At FDA, Changes In Name Only–Agency Puts Business interests Above Safety Fri, 30 Sep 2005 The sudden resignation of FDA Commissioner, Lester Crawford, after just two months in office, has prompted a bipartisan Senate investigation and requests both by the Senate committee HELP and by congressman Maurice Hinchey (NY) and…
Whistleblowers: Dangerous Pursuit for Profits at the Expense of Patients’ Lives Sat, 12 Mar 2005 Several prescription drug sales reps have come out of the shadows. They’re blowing the whistle on the pharmaceutical industry’s corrupt practices’ sales reps view doctors’ offices as the trenches. Pfizer drug rep, Jamie Reidy, has…
Former FDA Commissioner says FDA lost public trust Mon, 17 Oct 2005 The FDA’s failure to ensure drugs are properly tested in trials designed to detect serious adverse effects, and the agency’s failure to require follow-up post-marketing studies to be reasonably secure in the knowledge that no lethal drugs are unleashed on the public has…
More Spent on Psych Drugs for preschool kids than antibiotics or asthma – AP Mon, 17 May 2004 Data analysis by MEDCO, the nation’s largest prescription benefit manager found that between 2000–2003 there was a 49% increase in the use of psychotropic drugs for children and a 369% increase in…
For the Sake of Public Safety FDA & NIH Must Be Detatched from Drug Industry Tue, 21 Dec 2004 Daily front page reports about lethal drug effects leave no doubt that we are in the midst of a major health safety and credibility crisis, largely due to a drug development…
FDA’s Lethal Weakness Requires More than Committees Sun, 7 Nov 2004 Bloomberg News reports that New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer requested information from Pfizer about the promotion of some of its drugs for unapproved uses – the recalled diabetes drug, Rezulin and the antidepressant, Zoloft were named. In…
Op Ed: Psychiatry on the Ropes–WP / Evidence-based Psychiatry– Multi-Discipline Conference_ NYC Mon, 4 Oct 2004 An Op Ed article in The Washington Post by Shannon Brownlee (below) nails the elite procurers of psychotropic drugs who have long denied the ominous signals of drug-induced harm: “You’d think the psychiatric research…
TeenScreen: Who Pays for Treatment and Drugs?? Sun, 29 May 2005 In her latest examination of the President’s Commission on Mental Health recommendation for universal mental health screening, Evelyn Pringle focuses on the $$$ it costs and on how screening, followed by prescribing psychotropic drugs, is bankrupting of public health…
Drugmakers Go Furthest to Sway Congress: 1,274 Lobbyists – USA Today Tue, 26 Apr 2005 USA Today provides a glimpse into the way the pharmaceutical industry controls health care policy by buying influence at the highest level of government, and underwriting professional and lay healthcare organizations whose spokespersons parrot industry’s…
10 of 32 FDA Vioxx Panelists Had Industry Ties_NYT / Cozy NIH Review “Clears” NIH Industry Ties_WashPost Fri, 25 Feb 2005 The latest example of the corrupting influence of the pharmaceutical industry on health care policy is the composition of FDA’s advisory panel that last week endorsed the marketing of…
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…
Jayson Blair, reporter fired from NY Times, helped PhRMA scare consumers . . . Sun, 23 Oct 2005 Below Peter Rost, V-P of Marketing at Pfizer who has turned whistleblower on the pharmaceutical industry sent us the most amazing example of this industry’s loathsome underhanded tactics aimed at scaring the…
