“The Drug Trial That Went Wrong” is an investigative report by Chanel 4 (UK) about the circumstances surrounding the near fatal drug trial testing the safety of TGN1412, a monoclonal antibody drug, conducted in March 2006 at London’s Northwick Park Hospital. [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/5377226.stm It airs momorrow.
"As long as we continue to manipulate biology in new ways, we probably cannot prevent all such events from occurring. We must do what we can to minimize risk, but the future health of the world population demands that we not let adverse events put an end to medical progress."
A study published in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found that advanced chemotherapy put patients at far greater
risks of harm than adverse effect reports from clinical trial data reveal.
A Boston Globe report (below) focuses on three recent reports in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) by Harvard researchers who violated the journal’s disclosure policy by failing to disclose their financial ties to companies that had the most to gain from their purported findings.
The harm done by journals’ failure to protect the integrity of science can hardly be overstated.
The law firm of Baum Hedlund filed a lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of the antidepressant, Paxil, for causing severe heart defects in the newborn son, of a woman prescribed Paxil during her pregnancy.
Following on the heels of an investigative report by David Armstrong of The Wall Street Journal <https://ahrp.stagenoises.ch/cms/content/view/286/27/> the Associated Press reports that JAMA claims it was misled.
Three essays provide an overview of the bias that has debased the integrity of medical research literature while increasing the hazards of medical practice–for patients and doctors who are kept in the dark about prescribed treatment dangers.
Two probing first rate investigative reports document how psychiatry’s treatments are shaped by "opinion leaders" whose professional recommendations are compromised by their substantial, largely undisclosed, financial ties to drug companies.
An investigative report in Mercury News (below) focuses on Stanford University department heads, associate deans and other leaders because “these are senior people who set the tone at the medical school and are role models for junior faculty members.”
"Drug companies should not be allowed to evaluate their own products."
Once again, the New England Journal of Medicine (July 13, 2006) has had to eat crow after it published false and misleading clinical trial findings.
