Antipsychotic Drug Use Doubled since 1996 in Tennessee Children – Why? Thu, 2 Sep 2004 A Vanderbilt University study found that the use of antipsychotic drugs has doubled among poor children in Tennessee. “The increase, seen largely among children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder and affective disorders such…
Screening for Mental Illness–A Diabolical, Profit-Enhancing Experiment Fri, 22 Oct 2004 Concerned citizen groups are joining our effort to stop the government from implementing a sweeping recommendation for lifetime screening for mental illness. If implemented, the first to be screened for hidden mental illness are America’s 52 million school children…
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…
Pharma’s Pervasive Influence Corrupts Medicine both sides of Atlantic Tue, 4 Oct 2005 The focus of criticism in medicine has shifted from cost and barriers to access to treatments to an examination of the safety and benefit of current treatments. The pharmaceutical industry’s corrupting influence on physicians, academic researchers, the…
FDA Tones Down Warning–Shyra Kallas an SSRI Suicide Victim Fri, 4 Mar 2005 In his recent testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, Dr. David Fassler, representing the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), misrepresented the scientific facts about…
Published Clinical Trials Contradict Claimed Benefits – Front Page Pill Pushers Tue Aug 16, 2005 Two items from the BMJ A systemic review of 22 randomized clinical trials of Alzheimer’s disease treatments in the BMJ found the studies to have suffered from flawed methodology and to have revealed that commonly…
Failed Drug Treatments for Schizophrenia–Letters to the Editor – NYT Fri, 23 Sep 2005 Letters to the NY Times editor (below) demonstrate the combative reaction of stakeholders in the psychotropic drug industry to the evidence-based overthrow of psychiatry’s treatment recommendations. Psychiatrists who have financial contracts with psychotropic drug manfuacturers, have…
Senate Finance Committee Investigating FDA brain stimulation device approval – WSJ Thu, 19 May 2005 Another major scandal is erupting about FDA’s approval decisions that contradict its medical officer’s safety concerns. The Senate Finance Committee is investigating what led the FDA to suddenly reverse its disapproval of Cyberonics’ brain stimulation…
Ethical Violations / Investigations Today Congressional Investigations Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP) Letters of Determination: http://ohrp.osophs.dhhs.gov/detrm_letrs/lindex.htm Office of Protection from Research Risks* (OPRR) List of Compliance Oversight Investigations Resulting in Restrictions or Actions to federally licensed Institutions between 1990 – 2000. *Reorganized in 2000 as OHRP Mar 30: AHRP…
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…
July 12, 2002 Duke Warning: Zyprexa-Diabetes Link FYI Since they arrived on the market in the 1990s, the so-called ‘atypicial’ antipsychotic drugs have been wrapped in controversy and promotional hype by drug companies and their paid professional spin masters who made bald claims about their “favorable side effect profile” referring…
GSK Sales Reps told NOT to Divulge Paxil Data / Merck Withdraws Vioxx Thu, 30 Sep 2004 The Associated Press reports: “Merck pulled Vioxx after admitting studies showed the drug raised the risk of heart attack. As recently as August, Merck “strongly” disagreed with studies showing the drug increased heart…
