Pharma Giles writes ....

Sickened by the Whistleblowers…

What to make of the case of Cindy McTottie? She's a former Phoni scientist who sued the company, claiming that she had been injured by exposure to engineered biological materials at work. Amazingly enough, she's just won her case in court, although Phoni will inevitably (and quite rightly) continue to make it hard for her by appealing against that outrageous verdict. It's important to note that her most damaging claim (that the company engaged in wilful misconduct by painting a red cross on the door of her office, forcing her to carry a bell and shout “unclean, unclean”) was thrown out at the beginning. The jury found on the lesser everyday trivial charge that Phoni had merely violated whistleblower laws and wrongfully terminated McTottie as an employee.

But what I'd most like to know is whether the claim at the core of her case is true, and although I don't think anyone knows that yet, it won’t stop me implying that it isn’t. McTottie says that she was exposed to embryonic stem cells and to various engineered viruses. More specifically, the theory that I've seen her legal team floating is that the virus caused her to grow extra limbs and a massive spinal hump. (Query: how massive are we talking here?).

Now, that's a potentially alarming thing, and one that should also be potentially subject to scientific proof. This trial didn't address any of these issues as, quite rightly, the Phoni legal team moved to ensure that a limb count was rendered sub judice. Looking around the internet, you will of course find that some morons are convinced that this is a cover-up. However (and because I genuinely believe that pharmaceutical companies can do no wrong) I'm more likely to think that growing extra limbs and becoming horribly deformed whilst working with viruses that could make you grow extra limbs and become horribly deformed was just an unfortunate coincidence.

I also note that the symptoms described in this case are similar to many that have been ascribed in the past (by none other than Phoni’s legal team) to psychosomatic illness. I wouldn't say that that's what's going on here, of course, but I always prefer to give the benefit of the doubt to the pharmaceutical companies (one of whom pays my salary) rather than some trouble-making, bitter and twisted ex-employee that the industry is better off without, especially if they happen to have unwanted extra limbs and other hideous mutations.

The other problem I have is that such human illness from a biotech viral vector is actually a very rare event, with every case that I care to think of being a deliberate attempt at gene therapy. Gene therapy is something that people try to administer to themselves all of the time, of course. And if something is very rare then, by the application of the blowtorch of my relentless scientific logic, it just can’t happen. Statistically speaking, it is obvious that no-one gets struck by lightning, killed in aeroplane crashes or wins national lotteries, in just the same way that no-one ever gets harmed when big pharmaceutical companies cut corners and cut costs by cutting back on safety equipment. Or at least, no-one important anyway.

Industry scientists don't work with human-infectious viruses without good cause, but there's still an awful lot of work that goes on with agents that most certainly can infect people (hepatitis and so on). And although I'm sure that there have been cases (accidental needle sticks and the like), I don't know of any research infections with wild-type viruses, much less engineered ones. This paragraph means nothing when you analyse it, naturally, but then my blog is famous for its high scientific tone and low common-sense quotient.

Well, we may yet hear more about this, and I'll rethink the issue if more information becomes available. But for now I have to say, whatever the other issues in the case, sod off you sad whistleblower and leave my wonderful industry alone.


In the parallel universe of reality, the supremely shaggy and so seldom smug supremo of superlative scientific speculation submits yet another sublime scenario of sense and sensibility…