1 April 2010 The Peer Review “Fig Leaf”: Vera Hassner Sharav By SUZAN MAZUR While the chief of the US National Institute of Mental Health this week stopped short of saying scientists are corrupt because of their ties to industry, as AP reported — Vera Hassner Sharav does not…
On March 22, 2010 the FDA recommended suspension in the use of GlaxoSMithKline’s Rotarix vaccine–to prevent rotavirus (diarrhea)–due to contamination with pig virus. Rotarix, one of two vaccines licensed in the U.S , has already been given to about 1 million U.S. children along with 30 million worldwide.
A large-scale Harvard meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is the first ever to evaluate the relationship between different anticonvulsant drugs and the risk of suicide in for patients with diverse diagnoses: " the risk was derived from the specific drug that the patient was taking and not their underlying conditions."
Dr Mark Stolar, professor of clinical medicine at Northwestern: "There are very few people in whom I don’t detect bias based on where their conflicts lie.”
Unlike patients in other fields of medicine, those who are designated mentally ill–or even declared to be "at risk" for mental illness in the future–are at once stigmatized and suffer losss of their autonomy.
"OHRP shared your concerns and discussed them with the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. They appreciated the concerns and have revised the protocol to address them."
An educator with an insightful sense of humor calls psychiatry’s proclivity to designate all manner of human behavior as pathological–an affront.
Dr. Charles Schulz is scheduled to present "How to help parents of a first psychotic episode patient," at Annual APA Meeting –it is closed to public. What is it that psychiatrists and the APA do not want parents or the public to know?
"500 people would need to be treated with Crestor for a year to avoid one usually survivable heart attack. Stroke numbers were similar…At $3.50 a pill, the cost of prescribing Crestor to 500 people for a year would be $638,000 to prevent one heart attack."
"For her last month of life, Kifuji overall prescribed 835 pills to Rebecca….If what Dr. Kifuji did in this case is the acceptable standard of care for children in Massachusetts, then there is something very wrong in this state."
"For patients, navigating the debate can be difficult because doctors, patient advocacy groups and manufacturers often endorse positions that are in their economic self-interest." The New York Times
"Among all the problematic suggestions for DSM5, the proposal for a "Psychosis Risk Syndrome" stands out as the most ill–conceived and potentially harmful." Allen Frances, MD
