FDA Standards – Good Enough for Government Work? Fri, 23 Sep 2005 An essay in The New England Journal of Medicine, by Jerry Avorn, M.D., professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, chalolenges FDA’s “minimalist” drug…
Research dispute prompts patient-trials debate_Seattle Times Mon, 19 May 2003 Newhouse News Service reports that the continuing dispute about the ethics and design of a multi-site lung ventilation experiment sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and conducted by the ARDSNetwork on 861 critically ill patients with…
Practice Guidelines: Can We Trustthe Evidence in Evidence-Based Medicine? Sun, 25 Sep 2005 “Research and Clinical Practice Guidelines: Can We Trust the Evidence in Evidence-Based Medicine?” is an article by Dr. John Abramson* (Harvard) and Dr. Barbara Starfeld (Distinguished Professor, Johns Hopkins), published in the Journal of the American Board…
Jeffrey Drazen editor NEJM Turns Activist on Drug Trials Thu, 26 May 2005 Journal editors, one by one are trying to retrieve the integrity of their publications, at last recognizing that the pharamaceutical industry is a corrupting factor in medical research and the information disseminated about medicine. Jeffrey Drazen who…
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…
Conflicts of Interest Rampant in Medical Research – NEJM / News Tribune (Wash) Thu, 24 Oct 2002 A Duke University survey published in The New England Journal of Medicine today, confirms the claims made by critics: clinical research at academic institutions is not governed by ethical standards–clinical research is entirely…
Evidence-based medicine? Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine Thu, 17 Mar 2005 Dr. John Abramson is a physician who spent more than twenty years as a clinician treating patients in Appalachia and Massachusetts before writing “Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine.” “When I first read of…
AHRP Letter to Editor re: ARDS published NEJM Fri, 11 Jul 2003 A truncated version of a Letter to the editor submitted by John H. Noble, Jr., PhD and Vera Sharav appears in the current July 10, 2003, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. Note: On April 3,…
“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…
Lilly's aggressive marketing of Xigris does indeed epitomize the worst ofthis industry's mission.
"Academic officials acknowledged in the published guidelines that Lilly gave more than 90 percent of $861,000 in grants for the campaign and medical recommendations. About a fifth of the 46 guidelines writers acknowledged previously taking money from Eli Lilly for speaking, consulting or research."
"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."
