http://recoveryfromschizophrenia.org/2011/12/nami-lies-a-brief-analysis-of-nami-sponsored-misinformation-about-“schizophrenia”/
NAMI Lies: A brief analysis of NAMI sponsored misinformation about “schizophrenia”
Author: Ron Unger
At least as of today, if a person Googles “schizophrenia recovery” the first link that is not an advertisement is to a document titled “Understanding Schizophrenia and Recovery” authored by NAMI. (I would link to it for your convenience, but I hesitate to do anything that would further increase the Google rankings of a site that claims to be increasing “understanding” yet seems more dedicated to deliberately distorting the facts.)
I’ll start with a disclaimer. While I am seriously challenging the national organization of NAMI that is responsible for the document under discussion, I am not expressing an opinion about any local NAMI chapter. Local NAMI chapters have some degree of independence from NAMI national, and some of them are fairly progressive. But hopefully NAMI chapters that wouldn’t spread misinformation will do more to challenge the national organization that seems only too willing to lie to the public.
NAMI’s propaganda efforts start within the title of the document, which is: “Schizophrenia and Recovery; What you need to know about this medical illness.” NAMI is implying that it is a fact that “schizophrenia” is a “medical illness” and wants us to think that it is not in any way an understandable reaction to life events; but there are actually large numbers of both research studies and individual stories that point to the opposite conclusion.
The next sentence spreads more confusion, with its claim that “Schizophrenia interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions, and relate to others.” NAMI wants us to ignore the possibility that the person diagnosed with “schizophrenia” may be having problems with thinking, emotions, decisions and relationships because of what happened to them and how they were treated, and wants us to think that some theoretical “illness” called “schizophrenia” did it instead.
It is worth reflection on the likely consequences of telling someone that their experience and behavior is definitely being caused by a “medical illness,” and not by what has happened to them and how they chose to react to it. A very probable effect of this sort of “explanation” is the creation of confusion within the person that in itself is likely to interfere with that person’s ability to handle thinking, emotions, decisions and relationships. Of course, if the NAMI explanation creates more difficulties for the person, those difficulties will also be attributed by NAMI to the “illness” and not to the misinformation.
On page 2, it is stated that “Research has linked schizophrenia to changes in brain chemistry and structure….” Reading this, one might assume that changes in brain chemistry and structure have been found to go along with “schizophrenia” in the same way that having high blood sugar goes along with diabetes, a condition NAMI suggests in the next sentence is “like” schizophrenia. But this simply isn’t true. Instead, researchers have only found that the people diagnosed with schizophrenia are LIKELY to have brain differences compared to the AVERAGE person who doesn’t have the diagnosis: many people diagnosed with schizophrenia don’t have the differences, and some people not diagnosed do have the differences. And it isn’t clear where all the differences come from: someare likely caused by the drugs, others by being inactive, and most all of the differences have also been found in people who suffered abuse in childhood.
This last issue, abuse in childhood, is something NAMI clearly doesn’t want anyone to associate with “schizophrenia.” NAMI states definitively in the next paragraph that “Schizophrenia is not caused by bad parenting….” NAMI makes this statement despite what is now a very large amount of research that shows that abuse in childhood dramatically raises the odds of getting a diagnosis of schizophrenia in adulthood. This applies to all types of abuse: neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse. More severe levels of abuse have been associated with more severe levels of later psychosis in all the studies that looked for such a “dosage relationship.”
NAMI’s denial of the possible link between bad parenting, or abuse, and later “schizophrenia” amounts to collaboration with abusers in denying the effects of abuse even for people who have been severely mistreated. “You are just “schizophrenic,” you can’t blame your problems on anything that happened to you!” Such denial is itself “crazy-making” and results in further emotional abandonment of already abused people; but of course if any “symptoms” result from the “schizophrenic” person encountering such lies, it will just be blamed on “the illness.”
In making the above statements, I am definitely not saying that all people diagnosed with “schizophrenia” had abusive childhoods or that it is definitely true that any NAMI parents are abusers. There was a period of time when many clinicians would automatically blame parents when a child appeared to have “schizophrenia” but such approaches were seriously over-simplified. More complex perspectives acknowledge that children may experience abuse and trauma growing up even when parents are doing their best to keep them safe, and in other cases, children may have a non-traumatic childhood but experience problems that lead to the difficulties labeled “schizophrenia” later in life. So NAMI would have my full support if their point was that we should not assume that bad parenting caused any particular case of “schizophrenia,” but when they claim that bad parenting is definitely never a cause, they appear to have deliberately lost touch with reality. (The information on the connection between having an abuse history and a later diagnosis of “schizophrenia” is now widely enough know that I believe there is no way NAMI leadership could be unaware of it, which is why I am suggesting that NAMI is “lying” and not just misinformed or misunderstanding.)
NAMI goes on to declare in the next paragraph that “schizophrenia” is completely unrelated to “dissociative identity disorder’ (a disorder common among those severely traumatized as children.) While NAMI is only repeating here what many so-called “experts” have to say, the truth seems to be that the same sorts of problems exist for people with both diagnoses, and the “voices” that often plague those diagnosed with “schizophrenia” are not fundamentally different from the “dissociated identity states” that plague those diagnosed with “dissociative identity disorder.”
Toward the bottom of page 2, NAMI states that “Medications are crucial to symptom control….” The fact is that only some people find medications crucial to symptom control. Many people find ways to completely recover and definitely do not need medications. Others don’t recover but also find that the medications don’t make things better and may make things worse. Of course, some people do find the medications helpful, but even in those cases it is often unclear if they are truly necessary; it may just be that the right alternatives have not been offered to some of these people.
I won’t even bother trying to sort out the distortions in the rest of the document. It isn’t all misinformation: NAMI mixes in some facts and some helpful details. But the existence of so many false claims in just the beginning of a document indicates that NAMI is more committed to spreading propaganda than it is to the truth.
I hope that if enough of us comment on these sorts of lies, we can embarrass NAMI into cleaning up its act. And by confronting NAMI, we can also make some headway in getting more accurate information out to those who need it, accurate information that is seriously overdue for most of those in our mental health system.
&&&&&&
Link to article on 29 Medical Causes of Schizophrenia
Showing posts with label greed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label greed. Show all posts
Monday, January 2, 2012
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Another Doctor on Big Pharma’s Payroll
When Dr. Victor Tapson, a Duke University researcher, wrote the Food and Drug Administration urging that the agency delay the approval of a generic blood thinner, it was a recommendation that carried some clout. Tapson, after all, was writing on behalf of the American College of Chest Physicians. But now it seems Tapson has some explaining to do. A Senate Finance Committee report released last week found that Tapson was on the payroll of a pharmaceutical company that was trying to protect its profits by blocking the release of a generic rival. POGO Investigator Paul Thacker explains how Tapson was part of a major lobbying push by drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis. Link
Monday, April 18, 2011
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Dollars for Docs Widget
The Dollars for Docs Widget from ProPublica lets you track which doctors/health care providers are taking Pharma money.
http://www.propublica.org/nerds/item/use-our-dollars-for-docs-widget-on-your-site
We are going to grab this gadget, and hope you do too!
"As part of ProPublica’s “Dollars for Docs” series and interactive news application, we've created a small widget that you can embed on your web site. It will let your readers look up whether their health care providers are taking money from the drug companies in our database. The widget shows the amount of money paid to each practitioner in our database, which company made the payment, and in some cases, what the companies saidthey were paying for: speaking fees, consulting, etc. The widget also lists what drugs each company sells so readers can check their own prescriptions.
We’ll be keeping this data up-to-date roughly quarterly, and the widget running on your site will always have the latest data."
We’ll be keeping this data up-to-date roughly quarterly, and the widget running on your site will always have the latest data."
http://www.propublica.org/nerds/item/use-our-dollars-for-docs-widget-on-your-site
We are going to grab this gadget, and hope you do too!
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Incarcerated kids drugged with antipsychotics
Evelyn Pringle reports on chemical child abuse being pushed by psychiatry in juvenile detention centers.
LINK
Archive of Evelyn Pringle's articles
LINK
Archive of Evelyn Pringle's articles
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
From THE ATLANTIC magazine
The Drug Pushers
"As America turns its health-care system over to the market, pharmaceutical reps are wielding more and more influence—and the line between them and doctors is beginning to blur
By CARL ELLIOTT
Back in the old days, long before drug companies started making headlines in the business pages, doctors were routinely called upon by company representatives known as “detail men.” To “detail” a doctor is to give that doctor information about a company’s new drugs, with the aim of persuading the doctor to prescribe them. When I was growing up, in South Carolina in the 1970s, I would occasionally see detail men sitting patiently in the waiting room outside the office of my father, a family doctor. They were pretty easy to spot. Detail men were usually sober, conservatively dressed gentlemen who would not have looked out of place at the Presbyterian church across the street. Instead of Bibles or hymn books, though, they carried detail bags, which were filled with journal articles, drug samples, and branded knickknacks for the office.
Today detail men are officially known as “pharmaceutical sales representatives,” but everyone I know calls them “drug reps.” Drug reps are still easy to spot in a clinic or hospital, but for slightly different reasons. The most obvious is their appearance. It is probably fair to say that doctors, pharmacists, and medical-school professors are not generally admired for their good looks and fashion sense. Against this backdrop, the average drug rep looks like a supermodel, or maybe an A-list movie star. Drug reps today are often young, well groomed, and strikingly good-looking. Many are women. They are usually affable and sometimes very smart. Many give off a kind of glow, as if they had just emerged from a spa or salon. And they are always, hands down, the best-dressed people in the hospital.
Drug reps have been calling on doctors since the mid-nineteenth century, but during the past decade or so their numbers have increased dramatically. From 1996 to 2001 the pharmaceutical sales force in America doubled, to a total of 90,000 reps. One reason is simple: good reps move product. Detailing is expensive, but almost all practicing doctors see reps at least occasionally, and many doctors say they find reps useful. One study found that for drugs introduced after 1997 with revenues exceeding $200 million a year, the average return for each dollar spent on detailing was $10.29. That is an impressive figure. It is almost twice the return on investment in medical-journal advertising, and more than seven times the return on direct-to-consumer advertising.
But the relationship between doctors and drug reps has never been uncomplicated, for reasons that should be obvious. The first duty of doctors, at least in theory, is to their patients. Doctors must make prescribing decisions based on medical evidence and their own clinical judgment. Drug reps, in contrast, are salespeople. They swear no oaths, take care of no patients, and profess no high-minded ethical duties. Their job is to persuade doctors to prescribe their drugs. If reps are lucky, their drugs are good, the studies are clear, and their job is easy. But sometimes reps must persuade doctors to prescribe drugs that are marginally effective, exorbitantly expensive, difficult to administer, or even dangerously toxic. Reps that succeed are rewarded with bonuses or commissions. Reps that fail may find themselves unemployed.
Most people who work in health care, if they give drug reps any thought at all, regard them with mixed feelings. A handful avoid reps as if they were vampires, backing out of the room when they see one approaching. In their view, the best that can be said about reps is that they are a necessary by-product of a market economy. They view reps much as NBA players used to view Michael Jordan: as an awesome, powerful force that you can never really stop, only hope to control.
Yet many reps are so friendly, so easygoing, so much fun to flirt with that it is virtually impossible to demonize them. How can you demonize someone who brings you lunch and touches your arm and remembers your birthday and knows the names of all your children? After awhile even the most steel-willed doctors may look forward to visits by a rep, if only in the self-interested way that they look forward to the UPS truck pulling up in their driveway. A rep at the door means a delivery has arrived: take-out for the staff, trinkets for the kids, and, most indispensably, drug samples on the house. Although samples are the single largest marketing expense for the drug industry, they pay handsome dividends: doctors who accept samples of a drug are far more likely to prescribe that drug later on...."
Continues at Link
The Drug Pushers
"As America turns its health-care system over to the market, pharmaceutical reps are wielding more and more influence—and the line between them and doctors is beginning to blur
By CARL ELLIOTT
Back in the old days, long before drug companies started making headlines in the business pages, doctors were routinely called upon by company representatives known as “detail men.” To “detail” a doctor is to give that doctor information about a company’s new drugs, with the aim of persuading the doctor to prescribe them. When I was growing up, in South Carolina in the 1970s, I would occasionally see detail men sitting patiently in the waiting room outside the office of my father, a family doctor. They were pretty easy to spot. Detail men were usually sober, conservatively dressed gentlemen who would not have looked out of place at the Presbyterian church across the street. Instead of Bibles or hymn books, though, they carried detail bags, which were filled with journal articles, drug samples, and branded knickknacks for the office.
Today detail men are officially known as “pharmaceutical sales representatives,” but everyone I know calls them “drug reps.” Drug reps are still easy to spot in a clinic or hospital, but for slightly different reasons. The most obvious is their appearance. It is probably fair to say that doctors, pharmacists, and medical-school professors are not generally admired for their good looks and fashion sense. Against this backdrop, the average drug rep looks like a supermodel, or maybe an A-list movie star. Drug reps today are often young, well groomed, and strikingly good-looking. Many are women. They are usually affable and sometimes very smart. Many give off a kind of glow, as if they had just emerged from a spa or salon. And they are always, hands down, the best-dressed people in the hospital.
Drug reps have been calling on doctors since the mid-nineteenth century, but during the past decade or so their numbers have increased dramatically. From 1996 to 2001 the pharmaceutical sales force in America doubled, to a total of 90,000 reps. One reason is simple: good reps move product. Detailing is expensive, but almost all practicing doctors see reps at least occasionally, and many doctors say they find reps useful. One study found that for drugs introduced after 1997 with revenues exceeding $200 million a year, the average return for each dollar spent on detailing was $10.29. That is an impressive figure. It is almost twice the return on investment in medical-journal advertising, and more than seven times the return on direct-to-consumer advertising.
But the relationship between doctors and drug reps has never been uncomplicated, for reasons that should be obvious. The first duty of doctors, at least in theory, is to their patients. Doctors must make prescribing decisions based on medical evidence and their own clinical judgment. Drug reps, in contrast, are salespeople. They swear no oaths, take care of no patients, and profess no high-minded ethical duties. Their job is to persuade doctors to prescribe their drugs. If reps are lucky, their drugs are good, the studies are clear, and their job is easy. But sometimes reps must persuade doctors to prescribe drugs that are marginally effective, exorbitantly expensive, difficult to administer, or even dangerously toxic. Reps that succeed are rewarded with bonuses or commissions. Reps that fail may find themselves unemployed.
Most people who work in health care, if they give drug reps any thought at all, regard them with mixed feelings. A handful avoid reps as if they were vampires, backing out of the room when they see one approaching. In their view, the best that can be said about reps is that they are a necessary by-product of a market economy. They view reps much as NBA players used to view Michael Jordan: as an awesome, powerful force that you can never really stop, only hope to control.
Yet many reps are so friendly, so easygoing, so much fun to flirt with that it is virtually impossible to demonize them. How can you demonize someone who brings you lunch and touches your arm and remembers your birthday and knows the names of all your children? After awhile even the most steel-willed doctors may look forward to visits by a rep, if only in the self-interested way that they look forward to the UPS truck pulling up in their driveway. A rep at the door means a delivery has arrived: take-out for the staff, trinkets for the kids, and, most indispensably, drug samples on the house. Although samples are the single largest marketing expense for the drug industry, they pay handsome dividends: doctors who accept samples of a drug are far more likely to prescribe that drug later on...."
Continues at Link
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
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
Continues at link
Photo of the doctor
Monday, August 9, 2010
FSD: Sex for our pleasure or their profit?
FSD - "Female Sexual Dysfunction"
Challenging the Medicalization of Sex
Link
Challenging the Medicalization of Sex
WELCOME
The New View Campaign was formed in 2000 as a grassroots network to challenge the distorted and oversimplified messages about sexuality that the pharmaceutical industry relies on to sell its new drugs.
The pharmaceutical industry wants people to think that sexual problems are simple medical matters, and it offers drugs as expensive magic fixes. But sexual problems are complicated, sexuality is diverse, and no drug is without side effects.
The goal of the New View Campaign is to expose biased research and promotional methods that serve corporate profit rather than people's pleasure and satisfaction. The Campaign challenges all views that reduce sexual experience to genital biology and thereby ignore the many dimensions of real life.
The New View Campaign is devoted to education, activism, and empowerment. We invite you to benefit from the information on this website, and we invite your support and participation.
Link
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
The biggest drug dealers are listed on the stock exchange
(Reuters) - Abuse of prescription drugs is growing rapidly around the world, with more people abusing legal narcotics than heroin, cocaine and ecstasy combined, the United Nations global drugs watchdog said on Wednesday.
Read the article here
Monday, June 21, 2010
Medicating Children: A “Whistleblower’s” Lawsuit Raises a Novel Legal Question
From Robert Whitaker's Blog, MAD IN AMERICA, at Psychology Today
"In the past few years, a number of pharmaceutical companies have admitted to federal charges that they illegally
marketed psychiatric medications for non-approved uses, with the companies paying large sums to settle the cases.
Now, a legal complaint filed by the Law Project for Psychiatric Rightsin an Alaskan federal court is raising a
related question. When healthcare providers bill Medicaid for prescriptions of psychiatric drugs to children for non-
approved uses, are they committing Medicaid fraud?
The case, United States ex-rel Law Project for Psychiatric Rights v. Matsutani, was unsealed earlier this year, and
legal papers were recently filed that have brought this novel question -- which obviously has profound implications
for the prescribing of psychiatric medications to poor children and adolescents -- into sharp focus.
The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) , which is headed by Alaskan attorney James Gottstein, filed its
whistleblower complaint in April 2009. Known as a qui tam lawsuit, PsychRights sued on behalf of the federal
government under the False Claims Act, which allows private individuals to pursue legal complaints against
individuals or companies that are allegedly defrauding the government. In December, the federal government
declined to join PsychRights in the case.
PsychRights named Alaskan state officials, hospitals, mental health agencies, psychiatrists, and pharmacies as
defendants. In its complaint, PsychRights argues that the federal government has agreed to provide Medicaid
reimbursement only for those outpatient drugs that are prescribed for an FDA-approved use or for a use supported
by a medical compendium (such as the DRUGDEX Information System.) PsychRights maintains that the defendants
defrauded the federal government when they billed Medicaid (or the federal Children's Health Insurance Program)
for outpatient drugs that didn't meet this standard.
As part of its complaint, PsychRights identified 16 commonly prescribed psychiatric medications that have no
"medically accepted indication" for youth under 18 years old, and it also identified the limited number of "medically
accepted indications" that exist for 32 other psychiatric drugs. PsychRights compiled this list of "approved" uses by
methodically going through the drug compendiums, and it serves as the evidential heart of the complaint, for it
reveals that psychiatric medications are regularly prescribed to poor children for non-approved uses. PsychRights is asking the federal court to stop this practice (which it argues is harmful), and to pay hefty financial penalties for the fraudulent claims made to date."
Riveting! Thank you, Robert Whitaker.
Read the rest at
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mad-in-america/
Some of our previous posts on Robert Whitaker's views and anti-psych meds articles -
http://www.thestreetspirit.org.
This site is owned by The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC),
a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice and peace.
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/August2005/mad.htm
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/August2005/madinterview.htm
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/August2005/leonards.htm
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/August2005/zyprexa.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20071119112008/http://www.namiscc.org/newsletters/February02/JohnNashDrugFreeRecovery.htm
http://pharmaceuticalsanonymous.blogspot.com/2009/12/us-kids-represent-psychiatric-goldmine.html
http://pharmaceuticalsanonymous.blogspot.com/2008/05/royal-recovery-from-schizophrenia.html
Friday, April 16, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The Integrity in Science Project
A searchable database reveals the corporate interests behind science studies.
"Our Mission
Over the last thirty years, the commercialization of science in the United States and around the world has increased dramatically. The revolution in genetics, patent protections for bioengineered molecules, laws strengthening intellectual property rights, and the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act authorizing licensing and patenting of results from federally-sponsored research created new incentives for scientists, clinicians, and academic institutions to join forces with for-profit industry in an unprecedented array of entrepreneurial activities.
Although many have cheered partnerships between industry and the research community, it is also acknowledged that they entail conflicts of interest that may compromise the judgment of trusted professionals, the credibility of research institutions and scientific journals, the safety and transparency of human subjects research, the norms of free inquiry, and the legitimacy of science-based policy.
For example:
* There is strong evidence that researchers’ financial ties to chemical, pharmaceutical, or tobacco manufacturers directly influence their published positions in supporting the benefit or downplaying the harm of the manufacturers’ product.
* A growing body of evidence indicates that pharmaceutical industry gifts and inducements bias clinicians’ judgments and influence doctors’ prescribing practices.
* There are well-known cases of industry seeking to discredit or prevent the publication of research results that are critical of its products.
* Studies of life-science faculty indicate that researchers with industry funding are more likely to withhold research results in order to secure commercial advantage.
* Increasingly, the same academic institutions that are responsible for oversight of scientific integrity and human subjects protection are entering financial relationships with the industries whose product-evaluations they oversee.
In response to the commercialization of science and the growing problem of conflicts of interest, the Integrity in Science Project seeks to:
* raise awareness about the role that corporate funding and other corporate interests play in scientific research, oversight, and publication;
* investigate and publicize conflicts of interest and other potentially destructive influences of industry-sponsored science;
* advocate for full disclosure of funding sources by individuals, governmental and non-governmental organizations that conduct, regulate, or provide oversight of scientific investigation or promote specific scientific findings;
* encourage policy-makers at all levels of government to seek balance on expert advisory committees and to provide public, web-based access to conflict-of-interest information collected in the course of committee formation;
* encourage journalists to routinely ask scientists and others about their possible conflicts of interests and to provide this information to the public.
Link
"Our Mission
Over the last thirty years, the commercialization of science in the United States and around the world has increased dramatically. The revolution in genetics, patent protections for bioengineered molecules, laws strengthening intellectual property rights, and the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act authorizing licensing and patenting of results from federally-sponsored research created new incentives for scientists, clinicians, and academic institutions to join forces with for-profit industry in an unprecedented array of entrepreneurial activities.
Although many have cheered partnerships between industry and the research community, it is also acknowledged that they entail conflicts of interest that may compromise the judgment of trusted professionals, the credibility of research institutions and scientific journals, the safety and transparency of human subjects research, the norms of free inquiry, and the legitimacy of science-based policy.
For example:
* There is strong evidence that researchers’ financial ties to chemical, pharmaceutical, or tobacco manufacturers directly influence their published positions in supporting the benefit or downplaying the harm of the manufacturers’ product.
* A growing body of evidence indicates that pharmaceutical industry gifts and inducements bias clinicians’ judgments and influence doctors’ prescribing practices.
* There are well-known cases of industry seeking to discredit or prevent the publication of research results that are critical of its products.
* Studies of life-science faculty indicate that researchers with industry funding are more likely to withhold research results in order to secure commercial advantage.
* Increasingly, the same academic institutions that are responsible for oversight of scientific integrity and human subjects protection are entering financial relationships with the industries whose product-evaluations they oversee.
In response to the commercialization of science and the growing problem of conflicts of interest, the Integrity in Science Project seeks to:
* raise awareness about the role that corporate funding and other corporate interests play in scientific research, oversight, and publication;
* investigate and publicize conflicts of interest and other potentially destructive influences of industry-sponsored science;
* advocate for full disclosure of funding sources by individuals, governmental and non-governmental organizations that conduct, regulate, or provide oversight of scientific investigation or promote specific scientific findings;
* encourage policy-makers at all levels of government to seek balance on expert advisory committees and to provide public, web-based access to conflict-of-interest information collected in the course of committee formation;
* encourage journalists to routinely ask scientists and others about their possible conflicts of interests and to provide this information to the public.
Link
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Video: Big Bucks, Big Pharma
Link: Big Bucks, Big Pharma
This documentary attempts to expose the business behind medicine–often done at the expense of the health of consumers.
This documentary attempts to expose the business behind medicine–often done at the expense of the health of consumers.
Monday, January 11, 2010
News: Pharma Training Doctors
Looks like the foxes are still in charge of the henhouse, and as long as that is so, good health diagnosis and helpful natural healing modalities and maintenance will not be of as much interest to physicians as they should be. Pfizer Giving Stanford $3 Million Grant For Improving Doctors' Training
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/01/by_scott_hensley_a_leading.html
Lilly Endowment Awards $60 Million to Indiana University School of Medicine
http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=277600013
What happens when drugs, money and education mix? Read BLIND FAITH.
Monday, November 9, 2009
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
Saturday, October 24, 2009
NAMI: Pharma Companies are its biggest donors
"Drug Makers Are Advocacy Group’s Biggest Donors
By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: October 21, 2009
WASHINGTON — A majority of the donations made to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one of the nation’s most influential disease advocacy groups, have come from drug makers in recent years, according to Congressional investigators.
The alliance, known as NAMI, has long been criticized for coordinating some of its lobbying efforts with drug makers and for pushing legislation that also benefits industry.
Last spring, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, sent letters to the alliance and about a dozen other influential disease and patient advocacy organizations asking about their ties to drug and device makers. The request was part of his investigation into the drug industry’s influence on the practice of medicine.
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."
New York Times Link
Search for "grassley" to see our previous posts on this matter; here is one -
http://pharmaceuticalsanonymous.blogspot.com/2009/05/most-nami-money-is-from-psychiatric.html
Some day NAMI will have an interesting section at Little Sis.
By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: October 21, 2009
WASHINGTON — A majority of the donations made to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one of the nation’s most influential disease advocacy groups, have come from drug makers in recent years, according to Congressional investigators.
The alliance, known as NAMI, has long been criticized for coordinating some of its lobbying efforts with drug makers and for pushing legislation that also benefits industry.
Last spring, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, sent letters to the alliance and about a dozen other influential disease and patient advocacy organizations asking about their ties to drug and device makers. The request was part of his investigation into the drug industry’s influence on the practice of medicine.
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."
New York Times Link
Search for "grassley" to see our previous posts on this matter; here is one -
http://pharmaceuticalsanonymous.blogspot.com/2009/05/most-nami-money-is-from-psychiatric.html
Some day NAMI will have an interesting section at Little Sis.
Monday, September 21, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
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.
"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 versionYou may find some surprising answers at Congrelate.
CONTACT your Congressperson
here.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Stop the Dangerous and Invasive Mothers Act
Mothers Act Fuels Multibillion Dollar Drug Industry - Evelyn Pringle
Link
FDA Throws Lifeline to Antipsychotic Pushers - Evelyn Pringle
Link
Mothers Act Disease Mongering Campaign - Evelyn Pringle
Link
Want to contact your congresscritter? Find out what to do at Unitedforlife's Action Page
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Lilly ‘Ghostwrote’ Articles to Market Drug, Files Say
From Bloomberg: Link
Lilly ‘Ghostwrote’ Articles to Market Drug, Files Say (Update2)
By Elizabeth Lopatto, Jef Feeley and Margaret Cronin Fisk
June 11 (Bloomberg) -- Eli Lilly & Co. officials wrote medical journal studies about the antipsychotic Zyprexa and then asked doctors to put their names on the articles, a practice called “ghostwriting,” according to unsealed company files.
Lilly employees also compiled a guide to hiring scientists to write favorable articles, complained to journal editors when publication was delayed and submitted rejected articles to other outlets, according to documents filed in drug-overpricing suits against the Indianapolis-based company, the largest manufacturer of psychiatric medicines.
Drugmakers’ use of ghostwriters has created “a huge body of medical literature that society can’t trust,” said Carl Elliott, a University of Minnesota bioethicist who has written about the practice. "
Also see this article.
Lilly ‘Ghostwrote’ Articles to Market Drug, Files Say (Update2)
By Elizabeth Lopatto, Jef Feeley and Margaret Cronin Fisk
June 11 (Bloomberg) -- Eli Lilly & Co. officials wrote medical journal studies about the antipsychotic Zyprexa and then asked doctors to put their names on the articles, a practice called “ghostwriting,” according to unsealed company files.
Lilly employees also compiled a guide to hiring scientists to write favorable articles, complained to journal editors when publication was delayed and submitted rejected articles to other outlets, according to documents filed in drug-overpricing suits against the Indianapolis-based company, the largest manufacturer of psychiatric medicines.
Drugmakers’ use of ghostwriters has created “a huge body of medical literature that society can’t trust,” said Carl Elliott, a University of Minnesota bioethicist who has written about the practice. "
Also see this article.
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