Just Say No – Forbes Tue, 16 Nov 2004 When Mrs. Nancy Reagan coined the phrase, Just Say No, she was referring to illicit drug pushers. The current Forbes cover story–Just Say No–refers to the prescription drug industry. "In a perverse kind of symbiosis, the cascade of disease and medical…
FDA Is Flexing Less Muscle where Safety is the Issue – Wash Post Thu, 18 Nov 2004 The Washington Post examines FDA’s record of surveillance and the evidence is clear: since 1992 when Congress required drug companies to pay users fees to the FDA, the agency’s focus changed from safety…
FDA’s Double Standard Re: Advisory Committee Membership Mon, 15 Nov 2004 FDA’s inexplicable actions–the latest being the removal of Dr. Curt Furberg from an FDA advisory committee for alleged "intellectual conflict of interest" – demonstrate hypocracy and intellectual dishonesty. Dr. Furberg independently analyzed the scientific data, concluding: "The result is…
Pfizer Must Hand Over Documents in Pitman Case Sat, 4 Dec 2004 A federal judge in Charlotte North Carolina rejected Pfizer’s arguments and ordered the company to hand over the concealed documents sought by defense counsels in the criminal case against Christopher Pitman, a teenager who, at the age of…
FDA Foot Dragging – Three Months After Expert Panel Urged “Black Box” Warnings for Antidepressants, No Action Thu, 23 Dec 2004 Why is the FDA failing to enforce the "Black Box" warnings on SSRI antidepressant drug labels? When questioned by the NJ Star Ledger, Robert Temple, director of the FDA’s…
Elliott Spitzer walks away from prosecuting coporate crimes Sat, 25 Dec 2004 “After nearly three years of high-profile prosecutions of investment banks, mutual funds and insurance companies, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of New York said yesterday that he is ready to cede those investigations to federal regulators.” Whatever Eliot Spitzer…
NIH: Public Servant or Private Marketer? Wed, 22 Dec 2004 David Willman of the Los Angeles Times provides an important reminder that the FDA is not the only government healthcare agency to have betrayed the public trust and lost its credibility. While the FDA has lent its seal of approval…
Calls Mounting for FDA Revamp / Americans Are the most medicated population in the world – DHHS Sun, 26 Dec 2004 A government survey by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, confirms that Americans are the most medicated population in the world – 44 percent of Americans had…
Boston Scientific Sold Defective Stints Amid Alarming Data / 22% Medical Device Follow-up Not Done – Boston Globe Mon, 27 Dec 2004 Two reports in The Boston Globe raise concern defective medical devices – including cardiac stents, pacemakers and other medical devices–are proliferating the marketplace before their safety has been…
AP Exclusive: Top US Officials at NIH Knew of AIDS Drug Risks and Failed to Inform White House Mon, 13 Dec 2004 The Associated Press reports: "Less than a month after Bush announced a $500 million plan to push nevirapine across Africa to slow the AIDS epidemic, the Health and…
Doctor Tells Pfizer Sales Rep who promoted Celebrex: “Have You No Shame?” Sun, 26 Dec 2004 An opinion piece by Dr. Marc Siegel, an internist and professor at New York University School of Medicine, expresses the anger and dismay many physicians in the US feel about having been misled by…
FDA to review “missing” drug company documents Fri, 31 Dec 2004 Related Link: Peter Breggin, MD RE: Eli Lilly’s Contentions that the BMJ Prozac Documents were Never Missing and Have No Significance In the final hours of 2004, an investigative reporter for the British Medical Journal obtained long “missing” Eli…
