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Yes, the expectation that the price WILL go down, leads to sales which make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Whether you sell tomorrow or not, you still get to vote your shares.
It's a step forward, a nice one in regard to sales.
And, as the market hates reverse splits, expect the price to go down between now and the meeting and the eventual split.
You could sell now and hope to buy back at a lower price later, but no guarantees.
As shareholders as of June 6th, we get to vote.
To the Shareholders of Cocrystal Pharma, Inc.
We are pleased to invite you to attend the 2016 Annual Meeting of the shareholders of Cocrystal Pharma, Inc., which will be held at
1860 Montreal Road, Tucker, Georgia 30084 at 1:00 p.m. EST on July 28, 2016 at the above address, for the following purposes:
1.
To elect members to our Board of Directors;
2. To approve an amendment to our Certificate of Incorporation to effect any of three reverse stock splits;
3.
To ratify the appointment of our independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal year 2016; and
4.
For the transaction of such other matters as may properly come before the Annual Meeting.
Cocrystal’s Board of Directors has fixed the close of business on June 6, 2016 as the record date for a determination of shareholders
entitled to notice of, and to vote at, this Annual Meeting or any adjournment thereof."
Much of the package addresses how much compensation and awards each of them get. Boring, but an essential part of corporate governance. Amounts did not seem excessive for a company this size - at least to me.
Page 26 of the pdf (it says 23 at bottom) shows who among the officers/directors own how many shares. They have enough votes by themselves to push anything thru.
Pages 28-29 talk about the reverse split of either 1 for 5 or 1 for 12.
So you get to decide how you vote. My guess is that I vote yes on all issues presented.
Only time will tell whether these events transpire. Will they come out with something which organically raises the price (and thus the market cap) for long enough to uplist? Or will we have a reverse split, with no change in the market cap? I sure don't know.
Yes, of course I own shares here. However, the draft proxy statement has yet to be translated into an actual proxy in my account, which I could then vote. Thank you for the early alert.
Still not in account this morning, tho.
LR, The only people able to vote in the US (where NNAB resides) in a primary at this point are those registered to vote over in DC. Or did you have some other group in mind, like the Brexit vote in the UK?
How are you voting?
New SEC fling: https://biz.yahoo.com/e/160613/cocp8-k.html
Item 7.01 Regulation FD Disclosure
While attending the Jefferies 2016 Healthcare Conference held in New York City from June 7-10, 2016, Dr. Douglas Mayers, Chief Medical Officer of Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (the "Company") disclosed in private comments that the Company intends to pursue uplisting to the Nasdaq Stock Market in the coming year, in conjunction with which the Company would likely engage in capital-raising efforts. The Company is not presently engaged in an offering of the Company's securities and does not presently have any specific plans to raise capital. The Company cannot offer any assurances as to when, or if, the Company will apply to Nasdaq, and if the Company does apply to Nasdaq, it cannot offer any assurances as to whether the Company's securities will be accepted for listing.
The information in Item 7.01 of this report is furnished pursuant to Item 7.01 of Form 8-K and shall not be deemed "filed" for the purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section. Furthermore, the information in Item 7.01 of this report shall not be deemed to be incorporated by reference in the filings of the registrant under the Securities Act of 1933.
Resverlogix Announces Corporate Update Webcast
BY PR Newswire
— 2:15 PM ET 06/09/2016
CALGARY, June 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Resverlogix Corp. ("Resverlogix") announces it will be hosting a corporate update via webcast on Monday, June 13, 2016 at 11:00 am MT / 1:00 pm ET. Mr. Donald McCaffrey, President and Chief Executive Officer will present an update and overview of recent activities.
Webcast Information:
To join the webcast, please visit: http://services.choruscall.ca/links/resverlogix20160613.html
To call-in, please dial:
Canada/USA TF: 1-800-319-4610
International Toll: +1-604-638-5340
Date: Monday, June 13, 2016
Time: 11:00 am MT/1:00 pm ET
Duration: ~30 minutes
A presentation will accompany and be available via the webcast. Alternatively, the presentation will be made available immediately prior to the conference call start time of 11:00am MT on the Company's website at: http://www.resverlogix.com/media/events.html#.V1mWrrsrJD8
Grazie.
Wondering if the "best IP Strategists" designation they just announced by PR is for real, or is it like the many requests I get to pay for a who's who listing?
FUN, I wish we still had that $200 price point, as for the first voyage Ocean Bourbon. Maybe the River Voyage will carry a nice price. Posting too much today, so I'm cognizant of my diminishing number of posts available.
Meanwhile, Caskers still seems to be getting plenty of business from promoting Jefferson's. The latest:
Jefferson's Reserve Very Old Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Made in homage to Thomas Jefferson, this bourbon earned a score of 94 points from the Beverage Testing Institute.
reg $69.99 sale $62.99
The principal author of the Declaration of Independence and one of the most illustrious founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson was elected the third President of the United States in 1800. During his tenure as President, Jefferson authorized the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, dispatched Lewis and Clark westward in order to explore the remainder of the continent and repealed the Whisky Excise Tax.
After Jefferson retired from public office in 1815, he often tended to the garden that he had cultivated at his Monticello estate. At the time, it was customary for wealthy farmers, including Jefferson, to make their own garden spirits. Each farmer's spirits were unique and reflected their personal tastes and the local terroir of their farm. Jefferson's Reserve Very Old Straight Bourbon Whiskey is crafted by Chet and Trey Zoeller in honor of Jefferson and his experimental nature. While the Zoellers were inspired by Jefferson, their own roots can be traced back for generations deep into Kentucky's bourbon history.
Jefferson's Reserve Very Old Bourbon is a complex blend of three unique bourbons — each made from a mash of corn, rye and malted barley — that are aged for up to twenty years and brought to proof with Kentucky limestone water. While most small batch bourbons are made from a blend of 200 to 300 different casks, each batch of Jefferson's Reserve is crafted from only 8 to 12 casks, causing the Zoellers to label their bottling process as "ridiculously small batch." The difference, Zoeller says, is like "making dinner for eight guests instead of eighty. You are able to deliver a great product that has the nuances you are striving for."
Like Jefferson himself, Jefferson's Reserve Bourbon is complex, elegant and sophisticated. It has an aroma of gentle, creamy vanilla, soft spices and dried fruits that open up to notes of toffee, roasted corn and tobacco, before leading to a lingering, dry finish. Jefferson's Reserve earned a score of 94 points from the Beverage Testing Institute and the Gold Medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
"Jefferson's is a handmade product that I put my name on, which makes it hugely important," says Zoeller. Try a handmade whiskey today!
Thank you, bearer of good news.
Agreed; we are portrayed as the villans. Now will Yahoo step up to remove the pain their users are suffering?
I was reacting to the tailing off of Flickr user complaints on that thread. There may well be other threads with more complaints and user disgust, which Yahoo has to address.
Did anyone notice the new Form 4 filing above, with Ryan Dunlap exercising a fair number of options and selling them the same day?
Clearly.
DM, Thanks for the explanation. I hope MARA will attempt to close off this use, either by pointing to where the court already addressed it or by asking the court to do so.
Then MARA needs to explore how to block the deceptive practice. Tighten the screws a bit.
Perhaps the German court will understand how it's order is being flouted and direct Yahoo to cut those off. I plead ignorance, as I've never used an anonymizer.
Interesting advance in compassionate use. Can CTIX drugs be in the vanguard?
I found the following story on the NPR iPhone App
FDA Moves To Speed Access To Compassionate-Use Drugs
by Rachel Bluth
KHN - June 8, 2016
The Food and Drug Administration has reduced an obstacle from its compassionate use policy, streamlining paperwork that physicians must submit to obtain experimental drugs for patients with life-threatening illnesses....
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016...mpaign=app
FDA Moves To Speed Access To Compassionate-Use Drugs
June 8, 20165:00 AM ET
Rachel Bluth
From Kaiser Health News Medicine
The Food and Drug Administration has reduced an obstacle from its compassionate use policy, streamlining paperwork that physicians must submit to obtain experimental drugs for patients with life-threatening illnesses.
Doctors will now file an application for FDA approval that contains just 11 questions, 15 fewer than the old form. They should be able to complete this new version in 45 minutes, the FDA said. The new form is simpler because it was designed for individual patients, replacing an all-purpose format that had been used by doctors acting on behalf of individuals or groups of patients.
There had been concerns that doctors might have been deterred from applying for compassionate access, which is also known as expanded access, says FDA spokeswoman Sandy Walsh.
The policy is intended to help patients with incurable diseases who have tried all standard therapies and hope to extend their lives by taking experimental drugs not yet approved by the FDA, says Dr. Edward Kim, chair of the Department of Solid Tumor Oncology at the Carolinas HealthCare System's Levine Cancer Institute.
The FDA's old form was a "pretty laborious process," Kim said. When doctors are serving patients whose time is running out, every minute saved on paperwork can help, he said.
In streamlining its path to approval, the FDA has bolstered a larger movement to make experimental drugs more accessible. Currently, 20 states have "right to try" laws aimed at improving terminally ill patients' access to experimental treatments, according to the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society.
Despite benefits for time-pressed physicians, the FDA's slimmed-down application form might not do much to speed those drugs to patients whose time is running out.
Doctors still must first obtain a letter of authorization from that drug's manufacturer. The FDA can't compel drugmakers to grant permission. Manufacturers might reject requests because they're worried about liability if the drug causes harm or they might consider the drug unsuited for a particular patient.
"There has been a tendency to focus on this FDA paperwork as the significant part of gaining access to drugs, but where most requests stop is with the company making the drug," says Mark Fleury, a policy analyst at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.
After doctors get manufacturers' consent, they next submit an application to the FDA. The agency has approved 99 percent of the applications filed for the past six years, FDA figures show. Only 14 out of 1,430 applications were rejected in fiscal 2015.
Expanded access is intended for patients unable to get drugs that are being tested in clinical trials. Sometimes a patient is unsuited for the trial or there might not be a trial to enter at the time the patient needs the drug.
Investigational drugs aren't without risk. The FDA hasn't vouched for the safety of these drugs and they could cause unexpected and potentially deadly side effects, such as liver damage.
They may also be ineffective. Just because a drug is working for one patient in a clinical trial doesn't mean it will work for someone else.
But in situations like these, it's hard not to hope.
This story was created as part of a collaboration between NPR and Kaiser Health News.
DM, They have had a week since Flickr users started bitching. Also I understand anonymizers have been around a while - not that I have ever used one, so what do I know.
RBP, As a practical matter, yes. However, laptops and desktops were supposedly not the mobile devices covered (from what I understand) by the order. Yahoo was just less than intelligent, in how they blocked the software, than they should have been, causing unneccessary pain for their users. I'm sure someone will correct me if I misunderstood.
Although it is not entirely clear what type equipment each of them have - phone, tablet, laptop, etc - some of their users have also figured out how to use anonymizers on the equipment to appear as though they are dialing in from other than Germany.
On another note, the news this morning that Yahoo is exploring sale of it's patent portfolio leads me to suggest trading our enforcement of our IP against Flickr for some of Yahoo's patents.
New article on OSUR:
http://www.talkmarkets.com/content/stocks--equities/orasure-small-cap-med-tech-ma-environment-makes-it-compelling-buy?post=96594
Here is the text, but illustrations are missing...
OraSure: Small Cap Med-Tech M&A Environment Makes It Compelling Buy
By Joe Kunkle
Tuesday, June 7, 2016 12:28 PM EDT
A deal was announced earlier today, June 7th, 2016, with Zimmer Biomet (ZBH) agreeing to acquire LDR Holdings (LDRH) for $1, a 65% premium, and paying 4.6X FY17 sales. LDRH specialized in spinal medical technologies and was the best in class name versus peers in terms of FY17 sales growth and gross margins. LDRH also had no long term debt and a healthy cash hoard with 5 years of consistent sales growth.
I expect many more deals in Med-Tech the rest of this year, though the pool of sub $2B market cap companies is relatively small. I want to look across each industry within Med-Tech to find the best M&A candidate looking for growth and above industry-average margins as two keys for being an attractive target.
The first area I want to look at it Monitoring, Diagonostics, and Delivery Systems. This group contained 9 stocks under $2.5B market caps, Masimo (MASI), Insulett (PODD), ICU Medical (ICUI), NxStage Medical (NXTM), Inogen (INGN), Luminex (LMNX), Atrion (ATRI), AngioDynamics (ANGO), and OraSure Tech (OSUR). PODD is the only name in the group that has seen unusual call buying.
I have put these names into a Sentieo Comparison:
(Click on image to enlarge)
LMNX, MASI, and OSUR are the clear margin leaders. Each of these has steady sales growth over the past 5 years, but MASI has a Debt/Equity of 0.86 which may make it less attractive, while the other two have zero debt and a healthy amount of cash. OSUR trades cheaper than LMNX on FY17 P/S and also is generating stronger revenue and EPS growth. Both LMNX and OSUR could make attractive M&A targets, but OraSure would be the top pick, a small deal considering its $438M market cap. OSUR's chart shows a stock that put in a third higher low in late 2015 and now is pushing up strong, higher each of the last 5 months and moving above weekly cloud resistance with room to make a run to $10 or higher, more than 25% from current levels.
For a closer look at OraSure (OSUR), it is a $438M Company that develops oral fluid diagnostic products and specimen collection devices. Shares trade 32.9X Earnings, 3.6X Sales, 2.69X Book, 19.75X FCF and just 4.28X cash value. OSUR shares have a strong Q4 seasonal tendency averaging more than a 15% gain the past 10 years. Analaysts have an average target of $8.50 for shares with 4 Buys, 14 Holds, and 3 Sells, so a name flying under the radar and sentiment not overly bullish. OSUR recently exceeded sales guidance with strong molecular collection systems increasing revenues 24% Y/Y and HCV sales +130%. Sale sof OraQuick In-Home test rose 38%. OSUR also posted 68% gross margins, compared to 63% the year prior.
In closing, OSUR offers an attractive valuation and low risk at these levels when valued versus peers, and the pick-up in M&A in Med-Tech makes it an attractive acquisition candidate as well.
EMI, So it looks now, using that link you provided before, that many German Flickr users have deployed workarounds (mostly on laptops or desktops, which Flickr disabled at the same time as mobile devices).
Good point Blzzy
Yes, bring in the money! Go $MARA
Yes, saw that FUN. Thanks.
I think you'll get part of your answer for how little it trades by looking at the float and insider ownership.
I've invested in a number of Frost companies too. If I can't develop a satisfying investment thesis on one, I do not go there. But then, Frost has his companies trade assets, merge, etc. Anticipate diluton, fund raises and that insiders get lots of shares and PIPEs. Sometmes you feel as if you've been dealt the short end of the stick, sometimes not, when that happens.
In large part, many of hs companies are NOT transparent. You have to take a leap of faith that he can pull it off again (Ivax, etc.) and step into the abyss, like Indiana Jones and the last crusade.
All that said, I am holding my shares.
Xone, I do not claim to be knowledgable on COCP, but suggest that you just start at the beginning and read all the posts. I usually read the last 1000 posts to familiarize myself with a stock AS A START before investing. It really doesn't take that long.
There also will be interestng links, such as presentations (one or two of which were very informative, as it is pretty opaque here) and articles. Should read the 10Ks and 10Qs.
I ended up here as my stock was merged into this. GLTU.
EMI, At this point, I doubt many of us expect quick settlements, tho it would be nice. It is nice to get some more eyes on MARA. Hopefully the upper hand translates to wins.
RBP, Thanks for posting. I had noticed the article a few mnutes ago. I know it's not flyers, but is the author one of us posting here?
If we are going for wishes, how about $20? <grin>
We are then entirely dependent on news from the courts and the company. Remember, I said I'm bad at predicting stock price.
I - being among the worst prognosticators - will guess $5-7 by EOY.
I believe MARA understands this. Let's hope for those positive news items.
Yes we could, even if the dollar amounts are not included.
Diz, The key is to never look back, to get the greatest relief. I had been afraid to ask you whether it worked.
OTOH, you know a fair amount about BLRX now and you COULD decide the situation has changed at some point - and then re-enter. You need to control your emotions though.
Best of luck in your future investments!
The carpenter bees have been making homes in my trees and wooden benches.
Someone is on the side of the bees.
Was a USDA scientist muzzled because of his bee research?
By Steve Volk March 3
Entomologist Jonathan Lundgren blames overuse of pesticides and a lack of crop diversity for the dwindling honeybee population. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Jonathan Lundgren is buying a parcel of land — a scrubby, 30-acre plot just north of Brookings, S.D. — from which he hopes to lead a revolution. An entomologist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, based in a South Dakota lab, Lundgren plans to start two businesses: Blue Dasher Farm, a for-profit enterprise he describes as a model for sustainable farming; and Ecdysis, a nonprofit science lab for independent research.
The land, rolling hillocks and flatlands alive with wildflowers and blooming weeds, includes a large house for his family and storage facilities he can convert into a lab. Even as this future beckons, however, his recent past still stings.
U.S. agriculture, says Lundgren, is in crisis. A lack of diversity in farming and a related overreliance on pesticides have triggered a host of negative effects, including the decline of pollinators, such as butterflies and bees.
Bees are vital to U.S. agriculture, pollinating foods that make up roughly a third, and the most nutritious portion, of our diet, such as fruits and leafy greens. But commercial beekeepers continue to report escalating losses of 42 percent or more, jeopardizing $30 billion in annual revenue and our health.
A couple of years ago, the now 40-year-old Lundgren — running a government lab, winning awards from both his agency and President Obama — occupied the right position to aid in this crisis. He says he was doing just that when the trouble started: a pair of suspensions — one for conduct unbecoming a federal employee and another for violating travel regulations.
In October, Lundgren filed a whistleblower suit alleging that he was disciplined to suppress his science. The government says the suspensions had nothing to do with his research. Today, he is the most outspoken of several scientists who say they feel muzzled by the government.
The lawyers who filed Lundgren’s suit allege that nine additional USDA scientists have been ordered to retract studies and water-down findings, or have faced discipline in retaliation for their work. They further allege that three of those scientists, beyond Lundgren, were also working on pollinator-related research. The USDA’s inspector general just announced an audit, to take place later this year, in response to the “significant volume” of complaints they’ve had on their office’s hotline, alleging scientific censorship on pesticides and other issues.
This dynamic of government scientists claiming suppression extends across institutions. Just a few months ago, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration alleged that the House Science Committee, led by Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), was attempting to intimidate researchers who had produced data indicating that global warming hadn’t slowed.
Such disputes show how complicated the intersection of government, science and industry can become when billions of dollars are at stake.
Lundgren, a husband and father of two, is tall and slim, passing into middle age with a sparse beard and steady demeanor. A native of Lakeville, Minn., 25 miles south of Minneapolis, he remarks on his troubles with studied Midwest politeness. Where others might drop expletives, he says “holy buckets.”
Close associates, however, say he bears a profound stubborn streak. “When Jon thinks he is right about something, he’ll dig in,” says his old doctoral adviser at the University of Illinois, Rob Wiedenmann. “He’ll shift when he finds that he is wrong, but you need to prove it to him.”
As a USDA-ARS employee, Lundgren has run his own lab and staff for 11 years, wrote a well-regarded book on predator insects, published nearly 100 scientific papers and acted as a peer reviewer for dozens of publications. For years, his body of research was either neutral or favorable to farming policy and the chemical industry. But three years ago, he started cautioning against the overuse of pesticides. That shift, he says, triggered his suspensions and the downturn in his professional fate.
He believes the problem began in 2012, when he published findings in the Journal of Pest Science suggesting that a popular class of pesticides called neonicotinoids don’t improve soybean yields. He also served as a peer reviewer for a Center for Food Safety report on the dangers of neonics. The next year, he published a paper suggesting that a new genetic pest treatment, dubbed RNAi pesticides, required a new means of risk assessment.
The publications drew media interest, and after an interview with an NPR affiliate, Lundgren was brought into a conference call with his supervisor, Sharon Papiernik, and an area director above her, Larry Chandler.
“You shouldn’t talk to the press anymore without prior approval,” Lundgren says Chandler told him. “We’re trying to protect you.”
As a regulatory scientist, Lundgren believed that discussing his research was part of his job.
Neither Papiernik nor Chandler responded to requests for interviews. A USDA spokesman said the agency would handle all responses. The spokesman said that Chandler doesn’t remember the conversation and that ARS scientists often receive guidance or approvals from supervisors and can present peer-reviewed research results but cannot speculate on policies.
A few months later, in 2014, Lundgren gave an interview to Boulder Weekly. Within two weeks, he was the subject of a misconduct investigation over his office behavior. Lundgren was cited for dancing around the office and pretending to hump a chair. He allowed two employees with the same name to differentiate themselves by “AP” and “EP,” for “average penis” and “enormous penis.” He teased one employee about being so old she dated Napoleon. He was suspended for three days.
He says he never felt anyone on his staff was uncomfortable or he’d have stopped. “I’d lay down in traffic for my employees, and they know that,” he says.
After contacting all 11 of Lundgren’s then-staff members, as identified by staff members themselves, a complicated picture emerges. Eight requested anonymity, one spoke on the record and two declined to be interviewed — one invoking a nondisclosure agreement many staffers claimed they were asked to sign; the other saying, “If other staff members are talking to you, you’ll find out what you need to know.”
Collectively, Lundgren’s staff members described the work environment as loose, sometimes juvenile, but said the whole group participated. They even collaborated on a letter to management decrying the investigation.
Lundgren says he feared they might face reprisal and declined to pass the letter to his supervisors. But a former staff member supplied a copy, along with contemporaneous emails in support of it from the two staffers who declined to be interviewed. The letter states that “what management construed as behavioral misconduct” was “not offensive to those immediately involved.”
USDA officials cannot speak on the record about personnel matters, but a spokesman said the investigation was conducted after management received a complaint from an employee in Lundgren’s lab and bore no connection to his interviews or research. The USDA spokesman also said there was no nondisclosure agreement.
As a manager, Lundgren couldn’t be represented by the union, but his staff sought out Sheila Sears Wichmann, a now-retired ARS union rep, to guide them as witnesses. “I was a union rep for 35 years,” says Wichmann. “I’ve seen sexual harassers and serial harassers, the kind of things where even I — as the union rep — would think, ‘Go on and knock his block off.’ But this, was nothing.”
Wichmann believes Lundgren was the real victim. “I don’t know why they did it,” she says, “but it seemed that they wanted to get him and were out to find some way of doing it.”
Janet Fergen, retired after 30 years at ARS and 10 years as Lundgren’s lab manager, is the one former staff member who spoke on the record. She agrees with Lundgren’s assessment that something shifted after his soybean yield study.
“There were questions from management about how the study was conducted,” she says. “That hadn’t happened before.”
She also questions the timing of the USDA’s investigation, saying the incidents they asked about had occurred “many months earlier, so if it was so serious where was the urgency?”
Lundgren says the tumult left him stunned. “At first, I couldn’t believe this was happening,” he says. “But as time went on, it seemed like anytime my work got media attention, they came after me.”
It happened again, he says, when he submitted a paper to his supervisors early last year, describing how clothianidin — another form of neonic pesticide — harms monarch butterflies. Papiernik returned the paper, asking for minor revisions. Following standard USDA-ARS procedures, Lundgren says, he made the requested changes, then submitted the paper to a scientific journal for publication. He also supplied an interview on his as-yet-unpublished results to an NPR affiliate.
Almost immediately, an ARS national program leader in pest management emailed him for more information and compared the paper to a different scientist’s discredited study. Two weeks later, Lundgren says, Papiernik came into his office “visibly angry,” questioning why he’d given the interview and telling him the paper wasn’t approved. Lundgren says he reminded her that she had reviewed the paper and requested only minor edits.
A week later, in March last year, he was in trouble again. Lundgren says he was late filing a travel request before a trip to Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., to address a group of farmers and the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, and forgot to sign the form. After his flight landed, Lundgren says he received a text from Papiernik advising him that his trip was not approved and declaring him AWOL. He was suspended for two weeks.
“Dr. Lundgren failed to seek the necessary approvals for travel, thereby violating the agency’s guidelines,” a USDA spokesman said. “He submitted an unsigned request to accept contributed travel for that meeting on the day of his departure, leaving insufficient time to ensure the travel met ethical and other agency guidelines.”
In his whistleblower complaint, Lundgren’s attorneys cite three USDA scientists who committed similar infractions without being disciplined (two took trips without having their paperwork countersigned; another filled out paperwork after the trip). A fourth scientist, Jian Duan, said in a phone interview that he forgot to fill out paperwork until after a trip but faced no penalty.
After this, Lundgren says, he became the subject of his supervisors’ unrelenting focus: investigating his grants and his use of government vehicles, reviewing his slides for a presentation and even requiring him to retract his name from an article on the adverse consequences of increased U.S. corn production because it seemed to comment on policy.
By this time, he says, he started thinking about his next steps.
Lundgren, in fact, first tried working through the USDA’s standard procedures to get his career back on track. After his first suspension, he filed a scientific integrity complaint, according to USDA-ARS procedures, alleging that his research and attempts to communicate his findings to the media had been disrupted. The USDA rejected the complaint, and after an appeal, a five-member panel convened by the agency recently confirmed that decision.
The internal report, deemed confidential by the USDA but released by Lundgren’s attorney, states that “the scientist’s written complaint did not provide credible and verifiable evidence that his research was impeded and that he was restrained from communicating with the media.”
The report cites multiple instances in which Lundgren was allowed to publish research and give interviews or travel to present his findings.
Jeff Ruch, the executive director at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility who has been representing Lundgren, says the report reveals a systemic problem inside the agency: “No witnesses named by Lundgren were interviewed,” Ruch says. “The panel was told not to even consider allegations of reprisal. And they also repeated USDA’s position that they can prohibit any scientist from talking to the media even about already published research, which completely undermines any claim of scientific freedom.”
A USDA spokesperson said: “The documents that this organization has released affirm that the referenced allegation of scientific misconduct at USDA is untrue and misleading. Both the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Agency scientific integrity officer and an independent USDA scientific integrity review panel have reviewed the allegation and found it to be unsubstantiated. The scientific integrity review panel has spoken, and we stand by their decision. We will have no further comment on this matter.”
To this point, Lundgren stands largely alone in his dispute with the government. The nine other scientists cited by Lundgren’s attorneys choose to remain anonymous because they fear reprisal, according to Ruch, head of PEER, the alliance of scientists that is representing Lundgren.
There are signs, however, that this could be changing. Data seems to be mounting suggesting that pesticides are a significant contributor to bee declines.
A recent scientific literature review conducted by researchers in the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Italy determined that pesticide exposure renders bees more susceptible to disease and increases mortality rates. Pesticides have also been linked to harming bees’ memory and navigational capabilities.
“No one would describe them as the driver,” says Lundgren, “but they are significant, and the government doesn’t seem to want to do anything about them.”
Most of the attention has focused on neonicotinoids. Entering broad use here in the late ’90s, neonics’ global share of the pesticide marketplace ballooned by 2008 to roughly 25 percent and $2.5 billion. Neonics can be implanted directly on the seed and are classified as a “systemic” insecticide because they are fully incorporated into the plant’s tissue, remaining present in pollen and nectar.
Two key studies have found that feeding neonics to bees, even in amounts so low they couldn’t be detected afterward, render them more susceptible to infection. The co-author of one of those studies, Jeffrey Pettis, is joining Lundgren in speaking out.
Pettis is a highly respected entomologist and led the USDA’s bee laboratory in Beltsville for nine years, through April 2014, when he testified before the House Agriculture Committee.
Pettis had developed what he describes as a “significant” line of research showing that neonics compromise bee immunity. But in his opening remarks before Congress, he focused on the threat posed by the varroa mite, often put forward by chemical company representatives as the main culprit behind bee deaths.
Only under questioning by subcommittee Chairman Austin Scott (R-Ga.) did Pettis shift. Even if varroa were eliminated tomorrow, he told Scott, “we’d still have a problem.” Neonics raise pesticide concerns for bees “to a new level,” he said.
About two months later, Pettis was demoted, losing all management responsibilities for the Beltsville lab.
Dave Hackenberg, a central Pennsylvania beekeeper and longtime friend of Pettis’s, says Pettis confided in him that the official reason given for his demotion — poor performance as an administrator — wasn’t the real one. The real reason was his congressional testimony.
Pettis, 61, has never provided a full public account of his side of the story. But with Hackenberg talking he decided to respond. “Dave and I talk a lot,” he said, “and I cannot be sure what I might have said to him around the time of my demotion.”
But, Pettis said, the USDA’s congressional liaison told him that the Agriculture Committee wanted him to restrict his testimony to the varroa mite. “In my naivete,” he said, “I thought there were going to be other people addressing different parts of the pie. I felt used by the whole process, used by Congress.”
The hearing was “heavily weighted toward industry,” he said, “and they tried to use me as a scientist, as a way of saying, ‘See, it’s the varroa mite,’ when that’s not how I see it.”
As for his demotion, Pettis called himself a “bad administrator.” But did he think the hearing played a role?
Pettis delivers an elliptical answer. He said he walked up to Scott afterward, to make small talk, and the congressman “said something about how I hadn’t ‘followed the script.’ ”
A spokeswoman for Scott said the congressman no longer chairs the same House agriculture subcommittee and referred questions to the committee’s professional staff. A spokesperson there declined to make anyone available for an interview.
“In my gut,” said Pettis, “I feel I pissed someone off with my testimony. Beyond that I have not felt or seen the big hand of industry saying, ‘We’re going to make you pay for this.’ I have seen more direct evidence that Congress was influenced by industry than I ever felt with regard to the USDA.”
A USDA spokesman said Pettis’s demotion was in no way linked to his research or testimony, and points to USDA studies on the varroa mite, sublethal pesticide effects and preserving genetic diversity as examples of “breakthrough studies” the agency has conducted.
Lundgren is planning a farm where he says he can demonstrate the viability of crop diversity in large-scale farming. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
The dispute hit a new low for Lundgren in July, when he finished a draft of a new paper on RNAi pesticides.
RNAi pesticides work by attaching a molecule to the target pest’s DNA, keeping specific, vital gene sequences from functioning.
Lundgren and postdoc Chrissy Mogren used computer software to mimic the action of 21 such pesticides to determine if any threaten honeybees. What they discovered is that each pesticide might bind with some section of the honeybee’s DNA. Lundgren himself describes this result as not so dramatic as it sounds. The honeybee genome is vast, and any overlap between the pesticide and the bee’s genome might prove innocuous and unrelated to survival.
Still, Lundgren thought of this research as a step to encourage further study. He also knew the data would likely spark more trouble with his bosses, so he sent the paper to seven colleagues for informal peer reviews. Five suggested relatively minor revisions, checking one of two boxes indicating the paper as “acceptable” for submission. Neil Hoffman and John Turner, both managers for the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, referred to the paper as “trivial” and didn’t check a box.
Hoffman and Turner said the paper offered no evidence of “meaningful” interactions between the pesticides and the honeybee genome. Lundgren’s supervisors made the same argument and refused him permission to submit the paper to an outside journal.
“The whole process seemed tainted to me by then,” says Lundgren. “They were suppressing science. This was a ‘proof of concept’ paper” — a pointer to areas scientists might research further — “a standard part of science.”
Greg Heck, Monsanto’s weed control platform lead, with an expertise in RNAi technologies, believes Lundgren is too alarmist about the new technology and says Monsanto is conducting tests to make sure the pesticides are harmless to bees. But, hearing what the paper contains, he said he believes submitting it for publication was appropriate. “I haven’t seen the study, but I am a firm believer in getting research out there,” he said, “because then we can discuss the results and say, ‘Hey, is any of this truly meaningful?’ ”
At this point, Lundgren started planning a lab outside USDA, with some of the people he calls his “professional family,” including a pair who worked with him when he was suspended for unbecoming conduct.
He accompanied me to the site, a half-hour jaunt from his ranch home across the flatlands and open highways of Brookings. The farm, Blue Dasher, is named after Lundgren’s favorite dragonfly species. Ecdysis is the process of molting, when an insect sheds its skin and transforms, a period of great promise and vulnerability. The symbolism is entirely conscious.
“I don’t think science can be done, at least on this subject, in any of the conventional ways,” he says. “I think we need truly independent scientists — not funded by government or industry.”
Bee declines, says Lundgren, are not difficult to understand. “Yes, the bees are in crisis, and we need to help them,” he says. “But what we have is not a bee problem. What we have is a biodiversity problem.”
U.S. corporate agriculture tends toward monoculture farming — in the simplest terms, one giant farm specializing in one crop. The two key monoculture crops are corn and soybeans. Corn alone takes up 30 percent of the country’s crop space, an area almost the size of California.
Soybean acreage is nearly as vast. The corn rootworm, the Colorado potato beetle and soybean aphids all thrive best on the crops that give them their names. And so monocultures have allowed, even caused, says Lundgren, pest populations to explode.
“We’re using all of these pesticides because we’ve created a pest problem,” Lundgren says, “and bee health is a symptom of this underlying cause.”
He says the solution is to diversify American farming. “Any other course is unsustainable,” he says. “Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides should be something we resort to, not a first option.”
Lundgren says he will use Blue Dasher to prove farmers can produce high yields, big profits and enough food by rotating crops, which will suppress pest populations naturally.
As he stands at the edge of what he hopes will be his new operations, the land spread out before him, he looks happy.
“This,” he says, “is the future.”
In November, when he accepted a civic courage award in Washington from the Shafeek Nader Trust for his stand against the USDA, he evoked the future as a talisman, a future in which bees and our food supply will no longer be under threat. This time, as if sensing skepticism, he goes on: “I really believe it,” he says. “We can do it through science.”
Steve Volk is a writer at large for Philadelphia Magazine and a contributing editor for Discover.
Editor’s note: A version of this story appears in the print magazine of March 6, 2016. After this story was printed, a five-member panel convened by USDA ruled that Lundgren’s claim has no merit. That development has been incorporated into this version.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/was-a-usda-scientist-muzzled-because-of-his-bee-research/2016/03/02/462720b6-c9fb-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html
Beekeepers lose 44 percent of colonies last year.
http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/11/honey-bee-losses/
(and there are comments at the end of the linked article)
USDA: Beekeepers Lost 44% of Honey Bee Colonies Last Year
Friends of the Earth | May 11, 2016 10:48 am |
On Tuesday the Bee Informed Partnership, in collaboration with the Apiary Inspectors of America and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), released its annual report on honey bee losses in the U.S. Beekeepers reported losing 44 percent of their total number of colonies managed over the last year—close to the highest annual loss in the past six years. These losses are considered too high to be sustainable for U.S. agriculture and the beekeeping industry.
Beekeepers reported losing 44 percent of their total number of colonies managed over the last year—close to the highest annual loss in the past six years. Photo credit: Qypchak / Wikimedia
Beekeepers reported losing 44 percent of their total number of colonies managed over the last year—close to the highest annual loss in the past six years. Photo credit: Qypchak / Wikimedia
“These honey bee losses reinforce what sciences continues to tell us; we must take immediate action to restrict pesticides contributing to bee declines,” Tiffany Finck-Haynes, food futures campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said. “The longer we wait, the worse the situation becomes. If we do not suspend neonicotinoid pesticides immediately, we risk losing our beekeepers and harming important ecosystem functions upon which our food supply depends.”
A large and growing body of science has attributed alarming bee declines to several key factors, including exposure to the world’s most widely used class of insecticides, neonicotinoids. States, cities, universities, businesses and federal agencies in the U.S. have passed measures to restrict the use of these pesticides due to delay by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). However, these pesticides are still widely used despite mounting evidence that they kill bees outright and make them more vulnerable to pests, pathogens and other stressors.
Summary of the total overwinter colony losses (October 1 – April 1) of managed honey bee colonies in the United States across nine annual national surveys. The acceptable range is the average percentage of acceptable colony losses declared by the survey participants in each year of the survey. Photo credit: Bee Informed Partnership
Summary of the total overwinter colony losses (October 1 – April 1) of managed honey bee colonies in the U.S. across nine annual national surveys. The acceptable range is the average percentage of acceptable colony losses declared by the survey participants in each year of the survey. Photo credit: Bee Informed Partnership
In April 2015, the EPA announced a moratorium on new or expanded uses of neonicotinoids while it evaluates the risks posed to pollinators. In January 2016, the EPA released its preliminary pollinator risk assessment for the neonicotinoid imidacloprid and found it poses risks to honey bees.
The EPA is primarily relying on states and tribes to develop pollinator protection plans to address pesticide use, which was an initiative started by the Pollinator Health Task Force, a group established by President Obama’s Presidential Memorandum on pollinators.
This past year, the USDA, a co-chair of the Pollinator Health Task Force, was reported to suppress and silence its own scientists for speaking to the harms of neonicotinoids and glyphosate—an herbicide that is a leading contributor to monarch decline.
“The EPA is passing the buck to states and our regulatory agencies are letting the pesticide industry pull the wool over their eyes instead of seeking solutions,” Finck-Haynes said. “The EPA, USDA and Congress must adopt a federal, unified plan that eliminates the use of systemic pesticides to protect bees and beekeepers.”