Lies & Broken Promises_Drug firm Websites Fail to Disclose Test Data Sun, 9 Jan 2005 One year after PhRMA’s publicized proclamation of its “commitment to transparency” The Boston Globe reviewed pharmaceutical company websites searching for disclosure of clinical trial data. The Globe found that this voluntary approach failed miserably: “Last…
THE ALIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP) 142 West End Avenue, Suite 28P New York, NY 10023 www.ahrp.org FDA Docket Number 02N-0466 Comments re: Proposed smallpox vaccine trial to test the safety of Dryvax administration to children 2 to 5 years of age Recent public and professional debate about smallpox…
“Black Hole” of medical research–Negative Results Don’t get Published – JAMA, WSJ Sat, 5 Jun 2004 “No one likes bad news. But in science, there is an ethical imperative to publish research, even if the findings aren’t what the researcher had hoped for.” The New York Times, which tends to…
Minnesota initiative: Compulsory newborn congenital testing Mon, 24 Mar 2003 The Minnesota House Health and Human Services Policy Committee will vote tomorrow on a law requiring the screening of every newborn baby to ascertain who may have a congenital disorder. It is important to note that this “public health” initiative…
NIH: Public Servant or Private Marketer? NIH Seeks Outside Inquiry of Alzheimer’s researcher conflicts of interest – LAT Mon, 31 Jan 2005 A year after the Los Angeles Times published its first an in-depth investigative report documenting in detail evidence of major conflicts of interest by top scientists at the…
Public Comments: Dr. William J. Bicknell, Professor of International Health, Boston University Dear Dr. Ball: I am submitting these comments in reference to the announcement published in the Federal Register, Vol. 67, No. 211, Thursday, October 31, 2002 regarding the Solicitation of Public Review and Comment on Research Protocol: A…
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…
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…
ADHD drug – Cylert withdrawn from market due to Liver Toxicity, a Major Risk of Psychotropic Drugs Tue, October 25, 2005 The FDA announced that another drug prescribed for ADHD–Cylert–was removed from the US market for safety reasons. On September 25, 2005, the Associated Press reported: “Eli Lilly said it…
Randomized Controlled Trials: Evidence Biased Psychiatry By David Healy, MD MRCPsych Introduction A new drug gets introduced to the market. It has been approved after stringent scrutiny by the FDA, which requires ever more convincing evidence that it works and that its safe. The new treatment will always cost more…
How Did the Vioxx Debacle Happen? USA Today / Lancet Tue, 12 Oct 2004 Dr. Eric Topol of the Cleveland Clinic: “The senior executives at Merck and the leadership at the FDA share responsibility for not having taken appropriate action and not recognizing that they are accountable for the public…
Harvard Study: Multivitamins Effective in Thwarting AIDS progress Thu, 1 Jul 2004 A report in the New England Journal of Medicine may be the first serious challenge to the current accepted treatment of people infected with the HIV-virus. Those expensive and toxic cocktails of AIDS drugs may not be the…
