Harvard Medical Students Rebel Against Pharma-Ties
200 Harvard Medical School STUDENTS are confronting the administration demanding an end to pharmaceutical industry influence in the classroom.
200 Harvard Medical School STUDENTS are confronting the administration demanding an end to pharmaceutical industry influence in the classroom.
Using drugs to cope with battlefield traumas is not discussed much outside the Army, but inside the service it has been the subject of debate for years.
"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine." Marcia Angell, MD
A group of internal emails by Johnson & Johnson officials-mostly from officials in the company’s Risperdal marketing division-provide a bird’s eye view of collusion between the drug giant and Harvard’s leading child psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Biederman, and one of Harvard’s premier teaching hospitals, Massachusetts General Hospital.
A follow-up letter to FDA Commissioner, Andrew vonEschenbach RE: Thomas Laughren, FDA’s ‘s Director of Psychiatry Products who has been actively promoting psychotropic drugs–even penning his name to ghostwritten industry-sponsored articles and consensus panels.
Complaint about a surge of FDA administrative approvals for expanded use of highly toxic antipsychotic drugs for children. Approvals were determined by Dr. Thomas Laughren after secret deliberations–without disclosure of scientific data, without an advisory panel or open public discussion.
When scientists are for sale and "peer reviewed" journals publish planted commercial pronouncements masquerading as "science" news reports, the public is advised to disregard those "news" reports and wait for the evidence to be independently examined and either corroborated or refuted.
These paid lobbying efforts on behalf of industry are carried out under the pretext of advocacy in the public interest.
Minnesota is the first of a handful of states to pass a law requiring drug manufacturers to disclose payments to doctors.
"Daubert lets judges have much too much leeway to follow their personal inclinations," says Stanley Feldman, retired chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court.
The question is can these visits overcome industry's propaganda delivered under the guise of continuing medical education (CME) courses which physicians must take?
The deceptive marketing of antipsychotic drugs has prompted new advocacy group to launch "The Just Say "Know" to Prescription Drugs Campaign." Its goal is to get one million people to stop and reevaluate the medications they are taking.