Update: 19 year old volunteer suicided in Eili Lilly laboratory Wed, 11 Feb 2004 Traci Johnson, a native of Bensalem, Pa., committed suicide while a subject of an Eli Lilly drug experiment. She was one of about 25 “healthy volunteers” who had been physically and psychologically screened before the test…
GlaxoSmithKline CEO: “We had to absorb a number of hits” Mon, 16 Feb 2004 Antidepressant drug safety issues are beginning to have a financial impact. Dow Jones reports: “GlaxoSmithKline PLC said its net income fell 6% in the fourth quarter, hurt by previously announced legal costs related to its anti-inflammatory…
Antidepressant Use in Children Soars Despite Efficacy Doubts – Washington Post Mon, 19 Apr 2004 A front page article by Shankar Vedantam in The Washington Post examines the soaring increase in the antidepressant drug prescriptions for children, noting: “The explosion in antidepressant use occurred even though the vast majority of…
What’s in a Warning? Antidepressants and Risk of Suicide – FindLaw Thu, 22 Apr 2004 Contrary to the published reports in the peer-reviewed journals, the preponderance of evidence demonstrates that antidepressants pose a greater risk than a benefit for children. *[References below] Informed medical treatment decisions hinge on the decision…
Recycled drugs: failed antidepressants– Stratera marketed for ADHD; Cymbalta for incontinence Mon, 26 Apr 2004 A front page article in The Wall Street Journal (excerpt below) provides a roadmap of failed Eli Lilly drugs which the company repackaged for a different condition than the one for which the drugs had…
Meta-Analysis: Efficacy & Safety of Antidepressants for Children – Brit Medical Journal Sat, 10 Apr 2004 As news of skyrocketing prescribing of antidepressants for children–especially in preschool children–hit the news waves around the world, a major meta-analysis of the 5 published pediatric antidepressant studies was published in the British Medical…
NYU Students Drugged – NY Post Mon, 19 Apr 2004 Following three suicides by students at New York University (in Sept-October 2003), the University conducted an investigation of the NYU Student Counseling Services. The New York Post reports that an internal 116-page report (December 2003) reveals that whereas drugs were…
Int’l Registration of Clinical Research WHO Tue, 6 Apr 2004 On April 3, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Current Controlled Trials, Ltd (based in London, Philadelphia and Tokyo) announced that all randomized controlled clinical trials approved by the WHO ethics committee will be registered in a unique international registry…
An Open Letter to Officials of the National Institute of Mental Health Fri, 30 Apr 2004 ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP) Promoting openness and full disclosure https://ahrp.org From: Vera Hassner Sharav, President David Cohen, Ph.D. Secretary The ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP) To: Thomas Insell, MD,…
Doctors Without Borders: Why you can’t trust medical journals anymore Tue, 13 Apr 2004 Related link: Hear an interview with Shannon Brownlee on NPR at: http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1874563 Doctors Without Borders in the Washington Monthly (excerpt below), looks at the intricate web of collaborating players in medicine who are financially tied one…
NIH Rule change Re: Whistle blowers – Comments due before June 15 Mon, 19 Apr 2004 Dear friends and colleagues, A request for comment about NIH proposed new research misconduct rule See Fed Register: http://ori.dhhs.gov/multimedia/acrobat/42CFRParts50and93.pdf The new rule, I believe is meant to protect research institutions from the effective sting…
Data from Unpublished Trials Suggest that Most SSRI Antidepressant Drugs Unsuitable for Children Wed, 21 Apr 2004 An independent analysis in next week’s The Lancet compares the published and unpublished data of pediatric SSRI antidepressant clinical trial data, finding the published reports not to be evidence-based. “In a global medical…
