There is a core concept shaping the ‘market’ in health, the concept of an assay, that few doctors or patients understand. The post It’s Health’s Illusions I Recall, I Really Don’t Kno...
The Anything But the Company Drug playbook involved digging deep into the medical records of the person reporting a problem in order to find the ingrown toenail at the age of two that was possibl...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/08/prescription-for-murder-abcd/
The jury was out for days. And when they came back it became clear they were wrestling with the issue of who to blame. This was like playing Go, where it can look like the black counters on the b...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/05/change-in-chicago-playing-go/
In the 16 years from 1952 to 1968, the world changed in astonishing ways. In the 16 years since I first gave this talk, it has changed almost as much again. When some future historian looks back ...
This is the world that lies in store for us. It is not the world of traditional medicine, where drugs treat diseases to restore the social order. It is a world in which medical interventions will...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/03/tweeting-while-medicine-burns/
Part one of a lecture given at a British Neuropsychiatric Association meeting on February 22 under the heading of Psychopharmacology: 1952–2017. In slide 2, you see Tokyo University on fire. Th...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/03/tweeting-psychiatry-burns/
Mickey Nardo died yesterday. Here is a brief account of his career, chiseled out of him for the Restoring Study 329 site. What strikes me most is his interest in the tangles people end up in. Thi...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/02/mickey-nardo-tangled-life/
An issue that often crops up is the question of whether treatment would be safer if given by specialists (partialists) rather than general practitioners (generalists). This could not be more wron...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/02/generalists-partialists/
In Ordinarily Well: The Case for Antidepressants, Dr. Peter Kramer makes two arguments that I agree with. The trouble for me is that Kramer’s clinical vision seems strangely rose-tinted. He is...
Regulators seem all too happy to license ever more dangerous variations or combinations of older drugs already on the market and causing serious problems. This willingness has offered an opening ...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/10/study-329-trick-treat-treximet/
While Shipman’s killing spree with opiods was unfolding, North America was sinking into a prescription opioid epidemic that now accounts for 100 deaths per day, over 30,000 per year, over half ...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/10/go-figure-murder-accident/
In the light of Study 329, is the consent that people or their families have given to take a medication like paroxetine any more valid than the consent that, after the event, an inebriated woman ...
Most doctors still affect surprise at the idea SSRIs might come with withdrawal problems. Regulators knew very clearly since 2002 about the problems, but have decided to leave any communication o...
All the fuss about Study 329 centers on its 8-week acute phase. But this study had a 24-week Continuation Phase that has never been published. Until Now. The post Study 329 Continuation Phase ...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/09/study-329-continuation-phase/
We would, in fact, save vast amounts of money by giving the pharmaceutical companies ten times the inflated prices they currently receive for drugs as part of a bargain that ensures only 10% of t...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/09/go-figure-a-geek-tragedy/
The best protection against bias is rigorous adherence to predetermined protocols and making data freely available. We, like everyone, are subject to the unwitting influence of our bias. The ques...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/study-329-response-to-keller-colleagues/
Several of us involved in RxISK.org monitor other groups setting up to offer information on medicines. Some of these, like eHealthMe, offer useful information. As ever, though, pharmaceutical com...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/12/antidepressants-the-undead/
The strongest evidence we have as to whether a drug causes a problem does not come from RCTs or any other controlled study but rather from good clinical accounts. Even if RCTs were done by angels...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/12/motivation-is-worth-more-than-expertise/
Study 329 seems to fit the classic picture: It has Big Pharma ghostwriting articles, hiding data, corrupting the scientific process and leaving a trail of death, disability and grieving relatives...
While making money from the publication of pharmaceutical company trials, and in the face of a complete failure by industry to adhere to basic scientific norms and make data available, BMJ and ot...
https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/11/study-329-bmj-transparency/