posted
Apparently his complaints to the media bore fruit. Did anyone else know this had happened?
For newbies, this guy used to be program officer for the NIH lyme research program, but went off the deep end slandering patients and the Lyme Disease Foundation, posted junk on the quackwatch website, nothing the NIH disagreed with in his views, but they didn't like junkyard dog tactics, preferred quiet suppression and denial instead. So, they took him off the lyme program, but gave him few new duties, meanwhile continuing to pay him a big salary.
______________________________________________
NIH Scientist Given New Duties After Complaining of No Work
Section: Politics, A21
A National Institutes of Health scientist who said that he had done virtually no work for the past seven years has been given new duties after going public with his complaints.
Edward McSweegan alleged that he was being paid an annual salary of $100,000 for carrying out occasional tasks that could have been performed by a "gofer" or typist.
Earlier this week, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson asked NIH Director Elias Zerhouni to look into the matter "immediately." But NIH officials yesterday said that their decision to give McSweegan responsibility for managing 87 grants was "absolutely not" connected to Thompson's intervention.
NIH officials continued to deny the scientist's allegations, saying he had always been assigned duties "appropriate to his position and pay level" at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"The fact he has additional duties resulted from a conversation I had with Ed in which he expressed interest in focusing more of his attention and energy on a grant management portfolio," said Carole Heilman, director of NIAID's division of microbiology and infectious diseases.
Heilman said she had learned of McSweegan's unhappiness with his role only through his interviews with "CBS Evening News" and The Washington Post. He had previously complained that he was underworked, she said, but she believed he had been satisfied when she altered his role.
McSweegan will still be involved with the one program on which he was working -- which he said involved less than an hour's work a week -- but Heilman said that some of those duties would be shifted "appropriately" to his colleagues.
The new work involves managing grants that are given to universities to train post-doctorate and graduate students.
"If I have to come into work, I should be doing work, and as a taxpayer I am relieved," McSweegan, 47, said yesterday. "We will see how things go."
The scientist was removed as program officer for Lyme disease in 1995 after a dispute over his criticism of a support group for sufferers and his claims that NIH had been too accommodating of them.
2003 (c) The Washington Post. All rights reserved.
Source: Washington Post, The, Jul 10, 2003
[ 04. December 2005, 03:14 PM: Message edited by: lou ]
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
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posted
Maybe his new assignment explains the funding given in this 2004 NIH grant, which was repeated in 2005. It turned up in a search of the database with the search term of lyme. Yale is a hotbed of lyme disinformation.
Grant Number: 5T32AI007174-24 PI Name: ASKENASE, PHILIP W. PI Title: PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE AND PATHOLOGY Project Title: ALLERGY AND IMMUNOLOGY TRAINING GRANT
Abstract: DESCRIPTION (adapted from the application): This application is for support of a training program in Allergy and Clinical Immunology, that is designed for post-doctoral medical and pediatric trainees at Yale University School of Medicine. There is a double training faculty of firstly, clinician-researchers in the Department of Medicine, in the Sections of Allergy, and Clinical Immunology, Rheumatology, Pulmonary, and Infectious Diseases, and also in Pediatrics; and secondly, a basic sciences immunology training faculty in the Department of Immunobiology. The faculty's expertise spans the areas important to allergy, clinical immunology, and modern immunology; including: cellular, molecular, biochemical, antigen-processing/presenting, and signaling research. Some faculty are experts in Lyme disease, which was discovered at Yale in this training program. There is training in both medical and pediatric aspects of Allergy, and Clinical immunology, and also some training in Rheumatology, Dermatology, Gastroenterology, Pulmonary, and ENT. The training faculty is well equipped with major instruments including: 4 cytofluorographs, an oligonucleotide synthesizer, and peptide protein sequinator. This is a small training program, taking only one new fellow per year, with a large faculty emphasizing the need for at least of 3-5 years of research laboratory training to prepare trainees for positions in research medicine. The faculty have a strong training record and collaborative research interactions; especially under this Allergy and Clinical Immunology Training Grant. The fellows spend most of their first year engaged in clinical activities. The 2nd and 3rd years are spent almost entirely in the laboratory developing a research program, under the guidance of a faculty mentor, taking various immunobiology courses, participating in weekly seminars and journal clubs, and regularly giving talks on their research, and on subjects of mutual interest. The program offers unique and high quality training for future positions in academic medicine and pediatrics, and has been successful over more than 20 years of continuous funding.
Thesaurus Terms:
There are no thesaurus terms on file for this project. Institution: YALE UNIVERSITY 47 COLLEGE STREET, SUITE 203 NEW HAVEN, CT 065208047 Fiscal Year: 2004 Department: INTERNAL MEDICINE Project Start: 01-SEP-1980 Project End: 30-JUN-2006 ICD: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES IRG: AITC
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
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posted
he should have been sentenced for life to the fulton fish market, in the esteemed capacity of a naye, separating the good from teh rotten anchovies.
Worthless tests & labs, a dangerous vaccine, insurance companies refuse to pay, undertreatment the norm, all about money. MO. Posts: 281 | From CT | Registered: Oct 2005
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-------------------- We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand... and melting like a snowflake. Let us use it before it is too late. Posts: 221 | From the hills | Registered: Mar 2006
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kelmo
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 8797
posted
How much influence does this guy have? He comes off as an extremist. Has the man ever had lyme?
When I first joined, he posted a couple of times. The best response to his postings said, "I think McSweegan has been McSwiggan"
Is he behind the attack of the LLMDs?
Posts: 2903 | From AZ | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
He is just a helper, not the main instigator, in my opinion. A symptom of the problem at NIH/CDC in managing this epidemic.
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
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