By JONNY BONNER SALT LAKE CITY (CN) – A city cop used Utah’s prescription drug database to visit a couple’s home for so-called “pill checks” and steal their pain drugs, hoping “they would be too dumb to notice the pills… Read More ›
Corruption – Fabricated Data
Release all Tamiflu data as promised, argue researchers
Contact: Emma Dickinson edickinson@bmjgroup.com 44-020-738-36529 BMJ-British Medical Journal Company plans to set up review board, but researchers want it to keep its promise The latest correspondence is posted online today as part of the BMJ‘s open data campaign, aimed at… Read More ›
WHO and the pandemic flu “conspiracies” – FULL report from the BMJ and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism 2010
2010 report posted for filing Conflicts of Interest WHO and the pandemic flu “conspiracies” Deborah Cohen, features editor, BMJ, Philip Carter, journalist, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, London dcohen@bmj.com Key scientists advising the World Health Organization on planning for an… Read More ›
Parkinson’s sufferer wins six figure payout from GlaxoSmithKline over drug that turned him into a ‘gay sex and gambling addict’
Father-of-two says he developed an uncontrollable passion for gay sex and gambling – at one point even selling his children’s toys to fund his addiction Rob Williams Thursday, 29 November 2012 A French appeals court has upheld a ruling ordering… Read More ›
Drugs giant Novartis warns jobs may go overseas: said bringing a drug to an NHS trust, securing clinical trials and getting approval, is inefficient and takes too long
The Government must tackle the red-tape and research hold-ups hampering Britain’s pharmaceutical industry or risk seeing jobs and investment disappear overseas, one of the industry’s leading companies has warned. Novartis global finance director Jon Symonds said that while the UK… Read More ›
Pfizer can do no wrong, or at least not enough to get found guilty ( Off-guideline does not equate to off-label )
Suit Over Pfizer Lipitor Labels Gave Judge ‘Paine’ By ADAM KLASFELD BROOKLYN, N.Y. (CN) – A federal judge invoked Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” in dismissing allegations that Pfizer illegally marketed its cholesterol-fighting drug Lipitor. In her fifth complaint against Pfizer… Read More ›
BMJ editor urges Roche to fulfil promise to release Tamiflu trial data: Or anything that shows the drug does more good than harm.
Contact: Stephanie Burns sburns@bmjgroup.com 44-020-738-36920 BMJ-British Medical Journal BMJ editor urges Roche to fulfil promise to release Tamiflu trial data Journal launches open data campaign to compel greater accountability in healthcare In an open letter to company director, Professor Sir… Read More ›
GAO: FDA fails to follow up on unproven drugs ” FDA has never pulled a drug off the market due to a lack of required follow-up about its actual benefits”
2009 report posted for filing By MATTHEW PERRONE, AP Business Writer Matthew Perrone, Ap Business Writer WASHINGTON – The Food and Drug Administration has allowed drugs for cancer and other diseases to stay on the market even when… Read More ›
Monsanto and others conspired with an Army experiment to secretly poison people with toxic chemicals in the 1950s, a class action claims
Army Poisoned People in ’50s, Class Claims By JOE HARRIS ST. LOUIS (CN) – Monsanto and others conspired with an Army experiment to secretly poison people with toxic chemicals in a giant segregated housing complex in the 1950s, a class… Read More ›
Probe into use of ‘death pathway’ by NHS ” patients have been denied food and drink and placed on the pathway when they were not dying”
Probe into use of ‘death pathway’ by NHS The NHS is coordinating a probe into the Liverpool Care Pathway after concerns were raised over its misuse. Families have come forward saying they were not consulted when their loved ones were… Read More ›
Medical Examiner keeps thousands of brains for ‘tests’ families call needless
By SUSAN EDELMAN Last Updated: 12:56 PM, October 28, 2012 Posted: 10:30 PM, October 27, 2012 EXCLUSIVE It’s the great brain robbery. The city Medical Examiner’s Office has kept the brains of more than 9,200 deceased New Yorkers — from… Read More ›
Climate scientist sues The National Review for defamation
By Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian Wednesday, October 24, 2012 22:20 EDT Topics: climate change ♦ jerry sandusky ♦ Sandusky Michael Mann, a scientist in the centre of the climate wars, has sued a rightwing thinktank and a magazine for comparing… Read More ›
Nearly 80 Million Americans Won’t Need Vitamin D Supplements Under New Guidelines
Engineering Evil: There is Absolutely No Current Solid Scientific Basis for the IOM’s recommendation: Current guidelines Normal: equal to or greater than 32 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) Insufficient: less than 32 ng/mL Deficient: less than 20 ng/mL When Vitamin D levels in… Read More ›
Doubts cast on credibility of some published clinical trials: “a remarkable 93 percent of 2235 so-called RCTs published in some Chinese medical journals during 1994 to 2005 was flawed”
2009 study posted for filing Contact: Charlotte Webber charlotte.webber@biomedcentral.com 44-078-253-17342 BioMed Central This release is available in Chinese. Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) are considered the ‘gold standard’ research method for assessing new medical treatments. But research published in BioMed Central’s… Read More ›
Eli Lilly and Zyprexa Under the Spotlight for criminal activity
2009 Report posted for filing Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on June 14, 2009 Eli Lilly & Co.’s atypical antipsychotic medication, Zyprexa, was not only marketed to doctors for an unapproved, off-label use — the treatment of dementia… Read More ›
How many scientists fabricate and falsify research? : 72% knew someone
2009 study posted for filing Contact: Rebecca Walton rwalton@plos.org 44-122-346-3333 Public Library of Science Press release from PLoS ONE It’s a long-standing and crucial question that, as yet, remains unanswered: just how common is scientific misconduct? In the online, open-access… Read More ›
People with depression often excluded from clinical studies of antidepressants?
2009 report posted for filing Contact: Clare Collins CollCX@upmc.edu 412-647-3555 University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences Are we cherry picking participants for studies of antidepressants? People with depression often excluded from clinical studies and tend not to fare… Read More ›
Scientific fraud: a sign of the times?
Are dodgy lab dealings a modern day dilemma or business as usual? The infamous Piltdown Man skull. Photograph: Rischgitz/Getty If you read about scientific fraud in the recent news, it would seem that there is much to worry about. It’s… Read More ›
Cancer institute tackles sloppy data
Funder demands better evidence for biomarkers in clinical trials. Monya Baker 12 October 2012 Biologists combing through massive patient data sets often find potential biomarkers of certain diseases, but many of these signals turn out to be false. To weed… Read More ›
Support for adjunctive vitamin C treatment in cancer
2009 study posted for filing Contact: Amy Gleason Quarshie agleason@liebertpub.com 914-740-2149 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News New Rochelle, NY, March 5, 2009—Serious flaws in a recent study, which concluded that high doses of vitamin C reduce the effectiveness of… Read More ›
Questions of ethics and quality cloud globalization of clinical trials: Same drug in different populations could produce markedly different results
2009 study posted for filing Contact: Michelle Gailiun michelle.gailiun@duke.edu 919-724-5343 Duke University Medical Center DURHAM, N.C. – Top-tier U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies are moving their clinical trials overseas at warp speed, raising questions about ethics, quality control, and even the scientific… Read More ›
HHS Report Slams FDA’s Conflict of Interest Oversight: 42% were missing the required financial disclosures
2009 report posted for filing By Emily P. Walker, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — The FDA fails to ensure that scientists conducting clinical trials on investigational products disclose financial conflicts of interest, found a review… Read More ›
Study finds faults in proposed mental disorder diagnosis: ” attenuated psychosis syndrome (APS), a new diagnosis that would identify those impaired by preliminary psychotic symptoms that do not meet the threshold for an existing diagnosis as having a psychotic disorder”
Contact: Holly Brown-Ayers hbrownayers@butler.org 401-455-6501 Women & Infants Hospital Providence, RI – A much anticipated addition to the revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fifth edition (DSM-5) is questionable according to research findings. The newly revised DSM-5, the… Read More ›
Beta-Blocker Use NOT Associated With Lower Risk of Cardiovascular Events: They May Not Work
Beta-Blocker Use Not Associated With Lower Risk of Cardiovascular Events ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2012) — Among patients with either coronary artery disease (CAD) risk factors only, known prior heart attack, or known CAD without heart attack, the use of beta-blockers… Read More ›
Most scientific paper retractions due to misconduct: study
By Agence France-Presse Monday, October 1, 2012 21:13 EDT WASHINGTON — When a biomedical study is retracted, most of the time it is because of misconduct rather than error, a report published Monday said. Two-thirds of all retractions around the… Read More ›
Mandatory HPV vaccination is unwarranted and unwise
2008 study posted for filing Contact: Amy Molnar journalnews@bos.blackwellpublishing.net 201-748-8844 Wiley-Blackwell Article explores how mandate does not represent public health necessity Washington, D.C. – November 12, 2008 – The HPV vaccine, sold as Gardasil in the U.S., is intended to… Read More ›
10 Things the Food Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know
2008 study posted for filing By Adam Voiland Adam Voiland Two nutrition experts argue that you can’t take marketing campaigns at face value With America’s obesity problem among kids reaching crisis proportions, even junk food makers… Read More ›
Antipsychotic Drugmakers Target Marketing Dollars at D.C. Medicaid Psychiatrists, Study Indicates: Prescribing Antipsychotics to non psychotic Children
ScienceDaily (Sep. 26, 2012) — The D.C. Department of Health (DOH) has released a study by George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services (SPHHS) indicating the high levels of marketing by antipsychotic drug manufacturers to Medicaid psychiatrists… Read More ›
Half of trials supporting FDA applications go unpublished
2008 study posted for filing Contact: Andrew Hyde press@plos.org 44-122-346-3330 Public Library of Science Over half of all supporting trials for FDA-approved drugs remained unpublished 5 years after approval, says new research published in this week’s PLoS Medicine. The most… Read More ›
Common bronchodilator linked to increased deaths
2008 Post for filing Contact: Marla Paul Marla-Paul@northwestern.edu 312-503-8928 Northwestern University CHICAGO — A common bronchodilator drug which has been used for more than a decade by patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been linked to a one-third… Read More ›
Higher anaphylaxis rates after HPV vaccination: ” significantly higher – 5 to 20 fold – than that identified in comparable school-based vaccination program”
2008 study posted for filing Contact: Kim Barnhardt kim.barnhardt@cma.ca 613-731-8610 x2224 Canadian Medical Association Journal Despite higher rates, HPV vaccine safe for use OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA – The estimated rate of anaphylaxis in young women after human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination… Read More ›
Flu shot does not reduce risk of death
2008 Study posted for filing Contact: Keely Savoie ksavoie@thoracic.org 212-315-8620 American Thoracic Society The widely-held perception that the influenza vaccination reduces overall mortality risk in the elderly does not withstand careful scrutiny, according to researchers in Alberta. The vaccine does… Read More ›
The drugs don’t work: a modern medical scandal
The doctors prescribing the drugs don’t know they don’t do what they’re meant to. Nor do their patients. The manufacturers know full well, but they’re not telling. Ben Goldacre The Guardian, Friday 21 September 2012 18.00 EDT Drugs are tested by… Read More ›
Retraction record rocks community: One of the biggest purges of the scientific literature in history is finally getting under way
Anaesthesiology tries to move on after fraud investigations. David Cyranoski 19 September 2012 One of the biggest purges of the scientific literature in history is finally getting under way. After more than a decade of suspicion about the work of anaesthesiologist… Read More ›
Documentary Evidence Reveals Motives of Pharmaceutical “Seeding” Trials
Re-Post for filing 2008 Clinical studies that are designed by pharmaceutical companies to promote use of their drugs are called “seeding” trials. While much has been written about the marketing tactics of the pharmaceutical industry, seeding trials have not been… Read More ›
Flu Vaccine offers no Protection in seniors
Respost 2008 Contact: Rebecca Hughes hughes.r@ghc.org 206-287-2055 Group Health Research Institute Flu vaccine may not protect seniors well Group Health study in Lancet finds no less risk of pneumonia with vaccine SEATTLE—A Group Health study in the August 2 issue… Read More ›
Toxic drugs, toxic system: Sociologist predicts drug disasters “Drug disasters are literally built into the current system of drug testing and approvals in the United States,”
Repost 2008 Contact: Jackie Cooper jcooper@asanet.org 202-247-9871 American Sociological Association Study says harm from prescription drugs growing, cites fatal flaws in drug testing, approval and marketing BOSTON — Americans are likely to be exposed to unacceptable side effects of FDA-approved… Read More ›
Insight: In India, gift-giving drives drug makers’ marketing: shower Indian doctors with gifts, posh junkets abroad, and cash payments disguised as consultancy or other types of fees
By Frederik JoelvingPosted 2012/09/17 at 7:20 am EDT MUMBAI, Sep. 17, 2012 (Reuters) — Sales representatives for Abbott Laboratories Inc’s Indian subsidiaries know what it takes to get a doctor to prescribe the drugs they market: a coffee maker, perhaps,… Read More ›
DEA shuts down shipments from Walgreen facility : Suspicion that highly addictive painkillers were being diverted to the black market.
Reuters – Fri, Sep 14, 2012 (Reuters) – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said it shut down shipments of controlled substances from Walgreen Co’s Florida distribution facility on the suspicion that highly addictive painkillers were being diverted to the… Read More ›
Drug companies do almost no innovation : Innovation comes mainly from NIH-supported research in academic medical centers
Re-Posted for Filing 2008 report New report: The truth about drug innovation New York, NY: A new report co-authored by Manhattan Institute senior fellow Benjamin Zycher, and Joseph DiMasi, and Christopher-Paul Milne, researchers from the Tufts Center for the… Read More ›
Half of drugs prescribed in France useless or dangerous, say two specialists
The doctors claim that the state wastes money on unnecessary medicine that they blame for up to 20,000 deaths annually Kim Willsher in Paris guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 September 2012 12.18 EDT Half of all prescribed drugs are useless or dangerous, two leading… Read More ›
‘Spin’ in media reports of scientific articles: 47% of articles contain ‘Spin”
Contact: Sumrina Yousufzai syousufzai@plos.org 415-568-3164 Public Library of Science Press releases and news stories reporting the results of randomized controlled trials often contain “spin”—specific reporting strategies (intentional or unintentional) emphasizing the beneficial effect of the experimental treatment—but such “spin” frequently… Read More ›
More pregnant women taking high blood pressure drugs, yet safety unclear
Contact: Karen Astle karen.astle@heart.org 214-706-1392 American Heart Association Nearly 5 percent of pregnant women are prescribed drugs to treat high blood pressure, including some drugs that aren’t considered safe for mothers or their babies, according to new research in the… Read More ›
Most prescription drugs manufactured overseas — are they safe? ” information about inspections is not public”
Contact: Kim Barnhardt kim.barnhardt@cmaj.ca 613-520-7116 x2224 Canadian Medical Association Journal Most pharmaceutical drugs in Canada are manufactured overseas in countries such as India, China and others, yet how can we be confident the drug supply is safe, writes a drug… Read More ›
External-beam radiation therapy for localized prostate cancer linked to other cancer
Contact: Lacey Holt lholt@auanet.org American Urological Association Bladder, lung and colorectal cancers ORLANDO, FL, May 18, 2008—Patients undergoing external-beam radiation therapy (EBRT) for localized prostate cancer may be at an increased risk for secondary malignancy, according to a study from… Read More ›
New rules to end secrecy over safety of medical implants
New rules to end the secrecy over the safety of devices such as hip replacements and breast implants are being drawn up after a series of scandals. The rules are being drawn up by the European Commission in the wake… Read More ›
Researchers detail chemotherapy’s damage to the brain” Chemotherapy drugs used to treat a wide range of cancers were more toxic to healthy brain cells than the cancer cells they were intended to treat
Re-post from 2008: This is not the watered down Chemo brain article released 5 Sep 2012..4 years later contact: Mark Michaud mark_michaud@urmc.rochester.edu 585-273-4790 University of Rochester Medical Center A commonly used chemotherapy drug causes healthy brain cells to die off… Read More ›
Study reveals inaccuracies in studies of cancer treatment; i.e.Prostate Androgen Therapy had a Higher Death rate than Non
Repost for Filing 2008 Contact: David Sampson david.sampson@cancer.org American Cancer Society Certain biases may exist in observational studies that compare outcomes of different cancer therapies, making the results questionable. That is the conclusion of a new study published in the… Read More ›
IOM States ” roughly $750 billion — was wasted on unnecessary services, excessive administrative costs, fraud, and other problems” in 2009
Date: Sept. 6, 2012 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Transformation of Health System Needed to Improve Care and Reduce Costs WASHINGTON — America’s health care system has become too complex and costly to continue business as usual, says a new report from… Read More ›
Stanford researcher criticizes FDA plans to reduce oversight of off-label drug use: Pharmaceutial Free For All (No Rules)
Repost From April 2008 Contact: Rosanne Spector manishma@stanford.edu 650-725-5374 Stanford University Medical Center STANFORD, Calif. – Proposed guidelines from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would allow companies to market more drugs for unapproved uses and are a step in… Read More ›
Engineering Evil 