Novartis Paid Doctor Who Urged Use of Seizure Meds on Bipolar Kids

http://www.bnet.com/blog/drug-business/novartis-paid-doc-who-urged-use-of-seizure-meds-on-bipolar-kids/6050

Novartis (NVS) gave research funds to a doctor who advocated using the anti-seizure drug Trileptal as an anti-bipolar depression treatment in children — an unapproved use of that drug — the company confirmed to BNET. The doctor, Michael Jay Reinstein, once told a newsletter for parents with bipolar children that “high enough” doses of Trileptal were useful in quelling aggression in bipolar children. Novartis spokesperson Anna Fradle said:

He has done clinical studies on Trileptal on our behalf.

She declined to detail how much money Novartis had paid Reinstein over the years. The use of antidepressants and other pyschiatric drugs in children is controversial. It is not well-established that conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder or mania exist in children, or that if they do the appropriate treatment is a seizure medicine like Trileptal. Yet Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Shire(SHPGY) and AstraZeneca (AZN) have all funded research by doctors who advocate antidepressants for kids, and so did Forest Labs (FRX).

The admission illustrates how a small group of doctors can end up on the payroll of multiple drug companies, triggering illegal “off-label” sales.

Novartis agreed to pay $422 million to end Department of Justice allegations that the company promoted Trileptal for unapproved uses and paid kickbacks to health care providers to induce them to prescribe the drug. In the whistleblower complaint that led to the settlement, former Novartis pharmaceutical sales rep Steve McKee alleged that he and other reps would encourage doctors to ask about off-label uses of Trileptal...

Continues at link

Photo of the doctor

Video: Prescription for Disaster

Link: Prescription for Disaster

From the link:

"It is estimated that in America last year, nearly $2 trillion was spent on health care -- and virtually all that money was spent on treating disease.

Each year more money is spent on treatment, mere patchwork, even though it has become crystal-clear that treatments do NOT enable you to live a longer, better life. So why is the amount of money being spent on prevention just a pittance compared with the amount spent on treatment?

"Prescription for Disaster" is an in-depth investigation into the symbiotic relationships between the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA, lobbyists, lawmakers, medical schools, and researchers, and the impact this has on American consumers and their health care. During this thorough investigation, the film takes a close look at patented drugs, why they are so readily prescribed by doctors, the role insurance companies and HMO's play in promoting compliance, and the problem of rising health care costs. It examines the marketing and public relations efforts on behalf of the pharmaceutical companies, including sales reps, medical journals and conferences. Further, the film looks at alternatives to traditional pharmacology and drug therapy, such as vitamins and nutritional supplements, and why they are often perceived as a competitive threat to the drug manufacturers. Alternative therapies also include diet, exercise and a healthy lifestyle.

This documentary takes you on a journey through the tangled web of big business, the way disease is treated today, and the consequences we suffer as a society."

At top medical schools, more than half the profs have drug industry ties

By Jacob Goldstein

"Sometimes it seems like everybody has financial ties to the drug or device industry. As it turns out, it’s only a little more than half of everybody.

A survey conducted in 2006-07 and published this week in the journal Health Affairs found that 53% of academic research faculty in the life sciences at top schools reported financial ties to industry.

About a third of the respondents said they had served as consultants, nearly a quarter said they had been paid speakers and 20% said they had received research funding from industry. That last figure is down from 28% of researchers who said they received research funding from industry in a similar survey conducted in 1995.

The authors suggest a number of possible causes of the drop in researchers who said they got industry funding for research, including a big increase in NIH research funding since 1995 and more scrutiny of academic-industry ties.

(Speaking of that scrutiny, you might want to take a look at a story in this morning’s New York Times that describes how the big health-care bills in both houses of Congress would require industry to report payments to doctors.)"



Read more at WSJ Blog

F.D.A. Reveals It Fell to a Push by Lawmakers

F.D.A. Reveals It Fell to a Push by Lawmakers

By GARDINER HARRIS and DAVID M. HALBFINGER
Published: September 24, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that four New Jersey congressmen and its own former commissioner unduly influenced the process that led to its decision last year to approve a patch for injured knees, an approval it is now revisiting.

The agency’s scientific reviewers repeatedly and unanimously over many years decided that the device, known as Menaflex and manufactured by ReGen Biologics Inc., was unsafe because the device often failed, forcing patients to get another operation.

But after receiving what an F.D.A. report described as “extreme,” “unusual” and persistent pressure from four Democrats from New Jersey — Senators Robert Menendez and Frank R. Lautenberg and Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. and Steven R. Rothman — agency managers overruled the scientists and approved the device for sale in December.

All four legislators made their inquiries within a few months of receiving significant campaign contributions from ReGen, which is based in New Jersey, but all said they had acted appropriately and were not influenced by the money. Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, the former drug agency’s commissioner, said he had acted properly.

The agency has never before publicly questioned the process behind one of its approvals, never admitted that a regulatory decision was influenced by politics, and never accused a former commissioner of questionable conduct.

“The message here is that there were problems with the integrity of F.D.A.’s decision-making process that have solutions,” Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the agency’s principal deputy commissioner, said in a conference call with reporters.

Senator Grassley's Sleuth

"Grassley's Sleuth Gets Press In Nature
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.

Anyway, Nature has a nice article on Thacker and it includes Nemeroff himself basically apologizing for his mess and claiming he was in compliance with disclosure rules plus other researchers defending Nemeroff. Please. In a political world filled with scum and manure, it's good to see one good guy in the fray. And since I'm such a good guy, I'm making a copy of the article (usually requires a subscription) available to all of you. I encourage you to download it and read it."

From Philip Dawdy's wonderful Furious Seasons - PDF on Thacker - Senator Grassley's NAMI investigator

Philip is doing his seasonal fundraiser. Please donate here.... http://www.furiousseasons.com/

More tasty pharma scandals - involving Pfizer and NAMI - are here.

Humor: Help Dr. Frist Find His Lost Kitty!

Link to spoof

Bill Frist medical experiments controversy

HCA scandal (Forbes)


Is your health insurance making you feel like a cat in a cage?

Lancet: Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions

Department of Ethics
The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9661, Pages 423 - 431, 31 January 2009
Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions

Govind Persad BS a, Alan Wertheimer PhD a, Ezekiel J Emanuel MD a
Summary

Allocation of very scarce medical interventions such as organs and vaccines is a persistent ethical challenge. We evaluate eight simple allocation principles that can be classified into four categories: treating people equally, favouring the worst-off, maximising total benefits, and promoting and rewarding social usefulness. No single principle is sufficient to incorporate all morally relevant considerations and therefore individual principles must be combined into multiprinciple allocation systems. We evaluate three systems: the United Network for Organ Sharing points systems, quality-adjusted life-years, and disability-adjusted life-years. We recommend an alternative system—the complete lives system—which prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life, and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles.

PDF

UPDATE: Article on end of life care from Alternet -

Obamacare: "Do they really want to croak Granny? - Yes, sometimes"

"While the imposition of this new ethos of death is justly alarming, the more present problem of medical rationing is likely to impact granny much more gravely and much sooner. The rationing of medical treatment for the elderly is marbled throughout the Obama bill in so many places that we will have to address this issue in more detail in a future installment. For example, cancer treatment, much of which is skewed toward an older demographic, will be limited ("adjusted" in Obama-speak, "rationed" in actual English), if it becomes too costly in a particular hospital. (Section 1145) Another example: services to be provided under many plans are quite limited, i.e. rationing. A more attenuated but relevant problem is that hospitals are actually prohibited from expanding, and are limited to their size as of the date of the enactment of the bill, unless a medical politburo, answerable to no one, gives the OK to expand. Thus, treatment options become further limited.

Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a key medical ethics adviser to the president, and brother of Obama's chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel, has set forth in writing a deadly formula for allocating care. In a January 31, 2009 article in a prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet, he and two co-authors offer a theory they call, "the complete lives system," as a means to decide who gets care and who dies.

In a complex web of interlocking principles for allocating medical treatment, in an environment where rationing is assumed, Dr. Emanuel opines that teenagers should have priority over infants, because they have received more resources from society. Older people, however, are "objectively less valuable," so, yes, granny does have to die. Under this system, using utilitarian and amoral criteria like "distributive justice," young healthy people from ages 15-40 get priority, and the rest, including grandma, may not.

One can infer that this premise will undergird the implementation of the Obama healthcare regime, including the assumption of rationing of care. While the self-anointed messiah Obama brazenly proclaims throughout the land that his deadly healthcare bill will be good for society, the Hebrew prophet Isaiah rightly saw that such thinking reflects that "the dust of death" has settled over a culture.

The Obama bill reflects the ethos of amoral "utility" throughout. For example, in Section 1177, many plans will not be allowed to enroll "special needs" people. No explanation is given as to the rationale behind this cruel mandate."

Link

NYT: Dr. Drug Rep

Dr. Daniel Carlat tells us how he and other physicians are wooed - and very well paid - to become "Doctor" drug reps.
He is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and the publisher of The Carlat Psychiatry Report.

As the reps became comfortable with me, they began to see me more as a sales colleague. I received faxes before talks preparing me for particular doctors. One note informed me that the physician we’d be visiting that day was a “decile 6 doctor and is not prescribing any Effexor XR, so please tailor accordingly. There is also one more doc in the practice that we are not familiar with.” The term “decile 6” is drug-rep jargon for a doctor who prescribes a lot of medications. The higher the “decile” (in a range from 1 to 10), the higher the prescription volume, and the more potentially lucrative that doctor could be for the company.

A note from another rep reminded me of a scene from “Mission: Impossible.” “Dr. Carlat: Our main target, Dr. , is an internist. He spreads his usage among three antidepressants, Celexa, Zoloft and Paxil, at about 25-30 percent each. He is currently using about 6 percent Effexor XR. Our access is very challenging with lunches six months out.” This doctor’s schedule of lunches was filled with reps from other companies; it would be vital to make our sales visit count.+

Naïve as I was, I found myself astonished at the level of detail that drug companies were able to acquire about doctors’ prescribing habits. I asked my reps about it; they told me that they received printouts tracking local doctors’ prescriptions every week. The process is called “prescription data-mining,” in which specialized pharmacy-information companies (like IMS Health and Verispan) buy prescription data from local pharmacies, repackage it, then sell it to pharmaceutical companies. This information is then passed on to the drug reps, who use it to tailor their drug-detailing strategies. This may include deciding which physicians to aim for, as my Wyeth reps did, but it can help sales in other ways. For example, Shahram Ahari, a former drug rep for Eli Lilly (the maker of Prozac) who is now a researcher at the University of California at San Francisco’s School of Pharmacy, said in an article in The Washington Post that as a drug rep he would use this data to find out which doctors were prescribing Prozac’s competitors, like Effexor. Then he would play up specific features of Prozac that contrasted favorably with the other drug, like the ease with which patients can get off Prozac, as compared with the hard time they can have withdrawing from Effexor.

The American Medical Association is also a key player in prescription data-mining. Pharmacies typically will not release doctors’ names to the data-mining companies, but they will release their Drug Enforcement Agency numbers. The A.M.A. licenses its file of U.S. physicians, allowing the data-mining companies to match up D.E.A. numbers to specific physicians. The A.M.A. makes millions in information-leasing money.

Once drug companies have identified the doctors, they must woo them. In the April 2007 issue of the journal PLoS Medicine, Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman of Georgetown teamed up with Ahari (the former drug rep) to describe the myriad techniques drug reps use to establish relationships with physicians, including inviting them to a speaker’s meeting. These can serve to cement a positive a relationship between the rep and the doctor. This relationship is crucial, they say, since “drug reps increase drug sales by influencing physicians, and they do so with finely titrated doses of friendship.”

Link

Former drug rep Gwen Olsen talks about manipulating doctors.

What don't we know about the pharmaceutical industry?

A NYT Freakonomics quorum.
Link

From the page:

Dr. Harlan Krumholz, professor of medicine, epidemiology, and public health at Yale:

"Science and the public good in a capitalist society depend on the free flow of unbiased information, but it doesn’t always work that way. Events are revealing that many pharmaceutical companies, along with their consulting academic physicians, have engaged in practices that obscure or misrepresent information about their products. Does the public realize the depth of these practices, and their implications for patient care?

Most physicians continue their education and keep up to date with new science by attending lectures given by experts, with the assumption that the information they hear is unbiased. But pharmaceutical companies regularly pay high-profile scientists and physicians, either directly or indirectly, to speak on topics relevant to their products. At a scientific meeting in Europe, I watched an American colleague — a famous cardiologist who was being well compensated for his participation — practice his upcoming speech in front of drug company marketers. After his practice talk, they replaced some slides with ones that presented their drug in a more favorable light. The speaker initially resisted the change, but finally acceded, and his talk the next day was a strong endorsement of his sponsor’s drug."

Wyeth's Ghostwritten Documents to be Unsealed

Pirates from Stevenson's KIDNAPPED by N.C. Wyeth
Wyeth's Ghostwritten Documents to be Unsealed
NYT article - PDF
Judge's order to unseal
And here is a news release regarding $22 Million payouts to doctors by Lilly: Link

25 Shocking Facts About the Pharmaceutical Industry

25 Shocking Facts About the Pharmaceutical Industry

"Researching and snagging an adequate, wallet-friendly health care plan is tough these days, despite its high-profile presence in political debates. A large part of the controversy over expensive health costs stems from criticism of high-priced medications marketed by powerful pharmaceutical companies. From Medicare fraud to CEOs worth billions of dollars, big drug companies are accused of putting profits above patients, spinning false PR campaigns and more. We've uncovered 25 of the most shocking facts about the pharmaceutical industry in this list.

1. The price of drugs is increasing faster than anything else a patient pays for: Marcia Angell writes in her book The Truth About Drug Companies that "drugs are the fastest-growing part of the health care bill which itself is rising at an alarming rate." Dr. Angell argues that patients are spending more on drugs simply because they are being prescribed more drugs than ever before and that "those drugs are more likely to be expensive new ones instead of older, cheaper ones, and that the prices of the most heavily prescribed drugs are routinely jacked up, sometimes several times a year."
2. Your health care provider may have an ulterior motive behind your prescription: In 2007, the St. Petersburg Times reported that drug reps often give gifts to convince medical professionals to prescribe the medications that they represent. Dr. James P. Orlowski tries to teach his students that interaction with drug reps is not in the best interests of patients. Even though many doctors may believe solicitation from drug reps is unethical or at the very least impractical, gifts like free meals, pens, posters, books, and free samples are offered to physicians in an effort to influence their prescription practices.
3. Pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than research: According to ScienceDaily, a "new study by two York University researchers estimates the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development." Despite pharmaceutical companies' claims that Americans pay such high prices for prescription medications because they're really paying for research and development costs, the industry spent $33.5 billion on promotion costs in 2004...."
From Nursing Online Education Database. Read the other 22 shocking facts at this Link
And using "new media", Pharma is coming up with new ways to influence consumers to buy - all the time. Link
Drug makers cash in on DC lobbying
Politicians seek curb to drug ads
Pharma lobbying, from OpenSecrets; click to see larger version

Are you wondering who's running the show - and the country?
You may find some surprising answers at Congrelate.

CONTACT your Congressperson
here.

WSJ: Surgeon Didn't Disclose Company Ties

... a sweet news item ...
"UCLA Says Surgeon Didn't Disclose Company Ties


By DAVID ARMSTRONG

A top surgeon at the University of California at Los Angeles has lost his position as executive director of its spine center and faces an investigation by the school into his research after allegedly failing to disclose he was being paid by several companies whose products he was studying.

Between 2002 and 2008, Jeffrey Wang repeatedly failed to report on forms filed with the state and with the medical school that he was receiving consulting payments, stock options and royalties from five companies on whose products he was conducting research, according to the university. The failure to report these relationships "violated university guidelines," the school said.

"UCLA regrets that in the case of Dr. Jeffrey Wang, associate professor of orthopedic surgery, a pattern of non-disclosure could have persisted without our knowledge," the school said in a statement. "We are committed to examining our processes to determine how, as an institution, we will prevent similar problems in the future."

Dr. Wang didn't return a telephone call to his office seeking comment. He remains on the school faculty.

Dr. Wang was removed as co-executive director of the UCLA Comprehensive Spine Center. A university spokeswoman said the school is considering further sanctions against him.

The university also has appointed a committee to investigate Dr. Wang's work and determine whether the payments from companies affected his research and "if there are any mitigating actions needed to ensure the integrity of the research results." UCLA said it would make the results of that inquiry public, but that so far it has not found evidence of research misconduct. His research involved studying the products in both animals and humans.

UCLA alleges that Dr. Wang failed to disclose financial interests in connection with research projects sponsored by DePuy Spine Inc., a unit of Johnson & Johnson, which paid Dr. Wang $125,900 in royalty and consulting payments from 2002 through 2008; Facet Solutions Inc., a company in which Dr. Wang acquired options for 18,000 shares in 2004; Paradigm Spine LLC, an entity related to another company in which Dr. Wang received options for 20,000 shares; FzioMed Inc., which paid Dr. Wang $144,000 from 2002 through 2008; and medical-device maker Medtronic Inc., which paid Dr. Wang $275,000 in royalty and consulting payments from 2003 through 2008.

In the case of Medtronic, Dr. Wang did report some, but not all payments from the company, according to the school.

Dr. Wang published at least two favorable evaluations of Oxiplex, a product from FzioMed to prevent spinal adhesions. In 2004, he was the author of a study published in Neurosurgical Focus that found Oxiplex "easy to use and safe." That study noted FzioMed provided funding for the study, but didn't cite the payments to Dr. Wang.

A 2008 abstract published in the Spine Journal by Dr. Wang and a co-author found "consistent clinically significant improvement in outcomes resulting from the use of Oxiplex gel in lumbar spine surgery." While the abstract doesn't indicate Dr. Wang had a financial relationship with FzioMed, he is listed as a consultant to the company elsewhere in the journal.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee in July 2008 voted against approving Oxiplex for sale in the U.S. because it wasn't convinced the product was effective.

Most medical schools require doctors to report financial relationships and often have rules limiting how much they can receive from companies whose products are being studied. But medical schools often have difficulty verifying whether financial information filed by doctors is accurate.

A handful of states, including Massachusetts and Minnesota, have instituted public-reporting requirements in which drug and medical-device companies must disclose payments to physicians for many kinds of services, including consulting.

Two U.S. senators, Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democrat Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, are pushing for a federal law that would require companies to report payments to doctors of more than $100."

WSJ -What s doctor did that was worth $1M

This is just a little gator - cleaning up the whole swamp will be a big job.

Vaccination: The Hidden Truth

'This is the first half of the shocking but extremely and timelessly informative video documentary "Vaccination - The Hidden Truth" (1998) where 15 people, including Dr. Viera Scheibner (a PhD researcher), five medical doctors, other researchers, and parents' experiences, reveal what is really going on in relation to illness and vaccines. With so much government and medical promotion of vaccination for prevention of disease, ironically the important facts presented here come from the orthodox medicine's own peer-reviewed research, of which a total of well over 100,000 pages has been studied by those interviewed. The result is a damning account of the ineffectiveness of vaccines and their often harmful effects. It shows that parents are not being told the truth by the media, the Health Department and the medical establishment, with a medical doctor, Dr. Mark Donohoe, confessing that "It is a problem for me that I am part of a profession that is systematically lying to people." Find out how vaccines are proven to be both useless and have harmful effects to your health and how they are often erroneously believed to be compulsory. Many people simply refuse to believe the truth regardless of how clear it is, but the impeccable documentation presented in this amazing video has changed the minds of many who have seen it. This first half explains most, but not 100%, of the reason for counterproductive effect of vaccines. The last part of the reason, which also is published in medical research, is in the second half of the video. To view or purchase the whole DVD/video, go to www.vaccination.inoz.com. Please note that this video was very expensive to make and sales and donations support the freely provided Vaccination Information Service, which exists only for the benefit of you and your children.'

NAMI Busted - a long way from Mayberry

Did you know that American mathematician John Nash, played by Russell Crowe in the film A BEAUTIFUL MIND, got well on his own and never took drugs for schizophrenia?
Link -NAMISCC
His wife Sylvia Nasar thought Nash's refusal to take drugs "may have been fortunate," since their side effects "would have made his gentle re-entry into the world of mathematics a near impossibility". But worse, if he had, he might not have survived - almost certainly not to become an octogenarian.


Lying about mental health for profit is wrong. NAMI - and Ron Howard - sure are a long way from the simple truths and decency of Mayberry.

Bruce Levine follows this pharma money trail at Huffington Post.

If you have dislosures to make about NAMI's ties to Pharma, please contact Senator Grassley's office.

Bill Moyers & Michael Winship: Some Choice Words For "The Select Few"

Image from TRUTHOUT


From Bill Moyers' site:

"If you want to know what really matters in Washington, don't go to Capitol Hill for one of those hearings, or pay attention to those staged White House "town meetings.” They’re just for show. What really happens – the serious business of Washington – happens in the shadows, out of sight, off the record. Only occasionally – and usually only because someone high up stumbles -- do we get a glimpse of just how pervasive the corruption has become.

Case in point: Katharine Weymouth, the publisher of THE WASHINGTON POST – one of the most powerful people in DC – invited top officials from the White House, the Cabinet and Congress to her home for an intimate, off-the-record dinner to discuss health care reform with some of her reporters and editors covering the story.

But CEO’s and lobbyists from the health care industry were invited, too, provided they forked over $25,000 a head – or up to a quarter of a million if they want to sponsor a whole series of these cozy get-togethers. And what is the inducement offered? Nothing less, the invitation read, than “an exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will get it done.”

The invitation reminds the CEO’s and lobbyists that they will be buying access to “those powerful few in business and policy making who are forwarding, legislating and reporting on the issues…

"Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No." The invitation promises this private, intimate and off-the-record dinner is an extension “of THE WASHINGTON POST brand of journalistic inquiry into the issues, a unique opportunity for stakeholders to hear and be heard.”

Let that sink in. In this case, the “stakeholders” in health care reform do not include the rabble – the folks across the country who actually need quality health care but can’t afford it. If any of them showed up at the kitchen door on the night of this little soiree, the bouncer would drop kick them beyond the Beltway.

No, before you can cross the threshold to reach “the select few who will actually get it done,” you must first cross the palm of some outstretched hand."

Link

Update: Moyers reveals insurance industry's secret plan to attack Michael Moore and "Sicko".

Can You Trust Your Psychiatrist?

Article from the Huffington Post. Link

"Like all doctors, psychiatrists are marketing targets where mind boggling amounts of pharmaceutical money are spent in two important ways. The first is advertising directed at psychiatrists in professional journals, at meetings and by "drug detailing" which is sending pharmaceutical representatives to doctors' offices. The second is kind of different because it is advertising directed at you because you can increase doctor prescriptions for specific products, and thus profits. This is called "DTC" -- direct to consumer advertising -- known to be far more effective than just working on doctors. DTC are the ads you see on TV, hear on radio and see in magazines. Drug companies have substantially redirected ad money from doctors to consumers because the returns are much greater. Think about the ads you have seen for depression, bipolar disorder, erectile dysfunction, and social anxiety (rivaled only by ads for gastrointestinal, heart and diabetes medications). If you go into your psychiatrist's office and say I want to try this or that medication the doctor is quite likely to give you what you want. Psychiatrists, thus, are targeted to prescribe by the Pharma companies and their patients -- a powerful duo. We psychiatrists have our work cut out for us if we are to better filter and manage these demands.

What can you do? First, be an informed consumer. Just like with a car or washing machine you can learn about medications and other treatments for mental health problems. Turn to websites like your state mental health agency or the National Institute for Mental Health, the National Mental Health Association and the National Alliance for Mental Illness. Google key words about what you want to know, as you would for breast or prostate cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Ask others who have successfully navigated the mental health care system and taken medications. As has been said, caveat emptor -- let the buyer beware -- and be prepared.

Second, ask questions of your doctor and other health professionals. Rather than being a marketing arm of the pharmaceutical companies, be a prudent buyer. Don't be shy -- you are your best advocate. When you visit your doctor ask two questions: why are you suggesting this treatment for me and what alternatives do I have? When in doubt get a second opinion: any doctor who does not welcome a second opinion is not worth keeping.

Finally, recognize that medications for mental disorders often help but generally are not sufficient. Great reliance on medications has fostered inattention to individual and family therapy and skill building programs."






Does your psychiatrist check
for these medical problems?
From the great site of mental health advocate Pat Risser -
http://home.att.net/~LetFreedomRing/

Video: Alison Bass, Journalist and Paxil Whistleblower, Gives a Talk

Visit Alison Bass at her site here.
Now comes news that Paxil is being touted to help cancer sufferers think more clearly. But chemo cancer therapy itself can cause brain fog, as we have seen, and if cancer is a fungus, this therapy is wrong.
What do YOU think?

Blowback: Agent Orange in Canada

Excerpt from Blowback: A Canadian History of Agent Orange and the War at Home
at link

Drug Rep on SURVIVOR: Merck told her to sell drugs that kill

Corinne Kaplan is a candidate on the American reality TV show Survivor.

At one point, Corinne insisted, “I have no moral compass.” The most damning illustration has to do with her (now former) job as a pharmaceutical sales rep, where she said she knowingly sold drugs to physicians that she knew would kill people. “Selling drugs is a lie. I sold drugs that I knew damn well—I sold Vioxx for Merck before it got taken off the market for killing people. I knew damn well it was dangerous; I went around telling them to write it. There’s a lot of serious lying I’ve done in my life,” she said.

That’s okay, Corinne told me, because “I’m doing a job. For me, in that case, Merck told me to go out and sell drug even though I had hesitation about it. It’s not for me to say. … Don’t listen to me. Read your fucking journals. Why the fuck are you listening to your rep? Just because I’m pretty? You think I know more about the drug? No.”

Likewise, for Corinne, being on Survivor Gabon “is work; I’m trying to make a million dollars. It really doesn’t matter. I hope everyone gets injured; I don’t care. Just not me.”

Hear Corinne talk about wanting the money, the type of person she is, her problems with production, and selling a drug she knew would kill people here.