TOPIC: Was Sovaldi stolen from the US government?

VA Doctor Invented Hepatitis C Cure, Sold It For $400 Million Profit:


www.disabledveterans.org/2015/12/03/va-d...-400-million-profit/

He only worked for VA for 7/8 ths of his time and was able to accomplish much during the other hours.

Hard to explain away the human guinea pigs though. Did they drop out of the program for the 1/8th of his time given over to private work each week, and did the experimental meds stop working on them for the the other 7/8ths of his time?

This whole Sovaldi business is turning into one of the biggest cans of worms in modern medical history, when it should have been one of the great breakthroughs. This is what happens when greed is allowed to flourish unfettered.

Cured Hepatitis C on 1/8 time? no use of government apparatus, funding, labware, building space, nothing?? wow what could this genius accomplish on full time?
Cure for Cancer? Immortality?

what a pile!

I watched the CBS story ... a couple click-throughs from the above link. They make some pretty strong implications, but strangely they don't ask or answer any of the pertinent questions.

1) What exactly is Dr. Schinazi's role at the VA? Obvious question and they didn't ask it.

2) Was Dr. Schinazi working on any Hepatitis C projects, or specifically drug research on behalf of the VA or any other government entity during this period of time? It's an easy question to ask, and yet they didn't.

3) Was Dr. Schinazi using VA or government facilities, grants or other assets to carry out his research? Again, it's a simple question to ask and yet they didn't.

4) Was the VA aware of Dr. Schinazi's outside drug development companies? They play a bit with this issue but don't actually explain it to the viewer.

Absolutely the VA was aware .... Schinazi has developed many drugs for HIV to the point that 80% of all HIV infected people are taking some type of drug he developed .... virus research is his specialty. In drug development circles the man is about a legend.

With the money he has made, it really seems unnecessary, financially, for him to continue working for the VA ... and yet he does.

Think about that.

My father worked as a nurse anesthetist for a VA hospital for a number of years and I can assure you, they are not top salary payers there. So why would Dr. Schinazi work for the VA if he's independently wealthy and the system doesn't even pay well?

Maybe CBS is devolving into TMZ.

Hi klhilde,

Apparently the answer to no. 1 is: "He is a senior research career scientist at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center" according to Emory University who should know given that he works for them in some of the 1/8 of his time that isn't devoted to VA.

news.emory.edu/stories/2014/08/ray_schinazi_honored/

Surprisingly given the seemingly huge workload and vast list of achievements that I was able to locate that relate to the 1/8 of the time that his attention isn't focussed on VA, there is very little about his achievements in the 7/8 that he does work for them. All I could google was.....er, nothing???

Ya, it's a mystery.

Has he been illegitimately profiting from this relationship all along?

Does he have a specific agreement with them that allows for him to take possession of inventions/discoveries?

Is he only a director/supervisor at his companies and not actually participating much in the day to day workings there?

Is there a genuine conflict here or not?

One thing is apparent .... CBS is either not competent or not motivated to get to the real issues. Maybe we should try to get Reason magazine onto the issue.

This is what you get in an oligarchy or kleptocracy or whatever we have become. In a properly run country, it wouldn't have happened like this, in a slightly less properly run country, the government upon suddenly "finding out", would at least declare gilead's patent void, and start producing the drug at cost and recoup some money from gilead and this guy.

Good questions Khilde, we don't have real journalism here anymore, they don't want to ask those obvious questions---the answers would piss off our overlords.

Glad you enjoyed our story, we worked on it for months.

Pp