Merck / Johnson & Johnson/ Lilly-Zyprexa: $690 Million settlement / a Flowering of Diabetes Drugs Fri, 10 Jun 2005 A cluster of news reports about three pillars of the pharmaceutical industry– Merck, Eli Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson–leave no doubt that this industry has shown its disregard for the welfare…
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…
Doctor Tells Pfizer Sales Rep who promoted Celebrex: “Have You No Shame?” Sun, 26 Dec 2004 An opinion piece by Dr. Marc Siegel, an internist and professor at New York University School of Medicine, expresses the anger and dismay many physicians in the US feel about having been misled by…
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-20/1108104141208160.xml Star-Ledger 14 deaths force halt to drug in Canada Hyperactivity remedy called threat to kids Friday, February 11, 2005 BY CAROL ANN CAMPBELL Safety concerns have clouded the future of another blockbuster medication, this one a hyperactivity drug prescribed to 700,000 Americans, most of them children. Health officials in…
Cymbalta Contract: How Eli Lilly Influences What Prescribers Learn about Lilly’s drugs Fri, 5 Aug 2005 The Wall Street Journal reports that not only do drug manufacturers control what the public is told about patented drugs, but companies, such as Eli Lilly and Pfizer dictate by contract what doctors are…
THE CONSTANT GARDENER–John le Carre’s novel about Big Pharma gets rave reviews Sat, 3 Sep 2005 Constant Gardener, the movie based on the novel by John le Carre, about the pharmaceutical industry’s immoral and even criminal activities, opened nationwide. It has already received rave reviews. Below are two reviews…
FDA says it Screened Panelists for Conflicts of Interest Tue, 1 Mar 2005 Bloomberg News reports that the Center for Science in the Public Interest had identified not 10, but 27 panelists on FDA’s advisory panel who had financial ties to drug manufacturers. Last week The New York Times reported…
Beware of Avian Flu Hoax – Senate HELP Committee OK’s bill to Shield Drug / Vaccine Mfg Tue, 25 Oct 2005 Serious questions are being raised by physicians and knowledgable critics about the government’s bullying tactics to promote the vaccine business. The scare tactics used to promote mass vaccination against…
Boston Scientific Sold Defective Stints Amid Alarming Data / 22% Medical Device Follow-up Not Done – Boston Globe Mon, 27 Dec 2004 Two reports in The Boston Globe raise concern defective medical devices – including cardiac stents, pacemakers and other medical devices–are proliferating the marketplace before their safety has been…
“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…
AHRP Campaign to Protect Children from Harm Oct 15: FDA Orders Black Box Warnings on Antidepressants labels and Patient Information Guides to Warn about Suicide risk Oct 3: BBC PANORAMA TONIGHT – Taken on Trust – 13 years-Medical Deception Sep 30: GSK Sales Reps told NOT to Divulge Paxill Data…
Follow the Money / Can the Institute of Medicine Review the FDA? Wed, 6 Apr 2005 A letter to the editor published in Nature Medicine by Dr. Bernard Carroll, a past chairman of the FDA Advisory Committee for Psychotropic Drugs, and past chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Duke…
