At FDA, Changes In Name Only–Agency Puts Business interests Above Safety Fri, 30 Sep 2005 The sudden resignation of FDA Commissioner, Lester Crawford, after just two months in office, has prompted a bipartisan Senate investigation and requests both by the Senate committee HELP and by congressman Maurice Hinchey (NY) and…
October 29, 2001 FYI Widely disparate perspectives are presented in an article in the Maryland Daily Record re: The Court of Appeals of Maryland decision (Gimes v Kennedy Krieger Institute, Aug 16, 2001). That 6-to-1 landmark decision severely criticized the practice of exposing healthy children to risks of harm in…
Bayh-Dole Act: The Law of Unintended Consequences – Fortune Sun, 25 Sep 2005 The author of this Infomail is Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D. Revisiting the Bayh-Dole Act (1980): Spawned Big Biotech, Now Has Opposite Debilitating Effects Today’s specter of harmful and inordinately priced drugs pressed on legislators and the…
Medicare Rx Drug Bill Shaped by Drug Industry Blocks Elderly Bargaining Power – NYT Fri, 5 Sep 2003 A drug industry lobbyist is quoted in The New York Times stating: “Having both houses of Congress Republican-controlled was great. Like in Monopoly, when you get to add hotels.” The Medicare prescription…
Merck / Johnson & Johnson/ Lilly-Zyprexa: $690 Million settlement / a Flowering of Diabetes Drugs Fri, 10 Jun 2005 A cluster of news reports about three pillars of the pharmaceutical industry– Merck, Eli Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson–leave no doubt that this industry has shown its disregard for the welfare…
Pfizer Nears Drug Settlement Sun, 16 Mar 2003 A 7-year lawsuit filed by Dr. David Franklin, the former Harvard fellow turned whistle blower, may be reaching a resolution. The suit accuses Warner Lambert (now Pfizer) of illegally promoting the epilepsy drug, Neurontin, for conditions not approved or tested. His lawsuit…
Disingenous Remarks from AMA President on Tort Reform – letter BMJ / NYT Test a Lawyer’s Ingenuity Sun, 6 Mar 2005 Responding to an article in the BMJ about President Bush’s bill to restrict class action suits for medical malpractice-http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7490/499-c – the president of the American Medical Association, Dr. John…
Anthrax Vaccine Lawsuit Filed by Military Servicemen against Pentagon Tue, 18 Mar 2003 Since 1998, nearly 500 active-duty service-members have refused the vaccine, and more than 100 have been court-martialed. Additionally, approximately 500-1000 pilots and flight crew members have quit, resigned or transferred from the Air National Guard or Reserves…
Lilly Shares Fall After BMJ Report About Prozac Documents – NYT Sat, 1 Jan 2005 The New York Times reports that Jeanne Lenzer’s investigative report in the current (Jan 1) British Medical Journal, citing Eli Lilly secret documents showing that company officials knew since 1988 that Prozac increased violent and…
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…
Bayer Documents: AIDS Tainted Blood Killed Thousands of Hemophiliacs Thu, 22 May 2003 An examination of internal Bayer company documents by The New York Times reveals that the company was engaged in unsavory, probably criminal marketing practices. The documents reveal that Bayer continued to sell contaminated blood plasma causing thousands…
Corporate Culture of Denial Results in Preventable Deaths Fri, 7 Jan 2005 Failure to disclose the hazardous effects of Vioxx and Prozac are evidence of a corporate culture that has run amok. Uncovered company documents – some obtained through litigation, others unearthed by whistleblowers – reveal that the manufacturers knew…
