Jayson Blair, reporter fired from NY Times, helped PhRMA scare consumers . . . Sun, 23 Oct 2005 Below Peter Rost, V-P of Marketing at Pfizer who has turned whistleblower on the pharmaceutical industry sent us the most amazing example of this industry’s loathsome underhanded tactics aimed at scaring the…
Ethics / Science of ARDS Controversy Continues – J Medical Ethics-BMJ Thu, 6 Oct 2005 The ethics and science of a controversial clinical trial sponsored by the US government and conducted at multiple sites by the ARDS Network comprising of prestigious academic medical centers is the subject of a continuing…
FDA May Require Longer Studies Before Approving Psych Drugs – WSJ Tue, 18 Oct 2005 The Wall Street Journal reports that the FDA has sent out feelers to drug manufacturers to provide “longer-term efficacy data” for psychotropic drugs. This comes after a mountain of evidence shows placebo “works” just as…
SAMHSA Backs Away From TeenScreen & TMAP Mon, 24 Oct 2005 On October 17, a meeting took place with Charles Currie in Washington DC – with some in attendance by conference call. Currie is the Administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the federal agency charged…
Is Tamiflu worth it? Thu, 27 Oct 2005 Many knowledgable experts in pharmacology have expressed dismay over the hysteria mounting for Tamiflu, a drug that has shown to be only marginally effective at best in reducing ther number of days one experinces flu symptoms. In elderly patients who are at…
A Disease for Every Pill – FDA Hearing Drug Advertising Wed, 5 Oct 2005 The FDA has called for a public hearing to address direct to consumer drug advertising. Hearing Date: November 1 and 2, 2005 Hearing Name: Direct-To-Consumer Promotion Location: National Transportation Safety Board Boardroom and Conference Center 429…
UK: ADHD advice secretly paid for by drugs companies Sun, 09 Oct 2005 The phenomenal marketing of ADHD in the US is credited mainly to the combined effort of CHADD, a family “advocacy” group and manufacturers of drugs prescribed for ADHD which fund CHADD. They are: Novartis (Ritalin), Shire (Adderral),…
Rutherford Institute Interview: Allen Jones reveals TMAP drug scam linked to then Governor George W. Bush Fri, 14 Oct 2005 An in-depth interview by John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute with Allen Jones,*a former inspector with the Pennsyvania Office of Inspector General, who initially blew the whistle on Pennsylvania’s version…
Epidemiologist Says Most Published Research Findings Are False – Psychiatrist Addresses Credibility Crisis Sat, 8 Oct 2005 An article published in PLoS Medical (an Open Access Peer Reviewed Medical Journal) by an epidemiologist who holds academic positions on both sides of the Atlantic–at the University of Ioannina (Greece) and Tufts…
Former FDA Commissioner says FDA lost public trust Mon, 17 Oct 2005 The FDA’s failure to ensure drugs are properly tested in trials designed to detect serious adverse effects, and the agency’s failure to require follow-up post-marketing studies to be reasonably secure in the knowledge that no lethal drugs are unleashed on the public has…
Psychiatry’s Claims Re: Brain Imaging Have Far Outpaced Science – NYT Tue, 18 Oct 2005 A front page report in The New York Times Science section pulls the rug out from yet another of psychiatry’s myths. Benedict Carey reports: “Not long ago, scientists predicted that these images, produced by sophisticated…
Debate: When Is it Ethical / Unethical to Use Placebo? – PLoS Wed, 12 Oct 2005 A debate in PLoS Medicine addresses the question: Should researchers test an experimental treatment against placebo to prove the superiority of the new treatment? The ethical standards for research adopted by the World Medical…
