Subject: Fwd: Podesta/Wyss
From: Cheryl Mills <[email-masked]>
To: John Podesta <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 11:12:54 -0400

fysa

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Heather Samuelson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 10:27 AM
Subject: Podesta/Wyss
To: Cheryl Mills <[email-masked]>,

 I happened to come across this yesterday.   Wanted to share in case you
missed it last month.   A couple other similar outlets, such as Free
Beacon, picked it up too.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/three-people-died-in-illegal-human-experiments-carried-out-by-john-podesta-backers-firm/article/2551139

 Three
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/three-people-died-in-illegal-human-experiments-carried-out-by-john-podesta-backers-firm/article/2551139>
people died in illegal human experiments carried out by John Podesta
backer's firm
 BY RICHARD POLLOCK <http://washingtonexaminer.com/author/richard-pollock>
<https://plus.google.com/115638159795051915448?rel=author> | JULY 23, 2014
| 5:00 AM
  TOPICS: WATCHDOG <http://washingtonexaminer.com/watchdog> BARACK OBAMA
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/barack-obama> CENTER FOR AMERICAN
PROGRESS
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/center-for-american-progress> FDA
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/fda> ACCOUNTABILITY
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/watchdog/accountability> JOHN PODESTA
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/john-podesta>

John Podesta <http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/john-podesta>, one
of President
Obama <http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/barack-obama>'s closest White
House advisers, counts among his key financial supporters Hansjorg Wyss, a
reclusive Swiss billionaire whose company conducted illegal human
experiments that resulted in the deaths of three elderly patients.

Justice Department
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/justice-department> attorneys negotiated
a $23.8 million plea deal
<http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/CriminalInvestigations/ucm228273.htm> in 2011
with Synthes Inc., and Norian Corporation, its wholly owned subsidiary, and
sent four of its U.S. executives to prison. The money was paid to the
federal government.

Two of the victims died in a California
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/california> hospital and the third
perished in a Texas <http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/texas> medical
facility. One of the California victims was Ryoichi Kikuchi, 83, who died
on the operating table at John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek on Sept. 19,
2009.

He was a prize-winning physicist who analyzed the thermodynamic behavior of
liquids and gases and worked at scientific centers at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley, the Max
Planck Institute in Germany <http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/germany> and
the National Bureau of Standards.

The federal judge who heard the case said the company's "pattern of
deception is unparalleled."

Synthes was a Swiss medical device firm with U.S. corporate offices in West
Chester, Pa. Wyss opened the U.S. office in 1974 and was CEO until the
company was bought by Johnson & Johnson in 2012 for $21.3 billion.

The *Washington Examine*r asked a White House spokesman whether the
president was aware of Podesta's relationship with Wyss or of the three
deaths when Podesta was invited to join the chief executive's inner circle.
The spokesman declined to respond.

Podesta, who was White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/bill-clinton>, and Wyss have been
financially linked for years. Among the Swiss billionaire's largest gifts
in recent years have been those made to the Center for American Progress
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/center-for-american-progress>.

CAP received $4.1 million from Wyss during Podesta's tenure as the liberal
nonprofit's founding president and chief executive officer. A CAP spokesman
declined to respond to the *Examiner*'s request for information about the
Podesta-Wyss relationship.

The HJW Foundation, which is Wyss's private foundation, hired Podesta in
2013 as a paid consultant, for which he was paid $87,000 that year,
according to the presidential counselor's financial disclosure statement.

A HJW spokesman declined to respond to the *Examiner*'s questions about the
kind of work Podesta performed for the fee.

Wyss has a seat on CAP's 10-member board of directors, which also includes
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; former Senate Majority Leader
Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; and Carol Browner, Obama's first energy czar and
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/epa>under Clinton.

Podesta's think tank is the fourth-largest recipient of Wyss money among 27
liberal nonprofit activist groups the Swiss billionaire has supported since
2008, according to the HJW Foundation'sInternal Revenue Service
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/irs> tax returns.

The IRS 990 tax returns for all of the groups can be reviewed via the
Examiner's Citizen Audit database.
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/data/citizen-audit>

CAP itself was the largest single recipient of HJW contributions in 2011
and 2012, according to the foundation's IRS filling.

Wyss and other Synthes executives decided to enter the highly profitable
field of spinal surgery in 2000 with Norian XR, a cement-like mixture of
calcium phosphate with barium sulfate.

Company managers claimed the compound could act like bone when injected in
the spine in a procedure called "vertebrosplasty."

Federal prosecutors noted that at the time there was "excitement about
using Norian for vertebroplasties" at Synthes, even though the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration <http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/fda> had not
approved its use on the spine. FDA approval could take at least three years.

Company managers, however, decided not to seek FDA approval for Norian XR
on the spine. Instead, they conducted unauthorized human experiments over a
four-year period that included the three deaths.

FDA officials got wind of the deadly experiments and dispatched Capt.
Joseph Despins in May 2004 to conduct an unannounced inspection, which kept
him at the company until June 18.

Despins' findings subsequently became the basis for a federal indictment of
the company
<http://www.justice.gov/usao/pae/News/2009/jun/synthesrelease.pdf>, its
subsidiary and four of its officers, which was filed June 16, 2009.

U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis said during a 2011 sentencing hearing
following the plea agreement that the two firms ran "rogue clinical
trials," conducted "illegal training of spine surgeons" and "in search of
profits, chose not to tell the FDA the truth."

He also said they "did not stop the testing until three elderly patients
had died on the operating table over the period of a year. ... This pattern
of deception is unparalleled."

Four Synthes executives went to jail, each for varying terms of less than
one year, in the plea agreement. They admitted their company had
feloniously conspired "to defraud the United States" in an effort "to
impair and impede the lawful functions of the Food and Drug Administration."

Wyss was not named in the indictment but was referred to as "Person No. 7"
and the "CEO and a major stockholder of Synthes." Wyss was CEO and major
stockholder at the time of the indictment and the experiments.

Wyss, who now lives in Wyoming
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/wyoming>, is a major donor to scores
of liberal groups in this country, with his contributions estimated to
total more than $110 million, according to the HJW Foundation's tax filings
with the IRS since 2008.

The Swiss Broadcasting Corp. reported last year that Wyss was the
second-richest person inSwitzerland
<http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/switzerland>. He is the 112th
wealthiest man in the world, with a net worth estimated at $11.2 billion by
Forbes magazine.

Despite his relationship with Podesta and active role in funding liberal
political activism, Wyss is not well known to the American public.

In fact, George Soros <http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/george-soros>,
the high-profile financial supporter of many liberal groups, has given less
to CAP than Wyss.

Wyss told a Swiss newspaper in a rare interview in 2011 that "nobody knows
me, and I hope that it stays like this," according to Fortune.

But federal court documents paint a graphic description of his firm's
brazen decision to ignore the FDA's drug approval procedures, which are
intended to assure patient safety.

The FDA had previously approved another Synthes-produced substance for use
in treating injured bones in the arm.

But in order for XR to be used in spinal cases, the company had to complete
the government's Investigational Device Exemption process.

Regardless of whether the company pursued the IDE process, however, the FDA
required Synthes to include a warning label on the XR compound's container
stating it was "not intended for the treatment of vertebral compression
fractures."

Wyss and his subordinates decided during a Nov. 15, 2001, meeting to forgo
the IDE process and to proceed with the unauthorized human experiments,
according to the indictment.

"Person No. 7 decided that Synthes would not pursue an IDE study," the
indictment said, referring directly to Wyss. The meeting minutes noted the
CEO and his subordinates ordered 60-80 test procedures without FDA approval.

In a pre-sentencing report, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Crawley described
Wyss's role: "After this [November] meeting Wyss, the CEO and major
shareholder of Synthes, directed that Synthes would not pursue FDA approval
of Norian XR via an IDE," but "would press on with a 'test market'" with
surgeons.

Crawley also said the Synthes test market programs "were not slow or
cautious, or careful, or motivated by patient safety."

Davis said at a Dec. 13, 2011, sentencing hearing for Michael D. Huggins,
one of the convicted Synthes executives, that "the safer and lawful
approval route was expressly rejected."

"One of the most offensive things was the little piddly sentence they got
for this," complained Eva Sloan, whose elderly mother, Lois Eskind, died
during an XR experiment, according to Fortune.

Sloan filed a separate wrongful death lawsuit against the company in 2012
that charged "willful, wanton, malicious and reckless misconduct."

The four executives "could have gone to 7-Eleven and stolen a six-pack of
beer and got more time," she said.

Sloan's lawsuit was settled out of court. Laura Feld, Sloan's attorney,
said she could not comment because the settlement included a
confidentiality agreement.

Defense attorney Brent J. Gurney told Davis at a sentencing hearing he
thought Wyss was the missing person at the table.

"There is another person who is not present in this process," he said while
representing former Synthes executive Richard E. Bohner, "and that is the
former chairman, CEO, controlling shareholder of the company, Mr. Wyss."

Gurney, a former U.S. attorney, said, "Mr. Wyss was a highly involved owner
of Synthes. The record shows that at the very beginning, it was he who made
some of the very critical decisions that put the company on its ultimate
pathway."