Unreported Paxil suicides: company abandons “No Addiction” claim Sat, 10 May 2003 GlaxoSmithKline, Britain’s biggest pharmaceutical company will change the label in the UK to reflect the severe withdrawal that its antidepressant drug, Seroxat (Paxil in US) generates in many patients. In Britain, the package label will no longer claim…
Research dispute prompts patient-trials debate_Seattle Times Mon, 19 May 2003 Newhouse News Service reports that the continuing dispute about the ethics and design of a multi-site lung ventilation experiment sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and conducted by the ARDSNetwork on 861 critically ill patients with…
New Fears Re: Smallpox Vaccine Thu, 8 May 2003 The smallpox vaccine may be even more dangerous than anyone thought. Severe adverse effects are mounting. Four civilian deaths are being investigated. The sudden death of David Bloom, NBC’s correspondent in Iraq, who died of a blood clot, is now being…
Suffer the Little Children in the Research for Cures_USA Today Thu, 29 May 2003 USA Today focuses on safety issues affecting children who are being sought as human guinea pigs by the thousands. They are being recruited clinical trials to test new drugs– whose safety is unproven. “Was the death…
Hormone Replacement Raises Dementia Risk in Women_NYT Wed, 28 May 2003 The false premises that for 50 years had guided gynecologists to prescribe hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for menopausal women is the most compelling case demonstrating the health hazards that follow when medical practice comes under influence of the drug…
Leading Antipsychotic Drugs Come Under New Scrutiny – NYT Tuesday, May 20, 2003 A front page article in The New York Times reveals that the pillars of American psychiatry–including Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, Dr. John Kane, Dr. William Carpenter–are acknowledging that evidence is lacking to support the claims that the new…
Oral arguments in Anthrax vaccine lawsuit Wed, 21 May 2003 The Washington Times reports tht the Department of Defense (DOD) is being challenged in federal court about its anthrax vaccine policy. A pregnant service woman who was forced to be vaccinated with the anthrax vaccine–despite the risk of its causing…
Trial Lawyers Are Taking Aim at the Drug Industry_NYT Sun, 18 May 2003 It appears that trial lawyers will produce the results that government oversight agencies–in particular, the FDA–have failed to do. Namely, to protect the public against an increasing number of unsafe drugs. The pharmaceutical industry whose efforts to…
FDA Warning Letter: child died from overdose during clinical trial Monday, May 05, 2003 The FDA’s letter of warning to Jacqueline M. Halton, M.D. Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, a participating investigator in a National Cancer Institute pediatric trial describes multiple safety violations–including massive overdoses–that led to the death of…
BBC Panorama: Unprecedented public response to evidence of SSRI drug harm Wed, 21 May 2003 In a stunning follow up to its investigative report, The Secret of Seroxat, aired October 13, 2002, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) featured the public responses to its earlier program as the focus of its…
MedicAlert lifeline lent to patients in drug trials Thu, 1 May 2003 The Modesto Bee reports that MedicAlert Foundation International which maintains an electronic database of its members’ medical records which are accessible in to treating physicians and paramedics in emergencies, is venturing into the clinical drug trial arena. The…
Auditing Standards in Accounting and Medicine Wed, 4 Jun 2003 “Those financial calamities made it brutally clear that the present audit standards and practices are severely deficient, since the failing enterprises had managed to issue misleading financial reports that nevertheless were attested to and blessed at the time by “see…
