If you’ve been reading the newspapers lately, you can’t miss articles and editorials concerning the proliferation of Conflicts of Interest in Medical Studies. As recently reported in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Chicago Tribune; several stories are surfacing about researchers who dec
Doctors from Cardiff University in Wales have revealed that previous studies concerning antidepressants had inflated their safety statistics. Referring to the SSRI drugs (Selective Serotonim Reuptake Inhibitors), the Cardiff Study found that the risks of suicides have been routinely understated whil
The Institute of Medicine has reported that 1.5 Million patients each year are injured in hospitals as a result of medication errors. The study revealed the alarming statistic that at least one medical error occurs to each patient every day. The cost for additional medical treatment necessary to add
A 15-month Congressional inquiry into FDA enforcement of the nation’s food and drug laws has found a frighteningly sharp decline over the last five years. The number of warning letters to drug companies, medical device makers and others is down 54% from 2000 to 2005. Enforcement actions was down 65%
Do you bellieve Fast Food Restaurants should warn customers that their menu items are fatty? How about the Trans-Fat amounts? The recent lawsuit by the Center for Science in the Public Interest against KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) raises the question of whether the Courts are appropriate places to e
Corpus Christi, Texas will be the venue for the first jury trial to determine whether welding rods cause Parkinson Disease symptoms. Over 3800 lawsuits have been filed in the U.S, consolidated for supervision by a Cleveland Federal District Court. The suits allege that high expsures to manganese and
Newly released corporate documents show that, last year, Guidant drafted but never sent a detailed document to physicians which would have disclosed significant defects in its heart devices. Instead, executives of the company defended their failure to warn doctors by citing concerns that patients wo
In a 5 to 4 Decision, split on conservative and liberal basis, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal employees, who complain about misconduct by superiors, have no Freedom of Speech rights in the workplace. The opinion affects about 20 million federal employees who, the Court ruled, are not enti
A month after I blogged about Fosamax, the NY Times has run a front page story on the horrible dilemma facing patients with cancer or osteoporosis. The FDA has now required bisphosphonate labels to disclose the serious side effects of death of areas of bone in the jaw, which may occur in one of 10 p
Every now and then bad things happen to good people who are related to a doctor, and when they do, doctors file Medical Malpractice Lawsuits just like every other victim deserves to do. Recently, in Tacoma, Washington, an anesthesiologist sued the hospital where he once worked, asserting that the st
A professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Wisconsin has conducted a new study which showed that shocks from Tasers cause the hearts of healthy pigs to stop beating. This finding contradicts the previous research financed by, guess who, Taser International. The new study took into ac
You can’t believe everything you read, even in Medical Journals. Merck deliberately withheld information about three heart attacks from its data when the New England Journal of Medicine reported on VIoxx in March of 2000. Recently, Merck’s spin machine is citing new data about patients who stopped u