Are Too Many Anti-Depressants Being Prescribed?
Look, our friend Dr. Mojtabai and his study on the use of antidepressants is on the Well Blog in the New York Times! See a Glut of Antidepressants by Roni Caryn Rabin. Oh, and do read all 405 comments.
The study looks at patients diagnosed with depression in primary care setting, and many given that diagnosis do not meet criteria for the disorder, but still get prescribed anti-depressants. I wondered if some didn't meet criteria for depression because the anti-depressants were doing a good job of treating the symptoms. Unfortunately, I could find the abstract for the original article, s...
Source: Shrink Rap - August 14, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
Meanwhile, in other GSK news...
Glaxo to pay $229 million to settle Avandia suits with 8 statesJuly 24 | Wed Jul 24, 2013 6:53pm EDT(Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to pay $229 million to settle lawsuits brought by eight U.S. states related to improper marketing of its Avandia diabetes drug, the British drugmaker said on Wednesday.The company, in a regulatory filing, said the settlement was within provisions it had previously set aside for litigation. The agreement also encompasses allegations brought by Louisiana's attorney general involving other Glaxo products, the company said.The eight states had opted out of a prior settlement agree...
Source: PharmaGossip - July 25, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
How to lower Big Pharma's drug prices the Chinese way
British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) will lower the prices of its products on the mainland and has admitted that some of its senior executives appear to have broken the law there.Meanwhile, the mainland's crackdown on pharmaceutical firms widened to AstraZeneca.UK ministers are aware of the investigation. We remain in regular contact with GSK and the Chinese authoritiesMATTHEW FORBES, DEPUTY BRITISH CONSUL IN SHANGHAIThe Shanghai office of the Anglo-Swedish firm was visited by the Shanghai Public Security Bureau "regarding a local police matter focused on a sales representative", a spokesman for the company said. "This...
Source: PharmaGossip - July 23, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
China bars Glaxo finance director from leaving country
China has stepped up its media campaign against GlaxoSmithKline, which stands accused of running a huge bribery operation.LONDON (CNNMoney)China has barred a GlaxoSmithKline executive from leaving the country as it turns up the heat on the drugmaker over allegations of corruption.Steve Nechelput, finance director for GlaxoSmithKline China, has been prevented from traveling outside China since the end of June, the company said Wednesday.The U.K. drugmaker has been accused by China of using a network of more than 700 travel agencies and other firms to channel bribes to health officials since 2007.Four senior Chinese executiv...
Source: PharmaGossip - July 17, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Drug Rep$
Meet your doctor's generous friend
BY ROB WIPOND, JULY/AUGUST 2013
Pharmaceutical companies have paid billions of dollars in fines in the US for giving bribes and kickbacks to doctors. Are their drug sales representatives behaving any differently in Victoria?
"Dinner and Yankee game with family. Talked about Paxil studies in children.” That note, written by a drug sales representative about his evening with a doctor and his family, was one of many records that forced GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to pay a $3 billion fine to the U.S. government in 2012.
According to Public Citizen, since 1991, there have been 239 legal...
Source: PharmaGossip - July 10, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Hot Flash? Do Menopausal Women Really Need The Noven Drug?
Talk about hot flashes. Late last week, the FDA approved the first treatment for hot flashes associated with menopause that does not contain a hormone (see this and this). But the drug does contain paroxetine, which is the chemical name for the Paxil antidepressant. And this raises a question - can Noven Pharmaceutical successfully capture the attention of physicians and insurers?
For one thing, the approval was a surprise. Last March, an FDA advisory panel voted 10-to-4 against recommending approval because the benefits of the drug, which is called Brisdelle, did not seem to sufficiently outweigh the risks. Of course, the...
Source: Pharmalot - July 3, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
Tamiflu saga continues - NYT. By Katie Thomas
Breaking the Seal on Drug ResearchPETER DOSHI walked across the campus of Johns Hopkins University in a rumpled polo shirt and stonewashed jeans, a backpack slung over one shoulder. An unremarkable presence on a campus filled with backpack-toters, he is 32, and not sure where he’ll be working come August, when his postdoctoral fellowship ends. And yet, even without a medical degree, he is one of the most influential voices in medical research today.Dr. Doshi’s renown comes not from solving the puzzles of cancer or discovering the next blockbuster drug, but from pushing the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companie...
Source: PharmaGossip - June 30, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
You May Likely Gain Weight on these 6 Psychiatric Medications
I had been on the drug Zyprexa (olanzapine) for four weeks and had already gained 15 pounds which, you know, didn’t help my depression.
After going to a wedding and catching a side view of myself, I called my doctor and told him that my name was now Violet Beauregarde, you know, the gum chewer in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” who becomes a blueberry balloon. Except that when I rose to the top of the room I was crying.
“The two most common questions that patients ask me are, ‘Will I become dependent on the medications?’ and ‘Will I gain weight?’” says Sanjay Gupta, M.D.
It’s a serious concern fo...
Source: World of Psychology - June 28, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Therese J. Borchard Tags: Antidepressant Antipsychotic Disorders General Health-related Medications Mental Health and Wellness Self-Esteem Treatment Anticonvulsant Charlie And The Chocolate Charlie And The Chocolate Factory Chemical Compound Clozaril De Source Type: blogs
Tarnished Image? Psychiatrists Square Off Over A Nemeroff Lecture
For the second time in little more than a year, Charles Nemeroff is the subject of protest by other psychiatrists. The latest instance involves an invitation by the Institute of Psychiatry, the leading center in the UK for psychiatric research, to the University of Miami psychiatry professor to lecture next week at its new Centre for Affective Disorders.
A group of UK psychiatrists, however, object to the invitation and point to his tenure as a sort of poster boy for undisclosed conflicts of interest. In the view of the Critical Psychiatry Network, which his planned appearance will reflect badly on all psychiatrists and th...
Source: Pharmalot - June 12, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
A Reader’s Question – Can I still take Paxil after a cleansing detox?
It’s time for another question/answer. I know a lot of you like these so here we go. This one comes from (Source: Addiction Recovery Blog)
Source: Addiction Recovery Blog - June 5, 2013 Category: Addiction Authors: Addiction Recovery Author Tags: Medical Detox Source Type: blogs
Proposed FDA Guidance on Financial Disclosure and the Physician Payment Sunshine Regulations – Divergent Paths and Duplicated Efforts
Conclusion
The increased regulation and requirements to disclose FCOIs creates a tremendous burden for researchers and institutions that are repetitive, overlapping but not-identical, and time-consuming. Nevertheless, institutions that receive PHS funding can manage FCOIs in a number of ways: (1) public disclosure of the FCOI (e.g., when presenting or publishing the research); (2) disclosure of the FCOI directly to human participants; (3) appointment of an independent monitor capable of taking measures to protect the design, conduct, and reporting of the research against bias resulting from the FCOI; (4) modification ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - May 17, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
United Kingdom Office of Fair Trading: Accuses GlaxoSmithKline for Pay for Delay
In January of this year, we noted that the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case to decide whether agreements between brand-name pharmaceutical companies and generic makers to delay the entry of generic drugs to the market—so called “pay for delay” deals—violate antitrust laws. “In a typical case, a generic rival challenges the patent of a brand-name competitor, which then pays the rival a sum of money to drop its challenge,” reported Reuters.
A study by RBC Capital Markets Corp. of 371 cases during 2000-2009 found brand-name companies won 89 at trial compared to 82 won by generic drugmakers. Anothe...
Source: Policy and Medicine - May 16, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Happy Fiftieth Birthday Valium - by Will Nicholl
A recent report published by the charity MIND – which paints a troubling, and important portrait of Britons driven to alcohol, cigarettes and prescription medication to differing extents by the stress of working-life – makes it a prescient moment to cast the mind back to a series of very strange goings-on.
The time was the late 1950s, the place a hospital canteen in the North of England. Perhaps pickings in that week’s British Medical Journal had been lean – or patients that day exasperating – because the topic of conversation was a newspaper article about a Swiss circus-master who had found a drug to calm his t...
Source: PharmaGossip - May 5, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
The Myth of the Tough Prosecutor as a Distraction from Health Care Corporate Executives' Impunity
The tragic case of the Boston Marathon bombing illustrates how myth making about tough law enforcement obscures the impunity enjoyed by top health care executives. A "Tough to a Fault" ProsecutorA recent Reuters article touted the toughness of the prosecutor who will take on the case of the surviving accused Boston terrorist:As the top federal law enforcer in Massachusetts, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz has taken heat for being tough to a fault and coming down too hard on some defendants. But as she builds a possible death penalty case against suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, the unflinching a...
Source: Health Care Renewal - April 25, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: US Department of Justice impunity legal settlements public relations Source Type: blogs
Glaxo accused of pay delay -- Yorkshire Post
via yorkshirepost.co.uk Drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline was today accused by the competition watchdog of paying off firms to delay the launch of cheap versions of its antidepressant treatment in a move that denied the NHS “significant” cost savings. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is alleging that Glaxo offered “substantial” payments to Alpharma, Generics and Norton Healthcare, to hold off from supplying rival medicines to its blockbuster Seroxat treatment. Glaxo’s rivals were attempting to supply a generic paroxetine product in competition to Seroxat, but Glaxo accused each of infringing its patents and to resolve ...
Source: PharmaGossip - April 19, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
