26 décembre 2005 22:40

Another sad Story - Big Pharma from Eeken

Overview

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN and WILLIAM J. BROAD

NEW YORK TIMES

The South Korean scandal that shook the world of science last week is just one sign of a global explosion in research that is outstripping the mechanisms meant to guard against error and fraud

Experts say the problem is only getting worse, as research projects, and the journals that publish the findings, soar. Science is often said to bar dishonesty and bad research with a triple safety net. The first is peer review, in which experts advise governments about what research to finance. The second is the referee system, which has journals ask reviewers to judge if manuscripts merit publication. The last is replication, whereby independent scientists see if the work holds up.......................

WASHINGTON -- Bird flu preparedness legislation headed for a final vote in the Senate this week would create loopholes allowing vaccine makers to avoid legal liability even if a patient is harmed by negligence, critics said today. Democrats and the Assn. of Trial Lawyers of America derided the legislation as a gift to the drug industry, but its supporters said the lawyers were acting in their own self-interest. Nonetheless, a leading public health group also criticized the liability language............

If you like playing the game "connect the dots," you might find this one very interesting:...................

Fred Schulte of The (Baltimore) Sun used state records to show that "Maryland's vow to safeguard patients has been undercut by breakdowns in the state system established to oversee doctors." In a three-part series, Schulte writes that more than 120 doctors have been the subject of four or five malpractice claims and that the disciplinary process for physicians often takes four years or more. "And secrecy policies conceal the names of doctors associated with tens of millions of dollars in injury claims."

SFBC International Inc., manager of the largest private clinical trials center in North America, said executive Gerald Seifer resigned after an investigation found he engaged in ``inappropriate'' behavior with trial subjects.

(Update2)

The drug test participant on the next bed was shivering and shaking and coughing up blood.

LISTEN -

Scott Scheer wasn't worried about side effects when he agreed to enroll in a federally funded test of different combinations of previously approved blood pressure medications in 1997.

LISTEN -

Public Citizen Writes in Journal of Public Health Policy

WASHINGTON, D.C. – More than half the drug makers that participated in the 2002 American Psychiatric Association (APA) convention violated drug marketing rules set up by the association or the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Public Citizen writes in a study in the current issue of The Journal of Public Health Policy. ...............

A whistleblower who raised concerns about a study that his research unit carried out with a major drugs company is to have his allegations investigated by the medical journal that published it.

Dr Aubrey Blumsohn, a bone specialist and senior lecturer at Sheffield University, warned the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research more than a year ago that he had grave doubts about some of the research it had published under his name.......................

Many oncologists will earn 30 to 50 percent less a year as a consequence of a $1.1 billion Medicare fraud settlement with two leading cancer drug manufacturers, according to a study in the Dec. 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The study was led by Charles L. Bennett, M.D., professor of medicine, division of hematology/oncology, at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and an investigator at The Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. .................

Common Dreams NewsCenter

) lists 24 pages of problems with Andrx's drug manufacturing plant in Davie. From failing to monitor for ''objectionable microorganisms'' to not documenting manufacturing problems, Andrx's plant in Davie is facing a broad range of complaints from the Food and Drug Administration. The details of the FDA's findings on Andrx are contained in a dense 24-page report obtained by The Herald through a public records request. The announcement of the FDA's concerns in september caused the stock to fall 29 percent, to $14.89, but it has since recovered slightly. Monday, Andrx closed at $17.70. The FDA will not approve any new Andrx drug applications until the manufacturing problems are resolved...........................

CHICAGO (AP) -- Parents who paid $285 for an experimental head-lice treatment for their children might be scratching their own heads, now that the doctor selling the stuff says it's really a skin cleanser available for less than $10 a bottle at drug stores nationwide. Dr. Dale Pearlman got widespread media attention and skepticism from some head-lice specialists last year when the journal Pediatrics published his study detailing results with a product he called Nuvo lotion. He described it as a "dry-on suffocation-based pediculicide" and the first in a new class of nontoxic lotions for head lice. And as of yesterday, his Web site still said the costly treatment was available only at his Menlo Park, Calif., office. But now, in a letter to the editor for release today in the december issue of Pediatrics, Dr. Pearlman says the treatment "was actually Cetaphil cleanser," available over the counter nationwide and abroad, and made by a company with which he has nothing to do. ..............

.

One of the nation's top cardiologists testified Saturday that Merck officials tried to pressure him into not publishing a critical article about Vioxx in a highly respected medical journal four years ago, telling him he'd be "embarrassed" if he did so...........

Britain's leading medicines watchdog is to investigate claims made by a senior doctor of 'unethical behaviour' by a major pharmaceutical company over a study of a disease that affects millions of women. A series of emails and taped telephone conversations passed to The Observer reveal that a highly respected academic in the field of osteoporosis has questioned Procter and Gamble's decision to publish drug research in his name even though he had not been given full access to the data it was based on. The report was written by a 'ghost writer' paid for by P&G before being given to the academic to agree. The claims made by Dr Aubrey Blumsohn, senior lecturer and bone metabolism specialist at Sheffield University, are to be looked at by the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority. The issue will also be debated by MPs this week when the Commons meets to discuss whether the regulation of the pharmaceutical industry should be strengthened...................

Medical Editor, Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney, Australia

THE pharmaceutical industry lobby plans to expand its influence by funding grassroots patient groups to campaign for government subsidies for new medicines. New guidelines setting out possibilities for collaboration between the drug companies and patient groups suggest that in return for providing money for activities such as patient mail-outs, manufacturers may be able to expect "support when applying for Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme listing of medicines"..........................

A huge step forward for informed freedom of choice and health freedom in Canada has been achieved thanks to last minute scurrying by Health Canada to avoid the full impact of the Health Freedom Private Member's Bill C-420. Bill C-420 has been a dagger aimed at the heart of the health regulator's bureaucracy for the last two Parliaments. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Health passed a Liberal motion November 22, 2005, to effectively kill Bill C-420 with support from the NDP and Bloc Quebecois (7). Only the Conservative Party voted against the motion (4). New regulations proposed by Health Canada would exempt Natural Health Products from the censorship provisions in the Food and Drugs Act that act as an outright prohibition on fact-based, truthful health claims. If the regulations become law, it would be legal to advertise both the prevention and treatment (but not the cure) of the 40 or so diseases listed on Schedule A (heart disease, arthritis, cancer etc.) of the Food and Drugs Act with food based medicines.........................

A growing number of professionals in the health care field are reporting that a relationship exists between the epidemic in neurodevelopmental disorders of autism, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, and speech or language delay all across the country, and the use of thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative used in childhood vaccines. Vaccines are the only medicines that Americans are mandated to receive as a condition for attendance in school and day care, and for some types of employment. Parents who receive federal assistance are also required to show proof that their children have been vaccinated.................................

The generation of children injured by vaccines containing the mercury-based preservative thimerosal is now reaching puberty. Many of these children will require life-long care and support. The cost to their parents by today's standards, will reportedly exceed $2 million dollars for each child. An ever-growing number of health care professionals point to thimerosal as the culprit behind the explosion in cases of autism and other neurological disorders. The only common thread connecting these damaged children to one another is their exposure to mercury through childhood immunizations. Accountability from vaccine makers is something that parents of injured children have been seeking for years; but accountability appears more illusive with each year's passage. On october 27 2005, the Hartford Courant reported that "Congress is considering a bill that would allow the government to order that vaccines be given to every U.S. citizen in a national emergency, even if a vaccine has previously harmed some people."................................

A new government-financed study suggests that Americans pay far more than needed for drugs aimed at controlling schizophrenia. Conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health, the study compared four new-generation drugs against an older medication, perphenazine. Only one, olanzapine, worked better, and in that case, the gains were slight. Olanzapine also carried the most serious risk of side effects: It was far more likely than its rivals to cause severe weight gain and diabetes.........................................

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The state has revoked the medical licenses of two doctors at a shuttered clinic where the paralyzing botulism toxin was apparently injected in place of cosmetic Botox, the state Health Department said Tuesday. Bach McComb, who allegedly paralyzed himself and three friends with fake anti-wrinkle shots containing the botulism toxin, lost the right to practice medicine and was ordered to pay $14,750 in fines and costs.......................

Organic Consumers Association - Campaigning for Health, Justice, and Sustainability

Public comments are now being accepted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its newly proposed federal regulation regarding the testing of chemicals and pesticides on human subjects. On August 2, 2005, Congress had mandated the EPA create a rule that permanently bans chemical testing on pregnant women and children. But the EPA's newly proposed rule,

misleadingly titled "Protections for Subjects in Human Research," puts industry profits ahead of children's welfare. The rule allows for government and industry scientists to treat children as human guinea pigs in chemical experiments in the following situations - .....................................

The drug industry's image problems are beginning to hurt pharmaceutical companies where it matters most - at the bottom line. A year after Merck's withdrawal of its arthritis medicine Vioxx led to an industrywide credibility crisis, the Food and Drug Administration is blocking new medicines that might previously have passed muster. Doctors are writing fewer prescriptions for antidepressants and other drugs whose safety has been challenged, like hormone replacement therapies for women in menopause. ...........................

SEATTLE TIMES, By David Evans, Michael Smith and Liz Willen

A seven-member panel working for the world's largest company overseeing protection of people in clinical trials met on the morning of Nov. 20, 2004, to review recruiting material for a proposed drug test at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. One of the members, a doctor, said she didn't understand the recruiting script aimed at the public. The board voted to approve the document anyway............................

This whole world gives me hives, this privatized review process," says Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. "They've had conflicts of interest since the beginning." The world's largest pharmaceutical companies outsource 75 percent of experimental drug testing to private companies paid by drug makers. Every year, scores of people in the U.S. are injured and killed in clinical trials, while receiving little or no medical care...........

There aren't any federal rules requiring for-profit IRBs, which are often thousands of miles away from trial sites, to visit or inspect the test center at any time. Nobody has ever studied the effectiveness of review boards or tracked how many people are injured or killed each year while participating in clinical trials, says Harvard's Federman, who was chairman of a national committee on clinical trial safety in 2003. "An intelligent person would assume we know this," Federman says. "We don't know the number of persons harmed in clinical trials each year and are missing a registry of all subjects that participate in trials."...............

An online blog refers to Propositions 78 and 79, competing ballot measures to give uninsured Californians access to cheaper prescription drugs, as "compound, complex and messy," which may explain why the Public Policy Institute of California poll last month showed more than a quarter of the state's voters were undecided on the issue while Proposition 78 held a nine percent lead. It also may explain why local pharmacists and hospitals had no comment....................

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger supports the industry-sponsored Proposition 78, but his popularity has plummeted this year. The American Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons, the powerful senior citizens' lobby, supports Proposition 79, but it's unclear how far its influence extends beyond the group's 3.1 million members in California.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - State health regulators cited a second Kaiser Permanente hospital in the South Bay for giving the wrong medication this summer to a patient who later died. The California Department of Health Services determined that officials at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Santa Clara were "deficient" in their care of Josephine Frances Hart, a 12-year-old girl hospitalized with pneumonia who died the same day she received a double dose of the drug epinephrine. In their August report, investigators said the San Jose girl's death a month earlier came after a nurse accidentally administered two bags of the drug, which speeds up the heart rate, thinking one was an antibiotic. "The death of this young girl is tragic, and we're holding the hospital responsible," said Lea Brooks, a health services spokeswoman.......................................

Oscar Cabanerio has been waiting in an experimental drug testing center in Miami since 7:30 a.m. The 41- year-old undocumented immigrant says he's desperate for cash to send his wife and four children in Venezuela. More than 70 people have crowded into reception rooms furnished with rows of attached blue plastic seats. Cabanerio is one of many regulars who gather at SFBC International Inc.'s test center, which, with 675 beds, is the largest for-profit drug trial site in North America. Across the U.S., 3.7 million people have enrolled in drug tests sponsored by the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. The companies have outsourced 75 percent of experimental drug trials to centers like SFBC, a leader in a $14 billion industry......................

A former pharmaceutical salesman who was fired by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has filed a $6 million whistleblower lawsuit against the London-based drug manufacturer.In the suit, filed Friday in Davidson County Chancery Court, Scott McRae of Wilson County claims he was dismissed because he refused to lavish gifts on doctors and promote drugs for non-approved treatments,,,,,,,,,,,

CORPUS CHRISTI - The parents of a 13-year-old cancer patient will be allowed to take her to Kansas to pursue intravenous vitamin C treatment. First, Katie Wernecke must receive five days of traditional chemotherapy at University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, state District Judge Jack Hunter, newly appointed to the contentious case, ruled Friday.........

Doctors around the world are being advised to prescribe specific drugs by experts with close financial links to the pharmaceutical industry, it has been claimed. An investigation by the scientific journal Nature found "extensive" financial connections between clinical guideline panels and drug companies. Around 70% of panels were affected. In one case, every panel member had received payments from the company making the drug that was ultimately recommended. The findings suggest drug companies are distorting decisions about how their drugs are prescribed, say public health experts. Niteesh Choudhry, a specialist in health policy at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, said: "The guidelines are specifically written to influence the practice of many physicians. The effects of conflicts may be translated many times over to patients.".................

Who knew that the multibillion-dollar U.S. pharmaceutical industry was so keen on publishing pulp fiction ? In a tale worthy of a zany Washington satire - except for the lamentable fact that it's true - the rich and powerful pharmaceutical lobby secretly commissioned a thriller novel whose aim was to scare the living daylights out of folks who might want to buy cheap drugs from Canada. When the project fell through in july, I'm told the drug lobby offered $100,000 to the co-authors and publisher in a vain effort to sweep it under the rug. .................

One of the hot-button political issues of the day is physician-assisted euthanasia. Which ever side of the issue people support, the real question is: do we trust medical doctors to make honest decisions about performing the ultimate medical treatment -- death ?.................

An in-depth interview by John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute with Allen Jones,*a former inspector with the Pennsyvania Office of Inspector General, who initially blew the whistle on Pennsylvania's version of the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), a psychiatric prescription drug formulary and prescribing guideline for professionals. TMAP ensures that hundreds of millions of dollars in state funds are used to pay for high priced, dangerous - and mostly ineffective psychotropic drugs. TMAP is the most audacious prescription drug rip-off scam ever devised.

TMAP was cooked up in Texas by a coalition of manufacturers of patented antipsychotic and antidepression drugs; prominent University of Texas psychiatrists; and state officials in the department of mental health . The manufacturers financed the project,...........................

Nancy Yost doesn't have a heart condition, but every day for the past eight years, she has dutifully taken Lipitor to rein in her LDL cholesterol, which can get as high as 340. Now Yost, a 73-year-old retiree in Brooklyn Heights, wonders whether taking the medicine has been worthwhile. She's a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit that charges Lipitor manufacturer Pfizer aggressively promoted the drug to patients like herself - even though, the suit says, there is no proof statins prevent heart attacks in women and seniors who aren't already suffering from heart disease or diabetes. "Lipitor is one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world, and millions of women and elderly are taking it. But there's no clinical proof it has ever benefited women or the elderly," said Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro and the lead attorney in the case. "We believe Pfizer intentionally ignored the scientific evidence - and lack thereof - and launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign designed to push the drug to anyone they could convince to buy it." .............

NEW YORK- A consumer watchdog group has accused the makers of a popular asthma drug of manipulating safety data submitted to the FDA two years ago to create the impression that the drug Serevent is safer than it is. GlaxoSmithKline officials vehemently denied the charge, made by Public Citizen's Health Research Group in a letter in this week's issue of the British medical journal The Lancet............................

Every year millions of Americans go under the knife, but many of them are enduring great pain and shelling out thousands of dollars for surgeries they don't really need. In fact, the only people who seem to really benefit from these unnecessary medical procedures are the medical professionals who stand to make exorbitant amounts of money from performing them. ..............

We include this interview with Jamie Reidy, a pharmaceutical sales rep, to give you a flavor of what really goes on behind the scenes at Big Pharma. See for yourself the lack of ethics, the abuse of the system, and the heavy emphasis placed on profits. Learn how the drug companies rewarded this behavior and named Reidy their #1 drug rep. And then ask yourself, is this a system that cares one bit about patients? Decide for yourself, and be sure to check out the book, "Hard Sell."

Jamie Reidy was a pharmaceutical rep for nine years when he wrote "Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman." The book details his years working for Pfizer and selling arguably the hottest drug of the nineties, Viagra. Reidy made an art out of being a pharmaceutical rep, finding ways to use and abuse the system so he was making $100,000 a year peddling prescription drugs part time..........................

The Nation's eyes are on New Mexico. State Statutes on poisonous substances and adulteration can preempt federal. New Mexico set a precedent for the world to follow. Hearing to ban aspartame in july.. On october 4th, New Mexico's Environmental Improvement Board (EIB) courageously withstood a determined fight to preempt investigation of a food poison. This is a first for the Nation! Ever since Don Rumsfeld called in his markers to seat an FDA Commissioner who would finally approve aspartame/NutraSweet/Equal, the political clout, cash and cover-ups of the multi-national aspartame industry have suffocated every challenge...........................

Roughly 100 pharmaceuticals have now been identified in rivers, lakes, and coastal waters throughout Europe and the United States. While as yet there is no evidence of adverse human effects, there are disturbing ecosystem changes......................

The Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) policy of allowing preliminary health claims on food labels misleads consumers and has "failed the key communications test," according to a previously undisclosed FDA study

WASHINGTON -- Embattled Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester Crawford abruptly resigned Friday, telling his staff that at age 67 it was time to step aside. President Bush designated the National Cancer Institute's director, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, to be the FDA's new acting commissioner .............

Drug-maker GlaxoSmithKline has paid over $150 million to resolve charges that it defrauded Medicare and other federal health programs through fraudulent drug pricing and marketing of two drugs used in cancer care, Zofran and Kytril. A whistleblower in the case will get $26 million. The government charged that GlaxoSmithKline -- one of the world's largest pharmaceutical manufacturers -- engaged in a scheme to set and maintain fraudulent and inflated prices for Zofran and Kytril knowing that federal healthcare programs established reimbursement rates based on those prices.....

An eminent scientist choked up on the stand yesterday in a trial over the recalled pain-killer Vioxx, telling jurors he was appalled that fellow scientists appeared to help Merck & Co. Inc. develop a drug while knowing its risks...........................

John Le Carre's novel "The Constant Gardener" has been a forerunner for a spate of recent books that expose various facets of the pharmaceutical horrors which befall more and more of us - those who get sick and fall for pharmaceutical propaganda on how medicines treat this or that condition. It is not by chance that the pharma-dominated medical system has become the leading cause of death and suffering in the U.S. and perhaps in the whole Western World. Le Carre's novel has now been turned into a movie, which is hitting the theaters in these days.

A MOTHER has revealed how she had a healthy breast removed after being wrongly diagnosed with cancer. Marjory Patterson, 52, was told by doctors - over the phone - that she had a rare and aggressive form of cancer and that she needed a mastectomy. Less than a month later, doctors at Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, admitted they had been looking at another patient's tissue sample and made a mistake. It took nearly two years for Highland Acute Hospitals NHS Trust to offer Mrs Patterson just £44,000 compensation.................

Before you pop your next pill ... you should see this movie.

The movie, "Side Effects", written, directed and produced by Kathleen Slattery is a romantic comedy with a serious message. The message: "Beware the Pharmaceutical Industry". The national distribution of this independent film is scheduled for opening night in Dallas, Texas on Friday, september 9th at the Angelika Theater.............

Based on the Congressional testimony of Michael Wilkes, M.D., Ph.D. Vice Dean, Medical Education Professor of Medicine and Public Health, University of California, Davis in front of the Committee on Government Reform with respect to safety of Vioxx. There are three reasons:

1) free food and perks, 2) doctors feel they deserve such gifts, and 3) reps often fill a perceived educational need.

Since the 1930s, mercury-based Thimerosal has been added to vaccines as a preservative to boost drug company profits by allowing vaccine makers to package in bulk instead of individual doses. According to newly discovered research, which was supported by a grant from the American Medical Association, government agencies have known for 60 years that Thimerosal was neither safe or effective, and that it should have been removed as a preservative in pharmaceutical products..................

Use of a type of anti-depressant medication during pregnancy may increase the risk of birth defects such as cleft palate, research suggests. Danish and US scientists found use of SSRIs in the first three months of pregnancy was linked to a 40% increased risk - but the results are preliminary. ....

The head of the Food and Drug Administration's women's health office resigned Wednesday in a widening protest over delays in deciding whether the "morning-after" contraceptive can be sold without a prescription. Susan F. Wood, a biologist and veteran of 15... ......

Journal reference:

Public Library of Science Medicine (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124)

Source: Office of California State Attorney General

UK Independent, by Ben Russell, Political Correspondent

Record numbers of elderly people fell victim last year to a potentially lethal superbug which is plaguing Britain's hospitals, according to details of the first complete survey of the disease. Concerns about the bug, Clostridium difficile, were first revealed in The Independent in June following an outbreak of a lethal strain at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. The figures yesterday showed that there were 44,488 cases of the bug among people over 65. ..............

Commonly used modern antidepressants can cause adults as well as children to attempt suicide, a new study says. An 18-month inquiry convened by the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA) in the UK banned the use of the drugs, known as the SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) in children and adolescents. ...................

Luke Timmerman and David Heath of The Seattle Times use sources and documents to investigate at least 26 claims that drug researchers leaked secrets to Wall Street. "In 24 of the 26 cases, the firms issued reports to select clients with detailed information obtained from doctors involved in confidential studies. The reports advised clients whether to buy or sell a drug stock." A sidebar on how this is done is included, as well as information on how the story was reported. The investigation has already sparked an SEC investigation.

Psychiatric News - An expose of psychiatric crimes and human rights violations

A study completed at Brown University Medical School and Bradley Hospital in Providence informs that increasing numbers of U.S. children diagnosed with behaviour and psychiatric problems are increasingly receiving more than one medication. The study said that there was very little evidence that the drugs are safe or effective for children. According to child psychiatrist Joseph Penn of Brown "We don't know how these drugs may interact with each other, and we don't even have safety studies in children for many of the drugs on their own," and: "Doctors are doing this polypharmacy stuff all the time with kids, "but when you look for the research, there is none.".................

Gilbert M. Gaul of The Washington Post reports in a three-part series that Medicare policies often pay hospitals to practice medicine poorly. "In a four-year period, 106 heart patients at Palm Beach Gardens developed infections after surgery, according to lawsuits and government records." In part-two of the series, the Post looks at the nonprofit that oversees the evaluation of hospitals. The nonprofit charges hospitals "thousands of dollars for coaching on how to pass its reviews." The last part in the series details how some are finding it very difficult to access records because of privatized groups under contract by Medicare............................

Up to 90% of every drug taken into the body is excreted unchanged or as metabolites ending up in the ground water, ultimately flowing out of the tap again to medicate someone else without even a prescription........................

Clifford J. Levy and Michael Luo of The New York Times used state Medicaid data to find that "the program has been misspending billions of dollars annually because of fraud, waste and profiteering. A computer analysis of several million records obtained under the state Freedom of Information Law revealed numerous indications of fraud and abuse that the state had never looked into." Examples of the potential fraud include a dentist who billed for as many as 991 procedures a day and a Buffalo school that sent more than 4,000 students "into speech therapy in a single day without talking to them or reviewing their records." Medicaid fraud has turned into a $44.5 billion target and the Times investigation uncovered "numerous indications of fraud and abuse that the state had never looked into." ...........................

The same compounds scientists believe are mutating fish might cause breast cancer and reproductive problems in humans.....................

Allegations of misconduct by U.S. researchers reached record highs last year as the Department of Health and Human Services received 274 complaints - 50 percent higher than 2003 and the most since 1989 when the federal government established a program to deal with scientific misconduct. Chris Pascal, director of the federal Office of Research Integrity, said its 28 staffers and $7 million annual budget haven't kept pace with the allegations. The result: Only 23 cases were closed last year. Of those, eight individuals were found guilty of research misconduct. In the past 15 years, the office has confirmed about 185 cases of scientific misconduct. Research suggests this is but a small fraction of all the incidents of fabrication, falsification and plagiarism. In a survey published june 9 in the journal Nature, about 1.5 percent of 3,247 researchers who responded admitted to falsification or plagiarism. (One in three admitted to some type of professional misbehavior) .........

A team from The Center for Public Integrity reports on spending by the pharmaceutical and health products industry on lobbyists. "The drug industry's huge investments in Washington — though meager compared to the profits they make — have paid off handsomely, resulting in a series of favorable laws on Capitol Hill and tens of billions of dollars in additional profits." Pharmaceutical companies spent nearly $116 million lobbying the government, a figure not uncommon for the industry. "In 2004, drug makers upped their reported expenditures on lobbyists to $123 million, a record amount for the industry." ....................................

PUBLIC INTEGRITY, Special Report - By M. Asif Ismail

Susan Kelleher and Duff Wilson interviewed more than 160 doctors, patients, medical analysts, regulatory officials and other experts for a Seattle Times series about the health care industry and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry. "Suddenly Sick" reveals that perviously healthy people go to the doctor only to be diagnosed with an illness because the definitions of disease have changed. Among the Times' findings: "Pharmaceutical firms have commandeered the process by which diseases are defined. ... Some diseases have been radically redefined without a strong basis in medical evidence. The drug industry has bolstered its position by marketing directly to the health-conscious consumer, leading younger and healthier people to consider themselves at risk and to start taking medications." The series includes a sidebar about sources used in the story. (Duff Wilson reported and wrote this story while working for The Seattle Times. He now reports for The New York Times.) ...................

The short answer is this: To stop the pharmaceutical and device industries from hiding the results of clinical trials that did not show a benefit to their products. And to stop them from withholding findings that indicate significant harms associated with their products........................

The pharmaceutical industry's corrupting influence on our medical care system usually gets the most attention. Now its corrupting influence on medical journals has come under fire. Yes they're full of drug ads that prompt the usual suspicions about financial dependency. But that's the least of it, according to Richard Smith, MD, who resigned last year as editor-in-chief of the BMJ (British Medical Journal) ..........................

A recent article in the Miami Herald reports that a jury awarded the family of a women who was diagnosed with and treated for cancer when she never had the disease. The woman died from the side effects of her chemotherapy treatment.................................

Academics, state officials and environmental advocates are starting to question whether massive amounts of discarded pharmaceuticals, which are often flushed down the drain, pose a threat to the nation's aquatic life and possibly to people.......................

Professor becomes Whistleblower

Nancy Olivieri and the Science Scandal that Rocked the Hospital for Sick Children

a freelance medical investigative journalist based in Kingston, New York, United States of America

A year ago, I received an E-mail from a research scientist at a major pharmaceutical company. The scientist had read my articles on whistleblowers who had raised concerns about the undue influence of the pharmaceutical industry on American medicine My industry source had information for me about drug company practices, but—out of fear of career ruin—would only talk on the condition that I would conceal the scientist's identity. For the next year or so, I had repeated contacts with the scientist...............................

M. Asif Ismail of The Center for Public Integrity reviewed lobbying records to report on the "deep-pocketed pharmaceutical and health products industry", which "has lobbied on more than 1,400 congressional bills since 1998 and spent a whopping $759 million during that period ..." The story includes detailed graphics, as well as data seperated into categories ranging from lobbying firm donations to issues lobbied by the pharmaceutical and health product industry..................

SARASOTA -- A Sarasota dermatologist who was indicted last month on charges of falsely diagnosing patients sometimes diagnosed skin cancer even before looking at biopsy slides, his employees told federal investigators. Every biopsy Dr. Michael A. Rosin took was diagnosed as cancerous, they said. He even once performed skin cancer surgery after reviewing a slide that contained a piece of chewing gum, placed there by a laboratory technician who had lost the skin specimen, according to court records obtained Thursday. He performed more than 120 surgeries on one patient over 20 years. .................................

Cures for cancer already exist but not in the realm of chemical-based medicine, says holistic nutritionist..........................

Prozac, called fluoxetine by generic name, is a psychiatric drug prescribed to over 50 million people including millions of children. The drug was linked to increased suicides and violence as early as 1988, in a recently emerged document. Apparently the evaluation was known to Prozac's maker Eli Lilly as early as the 'eighties, but was never even given to the FDA. This is the preoccupying picture that emerged just days...

The Royal College of General Practitioners in the U.K. has accused drug companies of inventing fictitious diseases or exaggerating the severity of symptoms in order to boost drug sales. It's being called 'disease mongering' and the college explains that pharmaceutical companies are taking the National Health Service to the brink of collapse by hyping both these diseases and the assortment of prescription drugs used to treat their symptoms.

Newsday, By Thomas Frank, Washington Bureau

Industry has some friends on the inside. Bush-appointed administrators at the FDA have consistently sided with the interests of business..................

Maurice Hinchey, Representative of the 22nd Congressional District of New York is calling for a thorough examination of the link between Neurontin, an anti-epilepsy drug that has been made a block-buster seller by off-label marketing, and suicides. The lawmaker blasted the FDA's failure to act in this matter in a letter to FDA acting Commissioner Lester Crawford dated 7 September 2004. According to a report by the Alliance for Human...

Agencies such as the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources are investing millions of dollars in research aimed at measuring the levels of pharmaceuticals in our water supplies.

According to a recent article published in the British Medical Journal, a scientific report by one of its researchers, Dr. Andrew Mosholder, showing that antidepressant drugs double the suicide rate in children taking them, was suppressed by the FDA. Instead of owning up to its mistake and issuing generalized warnings, the agency has launched a criminal investigation to find out which employees leaked Dr. Mosholder's report. Apart from the FDA's...

Several leading medical journals failed to enforce their own policies that require contributing writers to disclose conflicts of interests, according to a study..........

Here's a must-read article for anyone interested in learning how the pharmaceutical industry really operates. It's a case of aggressive marketing gone bad, with a mixture of corrupt physicians, underhanded payola and a near-total disregard for patient health. And yet it's business as usual in the pharmaceutical industry: drug maker Schering-Plough, one of the largest drug companies in the world, has been outright bribing physicians to prescribe drugs and operate sham clinical trials.................

SEE ALSO -

Material Costs of Medical Compounds

By Sharon Davis and Mary Palmer

US Department of Commerce

The women who wrote this email and signed below are Federal Budget Analysts in Washington, D.C. Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United State contain active ingredients made in other countries. In our independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America............

This Information has Been Widely Disputed

A time-honored way to deal with negative results is to sweep them under the rug. But NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer gave notice on 2 june that he may punish companies suspected of burying clinical data....................

The multibillion-pound global pharmaceutical industry is accused today of manipulating the results of drug trials for financial gain and withholding information that could expose patients to the risk of harm.

A senior executive with Britain's biggest drugs company has admitted that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them. Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them. It is an open secret within the drugs industry that most of its products are ineffective in most patients but this is the first time that such a senior drugs boss has gone public. His comments come days after it emerged that the NHS drugs bill has soared by nearly 50 per cent in three years, rising by £ 2.3bn a year to an annual cost to the taxpayer of £ 7.2bn. GSK announced last week that it had 20 or more new drugs under development that could each earn the company up to $1bn (£600m) a year................

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE