Debate: When Is it Ethical / Unethical to Use Placebo? – PLoS Wed, 12 Oct 2005 A debate in PLoS Medicine addresses the question: Should researchers test an experimental treatment against placebo to prove the superiority of the new treatment? The ethical standards for research adopted by the World Medical…
Credibility Crisis:Survey FDA Scientists – Death in NIH-AIDS Trial – Tauzin Moves to PhRMA Thu, 16 Dec 2004 A credibility crisis in medical research is smoldering: like the Enron accounting scandal, the prescription-drug debacle is a matter of systemic corruption, including gross and widespread failure by the regulatory process. Unlike…
NY Times Whitewashes Ritalin Experiment in Preschool Kids Sat, 16 Nov 2002 A story in The New York Times magazine about a controversial government sponsored drug experiment avoids examining the tough issues. Instead, it describes the growing pains of an apparently normal 4 year old boy, Sam, whose parents enrolled…
Bush signed Pediatric Research Equity Act Fri, 5 Dec 2003 Bush signed the Pediatric Research Equity Act into law, ensuring additional income for the drug industry and for an army of physicians who are in the drug testing business at universities, clinics, and in private practice. This collaborative business arrangement…
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…
September 6, 2002. Dr. Arif Kahn analysis of Psych Drug Trials Reveals High Suicide risk. FYI Clinical Psychiatry News online reports (below) that an independent analysis of the suicide rate in psychotropic drug trials– for drugs approved by the FDA between 1985-2000– found that the NEW DRUGS did NOT REDUCE…
Epidemiologist Says Most Published Research Findings Are False – Psychiatrist Addresses Credibility Crisis Sat, 8 Oct 2005 An article published in PLoS Medical (an Open Access Peer Reviewed Medical Journal) by an epidemiologist who holds academic positions on both sides of the Atlantic–at the University of Ioannina (Greece) and Tufts…
Worldwide Drug Industry Ailing – PhaRMA Giants Reeling Blockbuster Drugs Found Hazardous Sat, 18 Dec 2004 Daily headlines provide confirmatory evidence supporting what critics of the drug industry have been say:ing for years. First, as The New York Times notes in one of its 4 articles about the latest “unexpected”…
Subject: Mental Health System called “Snake Pit”_Editorial WJN Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 10:06:57 -0400 A Sept 15 report by the National Council on Disability found that mental health services are in crisis nationally: “many public mental-health systems are stuck in neutral gear, content that people with psychiatric disabilities will…
War hero’s death in clinical trial follows years of FDA neglect – Bloomberg News Thu, 10 Nov 2005 Bloomberg News reports that a decorated veteran of the Vietnam war was killed in 2002, in a clinical drug trial at the FABRE Research Clinic in Houston, Texas. The FDA had found…
20% Drop in Psych Drugs Prescribed for US Children – WashPost Sat, 8 Oct 2005 The Washington Post reports (below) that prescriptions for antidepressants for children have dropped an unprecedented 20% in the US. A continuing series of substantiated reports and Black Box warnings about an increased risk of suicide,…
Presidential Panel: Mental Health System Dysfunctional Sun, 3 Nov 2002 A panel of policy experts, convened by President Bush has issued a scathing “indictment” of the nation’s mental health care system. The Commission chair, Dr. Michael Hogan, director of the Ohio Department of Mental Health, stated: “We have trapped people…
