British Medical Journal: Something is rotten at the heart of FDA / Glaxo faces class action suit

British Medical Journal: Something is rotten at the heart of FDA / Glaxo faces class action suit Sun, 5 Dec 2004 “Something is rotten at the heart of the FDA.” That’s the opening of an editorial in the British Medical Journal. [1] Indeed, there is something rotten at the heart…

"Black Hole" of medical research–Negative Results Don’t get Published – JAMA, WSJ

“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…

BBC PANORAMA TONIGHT – Taken on Trust – 13 years-Medical Deception

BBC PANORAMA TONIGHT – Taken on Trust – 13 years-Medical Deception Sun, 3 Oct 2004 BBC-Panorama is airing its third in a series of investigative reports about the betrayal of trust in psychiatry, drug manufacturers and government regulators. The first program, The Secret of Seroxat, aired October 13, 2002, revealed…

Unreported Paxil suicides: company abandons "No Addiction" claim

Unreported Paxil suicides: company abandons “No Addiction” claim Sat, 10 May 2003 GlaxoSmithKline, Britain’s biggest pharmaceutical company will change the label in the UK to reflect the severe withdrawal that its antidepressant drug, Seroxat (Paxil in US) generates in many patients. In Britain, the package label will no longer claim…

Don’t Medicate Away Student Angst – Chronicle Higher Ed

Don’t Medicate Away Student Angst – Chronicle Higher Ed Sun, 15 Jun 2003 The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a superb essay by Joli Jensen, a professor of communications from the University of Tulsa. Jensen recognizes the harmful effects of medicating students to suppress their experience of normal, turbulent,…

SSRI Defects: Infants Suffer Drug Withdrawal / Adults risk GI bleeding

SSRI Defects: Infants Suffer Drug Withdrawal / Adults risk GI bleeding Wed, 18 May 2005 The Associated Press reports that new research confirms that: “Babies born to women taking antidepressants in the last three months of pregnancy were three times more likely to develop drug-related symptoms than those born to…

Lies & Broken Promises – Drug firm Websites Fail to Disclose Test Data

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…

Doctors Without Borders: Why you can’t trust medical journals anymore

Doctors Without Borders: Why you can’t trust medical journals anymore Tue, 13 Apr 2004 Related link: Hear an interview with Shannon Brownlee on NPR at: http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1874563 Doctors Without Borders in the Washington Monthly (excerpt below), looks at the intricate web of collaborating players in medicine who are financially tied one…

Doctor calls President’s mental health Screening Initiative "Crazy" – UPI

Doctor calls President’s mental health Screening Initiative “Crazy” – UPI Thu, 23 Dec 2004 Dr. Jane Orient, the Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, has written a brilliant, clear-eyed blistering commentary–Are Your Children Crazy? America’s 52 million school children and 6 million staff are the first…

Spitzer’s Lawsuit Will Shake Up the Drug Industry – Full Disclosure is the Goal

Spitzer’s Lawsuit Will Shake Up the Drug Industry – Full Disclosure is the Goal Thu, 3 Jun 2004 New York State Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer’s lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline challenges the pharmaceutical industry’s fraudulent marketing of drugs. Karen Barth Menzes, an attorney representing victims of antidepressant drug effects, told The (So….

Take Action: Just Say No to Stigmatizing Screening and Unsafe Drugs

Take Action: Just Say No to Stigmatizing Screening and Unsafe Drugs Tue, 26 Oct 2004 FYI /ACTION! AHRP believes that America’s school children should not be screened and labeled without a guarantee of the proven accuracy of the screening tool, and the proven safety and therapeutic value of the treatment…