Medicare Will cover New Treatments But Patients Will be Required to Enroll in Clinical Trials Fri, 5 Nov 2004 Dr. Mark McClellan, Director of Medicare, estimates that of Medicare’s $320 billion budget, “a third of all medical expenditures are for unnecessary or ill-advised treatments.” Medicare’s chief medical officer, Dr. Sean…
AHRP Speaks Out AHRP Press Briefing 9/14/04: Antidepressants & suicide-related risks for children Open Letter to NIMH re Prozac & Concealed Suicide Attempts Open Letter to Officials at NIMH AHRP Briefing 2/2/04: Scientists present suicide evidence Conflicts of Interest policy – New York Times Phase I Drug Trials Used Foster…
The Crawford Resignation Mystery Sat, 24 Sep 2005 Merrill Goozner of Center for Science in the Public Interest provides insight into what may lie behind the sudden resignation of FDA Commissioner, Lester Crawford. Goozner surggests, “One possible clue to the administration’s thinking comes from the appointment of Andrew von Eschenbach,…
Paxil induced suicides in US quantified_Glaxo Faces criminal action in UK over “suicide” pills_Times Mon, 7 Jun Law enforcement is finally catching up with drug companies who, for years, concealed evidence of a drug-related suicide risk for some children and adults who take an antidepressant. The law requires the companies…
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…
OHRP Response to AHRP re: Surrogate Consent to Research Office of the Secretary Department of Health & Human Services Office of Public Health and Science Office for Human Research Protections Rockville, Maryland E-mail: mcarome@osophs.dhhs.gov August 28, 2002 Vera Hassner Sharav President, The Alliance for Human Research Protection John H. Noble,…
Federal Study Finds No Benefit of New Antipsychotic Drugs – WashPost/Wall StreetJ/NY Times Tue, 20 Sep 2005 The findings of a $44 million government sponsored study, CATIE, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, comparing an older generic antipsychotic to four new atypical antipsychotics, undercut the legitimacy of psychiatry’s…
Bush Plans to Screen Whole US Population for Mental Illness – BMJ Thu, 24 Jun 2004 A second article in the British Medical Journal discloses additional evidence uncovered by Allen Jones, the whistle blower from the Pennsylvania Inspector General’s Office. The first BMJ article focused on the Texas Medication Algorithm…
Ethical Violations / Investigations Today Congressional Investigations Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP) Letters of Determination: http://ohrp.osophs.dhhs.gov/detrm_letrs/lindex.htm Office of Protection from Research Risks* (OPRR) List of Compliance Oversight Investigations Resulting in Restrictions or Actions to federally licensed Institutions between 1990 – 2000. *Reorganized in 2000 as OHRP Mar 30: AHRP…
FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford Resigns – AP Fri, 23 Sep 2005 The Associated Press reports that the embattled FDA commissioner, Lester Crawford, a veterenarian, who headed the agency since Marc McLellan moved over to the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, has resigned effective immediately. Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav 212-595-8974…
Prescriptions And Profit_CBS News 60 Minutes Tue, 16 Mar 2004 “Americans pay far more for their prescription drugs than citizens of any place on Earth.” That’s because “The United States is the only industrialized country without some form of control on the prices of drugs.” No wonder the U.S. accounts…
"The drugs most commonly used to soothe agitation and aggression in people with Alzheimer’s disease are no more effective than placebos for most patients, and put them at risk of serious side effects, including confusion, sleepiness and Parkinson’s disease-like symptoms, researchers are reporting
today."
