This year’s report from the Attorney General’s Office showed that Vermont
doctors received $3.1 million in gifts and donations from the pharmaceutical and
medical industry — an increase of 33 percent over the previous year. …
Year: 2008
Untreated schizophrenia may spare brain – Brief Article
Again, patients showed lower brain volume and larger fluid-filled spaces on MRI
scans, with no differences between those who began treatment either a few months
or more than 1,year after an initial period of psychosis. …
New cannabis-like drugs could block pain without affecting brain, says study
“Our new study is very promising because it suggests that we could alleviate
pain by targeting the cannabinoid receptor CB2 without causing the kinds of
side-effects we associate with people using cannabis itself.”
…
Atypicals no better than older meds in kids
That’s bad news for the companies that make leading atypicals–Johnson & Johnson Risperdal, Eli Lilly (Zyprexa), Bristol-Myers Squibb (Abilify),Pfizer (Geodon), AstraZeneca(Seroquel). Prescription rates for these meds have enjoyed a
strong growth curve, increasing more than fivefold among children over the past
15 years. …
State Sues Maker of Risperdal
The lawsuit was filed for the Attorney General’s Office in the 1st Judicial
District Court in Santa Fe by a Houston civil litigation firm, Bailey Perrin
Bailey, which specializes in lawsuits over the new generation of antipsychotic
drugs known as atypical antipsychotics. …
New genetic map used to advance drug research
“They are interested in pharmacogenetic purposes to do case control studies of
adverse drug reactions,” said John Novembre, a co-author of the study published
in Nature. …
Why do people love to hate pharma?
the public doesn’t trust pharma to share adverse info on their meds, further undermining that faith–and hurting
pharma’s rep. …
Judge unseals secret Zyprexa papers
Eli Lilly will face a class-action suit over Zyprexa, now that a federal judge
has certified a group of insurance companies, pension funds, and unions that
want the drugmaker to repay them for the billions they spent on the
controversial antipsychotic drug. …
Positive Sativex® Study Confirms Long Term Efficacy in MS Neuropathic Pain
Until now, all the evidence for long-term maintenance of efficacy of Sativex has
come from long-term open-label exposurei. The results reported today confirm in
the context of a placebo-controlled double-blind study that efficacy is indeed
maintained in long-term use. …
FDA names 20 drugs in safety probes
The FDA has already warned patients and docs about some of the drugs on the
first list of 20 under scrutiny, such as TNF
blockers, in the news last week. …