Abilify Lawsuit Dismissed
LAW360 reports that a Pennsylvania federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit over a movement disorder attributed to Bristol-Myers' drug Abilify. The judge held that...
One Million in U.K. Addicted to Prescribed Benzos
The Times of London reports today that more than a million people in the U.K. are addicted to benzodiazepines prescribed to them by their...
Arkansas Court Overturns $1.2B Judgment Against J&J
The Arkansas Supreme Court today overturned a $1.2 billion judgment against Johnson & Johnson, ruling that laws requiring companies to properly communicate risks and...
Oregon Court Affirms Forced Medication for Defendants
The Oregon Supreme Court ruled yesterday that judges can force criminal defendants to take antipsychotic medication in an effort to make them competent for...
J&J Gets $257 Million Risperdal Verdict Thrown Out in Louisiana
A Louisiana appeals court has thrown out a $257 million verdict which held Johnson & Johnson liable for deceptive practices in marketing its antipsychotic...
Congressman to Propose “Parental Protection Act” to Congress
Inspired by the plight of Justina Pelletier's family, Representative Steve Stockman (R-TX) will introduce a bill to Congress that proposes to cut off funds...
Excessive Mood & Behavior Arousal in Juveniles Treated with Antidepressants
In a study of 6,767 reports of antidepressant trials in juveniles treated for depressive and anxiety disorders, the risk of psychopathological behavioral or mood...
“Persuasive” Evidence for Peer Support
The Journal of Psychosocial Nursing reviews the evidence for peer support, finding "outcomes across a range of measures no different than when services had...
U.K. Antidepressant Prescriptions Rise 9% in 2011
Almost 50 million prescriptions for antidepressants were issued in the U.K. in 2011, a rise of 9% over 2010. The increase is attributed, at...
Pfizer Settles First of 2,600 Claims Regarding Chantix and Suicide
After failing to win a postponement earlier this week, Pfizer settled with the widow of Minnesota man who suicided while using the stop-smoking drug...
Body of Missing Man Found; Paxil Withdrawal Blamed
The body of 78 year-old Bob Farthing, who had been missing since Wednesday, was found in the back seat of his car Friday evening. "He...
Pediatric Drugs: More Illness, But Less Research
An international team of researchers identified all drug trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov between 2006 and 2011 and tracked the resulting publications, finding that although...
Childhood Social Function & Schizophrenia
A 48-year longitudinal study of 244 subjects, published in Schizophrenia Research, finds that those with schizophrenia-spectrum diagnoses had had the worst social functioning scores at...
Australians to Get More Info on Doctor-Pharma Relationships
Drug companies must start publicly releasing information about different types of payments to Australia's physicians.
NIH Defends Nemeroff Grant, Issues Talking Points
When it awarded yet another multimillion-dollar grant to Charles Nemeroff, a key figure in the controversy over conflicts of interest involving pharmaceutical research, U.S....
Only One in Seven Authors Disclose Conflict of Interest
Researchers from Harvard and the University of Melbourne identified physicians and scientists who had financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies named as defendants in U.S....
Medicaid Fraud Argued Before 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
MIA blogger (and lawyer) Jim Gottstein presented a 20-minute Oral Argument in ex rel Watson v. King-Vassel in front of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago last Thursday. "The technical issue on appeal is a lawyer nerd question about whether expert testimony is required," said Gottstein, "but I like to think it contains a succinct and clear explanation of why even though a doctor can prescribe a drug for anything, if they prescribe one off-label to a child they are causing a False Claim (committing Medicaid Fraud) unless the use has support in at least one of the specified drug references called Compendia."
Published Clinical Trials are Misleading, PLoS Says
Research from the Center for Clinical Trials at Johns Hopkins finds troubling differences between publicly available information on medications and the information that pharmaceutical...
Six Years of Re-education and Restrictions Sufficient to Change Inappropriate Prescribing Habits
A six-year program run by the NHS Foundation Trust aimed at reducing high rates of inappropriate polypharmacy and overprescribing by physicians and psychiatrists to mental health patients in UK inner cities was successful.
Robert Reich Blogs on the Glaxo Penalty
Robert Reich, professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, analyzes the impact of the $3 billion...
A Father Grievesa Rush to Medicate
"Diagnosis: Human", a New York Times op-ed, deftly and stirringly captures the paradoxes of the ADHD medication explosion: "My son was no angel (though...
Psychiatrists Took Undisclosed Payments While Promoting Antipsychotic to Government
Two psychiatrists took money from a pharmaceutical company, and then did not disclose it when they lobbied state legislators about the company's drug.
Why Journals Resist Drug Trial Registration
Although publication bias is known to be a serious problem that public drug trial registration is meant to address, only a fraction of journals...
Trauma, First-Episode Schizophrenia, and Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor
A team of Egyptian researchers found, in a sample of 74 outpatients, a relationship between trauma and first-episode schizophrenia, with a "mediating" role of...
Jury Awards $4M for Topamax Birth Defect
After an hour of deliberation, jurors decided that the anticonvulsant Topamax (topiramate) had, in fact, caused April Czimmer's son to be born with a...