cars.

Consequently, petrol engines will see much more aggressive downsizing than diesel engines.

Hence, by 2018, Frost & Sullivan predicts that:

• more than half the petrol-powered cars sold in Europe will have engines smaller than 1.2 litres, compared with a quarter in 2010,
• cars with tiny petrol engines, smaller than 1 litre, will treble their market share from 5% to 16%
• only 5% of petrol cars will have 2 litre engines, down from 10% in 2010.

In other words, petrol is fighting back after having lost ground to diesel in recent years, predicts Ford's product manager Andrew Paton.

Inertia means diesel will continue to dominate for some time.

This is particularly relevant for small cars used mainly for short journeys that leave little time for diesel engines to reach their optimal temperatures, he explains.

But emotionally, we think there should be a significant move out of increasingly complex and expensive diesel engines, because petrol often works out cheaper, with better fuel economy and lower emissions.

Small petrol engines can also make cars more fun to drive, thanks to their reduced weight.

So for drivers, less is more.

Africa Express

In one of its carriages, musicians from different bands and backgrounds jammed together all day long.

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“Start Quote

One could hear, for example, Damon Albarn playing with one of the greatest drummers in the world, Nigeria's Tony Allen, and then a young percussionist from Kinshasa, Alberto Mapoto, from Jupiter's band, Okwess International, would join in and kindly ask Allen to move away from the drum kit and let him play.

It seemed almost sacrilegious but then that was the whole spirit of the journey - breaking barriers, opening new spaces.

All the musicians, old and young, world famous or emerging, from Bamako or from Brooklyn, were performing as equals.

On Friday night, Egyptian MC Kareem Rush, from the hip hop trio Arabian Knightz, was relaxing backstage in Bristol, during one of the tour's final concerts, when the organisers invited him to join one of his idols, John Paul Jones, who was, with many other artists, improvising a wonderful version of Led Zeppelin's song Kashmir.

I couldn't believe that this was happening to me. 

Sometimes people spend weeks rehearsing before playing on stage together. 

Here we just do it, the young musician said.

For John Paul Jones himself, this semi-African semi-global new version of Kashmir was "very interesting, it was good".

There is a lot of energy going around and it keeps your mind open. 

Everybody is so happy to be here and to be playing. 

It's just fun, pure music, he told BBC Africa.

Platform fun

The train took the musicians to several cities all over the UK - Milton Keynes, Stoke-on-Trent, Leeds, Middlesbrough, Glasgow, Manchester, Crewe, Cardiff and Bristol - before returning to London.

It was amazing to see the faces of commuters when this weird train would suddenly stop at a station and, out of the blue, all these great musicians would jam together on a platform for a while before moving on.

The artists also took part in many pop-up shows in schools, community centres, parks and other improvised venues.

For many people it was their first encounter with African music. 

In Glasgow, two young girls told us that they had gone to the venue because they wanted to see some of the younger British rap stars were "tremendously moved" by the African music.

When we met them, they were by a noticeboard at the concert's venue, writing down the names of the African musicians they liked.

Every night it's been amazing in different ways. 

It's incredible the talent of these artists. 

It's inspirational the way they come together and are so generous with each other, in the way they perform and share songs and share ideas, Africa Express co-founder Ian Birrell said.

As the train was approaching King's Cross, the artists were exchanging hugs and contact details.

Several of the younger musicians told the BBC that this journey would change their lives. 

Some of them were already making plans for collaborating in records or travelling to Africa together.

The Africa Express may have reached its final destination but the wonderful energy that it has generated will be around for a long time.

English and a poem

There is no egg in the eggplant,

No ham in the hamburger

And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.

English muffins were not invented in England,

French fries were not invented in France.

We sometimes take English for granted, but if we examine its paradoxes we find that:

Quicksand takes you down slowly,

Boxing rings are square,

And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

If writers write, how come fingers don't fing?

If the plural of tooth is teeth,

Shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth?

If the teacher taught,

Why hasn't the preacher praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables,

What the heck does a humanitarian eat?

Why do people recite at a play,

Yet play at a recital?

Park on driveways and

Drive on parkways?

How can the weather be as hot as hell on one day

And as cold as hell on another?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language where a house can burn up as it burns down,

And in which you fill in a form

By filling it out

And a bell is only heard once it goes!

English was invented by people, not computers,

And it reflects the creativity of the human race

(Which of course isn't a race at all.)

That is why:

When the stars are out they are visible,

But when the lights are out they are invisible.

And why it is that when I wind up my watch

It starts,

But when I wind up this poem

It ends.