SAMHSA Backs Away From TeenScreen & TMAP Mon, 24 Oct 2005 On October 17, a meeting took place with Charles Currie in Washington DC – with some in attendance by conference call. Currie is the Administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the federal agency charged…
Bill would shield some drug firms from punitive damages Wed, 29 Dec 2004 A proposed bill in Congress would be another disincentive for pharmaceutical companies to disclose drug safety problems. Those promoting the bill should be asked to disclose their financial ties to drug companies. In 2000, a mysterious clause…
Schizophrenia Drug Implants May Qualify as Medical Torture Sun, 17 Nov 2002 In some patients, antipsychotic drugs induce excruciating, intolerable side-effects. In some people these drugs’ toxic action has caused severe liver, heart, and kidney damage, as well as dangerously high blood pressure– some patients have died as a result…
Medicare Rx Drug Bill Shaped by Drug Industry Blocks Elderly Bargaining Power – NYT Fri, 5 Sep 2003 A drug industry lobbyist is quoted in The New York Times stating: “Having both houses of Congress Republican-controlled was great. Like in Monopoly, when you get to add hotels.” The Medicare prescription…
Jan 22, 1999 SCIENCE Volume 283, Number 5401, 22 Jan 1999, pp. 464 – 465 BIOETHICS NIMH to Screen Studies for Science and Human Risks Eliot Marshall For more than a year, patient activists and ethicists have been calling for a revolution in the way clinical studies in psychiatry are…
September 3, 2002 Columbine shooting victim sues Solvay Pharmaceuticals – Insight Magazine FYI Insight Magazine reporter, Kelly Patricia O’Meara, reports in (below) that 19- year old Mark Taylor, a victim of the shooting spree at Columbine high school in 1999, spent nearly two months in the hospital plus 3 years…
Forbes: Judgment Day for the FDA, Pfizer Wed, 9 Feb 2005 On Feb. 16-18 COX-2 Inhibitor Safety Issues will be the focus of an FDA Advisory Committee and (simultaneously) the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The entire drug industry will be watching with bated breath. Which causal explanation will be offered…
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4696609 Documents Suggest Merck Tried to Censor Vioxx Critics NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO All Things Considered, June 9, 2005 – Because of intense interest in this report, NPR has decided to present a full transcript. Introduction: At least 38,000 Americans are believed to have died from taking the pain pill Vioxx…
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…
AP Exclusive: Top US Officials at NIH Knew of AIDS Drug Risks and Failed to Inform White House Mon, 13 Dec 2004 The Associated Press reports: "Less than a month after Bush announced a $500 million plan to push nevirapine across Africa to slow the AIDS epidemic, the Health and…
Vaccines the culprit – Not-So-Crackpot Autism Theory – NYT Sun, 10 Nov 2002 A report in Sunday’s NY Times Magazine (excerpt below) reveals as much about the culture of arrogance exhibited by those who formulate public health policy, as it does about the link (long-denied) between a vaccine preservative containing…
China Daily update: Harvard genetic research in rural China Wed, 1 Oct 2003 “It’s the responsibility of the dean of the School of Public Health and, ultimately, it’s my responsibility as president of [Harvard] university to see to it that where wrong can be put right it is and, more…
