BMJ: Financial Conflicts of Interest in FDA Advisory Committee May Explain Alzheimer’s Drug Approvals

A new investigation by the BMJ reveals financial conflicts of interest among FDA advisory committee members who approved the controversial Alzheimer’s drug donanemab

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Despite a congressional inquiry finding fault with the FDA’s controversial approval of aducanumab (Aduhelm), the FDA continues to approve Alzheimer’s drugs that demonstrate little efficacy and high risk of deadly brain bleeding. According to a new BMJ investigation, financial conflicts of interest may help explain why.

“A new drug for Alzheimer’s disease is causing excitement despite excess deaths, missing safety data, questionable efficacy, and financial conflicts of interest among the ‘independent’ advisory panelists who recommended approval,” according to the BMJ report.

The BMJ article, written by independent journalists Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee, reveals that many of the advisory committee members who approved recent Alzheimer’s drugs had financial ties to the drugmakers, while others had financial interests in anti-amyloid products in general.

This is, in fact, illegal: According to Lenzer and Brownlee, federal law prohibits the FDA’s advisory committee members from having such ties. The FDA granted a waiver to two advisory committee members, which it is permitted to do, but the rest appear to be in violation of federal law.

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10 COMMENTS

  1. So corruption, systemically, by big Pharma and the FDA, exists? (sarcasm) Goodness, and they’re trying to systemically call all of those of us ethical older people pointing out this insane criminality by “Fierce Pharma” as insane? Same old, same old defamation, that’s been going on within the psychiatric faction of the Big Pharma deluded medical system for decades.

    Thank you, as always, for your truthful reporting, young Peter.

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  2. The solution, of course, is to treat these actions as the crimes that they are. That means sending people to prison and holding individuals personally accountable (that includes physicians).

    Other crimes in our society are treated seriously. Why do medical crimes get a pass?

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    • “The solution, of course, is to treat these actions as the crimes that they are. That means sending people to prison and holding individuals personally accountable (that includes physicians).”

      I agree.

      “Other crimes in our society are treated seriously.” Well, I don’t know that I agree with that.

      “Why do medical crimes get a pass?” It’s the same reason the child abuse crimes of the religions, by way of their “partnership” with the “mental health” industries, get systemically covered up … for profit.

      https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/heal-for-life/
      https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/02/metoo-believing-women-
      freuds-assault-on-truth/
      https://books.google.com/books?id=xI01AlxH1uAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_
      r&cad=#v=onepage&q&f=false

      Thank you so much (sarcasm), paternalistic DSM deluded psychiatry and psychology, for “partnering” with the mainstream paternalistic religions, in a multi-billion dollar, systemic child abuse and easily recognized malpractice covering up DSM deluded “religion.” And forcing us all into a satanic “pedophile empire” – one you (and all other doctors) profiteer off of, psychological and psychiatric industries.

      https://pedoempire.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/PedoEmpire-Flyer-One-Page.pdf

      As one who seems to be, “that’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion.” The problem seems to me to be one of belief in the “invalid” DSM “bible” vs. the Holy Bible.

      But that’s just my humble opinion. However, it is an opinion from one who has medical, legal, and written proof by others, and psychopharmacology research of my own, of my legitimate concerns.

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  3. To be perfectly honest with you, reading articles like this one is like watching prized pigs give an aesthetic critique of the butchers knife. Unless and until you discover the butcher and his knife, your critique of his handiwork has no value, and the butcher is not the psychiatrist, who may be male or female. The butcher is the red and black matchstick man who will set himself on fire and then blow himself out. 12/12/12. Zero>No-One.I am that.

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  4. This article should be national news! While I appreciate all the info here on MIA it is frustrating that it basically plays the role of “alternative” information instead of just mainstream news that all patients, providers, family members and the public in general should be made aware of. But I guess the advertising dollars that those same companies pay to larger media outlets affect their coverage. (“Guess” is the wrong word BTW since it has been well documented how just as you would expect, drug advertising dollars lead to more favorable press coverage for drug companies.)

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    • Nor, too often, do they even “know what they do,” or so they say.

      Albeit, we now all live in the internet age, so the truth is becoming clearer. And given the fact all MDs are taught in medical school about anticholinergic toxidrome.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxidrome

      None of the MDs, including the psychiatrists, have any moral right to say they were not educated in medical school “how to be dangerous,” with the antidepressants and antipsychotics (and other anticholinergic drugs).

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