{"id":4209,"date":"2010-06-29T22:48:42","date_gmt":"2010-06-30T02:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4209"},"modified":"2010-06-29T22:50:34","modified_gmt":"2010-06-30T02:50:34","slug":"speaking-of-conflicts-of-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/06\/29\/speaking-of-conflicts-of-interest\/","title":{"rendered":"speaking of conflicts of interest…"},"content":{"rendered":"
I’ve wondered what anyone reading this blog might think about my meanderings, particularly recently with my diversion into an idiosyncratic case from my own history, the case of Dr. Nemeroff – the number one paradigm for Conflicts of Interest in Psychiatry. How does that fit with the other things  I like to write about – the Iraq War, the deceit of the Bush Administration, the absurdity of Republican oppositionalism, the Vatican sexual abuse scandal, etc.? I guess it all fits together to me, though I wouldn’t have been able to say it clearly yesterday. It’s all about hidden agendas – people with power misusing that power by not showing their cards.<\/div>\n

I don’t think it’s only some morality thing that makes this stuff bother us so much. It’s just the fact that life is confusing enough without throwing in a bunch of unnecessary deceit to complexify it further. George Bush and Dick Cheney had a hair-brained scheme about oil and foreign policy that made an unholy mess. The guys on Wall Street had a field day playing with Derivatives and cdo’s and turned our economy  into mush. Nemeroff and his pals got into the drug marketing business and played havoc with the an entire medical specialty. Conflicts of interest are inevitable, but they only do their damage when they’re secret.<\/p>\n

Speaking of conflicts of interest, plausible deniability isn’t a standard for judges either:<\/div>\n
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Judicial Ethics in the Gulf: Judge Feldman’s Conflicts and DOJ Malpractice<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n
emptywheel <\/strong>
By bmaz
June 29, 2010 <\/div>\n

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Last week Federal district court judge Matin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana,  in what has become a controversial decision, overturned the six month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling imposed by the Department of the Interior. It was a legally curious decision to start with as it, on its face, appeared to be contrary to the well established standard of review. Almost immediately from the time Judge Feldman’s decision hit the public conscience, information on Feldman’s undisclosed [at least on the case record at issue)]financial ties to the oil and gas exploration industry started coming out of the woodwork. From Saturday’s Washington Post<\/a><\/strong>:<\/div>\n