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British National Health Service Goes After American WebsiteEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A few of you likely know of Dr. Bonkers, the Bonkers Institute and its website. Bonkers--aka Ben Hansen--has tirelessly catalogued pharma ads for psych meds for four years and recently posted some National Health Service brochures he obtained that are alarming. In them, children, teens and young adults are basically told to shut up and take their meds--Zyprexa, Risperdal and Strattera (links are to the brochures). In making them publicly available, Hansen has apparently angered the NHS which contact him and asked him to edit out much of the brochure from his website. Hansen refused (see the exchange below). Some of the la...
Source: Furious Seasons - November 20, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Academic Researchers Fail To Report ConflictsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
An article today in the New York Times simply blows my mind. I'll just quote from it: "Few universities make required reports to the government about the financial conflicts of their researchers, and even when such conflicts are reported, university administrators rarely require those researchers to eliminate or reduce these conflicts, government investigators found. "In a report expected to be made public on Thursday, Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, said 90 percent of universities relied solely on the researchers themselves to decide whether the money they made i...
Source: Furious Seasons - November 19, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

barbara boxer, courage campaign: please sign petition opposing stupak anti-choice abortion amendment (2063)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
boxer We are honored to have Senator Barbara Boxer share with Courage Campaign members her commitment to strip the horrific Stupak Amendment from any healthcare reform bill and pass true health care reform. Her message is powerful. We need to show her — and the nation — that thousands and thousands of us stand with her by signing the petition. –Rick Jacobs, Chair, Courage Campaign Dear Friend, Ten days ago, the House passed the Stupak Amendment, which would be one of the biggest setbacks to women’s health in recent decades - unless we stand together and stop it. That’s why we are launc...
Source: aids-write.org - November 17, 2009 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Richard Kearns Tags: HIV prevention justice alliance LA city AIDS coordinator's office McCAB McNC aging and HIV/AIDS americans for safe access / la apla asian-pacific hiv/aids awo call to action barak obama beingALIVE-la big pharma black msm gay hiv/ai Source Type: blogs

Big Pharma's Sneaky TrickEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
An excellent piece in today's New York Times lays out how Big Pharma has been promising to cut costs of its drugs (to the tune of $8 billion a year) to help make health care reform happen while at the same time it's going around raising the prices of its drugs to the tune of $9 billion a year. That's such typical behavior by the drug companies that I'm hardly surprised. They are a truly brazen bunch. You just had to know that with Big Pharma openly supporting health care reform and alleged cost-cutting that something funny had to be going on. Now, we know what it was. (Source: Furious Seasons)
Source: Furious Seasons - November 16, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

kearns to la city council: carmen trutanich & LA’s “extraordinary response” to HIV/AIDS (2057)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
[tuesday, November 3, 2009] good morning president garcetti, distinguished council members. i have given the clerk copies of my prepared remarks. my name is richard kearns. i am a 58-year-old gay man with AIDS, a long-term survivor & activist, a medical cannabis advocate, a poet & journalist. i am here this morning to suggest a plan B for medical cannabis in LA please empower a special high-speed ad hoc medical cannabis team, who, starting with the text of the city’s legislative analyst submitted to the plum committee september 25th can finish translating the whereases to section numbers inside a month (sort of ...
Source: aids-write.org - November 13, 2009 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Richard Kearns Tags: HIV prevention justice alliance LA city AIDS coordinator's office McCAB McNC aging and HIV/AIDS americans for safe access / la apla asian-pacific hiv/aids barak obama beingALIVE-la big pharma black msm gay hiv/aids black women with Source Type: blogs

kearns, AIDS-write.org: dr. jai mahara’s definition of namasté (2055)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
chers— this is my favorite essay on the term “namasté,” which belongs in the mix before we go too much further along. i make no claims about divinity here, because nothing can really be verifiably known about divinity. but we all share & perceive & express greatnesses whose roots reach into an inner invisible realm of spirit. namasté —rk . . . while we are singing the praises of namasté, it should be observed how efficient a gesture it is in an age of mass communication. A politician, or performer can greet fifty thousand people with a single namasté, and they can return the honor instan...
Source: aids-write.org - November 12, 2009 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Richard Kearns Tags: HIV prevention justice alliance LA city AIDS coordinator's office McCAB McNC aging and HIV/AIDS aids & bubonic plague & 1918 flu americans for safe access / la apla asian-pacific hiv/aids beingALIVE-la big pharma black msm Source Type: blogs

I'll Just Do A Round UpEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I'm in no mood to write today. My headache is gone, but I got yet another reject email from yet another media organization I'd applied to and I am simply not in the mood to put too many sentences together. The NY Times has an op-ed today arguing against lumping together Asperger's syndrome and autism in the forthcoming DSM-5. It's interesting that the paper would choose to highlight that issue since it's been fairly quiet on developments around the new DSM. I wonder why. The Chicago Tribune and ProPublica have a piece out on a Chicago psychiatrist who was prescribing tons of Clozaril to his patients (almost unheard of t...
Source: Furious Seasons - November 10, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

andrew jack, ft.com: glaxo smithkline, pfizer form ViiV to fight HIV/AIDS (2051)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ViiV vows joint venture will help fight HIV By Andrew Jack November 3 2009 The new head of the pioneering HIV joint venture between GlaxoSmithKline andPfizer predicts his company can operate for at least five years without fresh funding from its shareholders. Dominique Limet, chief executive of ViiV Healthcare, which was formally launched on Tuesday, says it will generate £1.6bn a year in sales to finance its own research and would begin paying a dividend to its two owners in 2011 as it sells new products. A woman infected with HIV prepares her medicines in Indonesia. She could be one of thousands who would benefit f...
Source: aids-write.org - November 9, 2009 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Richard Kearns Tags: HIV prevention justice alliance LA city AIDS coordinator's office McCAB McNC aging and HIV/AIDS ahf aids & bubonic plague & 1918 flu americans for safe access / la apla asian-pacific hiv/aids beingALIVE-la big pharma blac Source Type: blogs

NATAP: pharmatimes reports merck/schering merger (2050)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Larger Merck says merger will actually increase R&D efficiency pharmatimes.com 05 November 2009 The new Merck & Co has opened its doors for business, and the company has been laying out its plans for future growth now that Schering-Plough has been added to the group. Chief executive Richard Clark says that “our integration teams prepared us well for a strong start…with thorough plans designed to ensure a seamless transition”. The new entity now has more than 15 late-stage candidates “spanning critical therapeutic categories” and has 106,000 employees in more than 140 countries. That figure...
Source: aids-write.org - November 9, 2009 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Richard Kearns Tags: HIV prevention justice alliance LA city AIDS coordinator's office McCAB McNC aging and HIV/AIDS americans for safe access / la apla asian-pacific hiv/aids beingALIVE-la big pharma black msm gay hiv/aids black women with aids champ Source Type: blogs

Feds Investigating Abbott Over Depakote MarketingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
News is out that the federal Department of Justice is investigating Abbott Labs over questions about its marketing of Depakote, its anti-seizure drug that's also approved for bipolar disorder. It's not clear what the scope of the investigation is, so stay tuned. (Source: Furious Seasons)
Source: Furious Seasons - November 6, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Psychiatrist Explains His Lilly ConsultingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Manoj Waikar, an adjunct psychiatry professor at Stanford who's also in private practice in Palo Alto, Calif., has made $74,850 for speaking on Lilly's behalf 51 times this year. So the New York Times smartly tried to find out what made him so sought after by Lilly and what services he provided. What fun that new Lilly database of its outside consultants has become. "In response to queries from a reporter, Dr. Waikar wrote in an e-mail message that he received fees for speaking to other health care professionals about disorders like schizophrenia and depression, which can be treated with the Lilly drugs Zyprexa and Cymbal...
Source: Furious Seasons - November 4, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Agencies partner to launch social media service for pharma companiesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
(Source: ePharma Summit)
Source: ePharma Summit - October 30, 2009 Category: Pharma Commentators Tags: dm news big pharma news pharma social media social media news Source Type: blogs

NAMI Lies In NYT Letter To The EditorEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Today, NAMI National's executive director Michael Fitzpatrick penned a letter to the editor of the New York Times and objected to how NAMI had been portrayed in a recent article which outlined how the group had gotten about $23 million in pharma funding in recent years. The paper had claimed that represented two-thirds of NAMI's budget and Fitzpatrick wrote to claim it only represented 50 percent. Then he dropped this claim into the letter: "NAMI maintains strict guidelines that govern all corporate relations and does not endorse or promote any specific medication, treatment, service or product." That's a bald-faced lie...
Source: Furious Seasons - October 30, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Congress To Go After Medicaid Fraud, Why Not Fraud Against Patients Too?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The Wall Street Journal noted yesterday that Congress is planning to take steps to wipe out the estimated $60 billion a year in Medicaid fraud. "'The scale of health care fraud in America today is staggering,' Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) said at a hearing. 'Now, as health care reform moves through the Senate, I want to make sure we do all we can to tackle the fraud that could undermine efforts to reduce the skyrocketing cost of health care.'" That's all well and good and I wish Congress luck. A good amount of the fraudulent behavior comes from our friends at America's Pharmaceutical Resear...
Source: Furious Seasons - October 29, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Talking to Pharma, Online and OfflineEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There are so many great events around empowered patients and consumer-driven healthcare in the Fall. It also being soccer season, the kickoff of the school year, and time for nearly every existing Jewish holiday, I can’t possibly attend as many as I’d like to. This makes me especially thankful to have some good D-blogger [...] (Source: Diabetes Mine)
Source: Diabetes Mine - October 27, 2009 Category: Diabetes Authors: AmyT Tags: Diabetes Blogs and Web Stuff Health 2.0 Big Pharma diabetes community diabetic ePatients ePharma Humalog Novo Nordisk patient communities patient networks pharma social media pharmaceutical marketing Source Type: blogs

NAMI Got $23 Million From Pharma CompaniesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The New York Times is out today with an article on just how much money NAMI has been getting from Big Pharma in recent years--a ton, three-fourths of its total fundraising. "The mental health alliance, which is hugely influential in many state capitols, has refused for years to disclose specifics of its fund-raising, saying the details were private. "But according to investigators in Mr. Grassley’s office and documents obtained by The New York Times, drug makers from 2006 to 2008 contributed nearly $23 million to the alliance, about three-quarters of its donations. "Even the group’s executive director, Michael Fitzp...
Source: Furious Seasons - October 21, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Lexapro Sales Stabilized By Lexapro Sales To TeensEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In a conference call with analysts on Tuesday, Forest Labs' COO Larry Olanoff noted slightly decreased Lexapro sales and credited the drug's recent FDA approval for use in adolescents as helping to stabilize Lexapro's sales. "Lexapro sales in the quarter totaled $566 million, a decline of 3.1% year-over-year. In March, we announced the FDA approval of our supplemental NDA for Lexapro, for the indication of acute and maintenance treatment of major depressive disorder in adolescence, 12 to 17 years of age. This additional indication is helping to stabilize the position of Lexapro in the market, and we have observed an incre...
Source: Furious Seasons - October 21, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Cymbalta Sales Way UpEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Eli Lilly announced its third quarter results today. Cymbalta sales are way up: "Lilly's biggest drug, Zyprexa, posted sales of $1.2 billion, up 2.8%. Higher selling prices offset lower demand in the U.S. Demand increased outside the U.S. Sales of antidepressant Cymbalta rose 10% to $790 million." A 10 percent increase over the same quarter last year is pretty significant. While I'm not clear on whether Lilly upped Cymbalta prices in the last year (which would account for a portion of the revenue increase if they had), it looks as though more scrips for this tricky anti-depressant are being written. Whether they are for ...
Source: Furious Seasons - October 20, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

AstraZeneca Offers Buyouts To Entire Sales ForceEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I don't often comment on the ebb and flow of pharma corporate news, but via Pharmalot comes news that AstraZeneca is asking its entire US sales force--some 5,000 to 6,000 people--to "self identify" whether or not they want to accept a buyout from the pharma giant. Don't think that AZ is getting out of the drug business, but like a lot of pharma companies it faces several products going off-patent over the next few years (Seroquel, Crestor, etc.), so it's cutting costs where it can. Quite a few pharma companies (lilly, BMS, AZ) are facing a serious "pipeline problem" of not having new drugs forthcoming to market to the publ...
Source: Furious Seasons - October 18, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Glaxo Negligent, Not OutrageousEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
An article in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer is the first mainstream media piece to try and grapple with the implications of last week's court award of $2.5 million to the family of Lyam Kilker. His mother took Paxil while she was pregnant with him and he was born with several heart defects. The jury verdict was in some ways mixed. "Jurors linked Lyam's problems to Paxil and said Glaxo had been negligent in not properly warning David's doctor of the drug's risk, but they did not find the London company's behavior outrageous, which would have been necessary to award punitive damages.... "Kline said last week's jury ver...
Source: Furious Seasons - October 18, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Court Rules AstraZeneca Overcharged KY Medicaid ProgramEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
AstraZeneca yesterday was found liable by a Kentucky court of ripping off that state's Medicaid program. "AstraZeneca, maker of popular drugs such as Crestor, Nexium and Seroquel, must reimburse Kentucky $14.72 million after overcharging its Medicaid program between November 1999 and March 2005. "AstraZeneca lied when reporting its average wholesale price on a number of drugs, said George Galland, representing Kentucky in the civil fraud trial that ended Thursday. "AstraZeneca inflated its prices between 20 and 30 percent depending on the drug, Galland told the jury in his summation. "The average wholesale price is ca...
Source: Furious Seasons - October 15, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

More Paxil Birth Defects Case Documents AvailableEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Bob Fiddaman of Seroxat (Paxil) Sufferers had done a fine job of getting his hands on various transcripts and depositions from the recently-completed Paxil birth defects case in Pennsylvania. He's now got up the deposition of Jane Nieman, a former GlaxoSmithKline employee. Go to his site to download the document. Although there have been a few smallish articles in the US press, news of the $2.5 million jury award sure hasn't shown up in the New York Times, Washington Post or LA Times. That's kind of weird, especially in light of the fact that GSK faces about another 600 birth defects lawsuits and also because it's very un...
Source: Furious Seasons - October 15, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Glaxo Must Pay $2.5 Million In Paxil Birth Defects CaseEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A Pennsylvania jury earlier today found GlaxoSmithKline liable for heart defects caused to a young boy whose mother was taking the company's anti-depressant Paxil while pregnant. The jury awarded the boy's family $2.5 million. Plaintiff's attorneys had argued that Paxil had caused the defects and had failed to properly test the drug and, while knowing of its ability to cause defects, had failed to warn consumers properly. This is a significant ruling because it's the first time GSK has been found liable in a birth defects case and because there are abut 600 more similar cases awaiting trial. GSK's lawyers said they would...
Source: Furious Seasons - October 12, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Pharma Drops Search Advertising After FDA WarningEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
(Source: ePharma Summit)
Source: ePharma Summit - October 8, 2009 Category: Pharma Commentators Tags: pharma search engines pharma blogs fda warnings big pharma news pharma social media Source Type: blogs

Seroquel Promoted As Weight Neutral When Company Knew It Produced Large Weight GainEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
According to court documents released to Bloomberg yesterday, AstraZeneca pushed its sales reps to claim that Seroquel, the company's atypical antipsychotic, was "weight neutral" four years after the company had determined that there were "clinically significant" weight gains among users of the drug (and increased risk of diabetes). "AstraZeneca’s 'global strategy is to demonstrate to consumers that Seroquel has a weight-neutral profile,' Debbie Holdsworth, a marketing official, wrote in a 'dear colleague' letter dated May 14, 2001." Here's the BS explanation of the weight neutral claim by John Patterson, a former AZ e...
Source: Furious Seasons - October 7, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

UK Girl Who Died After HPV Vaccine Injection Had Advanced CancerEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
For now, this settles questions raised earlier this week after a 14-year-old girl in England died soon after receiving an injection of Cervarix, an HPV vaccine. As it turns out, the poor girl had advanced cancer that had gotten into her heart and lungs and that's now being called her cause of death instead of the injection until full autopsy results are available. (Source: Furious Seasons)
Source: Furious Seasons - September 30, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Psychiatrist Turns Down $170,000 To Promote New AntipsychoticEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I think readers of this site are fairly well aware of the respect I have for Tufts University psychiatrist Danny Carlat, who's led the fight in psychiatry to clean up the APA and pharma-sponsored CMEs. My respect for him now goes up by $170,000, the amount Schering-Plough reportedly (scroll down to the bottom of the linked page) offered him to go shill for its recently-approved atypical antipsychotic Saphris and the amount which Carlat turned down. "In a letter to doctors, Schering-Plough says 'you must present the Schering-Plough approved materials provided to you.' The company offered one psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Carlat...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 28, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

60 Massachusetts Docs Get Money From Eli Lilly To Promote Its DrugsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
News is out in the Boston Globe that Eli Lilly's recently-released list of payouts to docs includes 60 Massachusetts doctors, including some at Boston Medical Center--the main hospital for the Boston University School of Medicine. The university has ordered the docs in question to stop doing talks for industry. It's refreshing to see a university take these sorts of things so seriously and so promptly. How much money were doctors getting? What products were they promoting? "At Boston Medical Center, Dr. Brian McGeeney, a neurologist, received $30,000 during that period [first three months of 2009], and Dr. Elliot Sternth...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 28, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

UK Girl Dies After Getting HPV VaccineEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This is alarming: The UK press is reporting that a 14-year-old girl died soon after being given GlaxoSithKline's HPV vaccine Cervarix. A few other girls at her school took ill after getting the vaccine. Cervarix is not yet approved in the US, but GSK has submitted it to the FDA for approval, which is expected later this year. What a terrible tragedy, exactly the kind of thing opponents of mandatory vaccinations for HPV feared could happen with Merck's Gardasil. Via Sexorat Sufferers. (Source: Furious Seasons)
Source: Furious Seasons - September 27, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Desperate Pharmas - the fight for new moleculesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
“Some of our competitors are desperate because they pay just an incredible price for some medicines. And if it’s a matter of life or death for them, then maybe it makes sense for them, but not to us. So sometimes we may lose some partnerships for financial reasons, which is frustrating.”Story (Source: PharmaGossip)
Source: PharmaGossip - September 25, 2009 Category: Pharma Commentators Tags: gsk big pharma Source Type: blogs

Fan Pages For Pharmaceuticals?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The Federal Trade Commission is going to hold public hearings on creating regulations so that pharma companies can use social media (ie, Facebook, Twitter, networking sites) to promote their drugs. Like they don't have enough promotion opportunities already. I'd assume the FDA will also have to get involved in this somehow since drug promotion is also its regulatory bailiwick. The folks at digidaydaily.com think it's a lovely idea--I don't--and have a suggestion: "Create Fan Pages: It’s in the company’s best interest to supervise and add some credibility to a Seroquel community for bipolar adults, or a Paxil communit...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 24, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Paxil Birth Defects Testimony Now OnlineEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
By which I mean that Bob Fiddaman of Seroxat Sufferers fame has gotten pdfs of opening arguments and the testimony of psychiatrist David Healy and another plaintiff's expert witness and put them online right here. More will come later as the trial, which is taking place in Philadelphia, continues. This will include some never-seen-before documents regarding what GlaxoSmithKline knew and when it knew it about birth defects problems with Paxil. The opening arguments--both sides--are well worth a read. (Source: Furious Seasons)
Source: Furious Seasons - September 24, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Glaxo Defunds CME's While Funding Them Under The TableEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
On Monday, GlaxoSmithKline US announced that beginning next year it would no longer fund medical education companies to put on CME's for doctors, a practice that has come under increasing scrutiny by Congress, the press and physicians because the pharma-sponsored CME's are little more than advertisements for the company's drugs and leave docs with little information about competing products. GSK makes Paxil, Wellbutrin and Lamictal, although they likely do no CME's for any of the drugs since all three are now off-patent. But Danny Carlat, a Tufts University psychiatrist who's policed this issue harder than anyone else, ha...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 22, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Grassley's Sleuth Gets Press In NatureEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Most of you are aware of a long-running campaign by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) to ferret out undisclosed pharma company funding of academic researchers who also wind up taking federal research money. Well, it ain't the Senator who does all the digging that leads to him going after the likes of Emory University psychiatrist Charles Nemeroff and Harvard University psych researchers. Instead, it is Paul Thacker, a former journalist and an investigator for the Senator, who is making researchers' lives hell--and appropriately so. I've known this for a long time but have kept my yapper shut when writing about Sen. Grassley. ...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 20, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Pfizer Got NAMI To Pimp For Geodon, Paid For Docs' Helicopter FlightsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This is a good get by Jim Edwards at bnet.com: one of the whistleblower lawsuits that was part of the recent $2.3 billion settlement between the feds and Pfizer over Bextra, Geodon and other drugs contains some eye-popping claims. Prime among them is that Pfizer funded NAMI as a "Trojan Horse" that then specifically promoted on its website off-label uses of Geodon in the elderly and, yes, children. Go read Edwards' posting to see what Pfizer and NAMI were up to. While it's not clear to me what constitutes promotion per se for NAMI, the reality is that NAMI is not supposed to promote specific drugs--although I've caught th...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 16, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Bigger Than Prozac?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There's a smallish buzz around a new drug called Valdoxan (agomelatine), an anti-depressant recently approved in Europe that's being touted as more effective than Prozac and other commonly-used anti-depressants and as having virtually no side effects. To whit, from the Mirror: "New research shows that agomelatine - the first antidepressant in over a decade - is more effective than Prozac in treating depression. And it is not associated with some of the common side-effects of antidepressant drugs such as weight gain, sleep difficulties and sexual problems. "A study found the £30-a-month drug, also known as Valdoxan, help...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 16, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Glaxo Exec Suggested Hiding Negative Paxil StudiesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
After the first day of a trial against GlaxoSmithKline for allegedly hiding birth defects data from users of its anti-depressant Paxil, Bloomberg reports: "An executive of GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the world’s second-biggest drugmaker, talked about burying negative studies linking its antidepressant drug Paxil to birth defects, according to a company memo introduced in trial. "'If neg, results can bury,' Glaxo executive Bonnie Rossello wrote in a 1997 memo on what the company would do if forced to conduct animal studies on the drug. The memo was read during opening statements in the trial of a lawsuit brought by the family ...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 14, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Court Rules Glaxo Must Reveal Paxil Birth Defects EmailsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This from Bloomberg today in the first court case against GlaxoSmithKline over allegations that the company's anti-depressant Paxil caused fatal heart defects in a newborn child whose mother had taken the drug while pregnant: "U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Boston today refused to block William Seale’s family from reviewing e-mails and other communications between Glaxo and Boston University researchers over Paxil’s birth-defect risks. The 1-year-old Seale, whose pregnant mother took the antidepressant, died in 2004 after three surgeries to address heart defects, according to court filings. "Seale’s family co...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 14, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Lilly Sponsors Fibromyalgia WebsiteEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A new website, knowfibro.com, has popped up and interestingly its open and transparent about its sponsorship by Eli Lilly and the National Fibromyalgia Association, a California-based non-profit. NFA is in turn partially funded by Lilly, Forest Labs and other pharma companies. NFA claims that upwards of 10 million Americans suffer from the chronic pain condition, although fibromyalgia is controversial among some doctors who claim it doesn't exist. (I've got no opinion on that point.) So fibro sure could be big business for Big Pharma. Lilly's anti-depressant Cymbalta is approved in the US for fibromyalgia treatment, althou...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 13, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Mea CulpaEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In July 2008 I wrote an editorial in the New Zealand Medical Journal (NZMJ), at the request of its editor. The title was Dr Who? deception by chiropractors. It was not very flattering and it resulted in a letter from lawyers representing the New Zealand Chiropractic Association. Luckily the editor of the NZMJ, Frank Frizelle, is a man of principle, and the legal action was averted. It also resulted in some interesting discussions with disillusioned chiropractors that confirmed one’s worst fears. Not to mention revealing the internecine warfare between one chiropractor and another. This all oc...
Source: DC's goodscience - September 13, 2009 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Back pain Big Pharma British Chiropractic Association David Owen George Lewith Lionel Milgram N.Z. Chiropractors’ Association N.Z. College of Chiropractic NZMJ New Zealand New Zealand Medical Journal UCL badscience conflict of Source Type: blogs

High Rate Of Ghostwriting At Major Medical JournalsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A new study out from the editors of JAMA, which I've not seen in full yet, conducted an online survey of authors with published work in six leading medical journals--JAMA and the NEJM included--and found a ridiculously high rate of ghostwriting going on. "Among authors of 630 articles who responded to an online questionnaire created by the researchers, 7.8 percent acknowledged contributions to their articles by people whose work should have qualified them to be named as authors on the papers but who were not listed. "According to the study, responding authors reported a 10.9 percent rate of ghostwriting in The New Englan...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 9, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

AMA Journal To Investigate Unreported Conflicts In Article, AJP SilentEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Last week I wrote about possible undisclosed conflicts of interest involving Joan Luby, a Washington University psychiatry professor, and published studies of hers in the Archives of General Psychiatry, published by the AMA, and the American Journal of Psychiatry, published by the American Psychiatric Association. I brought the possible conflicts to the attention of the journals' editors and to Luby herself. Yesterday, I received an email from from Joseph Coyle, editor of the AGP and a psychiatry professor at Harvard University: "I apologize for the delay in responding to your inquiry, but I was on vacation and out of em...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 9, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Pfizer Fined $2.3 Billion For Illegal Promotion Of Bextra, GeodonEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In an eye-popping move, pharma giant Pfizer has agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle charges of illegal marketing brought by the Department of Justice involving the painkiller Bextra, the antipsychotic Geodon, Zyvox, an antibiotic, and Lyrica, an anti-epileptic. The settlement includes a $1.2 billion criminal fine, a record, and a $105 million criminal forfeiture. "Authorities said Pfizer's salesmen and women created phony doctor requests for medical information in order to send unsolicited information to doctors about unapproved uses and dosages." Pfizer is also paying $1 billion to reimburse Medicaid. Just anther day ...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 1, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

No Answer From Journal, AMAEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Yesterday, I wrote of an apparent undisclosed conflict of interest in a paper where a researcher had asserted that 3-year-old kids experience chronic depression--"preschool depression" so called--but the same researcher had received monies from AstraZeneca and possibly others with the last five years. The paper appeared in the Archives of General Psychiatry last month which requires disclosure of all pharma payouts and the like within the past five years. I emailed both the journal's editor and the press office of the American Medical Association to ask what they would do to look into the non-disclosure and if they would ...
Source: Furious Seasons - September 1, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Documents Show Lexapro Promoted By Tens Of Millions In Doctor Lunches, LecturesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Apparently a copy of Forest Labs marketing plan to Lexapro has been circulating through the US Senate and the New York Times has an article on it. Lexapro racked up $2.3 billion in sales in 2008, even though there are substantial questions about whether it works any better than Celexa (much less other anti-depressants), another Forest anti-depressant from which it is derived and which is now available as a generic drug. The marketing plan is linked on the NYT's website, but I've not been able to download it yet as the paper's website is having some hiccups today. so from the NYT article itself: "Forest’s 2004 plan for ...
Source: Furious Seasons - August 31, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Florida Neurologist Earns Tens Of Thousands Speaking For Eli LillyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Remember that list Eli Lilly recently released detailing what doctors it's paying $22 million in consulting fees to? Well, the St. Petersburg Times had a great piece the other day on one of Lilly's top doctors in the Tampa Bay area, who is making oodles speaking on behalf of Lilly's drugs. "Lilly's top earner in the Tampa Bay area was Dr. Maria-Carmen Wilson, a neurologist who is director of Tampa General Hospital's Headache & Pain Center and a professor at USF College of Medicine. She also is director of USF's headache medicine fellowship program, co-director of the division of pain medicine and associate director of bot...
Source: Furious Seasons - August 30, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Big Pharma Thanks Sen. Patty MurrayEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Some of you may have seen television ads along the lines of one running in the Seattle area. It's underwritten by PhRMA, the trade group for Big Pharma formally known as Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. The ad asks viewers to pick up the phone and thank Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington) for her hard work on health care reform. I wouldn't be shocked if you are seeing a similar version of the same ad running in your part of the country. For those of you who don't follow politics closely, Sen. Murray is number three in the Senate's Democratic leadership and is a rainmaker of a fundraiser for Congressio...
Source: Furious Seasons - August 19, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Glaxo Had Ghostwriting Program To Promote PaxilEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The AP is out with a report that GlaxoSmithKline had a major ghostwriting program in place to help promote its anti-depressant Paxil. "An internal company memo instructs salespeople to approach physicians and offer to help them write and publish articles about their positive experiences prescribing the drug. "Known as the CASPPER program, the paper explains how the company can help physicians with everything from 'developing a topic,' to 'submitting the manuscript for publication.'" "The document was uncovered by the Baum Hedlund PC law firm of Los Angeles, which is representing hundreds of former Paxil users in persona...
Source: Furious Seasons - August 18, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Philip Dawdy Tags: Big Pharma Source Type: blogs

Drug Approved for Illness That Responds Better to Older DrugsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
One of the apparent contradictions inherent in medicine: Just when you think you’ve discovered something new and helpful, research comes out to suggest that it may be counterproductive. Invega has now come out with a different formulation: the sustained release. Apparently, this is the first atypical to be approved for the once-monthly injection formulation, though there are other neuroleptics used in this fashion. Personally, I’d love a once-monthly instead of the everyday pill. Bring it, yo evildoers at AstraZeneca! I’m ready for my Seroquel shot! Or maybe not. A new Lancet study says older antipsychot...
Source: The Trouble With Spikol - August 7, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: liz Tags: BIG PHARMA SCHIZOPHRENIA Source Type: blogs

Drug Approved for Illness That Responds Better to Older DrugsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
One of the apparent contradictions inherent in medicine: Just when you think you’ve discovered something new and helpful, research comes out to suggest that it may be counterproductive. Invega has now come out with a different formulation: the sustained release. Apparently, this is the first atypical to be approved for the once-monthly injection formulation, [...] (Source: The Trouble With Spikol)
Source: The Trouble With Spikol - August 7, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Liz Tags: BIG PHARMA SCHIZOPHRENIA Source Type: blogs