Public Ranks Drug Industry at Bottom With Oil, HMOs, Tobacco – Harris Poll Thu, 8 Jul 2004 The New York Times reports: “No industry has fallen as far or as fast in public esteem in recent years as the pharmaceutical industry, according to the Harris Poll.” The American public is…
Law Suits and Court Decisions Sep 15 2005: FDA Amicus Curiae–Kallas–claims FDA infallibility pre-empts state safety laws (warning: 1.6 MB file) Aug 6 2004: Psychiatrist Scolds the APA After Winning Distinguished Fellow Award/ NYC Sues 44 Pharma Companies Aug 5: Pfizer issues prosecutors a manual to defend drug – Star…
Conflict of Interest: Profits vs Safety Congressional Investigations US Senators Pharmaceutical industry holdings, 2004: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/SenPharma.pdf Oct 12: How Did the Vioxx Debacle Happen? USA Today / Lancet Oct 4: Op Ed: Psychiatry on the Ropes–WP / Evidence-based Psychiatry Oct 3: BBC PANORAMA TONIGHT – Taken on Trust – 13 years-Medical…
FDA Failed to Enforce Law Requiring Drugmakers to Disclose Test Data – WashPost Tue, 6 Jul 2004 A front page article in The Washington Post reports that the FDA failed to enforce the law that requires drug companies to disclose ALL clinical drug trials and ALL trial findings-whether they’re good…
NYS AG Expands Pharmaceutical probe – Forest Labs Wed, 30 Jun 2004 The New York Times reports (below) that New York State Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, is broadening his legal investigation. “Mr. Spitzer said in a speech on Monday to health care lawyers that he would continue to investigate how…
Today’s (6/30/04) editorial, “Missing Drug Data,” misses the point and argues with the pharmaceutical industry and its allies in the Congress, the NIH and the FDA that data can be selectively reported to satisfy commercial interests. This is a blatant attack on Karl Popper’s falsifiability principle on which empirical science depends to make progress. One needs all the data in order to verify the results of clinical or any other kind of research. Most academics and pundits know that any case can be made if allowed to manipulate the data and assumptions. The AMA, the medical journal editors, and Eliot Spitzer, all deserve applause from the Washington Post editor-not quibbling about the possible damage that somehow, somewhere might result from strict embrace of the principles and practice of scientific inquiry. It’s all about transparency.
John H. Noble, Jr.
Scientists Decode Secret of Getting NIH Grants – WSJ Mon, 28 Jun 2004 The Secret of Getting Grants: Marketing Helps University Win $350 Million a Year, by Bernard Wysocki, a front page article in The Wall Street Journal, provides insight into an iron triangle that controls medical research. This triumvirate…
Forest Labs Admits Concealment of data – Congressional Probe Expands Sat, 26 Jun 2004 New York Times business reporter, Barry Meier, reports, “Forest officials had not told a medical journal about a failed unpublished study in 2002 of Celexa use in children and adolescents, before the journal published an article…
To: Thomas Insel MD; Tommy Thompson Re: Published NIMH Prozac Trial Report Concealed Suicide Attempts by Teens ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP) Tel. 212-595-8974 Fax: 212-595-9086 142 West End Ave. Suite 28P New York, NY 10023 Related Link: NIMH Response to AHRP Letter Board of Directors: Vera Hassner Sharav,…
Recent revelations indicate that pharmaceutical companies have selectively reported partial (favorable) clinical trial results from pediatric antidepressant trials and concealed evidence of harm from physicians, other health care professionals, and the public. It is universally agreed in the literature that failure to disclose all trial results compromises physicians’ ability to provide professional care – thereby increasing the likelihood of causing preventable harm. More generally, failure to disclose trial results in scientific publications taints the scientific literature (by rendering it not credible) and, as New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer charged recently, constitutes plain and simple fraud.
Antidepressants – USA Today Editorial / AHRP OpEd/ WSJ Editorial Bashes Spitzer Mon, 21 Jun 2004 The debate about antidepressants, concealment of clinical trial data, and failure to warn about a suicide risk, is reaching an ever broader public. An editorial in USA Today and an invited Op Ed by…
Ethics of Non-Consensual Human Experimentation – NPR Sat, 20 Mar 2004 Below is a transcript of an NPR discussion about the ethics of a non-consensual artificial blood experiment. The discussion was slanted toward proceeding with highest risk non-consensual experimentation on the basis of unproven claims. The position taken by the…
