Privacy

ZIP code changes expected in ’08 Decision to affect Thousand Oaks, neighborhoods

December 30, 2007  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">Ventura County Star (California)</p> <p>Consumer advocate Carmen Balber, from the Santa Monica-based Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights, said this illustrates a need for more openness in decision-making that affects the public. "ZIP codes do matter to people, and decisions should be made in the public interest through an open process," she said. Balber pointed out that things such as car insurance, home insurance and property prices are sometimes linked to ZIP codes.</p>

Consumer advocates align to support new patent rules

December 28, 2007  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">National Law Journa</p> <p>The groups behind the amicus are: The Public Patent Foundation, Computer & Communications Industry Association, AARP, Consumer Federation of America, Essential Action, Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge, Knowledge Ecology International, Prescription Access Litigation, Public Knowledge, Research on Innovation, and Software Freedom Law Center. </p>

Rebates for Customers Of InPhonic In Peril, Again

December 26, 2007  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p> "The company has decided to use the bankruptcy laws to avoid paying back the consumers it scammed," said Harvey Rosenfield, a lawyer with the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in Los Angeles and who is involved in the class-action lawsuit. </p>

WARF patent challengers back new patent continuation rules

December 26, 2007  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">Wisconsin Technology Network</p> <p>The groups joining in filing the Public Interest Amici brief include two groups, the Public Patent Foundation and the California-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, that have mounted a challenge to WARF's stem cell patents.</p>

Stanford, Berkeley, UCSF, Buck get nod for stem cell facility grants

December 14, 2007  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">San Francisco Business Times</p> <p>The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, based in Santa Monica, said release of the news makes a mockery of CIRM's claims of openness and transparency. "We don't know what the universities asked for," said John Simpson, the foundation's stem cell project director. "We only know what the scientific reviewers in their closed, clubby, secret meeting decided to recommend." Simpson also said the applicants should have been identified from the beginning of the process.</p>

Institutions Revealed in California Grant-Conflict Flap

December 13, 2007  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">Wired Magazine</p> <p>Critics of CIRM, including John M. Simpson, stem cell project director for the Foundation of Taxpayer and Consumer Rights of Santa Monica, California, have called for the resignation of both Klein and Reed. Reed has temporarily recused himself from CIRM activities during the state investigation. Simpson said in a news release that Klein has never understood that CIRM is a state agency. "CIRM is not a private club or foundation and cannot be run as if it were," he said.</p>

Stem cell housecleaning;

December 12, 2007  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<h3>Grants are great, but the California institute created to fund research needs to put its business in order.</h3><p class="source">Los Angeles Times</p> <p>The agency's conflict-of-interest rules clearly forbid board members from trying to influence its business with their own organizations. Worse, Reed was advised to write the letter by Robert Klein, the chairman of the governing board and the go-getter who made Proposition 71 happen. He has been under enough heat from consumer groups to know that conflicts are an inherent danger for the agency, whose 29-member governing board is made up of people who have a direct interest in gaining stem cell funding. </p>

Stem cell board member to recuse himself;

December 12, 2007  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">The San Francisco Chronicle</p> <p>The Fair Political Practices Commission is responsible for enforcing laws governing the stem cell agency, which was created by voter approval of Proposition 71 in 2004. It opened the investigation Monday in response to a complaint file by John Simpson of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a Santa Monica consumer advocacy group.</p>

Burnham official recuses himself from stem cell work in probe

December 12, 2007  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">The San Diego Union-Tribune (California)</p> <p>John Simpson of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights filed a complaint about the incident to the FPPC and asked for Reed's resignation. A week later, Chiang said he thought the commission should look into the matter.</p>

Stem cell panelist steps aside

December 12, 2007  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">Sacramento Bee (California)</p> <p>John Simpson, stem cell project director for the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, targeted Reed in a Nov. 21 complaint on the basis of documents first obtained by David Jensen, a blogger who follows the stem cell agency closely. On Aug. 2, Reed sent a seven-page letter to the agency's scientific staff urging them to revisit a decision to toss out a research grant application from a scientist affiliated with Reed's institute.</p>

Conflicts trip up state stem cell program;

December 12, 2007  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<h3>Burnham's Reed to be investigated by state commission</h3><p class="source">The North County Times (San Diego, CA)</p> <p>In a related matter, the California Fair Political Practices Commission announced Tuesday it would investigate member John Reed for allegedly improperly lobbying on a grant for the Burnham Institute in La Jolla. Reed is president and chief executive of the Burnham Institute. The commission said its investigation of Reed was prompted by a complaint from the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights -- a watchdog group.</p>

Probe of stem cell agency

December 11, 2007  ·  Consumer Watchdog

<p class="source">The Sacramento Bee</p> <p>A taxpayers group filed a complaint Nov. 21 alleging that John Reed, one of the 29 members of the stem cell agency's board, broke state conflict-of-interest law by asking agency staff to reconsider their decision to reject a $638,000 grant to a researcher at the institute he heads.</p>