Flibanserin failed its trials as an anti-depressant, but when its maker, Boehringer, asked test subjects to return the unused portion, patients were reluctant. Boehringer funded a study at the University of North Carolina, which now reports that Flibanserin increases a woman’s sex drive. A lot of the media is touting this as “female Viagra,” but it’s really no such thing.
E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans. The lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress. 42 House members picked up some of its talking points — 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats.
According to a new report commissioned by the British government, there are an estimated 180,000 elderly people with dementia in the United Kingdom currently being treated with antipsychotic drugs such as Seroquel, Zyprexa, Risperdal and Abilify. The report found that these drugs could be responsible for as many as 1,800 deaths and 1,620 strokes each year among the elderly with dementia in the United Kingdom.
AstraZeneca paid Chicago psychiatrist Dr. Michael Reinstein $490,000 over a decade to travel the nation promoting its best-selling antipsychotic drug, Seroquel. In return, Reinstein provided the company a vast customer base: thousands of residents in Chicago-area nursing homes.
Dr. Dina Panagiotopoulos, a pediatric endocrinologist at BC Children’s who was the principal investigator in the study published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, said the increased rates of obesity mean youth face a higher risk of heart disease and cholesterol.