’91 Merck Memo Warned of Mercury in Baby Vaccines – LAT Tue, 8 Feb 2005 The Los Angeles Times reports that a 1991 internal Merck memo obtained from a whistleblower by James Moody, a Washington lawyer who works with parent groups on vaccine safety issues, provides the “first hard evidence…
Advisory Committee tells FDA: strengthen warnings on SSRI drug labels now Wed, 4 Feb 2004 On February 2, more than 60 families and children from all across America testified at a public FDA advisory committee hearing describing (in 2 minutes) how their children suffered drug-induced harm after being prescribed an…
10 of 32 FDA Vioxx Panelists Had Industry Ties_NYT / Cozy NIH Review “Clears” NIH Industry Ties_WashPost Fri, 25 Feb 2005 The latest example of the corrupting influence of the pharmaceutical industry on health care policy is the composition of FDA’s advisory panel that last week endorsed the marketing of…
Time for a Drug Test Registry_Marcia Angell_Why NIH is Not Up to the Task Fri, 13 Aug 2004 The uncovering of concealed, unpublished evidence showing that children suffered harm in antidepressant drug trials, has led to a rude public awakening. Selective reporting of clinical trial data has become “standard practice”…
Unhealthy Ethics? The Price of NIH Credibility_ Editorials: WashPost / Los Angeles Times Mon, 11 Apr 2005 Compare and contrast two editorials that focus on the new conflict of interest rules that were adopted by Dr. Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, to rein in the corrupting…
Are we all going mad, or are the experts crazy? / Are psychiatric drugs an assault on the human condition? Fri, 19 Aug 2005 Below, two companion pieces: An Op Ed in the Los Angeles Times, by Stuart Kirk, a professor of social welfare at UCLA, addresses psychiatry’s conundum: the…
NIH AIDS Research Chief Rewrote Safety Report – AP Wed, 15 Dec 2004 John Solomon of The Associated Press continues his documented expose of the inner workings of the AIDS Division of theNational Institutes of Health (NIH). At the same time that the Los Angeles Times and Congfressional hearings focused…
Merck Baby Vaccines Not Pure – LAT/ FDA Advisory-Crestor / Zyprexa Lawsuit charges Lilly concealed Diabetes risk Fri, 11 Mar 2005 The FDA’s failure to carry out its watchdog responsibility to protect the public from unsafe drugs, has encouraged the pharmaceutical industry to conceal the risks and deceive the public….
NIH: Public Servant or Private Marketer? Wed, 22 Dec 2004 David Willman of the Los Angeles Times provides an important reminder that the FDA is not the only government healthcare agency to have betrayed the public trust and lost its credibility. While the FDA has lent its seal of approval…
Ritalin: Chromosome Abnormalities Occured in All 12 Children / High school prescription drug abuse Fri, 11 Mar 2005 Parents and public health policy makers have cause for concern about the finding of a study conducted at the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center. WebMD reports that all 12 children…
NIH Under Fire: Longtime Favorite of Congress – Wash Post / WSJ Sun, 27 Jun 2004 Under fire from Congress with evidence of NIH staff engaging in secret outside contracts and consultancies, NIH Director, Dr. Elias Zerhouni, turned a corner. He acknowledged the problem at a hearing (June 22) of…
Alliance for Human Research Protection in the Press Feb 17, 2005: FDA Critics Slam Plan for Safety Reform – Nature “This is smoke and mirrors and musical chairs,” says Vera Sharav, president of the New York-based Alliance for Human Research Protection. “They will be using the very same officials that…
