Understanding Life under Public Scrutiny: The U.S. Bio-pharmaceutical Industry Experience

GM crops under new US scrutiny

Genetically modified (GM) crops have been at the center of a storm of protests in Europe, which has begun to move into the United States. US surveys show increasing consumer concern about food biotechnology and some major food companies have announced decisions to purchase only non-bioengineered products. Recently, the finding of StarLink® corn in taco shells has raised harsh criticisms about t...

Under Scrutiny

Understanding technology adoption in the German pharmaceutical industry

At the beginning of the20th century classical biotechnology and chemical synthesis were for many purposes alternative technologies. Spite of the importance of classical bio-technology (which mainly drew on the application of enzymatic processes and microbiology for the production of good and services) at that time specially in Germany, the German drug producers made use of the organic chemical ...

Raise Public Scrutiny

This position paper lists reasons why the results in software maintenance are so diicult to assess and use, proposes three possible countermeasures what and why, and shortly discusses the roadblocks. Note: This paper is written in a rather apodictic tone, but that is for brevity only. Why we have a mire of evidence When one dives into the literature on software maintenance , the amount of sugge...

Folic acid under scrutiny

A consideration of the absorption and metabolism of folic acid in human subjects is timely, owing to the recent recommendation by the UK Government’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition that a mandatory folic acid fortification programme be implemented in the UK. In this issue of the British Journal of Nutrition, Wright et al. take us through the processes of absorption and metabolism of...