Jonnie Williams got pretty much nothing in return for all his gifts. McDonnell didn’t give him any unfair privileges. I’m thinking not guilty or something light. But you never know juries anymore.
Agreed.
We really aren’t a nation of laws anymore.
You’re absolutely right. I’m very close to this case, in a manner of speaking. McDonnell really had nothing to do with what was driving Star’s revenues. I personally had something to do with it, and I only met Maureen in passing once and never received any support or benefits from the ex-governor or his wife.
The whole scandal has caused Star to put under the microscope though and the FDA has recently stepped in to stop the sale of their product, claiming that they were making claims about what their product could do based on my research prior to human clinical trials. As far as I can tell their press releases really only reiterated what I found but with all the usual legal CYA disclaimers, but the FDA deemed it not good enough. Basically the fix was in once the scandal broke.
I can’t say this with my name attached to it, but just anonymously let me say that the whole thing smells funny. I’ve been thinking for a while now that this whole scandal is really aimed at keeping this compound I’m testing from being brought to clinical trials and application. I’ve done the research on it myself and I’ve seen other experiments my colleagues are doing, and it shows tremendous promise at treating a number of inflammation-related conditions. This may sound crazy, but there is currently a strong movement underway to get rid of American football.
I’ve seen the conversations going on in the head injury research field behind closed doors for years now, but it’s starting to come up to the surface, and the general direction of the field is simply to show “how bad” playing football is for the brain. Many of these researchers are quietly hoping that their research will completely eradicate the sport in their lifetime. Meanwhile the lawyers are salivating at the prospect of huge lawsuits, that part is already underway. There’s a lot of money to be had here by both the scientists and the lawyers, and none of them want to see something come to light that could dramatically reduce the effects of repetitive head hits. Maybe it’s a bit too conspiratorial sounding, but I think there’s more to this case than just throwing tar on a republican governor.