Take Action: Just Say No to Stigmatizing Screening and Unsafe Drugs Tue, 26 Oct 2004 FYI /ACTION! AHRP believes that America’s school children should not be screened and labeled without a guarantee of the proven accuracy of the screening tool, and the proven safety and therapeutic value of the treatment…
Pfizer Acknowledges It Failed to Reveal Celebrex cardiac risk found in 1999 trial Tue, 1 Feb 2005 The New York Times reports: “Responding to the Vioxx withdrawal [Sept. 30, 2004], Pfizer said in October that no completed study had ever shown any increased heart risks related to Celebrex. Then, in…
Latest Huckstersm: Surgical Implants for Depression – NYT Sat, 21 May 2005 The FDA was supposed to protect the public from snake oil hucksterism. It is appalling to note how far the FDA’s approval process for drugs and devices has veered away from it’s 1962 standards of evidence-based medicine. [1]…
Next Phase in Psychiatry? Or, NIMH Effort to Rescue Bad Drugs – WSJ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 The Wall Street Journal uncritically reported: “The results of the largest studies ever conducted of depression and schizophrenia will be released in coming months, potentially transforming the way patients are treated and shaking…
Children in "Hot Demand" for Clinical Trials May 31, 2002 FYI Rachel Zimmerman of The Wall Street Journal reports about the "frenzy" to recruit children for drug trials. The inclusion of children in drug trials allows pharmaceutical companies to cash in on six month patent exclusivity extensions worth hundreds of millions of dollars….
FDA Anthrax vaccine documents show pentagon lied Mon, 11 Oct 2004 “A former Dover Air Force Base commander says military officials used his troops as guinea pigs in illegal medical experiments under the government’s controversial anthrax vaccination program.” “Government officials have acknowledged that the Department of Defense secretly tested squalene…
Prozac Revisited: Concerns About Suicides Surface – Boston Globe Eli Lilly’s denial about the risk of suicide for some patients prescribed Prozac was the subject of a series of reports in the Boston Globe. The article (Sunday, June 11) revealed the irony behind the duplicity. Dr. Martin Teicher, who first…
Drugs, Devices & Doctors – NYT Paul Krugman Fri, 16 Dec 2005 New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, got it right! The real story behind the crisis at Merck, the Cleveland Clinic, and the medical industrial complex as a whole “is bigger than either the company or the clinic. It’s…
Ct. Attorney General Files Petition with FDA Seeking Warning on Drug – NYT Sat, 7 May 2005 Connecticut’s Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, is to be commended for filing a citizen’s petition that essentially asks the FDA to do its job of protecting the public by issuing warnings about the potentially…
Treating children as young as 4 for bipolar – WSJ Thu, 26 May 2005 A report in The Wall Street Journal should raise serious concerns about the legitimacy of psychiatric diagnosing and drug prescribing for children. The Journal reports that close to 20,000 US children are being diagnosed with bi-polar…
FDA Advisory Suicide Risk for Adults on Antidepressants / Advisory Committee Resistant to issue Warnings on ADHD drugs Fri, 1 Jul 2005 Under public and congressional pressure to disclose fully the hazardous effects of widely prescribed drugs, the FDA is beginning to acknowledge the long-denied evidence: psychotropic drugs may INDUCE…
Risperdal Linked to Stroke; Zyprexa linked to Diabetes Fri, 11 Apr 2003 Two highly promoted, best selling neuroleptic drugs (also called, antipsychotics) are linked to life-threatening drug-induced conditions. The Boston Globe reports (below) that elderly people who are prescribed Risperdal are at increased risk of stroke. The manufacturer, Johnson and…
