The Evidence base: rock of certainty or shifting sands? – BMJ Wed, 5 May 2004 Dr. John Dewhurst, has written an extraordinary article from his first-hand experience as a pharmaceutical company physician who discovered the disparity that exists between the claimed and actual evidence of drug effectiveness–and the reality-based severe,…
British Medical Journal critized for promoting drug cocktail ignoring risks Mon, 14 Jul 2003 The push toward adopting a radical cholesterol lowering strategy, including the use of statin drugs was given a shot in the arm when the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published an article– endorsed by its editor–promoting the…
Pharma’s Pervasive Influence Corrupts Medicine both sides of Atlantic Tue, 4 Oct 2005 The focus of criticism in medicine has shifted from cost and barriers to access to treatments to an examination of the safety and benefit of current treatments. The pharmaceutical industry’s corrupting influence on physicians, academic researchers, the…
Bioethics Debate: Ethics of U Penn Surgical “Drug Implant” Experiment This debate between AHRP President, Vera Sharav and Bioethicist, Paul Root Volpe, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, was prompted by an October 7 infomail. The reasons for AHRP’s opposition to drug implants for psychiatric patients are explained here: https://ahrp.org/ahrpspeaks/drugimplant1103.php —–Original Message—–…
“The scariest thing is that nobody knows” risks of depression drugs for children Mon, 10 May 2004 Forest Laboratories, manufacturer of the antidepressant, Celexa / Lexapro, is the latest manufacturer to issue warnings (April 2004) about the possibility that “patients with major depressive disorder, both adult and pediatric, may experience…
Counterpuch–The Pills Your Mother Gives You…Death, Depression and Prozac Sat, 02 Apr 2005 Alexander Cockburn, co-editor of Counterpunch, the bi-weekly muckraking newsletter that prides itself: “We have all the right enemies” takes a swipe at Prozac, Eli Lilly and its battalion of heavy hitters who have successfully shielded Prozac from…
Philadelphia Daily News Pharma Influence: Penn Psychiatrist Files Whistleblower Lawsuit – Investigtion Confirms Medicare Chief Lied to Congress Wed, 7 Jul 2004 “Drug companies not only write checks to hospitals, they write checks to politicians…They write checks to both sides of the aisle.” Two separate news reports provide a glimpse…
Human Pesticide Experiments “Allowing human experiments, such as those conducted recently in the United Kingdom, to serve as the basis for registering pesticides, is ethically indefensible.” Ken Cook, President Environmental Working Group January 8, 2003 "Should the EPA Accept Human Pesticide Experiments?", testimony by Vera Hassner Sharav before the Committee…
WSJ: Debate Over Antidepressants: FDA role in suppressing damaging data Tue, 25 May 2004 How were drug manufacturers able to conceal vital evidence of harmful antidepressant drug effects? The answer is becoming clearer by the day: federal regulators and the psychiatrists who tested these drugs in clinical trials are invested…
Published Clinical Trials Contradict Claimed Benefits – Front Page Pill Pushers Tue Aug 16, 2005 Two items from the BMJ A systemic review of 22 randomized clinical trials of Alzheimer’s disease treatments in the BMJ found the studies to have suffered from flawed methodology and to have revealed that commonly…
Statin-Cholesterol Guidelines–Industry influenced? Wed, 14 Jul 2004 Scientific journal editors are scrambling about how to react to bad publicity emanating from public disclosure that the scientific reports they have published are likely to be biased because the authors’ had financial ties to the companies whose drugs / devices they report…
Risks: Drugs / Vaccines / Trials / Treatment Evidence of antidepressant harm Oct 14, 2005: Andrew Finkelstein Letter to Dr. Russell Katz, Director, Neuropharmacological Drug Products, FDA about FDA’s Failure to Warn about Neurontin-Suicides Aug 29: FDA Response to Utah Court Must Be Truthful Re: Zoloft / SSRI Suicidal Risks…
