Sidney Wolfe writes in the BMJ - AllTrials - Selective clinical trial
reporting: betraying trial participants, harming patients
Reporting biases found in trials of cardiovascular devicesReporting biases in published trials were first identified in 1986.1 Published randomized studies of combination chemotherapy compared with treatment with an alkylating agent as first line treatment for ovarian cancer showed a significant survival advantage for combination chemotherapy. Unpublished cancer trial registry data from the same studies, however, showed no such advantage.2 Similarly, in the treatment of multiple myeloma, registry data suggested a smaller survival advantage for combination chemotherapy (over prednisone and an alkylating agent) tha...
Source: PharmaGossip - June 11, 2015 Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Sidney Wolfe writes in the BMJ - AllTrials - Selective clinical trial reporting: betraying trial participants, harming patients
Reporting biases found in trials of cardiovascular devicesReporting biases in published trials were first identified in 1986.1 Published randomized studies of combination chemotherapy compared with treatment with an alkylating agent as first line treatment for ovarian cancer showed a significant survival advantage for combination chemotherapy. Unpublished cancer trial registry data from the same studies, however, showed no such advantage.2 Similarly, in the treatment of multiple myeloma, registry data suggested a smaller survival advantage for combination chemotherapy (over prednisone and an alkylating agent) tha...
Source: PharmaGossip - June 11, 2015 Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Sidney Wolfe writes in the BMJ - AllTrials - Selective clinical trial
reporting: betraying trial participants, harming patients
Reporting biases found in trials of cardiovascular devicesReporting biases in published trials were first identified in 1986.1 Published randomized studies of combination chemotherapy compared with treatment with an alkylating agent as first line treatment for ovarian cancer showed a significant survival advantage for combination chemotherapy. Unpublished cancer trial registry data from the same studies, however, showed no such advantage.2 Similarly, in the treatment of multiple myeloma, registry data suggested a smaller survival advantage for combination chemotherapy (over prednisone and an alkylating agent) tha...
Source: PharmaGossip - June 10, 2015 Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Sidney Wolfe writes in the BMJ - AllTrials - Selective clinical trial
reporting: betraying trial participants, harming patients
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Source: PharmaGossip - June 10, 2015 Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
The road to health care for veterans is baroque
Read the voices of Service: this discussion thread is a show and tell of what women veterans have to go through to get care. It also demonstrates some traits of women warriors: generosity, tenacity , wisdom , guts and extreme moxie.
It is unconscionable that those who served have to come home and fight more battles. Shame on us.
Alana Vollmer-Bland Question…..I have a 30% rating for PTSD from Afghanistan. I told the shrink at the VA at the beginning of the claims process and then another counselor at the VA here about the sexual assault while I was on active duty. She spent 6 weeks doing intake on me and waffled be...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - April 17, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Women Veterans Source Type: blogs
Promoting Amphetamines for Over-Eating - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
In this study, about 5% of patients given any dosage of Vyvanse had to discontinue its use because of adverse effects. 3/196 patients initially randomized to Vyvanse had serious adverse effects, and one patient died, apparently of an amphetamine overdose. Oddly, the article declared that the one death, due to methamphetamine overdose, was thought by a study investigator not to be related to treatment with another amphetamine, lisdexamfetamine. That makes little sense, given that in a randomized controlled trial, the presumption is that differences in groups given different treatments were caused by these ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - February 26, 2015 Category: Health Management Tags: clinical trials conflicts of interest deception evidence-based medicine FDA marketing Shire stealth marketing Source Type: blogs
Linda T.
I am 52 years old and am currently taking Cymbalta, 30mg for depression. I have been seriously depressed for too long along with severe anxiety.
Only one month after becoming gluten free, and reducing my carbohydrate and sugar intake, I am a totally different person. Honestly, it is like night and day. My anxiety has disappeared; I am calm. I’m not depressed. Instead, I’m feeling good and content. I used to think that I would be on antidepressants forever, but now I feel like there’s hope that one day I won’t need them anymore.
-Linda T.
The post Linda T. appeared first on David Perlmutter M.D.. (Source: R...
Source: Renegade Neurologist - A Blog by David Perlmutter, MD, FACN - January 28, 2015 Category: Neurologists Authors: gbadmin Tags: Success Anxiety Depression Source Type: blogs
A patient’s experience with diagnostic overshadowing
I have been a victim of diagnostic overshadowing by a primary care physician. I’ve been dealing with major depressive disorder, recurrent, severe and anorexia for twenty-five years — practically my entire adult life. However, I work full-time and I’m a published writer. At the time I saw this PCP, I was on hefty doses of Cymbalta (an antidepressant) and Abilify (an antipsychotic which can also be used to boost the effects of an antidepressant).
Continue reading ...
Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - November 4, 2014 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Andrea Rosenhaft Tags: Patient Pain management Patients Primary care Source Type: blogs
Top medicine articles for October 2014
A collection of some interesting medical articles published recently:Hand-grip strength is an amazingly good predictor of future rates of mortality and morbidity, or sickness http://buff.ly/1BK759H -- Hand grip strength should be considered as a vital sign useful for screening middle-aged and older adults http://buff.ly/1DglFaI -- Measuring hand-grip strength is very simple and cheap. Every primary care doctor should have a dynamometer in their office. At every visit, the doctor could check grip strength for older patients. If someone was in the 45th percentile for their age and the measurements were stable, great. But if ...
Source: Clinical Cases and Images - Blog - October 24, 2014 Category: Universities & Medical Training Tags: Health News of the Day Source Type: blogs
The $500 Billion Medicare Slowdown: A Story About Part D
A great deal of analysis has been published on the causes of the health care spending slowdown system-wide — including in the pages of Health Affairs. Much attention in particular has focused on the remarkable slowdown in Medicare spending over the past few years, and rightfully so: Spending per beneficiary actually shrank (!) by one percent this year (or grew only one percent if one removes the effects of temporary policy changes).
Yet the disproportionate role played by prescription drug spending (or Part D) has seemingly escaped notice. Despite constituting barely more than 10 percent of Medicare spending, our an...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - October 21, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Loren Adler and Adam Rosenberg Tags: All Categories Hospitals Medicare Payment Pharma Physicians Policy Spending Source Type: blogs
Calling Mrs. Kafka
By HANS DUVEFELT, MD “Prior Authorizations, Mrs. Kafka. May I have your name and the patient’s policy number.” “My name is Hans Duvefelt, and I don’t have the patient’s number but I have her husband’s – it is 123456789”. “Thank you, Doctor. This is for Harry Black?” “Well, no, it’s for his wife, Harriet. We asked […] (Source: The Health Care Blog)
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 30, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: THCB Cymbalta Dead German writers Kafka Lyrica Megascripts Source Type: blogs
Big Pharma Pursues the Development of "Electroceuticals" with Google
One of the major goals of Big Pharma is to enlarge its customer base, which is to say, sell more product. One way to accomplish this is through the medicalization of "conditions" that previously have not been viewed as diseases. One example of such a condition is obesity. This medicalization process has also been referred to as "disease mongering" (see: Disease Mongering (i.e., Medicalization) by Pharmaceutical Companies; Medical Device Mongering, a Variant of Disease Mongering). The reason that Big Pharma spends huge amount of money each year on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertisements on TV is to...
Source: Lab Soft News - July 25, 2014 Category: Pathologists Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Lab Information Products Laboratory Industry Trends Medical Consumerism Medical Ethics Source Type: blogs
Pain Medicine News - Fibromyalgia Now Widely Recognized as Requiring Multimodal Approach
Israeli fibromyalgia guidelines published online in November 2013 and Canadian guidelines published in May 2013 follow in the solid footsteps of the 2010 American College of Rheumatology preliminary diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia. The Canadian and Israeli documents eschew an extensive physical examination and a tender-point count, focus on the importance of nonpharmacologic treatments and recognize fibromyalgia as neither a distinct rheumatic nor mental disorder. German guidelines cut from similar cloth were published in 2008."All three guidelines focus on a multimodal approach; and we emphasize the primacy of physic...
Source: Psychology of Pain - March 13, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Pharmaceutical Companies Drastically Cut Speaker Payments for Doctors
A number of large pharmaceutical companies have greatly reduced payments to healthcare professionals for promotional speeches. ProPublica reports that GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer have dropped their speaking payments by over 60% from 2011 to 2012. Eli Lilly reduced their spending by 55%, from $47.9 million in 2011 to $21.6 million in 2012. During the same period, Novartis reduced their spending from $24.8 million to $14.8 million.
ProPublica states that the sharp drop in payments coincides with the large settlement figures pharmaceutical companies have forked over to the government for their marketing practices, including ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - March 7, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
As Full Disclosure Nears, Doctors’ Pay for Drug Talks Plummets
Some of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies have slashed payments to health professionals for promotional speeches amid heightened public scrutiny of such spending, a new ProPublica analysis shows.Eli Lilly and Co.’s payments to speakers dropped by 55 percent, from $47.9 million in 2011 to $21.6 million in 2012.Pfizer’s speaking payments fell 62 percent over the same period, from nearly $22 million to $8.3 million.And Novartis, the largest U.S. drug maker as measured by 2012 sales, spent 40 percent less on speakers that year than it did between October 2010 and September 2011, reducing payments from $24.8 m...
Source: PharmaGossip - March 4, 2014 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
