Tag: Big Pharma
Hormonal Contraceptives Increase Depression
Danish study shows that hormonal contraceptives lead to depression in 40% of patients. This was a study of over one million patients!! The Mirena IUD increased risk 300%. This is a huge problem. I’ve certainly noticed it anecdotally in patients and personal contacts, but just wow. That’s a big risk and extremely underappreciated. Go…
Read MoreCalifornia Takes on Big Pharma with Prop 61
This post sums up the players and strategies behind both sides of Prop 61 Drug companies and their wealth have captured the national legislative and regulatory process and even some of the national patient advocacy groups (see below for more). How to crack the nut of deadly high drug prices and bring them down to…
Read MoreMedtronic Causes Problems Using Devices Off Label
Whistleblower case contends surgical device maker misled FDA — and patients paid the price
Read MoreResearch Casting Doubt on Acupuncture
Through some web searching, I was able to find a copy of this paper that’s not behind a subscription firewall. These kinds of papers have been coming out for decades. It’s a safe bet as a journalist to criticize acupuncture, it’s a kiss up kick down, comforting the comfortable gambit. There are no heavy hitters…
Read MoreLawyer Big Pharma Hates
Reuben Guttman: The lawyer pharma loves to hate Reuben Guttman: The lawyer pharma loves to hate Reuben Guttman: The lawyer pharma loves to hate
Read MoreAMA seeks to ban direct consumer advertising
I think this is a good first step to reign in Big Pharma. “Last year, the pharmaceutical industry spent $4.8 billion pitching its products and messages to Americans, a 17 percent increase from 2013, according to the market research firm Kantar Media.” “But the AMA is now seizing on another reason for a ban. The organization…
Read MoreFreakonomics: Starting a Healthcare Revolution
From Freakonomics radio. Podcast here. Transcript here. “Brenner: The major imperative for most organizations in health care is to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And money is like fertilizer. And the way you get bigger is getting more money, more market share, more customers. DUBNER: Brenner believes that the practice of medicine has been…
Read MoreBig Pharma Hazards
Danish Dr. Peter Gotzsche makes his case for the dangers of the pharmaceutical companies. “The main reason we take so many drugs is that drug companies don t sell drugs, they sell lies about drugs. This is what makes drugs so different from anything else in life… Virtually everything we know about drugs is what…
Read MoreMore Medical Research Fraud
Follow the Money. “These days, of course, medical research is not just a scholarly affair. It is also a global, multibillion-dollar business enterprise, powered by the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries. The ethical problem today is not merely that these corporations have plenty of money to grease the wheels of university research. It’s also that…
Read MoreWhen Medical Devices Spread Superbugs
Germs that are resistant to antibiotics are cropping up with alarming frequency at American hospitals. A lethal “superbug” known as CRE infected seven patients at the Ronald Reagan U.C.L.A. Medical Center and killed two of them. The germs were apparently transmitted on inadequately sterilized medical scopes.
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