William Heisel: Pressure From Politically-Connected Stem Cell Firm Celltex Leads To Slate Retraction

Here is William Heisel's take on the Slate retraction of Carl Elliott's "Celltex Affair" article. (remember that Carl Elliott wrote about the Dan Markingson suicide and the AstraZeneca Seroquel trial gone bad...)

Via Reporting on Health

Pressure From Politically-Connected Stem Cell Firm Celltex Leads To Slate Retraction:

In part

"Celltex recently hired the editor of AJOB, Glenn McGee, and other bioethicists have charged that McGee has been running the journal while working for Celltex. Following the criticism, McGee announced today that he has quit Celltex.

The company works in a medical and ethical gray area, harvesting adult stem cells from fat and injecting them into other parts of the body without solid evidence that the procedures work. Bioethicist Leigh Turner at the University of Minnesota has suggested that the company’s work looks exactly like something that would prompt action by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. And on Wednesday, David Cyranoski at Nature wrote that “there is evidence that the company is involved in the clinical use of the cells on U.S. soil, which the FDA has viewed as illegal in other cases.” The company so far has escaped regulatory scrutiny, and its CEO, David Eller, is very politically connected. He is a major donor to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and Perry is Celltex’s most famous patient."-William Heisel