Sunday, May 4, 2008
Lawsuits Against Antidepressant Makers On the Rise
Article and information on how to find legal representation for yourself is here.
Still need another point of view? Look at thi$ site.
Still need another point of view? Look at thi$ site.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
New York Times: Doctors should be banned from taking gifts from Pharma
April 28, 2008
Group Urges Ban on Medical Giveaways
By GARDINER HARRIS
Drug and medical device companies should be banned from offering free food, gifts, travel and ghost-writing services to doctors, staff members and students in all 129 of the nation’s medical colleges, an influential college association has concluded.
The proposed ban is the result of a two-year effort by the group, the Association of American Medical Colleges, to create a model policy governing interactions between the schools and industry. While schools can ignore the association’s advice, most follow its recommendations.
Rob Restuccia, executive director of the Prescription Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to eliminating conflicts of interest in medicine, said the report would transform medical education.
“Most medical schools do not have strong conflict-of-interest policies, and this report will change that,” Mr. Restuccia said.
The rules would apply only to medical schools, but they could have enormous influence across medicine, said Dr. David Rothman, president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University.
“We’re hoping the example set by academic medical colleges will be contagious,” Dr. Rothman said.
Drug companies spend billions wooing doctors — more than they spend on research or consumer advertising. Medical schools, packed with prominent professors and impressionable trainees, are particularly attractive marketing targets.
So companies have for decades provided faculty and students free food and gifts, offered lucrative consulting arrangements to top-notch teachers and even ghost-wrote research papers for busy professors.
Read the article here
Group Urges Ban on Medical Giveaways
By GARDINER HARRIS
Drug and medical device companies should be banned from offering free food, gifts, travel and ghost-writing services to doctors, staff members and students in all 129 of the nation’s medical colleges, an influential college association has concluded.
The proposed ban is the result of a two-year effort by the group, the Association of American Medical Colleges, to create a model policy governing interactions between the schools and industry. While schools can ignore the association’s advice, most follow its recommendations.
Rob Restuccia, executive director of the Prescription Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to eliminating conflicts of interest in medicine, said the report would transform medical education.
“Most medical schools do not have strong conflict-of-interest policies, and this report will change that,” Mr. Restuccia said.
The rules would apply only to medical schools, but they could have enormous influence across medicine, said Dr. David Rothman, president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University.
“We’re hoping the example set by academic medical colleges will be contagious,” Dr. Rothman said.
Drug companies spend billions wooing doctors — more than they spend on research or consumer advertising. Medical schools, packed with prominent professors and impressionable trainees, are particularly attractive marketing targets.
So companies have for decades provided faculty and students free food and gifts, offered lucrative consulting arrangements to top-notch teachers and even ghost-wrote research papers for busy professors.
Read the article here
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Gardasil in UK
A trial of the new cervical cancer vaccine programme for schoolgirls across the country has encountered opposition from parents, with 20% refusing to give permission for their daughters to have the jab.
A third of those who gave a reason for refusal said they were worried about the long-term safety, on which there is no data. But some may have concerns that allowing vaccination may promote promiscuity, because the cancer-causing virus which the vaccination targets is passed on in sexual intercourse. Two schools declined to take part for religious reasons.
The findings from the pilot study, involving 2,817 girls aged 12 and 13 in year 8 at 36 secondary schools in Greater Manchester, are published by the British Medical Journal today. In an accompanying editorial, Professor Jo Waller and Dr Jane Wardle from the department of epidemiology and public health at University College London say 12- and 13-year-old girls whose parents refuse consent may be competent to decide for themselves.
Article here
Aside from its ALUMINUM adjuvant, Gardasil has a few other teeny problems.
You can get these HPV warts from non-intimate activities, like sharing a towel at a pool.
Many Americans are already infected with HPV according to the Washinton Post. Is the sky falling? No. It isn't even a blip on the public health screen. Most people who get these warts get over them without ever knowing they had them. In Canada, a country of 30 million, there were a mere 400 mortalities from cervical cancer last year.
$o, what's this all about? Follow the money. Just like Bush's attempt to screen the entire US population for mental illness (TMAP), this story has links to Texas. Read about Texas' Governor Goodhair's good deeds for Merck here.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Pauling, 1968: Small substances may control sanity
Science 19 April 1968:
Vol. 160. no. 3825, pp. 265 - 271
DOI: 10.1126/science.160.3825.265
Orthomolecular Psychiatry
VARYING THE CONCENTRATIONS OF SUBSTANCES NORMALLY PRESENT IN THE HUMAN BODY MAY CONTROL MENTAL DISEASE
Linus Pauling
1 The University of California, San Diego, P.O. Box 109, La Jolla, California 92037
The functioning of the brain is affected by the molecular concentrations of many substances that are normally present in the brain. The optimum concentrations of these substances for a person may differ greatly from the concentrations provided by his normal diet and genetic machinery. Biochemical and genetic arguments support the idea that orthomolecular therapy, the provision for the individual person of the optimum concentrations of important normal constituents of the brain, may be the preferred treatment for many mentally ill patients. Mental symptoms of avitaminosis sometimes are observed long before any physical symptoms appear. It is likely that the brain is more sensitive to changes in concentration of vital substances than are other organs and tissues. Moreover, there is the possibility that for some persons the cerebrospinal concentration of a vital substance may be grossly low at the same time that the concentration in the blood and lymph is essentially normal. A physiological abnormality such as decreased permeability of the blood-brain barrier for the vital substance or increased rate of metabolism of the substance in the brain may lead to a cerebral deficiency and to a mental disease. Diseases of this sort may be called localized cerebral deficiency diseases. It is suggested that the genes responsible for abnormalities (deficiencies) in the concentration of vital substances in the brain may be responsible for increased penetrance of the postulated gene for schizophrenia, and that the so-called gene for schizophrenia may itself be a gene that leads to a localized cerebral deficiency in one or more vital substances.
When will we act on this information?
Vol. 160. no. 3825, pp. 265 - 271
DOI: 10.1126/science.160.3825.265
Orthomolecular Psychiatry
VARYING THE CONCENTRATIONS OF SUBSTANCES NORMALLY PRESENT IN THE HUMAN BODY MAY CONTROL MENTAL DISEASE
Linus Pauling
1 The University of California, San Diego, P.O. Box 109, La Jolla, California 92037
The functioning of the brain is affected by the molecular concentrations of many substances that are normally present in the brain. The optimum concentrations of these substances for a person may differ greatly from the concentrations provided by his normal diet and genetic machinery. Biochemical and genetic arguments support the idea that orthomolecular therapy, the provision for the individual person of the optimum concentrations of important normal constituents of the brain, may be the preferred treatment for many mentally ill patients. Mental symptoms of avitaminosis sometimes are observed long before any physical symptoms appear. It is likely that the brain is more sensitive to changes in concentration of vital substances than are other organs and tissues. Moreover, there is the possibility that for some persons the cerebrospinal concentration of a vital substance may be grossly low at the same time that the concentration in the blood and lymph is essentially normal. A physiological abnormality such as decreased permeability of the blood-brain barrier for the vital substance or increased rate of metabolism of the substance in the brain may lead to a cerebral deficiency and to a mental disease. Diseases of this sort may be called localized cerebral deficiency diseases. It is suggested that the genes responsible for abnormalities (deficiencies) in the concentration of vital substances in the brain may be responsible for increased penetrance of the postulated gene for schizophrenia, and that the so-called gene for schizophrenia may itself be a gene that leads to a localized cerebral deficiency in one or more vital substances.
When will we act on this information?
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