If the powers-that-be over at Harvard want to avoid these kinds of headlines, they should pay attention to the ethical practices of some of their medical scientists.
Today’s New York Times exposes yet another tale of the common practice of medical researchers receiving obscene amounts of unreported money from drug companies-a total of $4.2 million pay out to three researchers since 2000.
Apparently, this ONLY violates federal and University research RULES and no laws were broken.
However, there are other angles of this story not reported by the Times, from unreported drug company payoffs to accusations of improper diagnoses of children that result in serious over-medication to murder
Hollywood would have a ball with an old plot line-money and murder-with this kind of twist.
I respect the work that Senator Grassley has been doing. He’s one Republican who is doing his job instead of playing politics. His bi-partisan H1B legislation (sponsored with Senator Durbin) got to the heart of the issue instead of being reactionary to corporate lobbyists and interests. I’m impressed.
Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies
Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines
and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs
By Melody Petersen
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p>…was reviewed in the Boston Globe today. One shocking factiod…since 1980, prescription drug sales in the US skyrocketed from $12 billion to $197 billion in 2007 (hmm, 1980 was around the time that prescription drugs could be advertised…just a coincidence of course). And after all that money and drugs, Canadians and many other societies ahve a longer life span. (Just like many of us wonder what would happen of we spent the 100’s of billions we’re spending in Iraq on new and clean energy alternatives…what if we as a society spent 100 billion a year on preventative health care instead of drugs, maybe we would be living longer?)
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p>Of course none of the potential sins discussed today stand any comparison to the worse crime involving prescription drugs committed by corporate America…of course I’m referring to mass murder.
I was also surprised to see a Republican leading the charge against this clearly unethical conflict of interest. You are right to bring up the potential connection between the 40-fold increase in bipolar diagnoses for children, the medications that are prescribed to these children, and the occassional overdoses and deaths that have occurred as a result (your “murder” angle).
The Globe also noted that antipsychotics cause weight gain, and that children have been even more susceptible than adults to this phenomenon, which is interesting in light of the notorious “obesity epidemic” among children that has consumed so many column inches over the past 10 years or so.
Although poor diet and lack of exercise are still, no doubt, major contributory factors to the general trends, the association of these medications with obesity casts the use of antipsychotics and antidepressents on children in an even more unfavorable light. (By the way, I wouldn’t imagine that anybody- adult or child- is likely to be much helped in their depression by gaining weight. Common sense would surely dictate the opposite.)